79-Year-Old Overcomes 40 Years of Ulcerative Colitis and Brain Fog

If you had seen me even just a year ago, you would be so surprised to see me the way I look today, because I just look to me like the picture of health at 79 years old. I just feel I have tons of energy. One of the things that's really changed for me is that there is no brain fog. Being a part of the Urban Monks gut health program, being part of a community like not having to do this myself, I've been doing it myself for 35, 40 years. Now, being part of a community, a family that really cares about me and sees me and values me has made all the difference. My name is Joanne Alexander. I live in Raleigh, North Carolina, and I teach relational brain skills. I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, which is an autoimmune disease, in 1986. That's 40 years ago. So I'm very familiar with flares and relapses with colitis. Three of my children also have this disease. My oldest son passed away from this disease, and my father had colon cancer. So those issues in my family, with me personally, have just been a part of my life for a very long time. Lots of anxiety around that, lots of fear around that. It's a never-ending issue like waiting for the next shoe to drop. It never felt like I had good information either. That was a big thing for me. I like researching, I like digging. I have had, over the years, different wonderful gastroenterologists I've worked with, but still not really good information. So here I am eating healthy organic food, juicing for many years on a Pretty clean diet, no sugar, and still I'm sick. I would sign up for lots of things that would come across my inbox. And just one day on my computer, Urban Monk popped up and I just clicked on it, opened it up, and started to read. And I just sort of resonated with the whole introductory letter. I resonated with Dr. Pedram and I was just very curious about maybe this is something different. It seemed more about education. I clicked on the website and thought, you know, I could do this seven-day reboot. This would be a good thing for me. And that's how I started. Once I found Pedram's program, I felt like I found a community where I've actually felt safe and protected and where I had so much to learn. I felt like I knew a lot because I had studied a lot of things over the years, but I had so much more to learn about things that were contributing to my illness that I had never thought about. Honestly, I felt seen. I felt valued. I felt like here's a community that gets me, that speaks my language. The moment I realized that this program was working for me was when I stopped having diarrhea pretty much every day or constipation. I realized that food is actually making me sick because I had food allergies that I didn't know about. But if you don't know, if you're not tested, you can't possibly know that what you're eating is making you sick. So that was a big eye-opener for me. I had C. diff in the middle of all this and nearly died. That's only three years ago and I did a year of extensions just to make it. And when I did the final testing with my gut, they did the whole gut testing. There's no C. diff in me at all. And my medical doctor said, you'll never be rid of it. Like you'll have it and it'll flare up again. And I don't have it at all. So I'm just saying my life will never be the same. I mean, it's really changed my life. If I could give someone a word of advice or just what I did in this program, it's do the work. Do the work necessary, show up every single day, follow the advice of the health coaches that you have and Dr. Pedram and just do the work. If you do the work, you're gonna get the results that you're looking for. I think some of the biggest takeaways for me was I had so much anxiety around my health and with Dr. Pedram's program, I learned how to breathe. I learned that I needed eight hours of sleep every night. I needed to be kind to myself and compassionate to myself. I mean, I'm good to everybody else, but I wasn't very good to myself. And I learned that I don't have to be perfect. All of that has totally lowered my anxiety level. Like I have such peace and calm. And people have even said that to me. You look so peaceful. You look so calm, like you're not stressed. And that affects my family, my children, my home, my husband, and just I love my life. It's not my identity anymore. You know, I'm a whole healthy person and I may have a challenge coming up, but I'm not afraid of it anymore.