This One Food Changed My Life
Hey, Ian here.
I’m excited today to bring you a personal story. A story about resilience, uncertainty, and optimism.
My goal by the end of this letter is to inspire you to take meaningful action in your life and move towards a better tomorrow.
Let’s dive in.
I was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome at the age of 7. For those that don’t know much about it, Tourette’s is a neurological disorder that causes involuntary movements and sounds otherwise known as “tics”.
You may have understood Tourette’s as a swearing disorder but in reality only about 5-10% of individuals with Tourettes have this aspect called coprolalia.
Growing up, I was on medication for the better part of a decade and I lived a relatively normal life. I played AAA baseball, played in bands, had a social group, and did well in school.
When I turned 18 I had the realization that I no longer wanted to be on medication and see what would happen if I went off of them.
Shortly after… my life took a turn for the worse.
I began to have very severe tics that included swearing, yelling, shouting various phrases, loud animal sounds, and aggressive body movements that still cause me chronic body pain to this date.
So how did this all happen?
Here is my theory: My TS was actually a whole lot worse than we thought - the medication only suppressed the symptoms, not helped the root cause.
To this day we still don’t know what causes TS and that there is no cure for it either. All we know is that it tends to be the worst for most people between the age of 13-20.
I was feeling quite lost and hopeless, and to be honest, I wanted to either go back on medication or try medical marijuana.
But then something occurred to me... I had a friend with TS that went vegan and he claimed that it helped his tics (which btw was way worse than mine).
I thought what the heck? Let’s give it a try. I quite literally have nothing to lose.
3 weeks later - my tics dropped by 80%. Inflammation fled my body and my nervous system calmed down for the first time in my life at the age of 21.
Now… I know what you’re thinking. Is he going to push a vegetarian diet onto us?
Of course not - I don't believe in that. I just want to share my personal experience and then you can decide and make an informed decision for yourself.
But what matters is that it worked. The food that we put in our body has a MASSIVE impact on our bodies.
Everybody has different biology and I hope this story can inspire you to take a look at what you are eating and begin to ask yourself “is this serving me?” What works for one person may not work for another, and that’s okay!
I hope you all have a fantastic rest of your Tuesday.
Thank you for reading.
Ian
