EP 15 | Katie's Story of Healing Beyond Conventional Medicine

In this special episode, we revisit one of the most powerful stories from Episode 2 - Katie’s deeply personal journey through chronic illness and transformation.

What started as unexplained gut symptoms in her early teens spiralled into years of misdiagnoses, failed treatments, and physical and emotional exhaustion. From being told “it’s all in your head” to cycling through steroids and biologics, Katie shares the raw truth of what it’s like to live with celiac disease and Crohn’s—and what it took to finally feel like herself again.

This candid conversation explores:

• The emotional toll of not being believed
• Why medications alone weren’t enough
• How a root-cause approach changed everything
• The pivotal role nutrition, mindset, and lifestyle played in her healing
• What it really means to take your health into your own hands

Katie’s story is one of courage, clarity, and reclaiming power. If you’ve ever felt lost or dismissed in the healthcare system, this episode will remind you that healing is possible, and that your story isn’t over.

Transcript

EPS 15

Katie: Uh, so yeah, basically I, um, I was pretty young actually. I was in school when I started having, symptoms, although never spoke about it. I was about 16 when I started having real gut problems and I was super embarrassed, I was at school. I was like, I'm never going to speak about this to anyone. I started to get super sick where I was bed bound. When I turned, 17, 18, I actually was first diagnosed with celiac disease. I was diagnosed with celiac before I was diagnosed with Crohn's. they failed to diagnose me with celiac disease. 

Amanda: Okay. 

Katie: My 

mom who asked them to test me For celiac disease and my mom is not in the medical world or anything like that But thank God she Yeah, ask them to do so, because it enabled me to eat appropriately for [00:01:00] my condition. and back then there was no gluten free stuff, like gluten free just didn't exist. So it was hard to come to terms with that at such a young age. so my symptoms got a little bit better, but didn't heal completely. I just kind of had. ups and downs. and then it got to a point where I, had a corporate job.

I got my first corporate job when I was 17, 18 and things were getting quite stressful. It was a performance based job in sales. So the pressure was on. I was Training hard at the gym at this point started bodybuilding when I was 16. So I was,

Amanda: Hello. 

Katie: I was just constantly ill and nothing was. helping. Nothing was getting [00:02:00] better. My symptoms would like smack me in the face and I would be like crying under my desk. And that went on for a while. I moved back to the UK when I was 21 I'd basically been living with Crohn's unmedicated for that period of time.

So once I received the diagnosis through an MRI of my small bowel, at that point I had three stritches. I was like doubled over every day. It was, yeah, it was rough. So I got admitted into hospital and then put on intravenous steroids. They told me I had to have my gallbladder out.

I refused, thank God. they told

me I had pancreatitis. I didn't. I had Crohn's. So, yeah, I was just getting, like, misdiagnosed left, right, and center. Um, they picked up on the stritches and the Crohn's disease through the MRI. So, they didn't [00:03:00] pick it up through any endoscopies. any double balloon endoscopies, anything like that. and then it was a case of just being put on steroids for years, which led to liver failure, kidney failure.

So yeah, it was, it was rough. I felt like I'd kind of just completely abused my body through. Medication when it, I didn't, I never wanted it to be that way. yeah, I studied, started to study in nutrition I already had the love for it through the bodybuilding and I was competing in bodybuilding, which wasn't helping either. 

Amanda: Let's talk about the steroids a little bit before you move on.

Katie: Yeah.

Amanda: I'm curious to hear, because I, for me, it was kind of like this thing that, they're like, oh, you know, you got to get on these medications. And they never really made me feel good. They just. dampened things [00:04:00] brought the inflammation down so that I could function a little better in my day.

but they never really made me feel. Like myself or like I was, healing. It was just this thing that brought the inflammation down to a level where I could manage in my day.

