Believe it or not, eating an all beef diet was a somewhat logical progression for me over time. Around the age of 9 I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Proctitis which quickly developed into Ulcerative Colitis, considered to be an incurable inflammatory disease. I had ups and downs with the illness including one hospitalization and symptoms characterized by painful intestinal attacks and severe internal bleeding. I had stabilized the disease from progressing by a combination of pharmaceutical grade nutritional products and drugs.
Around the age of 26 I went to visit a nutritionist as a recent flare had me concerned. The nutritionist asked me what my diet was and I told him mostly vegetarian; I simply didn’t really like to cook and didn’t know what to do with meat. After he had taken some blood to determine my blood type he handed me a piece of paper that was shockingly fascinating. The paper had listed under blood type O, my blood type, a small list of about 5 illnesses that might occur if you were not eating right for your blood type. One of them was Ulcerative Colitis. To reiterate there was not a long lengthy, generalized list of diseases, like some horoscope that can be made to apply to anyone, but no more than five that were very specific. The nutritionist told me that I needed to be eating a lot of red meat and he would recommend eating about 3 steaks for the rest of the week and that I take iron pills. So I did as told and I swear to you my horrific internal bleeding ceased and all my attacks subsided. I was symptom free for about 3 years. I stopped all medicine. Seriously. After nearly 20 years.
After that 3 year mark I went back to college and found myself to be more stressed out than I had ever been in my life. The bleeding began again and so I increased the amount of beef and took iron pills and did not resume any medication. Once again after a while, longer this time because I was truly near disaster in other ways with my arms being numb, brain fog and what now I know to be Lyme/mold symptoms, my bleeding stopped. And get this, this time the bleeding stopped for good and has never returned. That was 12 years ago and I’m never going to stop eating meat.
I had a routine colonoscopy at a major hospital in NYC during that first remission, since I had read that anyone who has (had) Ulcerative Colitis has a greater risk of colon cancer and should have a colonoscopy every five years. I told the doctor my story and before examining me he completely dismissed everything I told him and even went as far to insist first of all that I needed to be on medication and then flipped to maybe I didn’t even or ever have Ulcerative Colitis and was totally misdiagnosed. These doctors are really too much some times. But nonetheless after the examination he said that it was clear that the scarring showed I did have Ulcerative Colitis but I didn’t need to be on medication. Duh! Of course he did not ask me any questions about how me having an incurable disease could be in remission or seem to be interested in how my story could help other patients.
That’s the last colonoscopy I’ve had or anything to do with Ulcerative Colitis and I owe it all to that nutritionist who had me radically change my diet. I don’t know if the blood type thing is true, but I know that the diet changed my life. It’s been 12 years since I’ve sat on a toilet afraid that my insides were going to come out or have my intestines eat themselves to death inside me. That is all in the past, thank you juicy ribeye.
Gonna Get Well 