Healing From Within: Chronic Illness & Autoimmunity, When the Protocols Stop Working
By Anindita
Categories: Health & Fitness, Alternative Health, Mental Health
For women with autoimmune conditions, gut issues and chronic illness who’ve done the elimination diets, the supplements and the labs — and still don’t feel well. A functional medicine health coach on why the protocol isn’t the whole answer, and what the body needs before it can heal. healingfromwithin.substack.com
44 episodes indexed on PodSearch.
Recent episodes
- Chapter 63: The protocol worked. The person didn't change.
We were discussing why supplements stop working during one of our team meetings. I heard myself say: the person has not changed from inside.For almost a decade, I have been working with clients who have to make difficult and sometimes complicated changes in their lives. This also includes less…
- Chapter 62: You ate perfectly. You just ate it at your desk.
"If you are constantly fighting your body, all you will do is exhaust yourself." I remember these words clearly. My client had been working with me for a while by then and knew what it means to connect with her body. To listen to it and accept what it needs and support it with compassion.So when…
- Chapter 61: No supplements. No strict diet. Three months.
She was exhausted. Dealing with a newborn is hard enough. She had already been living with her skin condition for more than ten years by the time I met her. She had also tried a range of topical creams and other treatments without much improvement. But once the baby was born the symptoms had…
- Chapter 60: Your labs came back normal and you don't feel normal
We couldn’t figure out why she was not sleeping well lately.She had already been working with me for a while by then and was quite comfortable in sharing what was going on in her life. We had also ruled out coffee (she didn’t have any), her supplements were all on track and supporting her. On top…
- Chapter 59: You can stop taking most of them
She was taking 30 supplements but wasn’t absorbing any of them, because she ate every meal in fight-or-flight. Your body prioritizes survival over everything else. Digestion is one of the first things it lets go of under stress and the fact is staying alive matters much more, so absorbing a meal…
- Chapter 58: Six weeks of elimination. One pistachio.
Six weeks, so hard… with so much of hard work, we have done that elimination, and now suddenly this…My client looked dejected. I could make out that her shoulders were slumped even from across the screen. I had seen this same kind of tiredness before in others.It’s a tiredness that comes with…
- Chapter 57: You cut out gluten, dairy and sugar. Thirteen years later, nothing had moved.
When she came to me, she had already cut out most of the foods that people have every day.She was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition and dealing with severe gut related symptoms for thirteen years. She was on rounds of antibiotics and oral steroids to manage her symptoms almost every other…
- Chapter 56: If you're doing everything right and still not better
“I've gotten so good at reporting my progress that I don't even know what I actually feel anymore.”This comment was made by a client during one of our sessions. She looked and sounded hesitant as she said these words. I could make this out even through the screen during our first session.It struck…
- Chapter 55: You can stop running now
There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that getting enough sleep doesn’t fix.You may be familiar with it.It lives in your never-ending to-do list. It also lies underneath the next appointment, the next set of labs and the new diet you’re about to start on Monday. It’s the tiredness of a woman who…
- Chapter 54: I know the AI part scares you
Where does what I say go?That was the first thing a woman in my circle asked me. Not about the method. Not the schedule. Not whether it would work for her.I believed what I said when I gave her an answer, but later, when I looked at it closely, I realised I was wrong. And I don’t want to dismiss…
- I turn fifty today
Today I turn fifty.For a long time I thought I would announce with fanfare loud enough to prove the five decades added up to something big. Instead I’ve made you a short audio. You can listen above. And it asks nothing of you.I want to be honest and share what it is and what it isn’t, because…
- Chapter 50: An invitation, not a launch: what opens this August
There’s a particular kind of tiredness that never shows up on a lab report. You’ve done the elimination diet. You’ve tracked the symptoms in the app. You’ve booked the appointment and been through your list to see which parts of your pain are the reportable ones and quietly left the messier parts…
- Chapter 49: I thought I'd open 50 doors. Here's why I changed my mind.
I thought I’d open 50 doors. Here’s why I changed my mind.I had the number written on a page for months. Fifty invitations for fifty women. Opening on my fiftieth birthday, the 3rd of August.It sounded perfect and felt symmetrical. Plus, it also had the kind of ring that I thought would make…
- Chapter 48: Before I turn 50, I want to say this
In a few weeks I turn fifty. I’m noticing that I am looking forward to this milestone for three reasons. So before that day comes, while it’s still early, I want to share a few things.I spent about thirty-seven years being the peacekeeper.You might know her. She’s the one who gently checks out the…
- Chapter 47: The difference between building a product and building a movement
Somebody asked me recently what the Effortless Healing Companion is. A product? An app? A coaching programme with AI wrapped around it?I heard myself say, before I'd thought about it:it’s not a product. I think it’s a movement. It’s an idea. It’s barely even a thing you use.I’ve been reflecting on…
- Chapter 46: What building in public at 49 has taught me about trust
Last week, a new member of my team, Palak, told me the thing I’d built didn’t work the way I said it did.She’d been using the Companion. She typed it different things, and it gave her back almost the same answer two or three times. So she did what any real person does. She closed it and decided to…
- Chapter 45: I’m with my family. The Companion is still running.
I reached Boston on Saturday. A month long trip with my family in the US and Canada is the kind of trip where the days all blend into each other and I lose track of dates.And for the first time in a very long time, I am not worried or bracing for it.Earlier, it was different. I’d pack, and…
- Chapter 44: The Whisper Test is my scorecard — why I measure relief, not retention
I was going through my own words in a FAQ and onboarding document last week, on a call with my team, and I caught myself in a lie.It was a small document. A list of questions and answers we’d written for the women — the ones who were nervous about the Companion, about AI and privacy, about who…
- Chapter 42: 100 episodes. What I know now that I didn't know at episode 1.
I started this podcast in December of 2023 because I was working with women with chronic health conditions, specifically autoimmune diseases.I wanted to create a space where women could get the education and the awareness that they needed to get their lives back on track.The first episodes were…
- Chapter 41: I got my best brand insight from a gay hockey romance novel
I want to be honest about how I came to this.I wasn’t watching Heated Rivalry as research.I started watching it out of curiosity since my daughter mentioned it and highly recommended it, and then something pulled me in.I kept watching as I was completely hooked. And not just for the obvious…
- Chapter 40: What if you didn't have to perform being okay?
There’s something I keep noticing about the way women describe their weeks to me.They say: it was hard, but I got through it. Or: it was a difficult few days, but I pushed through. And there’s something in the way they say it, kind of quiet pride of hanging on. The pride of having managed even at…
- The 13-Day Gap: What happens between sessions and what I built because of it
You have a session with your practitioner and something shifts. Clarity. Relief. Maybe even hope.And then life gets in the way. Your child falls sick. A deadline crops up. And by day thirteen, when your next session arrives, everything has unravelled.That’s the 13-day gap. I saw it for almost ten…
- Chapter 38: The work underneath the work
I was sitting with a piece of code recently. Not code exactly, more like the architecture of a response and I noticed something strange.I was in the process of building a healing companion. Something that would hold space for women between their health consultation sessions. Something that…
- Chapter 36: The Kind of Support That Actually Helps
The woman who comes to me has usually already been helped.She has been to multiple doctors, including Functional Medicine practitioners. She has tried various protocols and is on some treatment or the other.So she is still stuck. Still lost. Still confused.So what actually helps?This episode is my…
- I Did My Own Shadow Work. Here's What Happened.
I wanted to start our first monthly live with something real rather than something polished.Over the last 21 days, in February and March, I put myself through shadow work. Not as the facilitator, but as the one being facilitated. I was stepping into the next evolution of my work and I needed to…
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