Katie: It's so interesting you say that because I didn't feel any different being on them at all. I was still every single day, 2 p. m. in the afternoon, I was still getting smacked in the face with doubled over pain and they just were not even touching the surface. and. other drugs that they were telling me to take as well, which, naively you do, they don't work, and then they continue to take them, well why, why would I do that, would I continue to take something that wasn't I don't know. Helping in any way, shape or form. And then [00:05:00] it comes back around to, well, you need to look at your lifestyle and you need to change your lifestyle. where do you start with that? it's a lot when you're trying to keep on top of life in general, and then having this extra layer of information shoved in your face that you don't know, you don't know what that looks like. It's just adding to the stress levels, which are then to the symptoms. And it's almost like a bit of a vicious circle because you're never baselining. You're always just redlining constantly

Amanda: Yeah,

Katie: because you don't know where your baseline is at that point.

you're just existing. You're not even living at that point.

Amanda: yeah, when every bite of food creates stress because you don't know how your body is going to react, it's like that, that borderline level of stress that is existing in your life from day to day, is so high. And then someone comes in and says, well, you need to manage your stress levels.

Like, what does [00:06:00] that mean? 

Katie: yeah,

even going out with your friends, it's like, you're just horrendously uncomfortable the whole time, but you have to put on a brave face and, you know, you don't want to be that person who's like, Oh, guys, look, I will come, but I feel ill, like if I need to leave, what, like, you don't even want to identify with that.

I didn't anyway. So I just used to it. Like bear it and just kind of go along with things when ultimately I was in absolute pain, like trying to enjoy a girl's day out or night out and just thinking like, all I want to do is just curl up in a ball and be at

Amanda: Yeah.

Katie: So it's, and then that also adds like a level of depression to everything.

And it just feels like you're getting swamped by emotions and physical symptoms. When you don't know how to heal, it's really hard to pick yourself up and draw yourself out of that [00:07:00] hole.

Amanda: Yeah. And how long did you do the medications, steroids before you started to find something else?

Katie: it was about 11 years. I was on steroids for a long time. And then I was on biologics for six years. But I would still flare up on biologics and then they'd put me on steroids again. it was almost like it got to a point where my GI said, you know, you have, you've run out of options.

You have to have a bag fitted. And I

Amanda: Mm

Katie: have stoma bags, it gives them a new lease of life. I never wanted to let it get that far. And coming from like a health background of being healthy and you know, wanting to train and it just, it wasn't, it wasn't running the way I, my life just [00:08:00] wasn't running in the trajectory I wanted it to.

Amanda: hmm.

Katie: that in itself was really hard to come to terms with and accept. 

Amanda: Silence.

Katie: it's just constant decline in health, and, and also experiencing all the side effects as well. What comes with the medication was, was hard.

Amanda: Right, yeah, because they are not without their side effects for sure. And it's almost like that was where I got to the point where the side effects started to outweigh the improvement. Cause like I said, I never really felt better. It felt like they were just kind of taking the inflammation down a little bit and I would Try to wean off of them.

And then as soon as I would decrease the dose, the inflammation would come back again. And, then I remember after about two years of doing that, getting to that point where all of the side effects that were happening started to become [00:09:00] worse. And I was questioning, like, why am I even taking these?

You know, like, I feel like I'm going backwards.

Katie: yeah. Why am I signing this waiver before, before I start this new medication? Like, what am I actually doing with my life? and it's not until you, zoom out and just take a whole new perspective on everything. It's like the most horrifically uncomfortable situation to go through because you literally have to change life the way that you've lived it for however many years and almost relearn how to live.

Amanda: Yeah, and that's the biggest difference between the type of approach that we, start off with. The, medication approach is just targeting the inflammation. And when we start to learn more and ask more questions and educate ourselves in different approaches.

We start to ask the [00:10:00] question, okay, if this inflammation is causing all the problems, what's causing the inflammation And then that's when the shift happens, like you said, because then now we're looking at, the inflammation is a symptom. It's not the problem. And it's addressing the environment that created the inflammation that really, it's a whole paradigm shift.

this journey for me has completely Changed the way I look at health and the way our bodies function and the way that, like I said, that, 

Katie: yeah,

Amanda: we treat the illness with a medication. it's turning that completely on its head and realizing that we have it backwards 

the only way to truly make a difference is by continuing to ask why and back up, and ask why the symptoms are happening in the first place.

Katie: and almost like reverse engineering it, but [00:11:00] instead of having to go through that whole process, actually living for disease prevention is. It's just so much better because then you don't have to go through any of this

Amanda: Yeah. 

