Amanda’s 10-Year Struggle with Undiagnosed Symptoms
Amanda is located near Eugene, Oregon, and has an amazing healing story.
In 2011, Amanda began experiencing intermittent episodes of symptoms. She says, “I was getting intermittent bouts of flu-type symptoms where it was like every three or four months. I just started getting nausea, vomiting, dizziness, lightheadedness, brain fog.” This lasted from 2011 to 2015.”
Her symptoms would continue, worsening over a four-year and three-doctor period, with no answers or relief. “I was having severe diarrhea, vomiting every morning, dry heaving; it just was exhausting. Then to try to go to work after multiple hours of being sick.”
From Non-Functional to Fully Healed: Amanda’s Recovery on Carnivore
In 2018, she ended up in the ER, and “they found a fecal block in my small intestine. I had to go through 14 days of a water fast, with two bowel preps, to clear the fecal block in my small intestine.” Amanda had a colonoscopy, which found nothing. All of her tests in 2018 were normal. “They never talked to me about diet.”
Pushing Through Doubt: Overcoming Medical Professionals’ Criticism of Carnivore
“At the end of 2019, my sister-in-law said, ‘Have you ever heard of SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth?” Amanda learned she did have SIBO and started following a keto diet. Keto would help a little, but she still had the same symptoms.
In November 2020, Amanda had a “massive migraine with a seizure, brought on by sugar, that left me with stroke-like symptoms.” She had to stay in her bed, with all the windows covered and silent, and could not walk or dress herself.
Amanda’s New Career Path: Becoming a Carnivore and Fasting Coach
Because of visual symptoms, she saw an optometrist, who sent her to a neurologist for an MRI. She was still “completely non-functional.” The neurologist saw something wrong with her optic nerve and some swelling of her cranial arteries and started her on Topamax, which didn’t help at all.
She was prescribed hormones and anti-anxiety medications, which only helped a little. Amanda could only look at screens for 15 minutes before going temporarily blind in 2022.
By the end of 2021, Amanda still had the same symptoms. A friend suggested that she had idiopathic intracranial hypertension, and Amanda found a carnivore YouTuber who had healed from it. On February 5, 2022, Amanda started her carnivore diet. “Within 12 days, my visuals were almost completely gone… My head pressure was gone.” Her next MRI would show that the arteries in her head were back to normal. “By August of last year, I would say that I was about 80 percent better.”
At this point, Amanda’s eyes have returned to normal. Her neurologist continued to say that she shouldn’t be on a carnivore diet (despite witnessing her progress), while her primary care supported her choice since it helped. Her optometrist is now also following a carnivore diet, as is her father.
She is back to working and is also now a carnivore and fasting coach.
