Are you looking for an autoimmune specialist who can provide information and support for a disease you’ve recently been diagnosed with? Are you confused about what type of help you should be looking for?
I’m Caroline, and I can help. I’m a health coach, functional medicine practitioner, and an essential oil educator who supports people with autoimmune conditions.
I’ve been diagnosed with an autoimmune condition – what support do I need?
While no treatment can cure autoimmune diseases, it is certainly possible to control the immune response that is causing your condition, reduce inflammation in your body, and minimise the pain and discomfort that the inflammation causes. To an extent, drugs can help with this. But changing behaviours can help you achieve effective and long-lasting results. When talking about behavioural changes, I refer to actions and habits that:
- Minimise threats.
- Maximise needs.
- And prioritise wellbeing.
How I help
I combine three main ‘tools’ to achieve results, though I’ll always draw from other practices or will recommend other modalities if I feel they would help:
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Health coaching.
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Functional medicine.
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Essential oils.
As a health coach, I propel my clients to confidently implement a nutrition and lifestyle protocol to successfully tackle the symptoms and root causes of autoimmunity. I do this by combining the rigour of functional medicine and the power of essential oils with the effectiveness of health coaching.
Every protocol is created for the individual and holistically brings together the principles of:
- maximising what the body and mind need,
- minimising what is harmful,
- and prioritising a healing environment.
What I help my clients achieve
When combined together, the tools I use allow me to support my clients in achieving three things:
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Profound and long-last behavioural changes. It’s never just about short-term plans and results. It’s about a long-term, sustainable way of life.
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Symptoms management. Pain, suffering, and other symptoms are methods of ‘communication’. Through these signals, our body is trying to communicate something. Although this can be hard, it is important to try and view such signals as something positive rather than negative, because they are messages. Messages that something is out of balance and is not serving you and your body. And it’s equally as important to listen to them! Because our body is telling us is that some of our behaviours are not beneficial to us and/or our bodies, minds, or spirits. Managing symptoms means we no longer need to suffer unnecessarily or cause additional pressure and stress to ourselves.
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Root cause resolution. Dealing with symptoms isn’t enough. Often though, this is where people stop. The ‘traditional’ way of dealing with diseases and symptoms is to ‘take a pill and numb the pain’. But so many autoimmune conditions can be successfully managed and often even be put into remission by going one step further by identifying and resolving the root causes of diseases.
But what are the root causes of autoimmune diseases?
Often root causes of autoimmunity will often be a combination of the following:
- nutrient deficiencies,
- poor gut health,
- rampant toxins (pesticides, hormone-mimicking chemicals, preservatives, etc.)
- pathogens (virus, bacteria, retrovirus, fungi, yeasts, etc.),
- and chronic stress left unmanaged.
My role as a functional practitioner is to investigate and use data and symptoms to identify what the root causes might be. I usually work starting from hypothesis that can be tested for and/or confirmed or eliminated by implementing specific solutions. These solutions will range from:
- long-term nutrition changes,
- short term protocols, such as detoxes,
- specific support through supplements,
- and sometimes other modalities, such as physiotherapy, hypnotherapy, acupuncture may be considered
As a health coach, my role is to educate and guide my clients to put actions in place that will help overcome these issues – or that, at the very least, will provide some relief.
And finally, as an essential oil educator, I can introduce essentials oils into the mix. Oils work on many levels and are extremely powerful. They will either support symptoms (e.g. digestive issues or chronic pain) or resolve root causes. Oregano oil, just to use an example, has powerful antiviral and antibacterial properties, which can get rid of pathogens, especially in the gut.
Why working with an autoimmune specialist helps you achieve results?
Working with an autoimmune specialist helps you take action. And it’s all about taking action. Because simply having objectives and goals won’t help you get where you want to get to. Setting specific, actionable goals, on the other hand, is what will move the needle. If you want to read more about goals, you’ll enjoy this article by James Clear, which is an excerpt from his book Atomic Habits.
So here are the reasons why enlisting the support of a coach helps.
A coach provides you with external accountability
By working with a coach, you are committing to taking action and doing the work. You’re making a commitment and not just to yourself. To your coach as well. And depending on your personality, creating external accountability can be the key to achieving the results you want. To find out more about this, you can read my post about setting resolutions and the way we respond differently to internal and external accountability.
A coach helps you set targets that are achievable
Making behavioural changes and improving your sense of wellbeing is not something you’ll do overnight. An autoimmune specialist can help you make small changes that fit into your life. It’s a step-by-step process. But small changes can make a huge difference!
A coach helps you create a plan that is easy to follow
Working with a coach means you don’t have to figure everything out by yourself. You have access to someone who has the knowledge and experience to help you reach your goals in less time. You no longer have to waste your time and energy researching solutions or alternatives. Someone else has done the leg work for you. Plus, you leave each session with plan that’s right for you, so you know exactly what you need to focus on.
The focus is on you
How many times have you decided you wanted to do something for yourself, but somehow that never happened? Work, the kids, the house, and even the family pet always come first! Working with an autoimmune specialist allows you to take time out of your busy schedule to focus on you for a change, as opposed to everyone else.
Also, by stepping away from the day-to-day hustle and bustle, you get to carve out time to stop and think. And that, in turn, allows you to start listening to your body and its needs a lot more. When you start to experience the benefits that come from tuning into yourself more, you’ll find it much easier to prioritise tasks that would have otherwise ended up right at the bottom of your to-do list.
A coach helps you prioritise the steps you need to take
Being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease can be overwhelming. You have a lot of information to take in and process, new medication to take, and new habits to implement. You may have even been told you need to make some drastic changes to your diet and lifestyle. Or else. But how are you supposed to know where to start?
Working with a health coach can help you identify the steps you need to take in the order you need to take them in. That takes a lot of the pressure and overwhelm out of the process. And instead of trying lots of different things half-heartedly, you have a clear plan to follow. A plan that is manageable, achievable, and can be tackled step by step.
What kind of results can you expect from working with an autoimmune specialist?
Clients who work with me tend to achieve results quite quickly. A coach also gives you the space to realise the progress you are making. How far you’ve come. It is sometimes difficult to do that in the midst of the busy-ness of life. But more importantly, the changes they are able to make are sustainable. Some of the benefits of working with me include:
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increased energy,
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reduced pain levels,
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better digestion,
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better sleep,
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improved moods,
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and weight loss
amongst others.
Would you like my help?
If you are looking for some support to address the symptoms of a chronic condition you’ve recently been diagnosed with and would like to learn how nutrition and self-care can improve your wellbeing, I’d love to help. If you want to find out more about my private health coaching packages, I currently offer a FREE 20-minute discovery call where we can talk about how we can work together.
My wife Gaura has been identified for optics neuratis as autoimmune disease occurance .. I would like to know apart from traditional medicines how we xan control the situation so that there is no reoccurancs, we live in India in Bangalore
Dear Gaura, I am sorry to hear. Autoimmune conditions are all linked to the immune system being unbalanced. So for sure, working on understanding what is causing this imbalance and addressing them would reduce the risk of a reoccurrence. I look forward to speaking with you next week