Katie: and I think it's a real sticking point when it comes to like, people investing in their actual well being. Because, I mean, we don't even want to go to the dentist, right? And it's like, only see value in their health when it gets bad and there's a problem. But it's like, what are you doing in your day to day that's actually preventing disease, and that's actually keeping you healthy? and they're not huge things, but all the little things add up into the big picture, and that big picture is how long you're going to live for.

Amanda: Mm.

Katie: I think it's just a massive area that's not spoken about enough. 

Amanda: Yeah, [00:12:00] but I feel like the tables are starting to turn. I feel like there's a shift happening. I feel like people are rejecting that form of reactionary medicine if we look at our situations, 10, 15 years ago, this was kind of all we were given. This was our only option. This was all we had, but now there's more information out there and people are starting to understand that they have a choice.

And I think a lot of people are starting to reject that and saying like, no, I don't want something that is just going to artificially manage. these symptoms. I want something that is going to address the root cause of this issue. And people are starting to push for more 

 And, you know, in my situation, I'm so glad that I went.

And sought out a second opinion. And it was actually my mom that pushed me to, go and consult with a naturopathic doctor. And she basically said like, what do you have to lose? You spend a couple hundred dollars [00:13:00] and if it doesn't help, Oh, well, you know,

Katie: Yeah.

Amanda: you can't keep going the way you're going. you need to look for answers.

and that decision ultimately changed My life 

Katie: Yeah. And I love that quote, you're only one decision away from changing your life forever. And it's so true. And more people. Speak about this and create the awareness around it. I think hopefully there'll be a massive movement and a shift in healthcare in general, because our bodies are designed to heal themselves.

Amanda: Your body is designed to heal itself. I was afraid to say that because even though that was my experience, it was so far from the, you know, regular script It was such a departure from that, that I was afraid to say that out loud, because I thought, people would think I was a witch or something.

Katie: You

Amanda: Like, you can't say that. 

Katie: if only.

Amanda: And so I love that the conversation that this is [00:14:00] happening now that we're able to say that with like personal conviction because of what we've gone through 

Katie: I'm curious about what your turning point was when you started. Was there a moment for you when you shifted the way you looked at your illness? Was there someone that came into your life or something that you learned that caused you to change the way you were living and, and really start making some changes?

I think it was just the general consensus of suffering from horrendous side effects from the biologic. things like extreme hair loss and I'd pass out a lot of the time my blood pressure's low anyway, but the biologic would just make it go crazy low. And I just got to a point after six years of thinking. I was still having flare ups almost comparing it and [00:15:00] being like having the perspective actually on what, what have I got to lose at this point? I have all the tools that I need in my toolbox to know what to do actually give my body the space that it needs to heal and take myself on this path.

But I think, and this falls under a lot of people as well, is having the confidence to actually execute. because we're almost kind of fear mongered into being on medication and thinking, well, if I'm not on medication, then I'm going to die. And it's You know, it's just having that backing of yourself to say, no, this is not working for me.

I need to do something different because how

Amanda: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Katie: possible? To have pretty much, like, no positive outcomes, [00:16:00] but have the potential and high potential and high risk of getting cancer because that was one of the side effects, along with Like 20 other pages of side effects like I just didn't want to I didn't want to put myself through that anymore You know, I was sitting in that hospital chair Getting that infusion pumped into me every six to eight weeks and just resenting it and

Amanda: Okay. Okay.

Katie: the way that I wish I had done, know, years ago but

Amanda: Um,

Katie: I didn't [00:17:00] have the knowledge that I have now so again I can't, I'm not going to blame anyone, I'm not going to have victim mentality, 

Amanda: Putting that responsibility into my own hands and not being able to, like, almost, like, rely on someone else to heal my body for me, I suppose, in a way.

Katie: Um,

Amanda: we do that. We are conditioned to do to outsource our health, the responsibility of our health to someone else. We don't want to hold fully the responsibility of our health.

Katie: Yeah, and I think it scares the living daylights out of people.

and upon reflection, it was probably one of the main things that held me back, That doesn't make you a bad person or a coward or any, or anything like that. It's literally just the way that you've been brought up and conditioned.

So undoing that, it takes work, um, but yeah, it is possible and we're both living proof of that.