Smitha suffered from frequent cold and cough and allergies since childhood. Medications were the usual answer to address these. In 2010, suffering from severe eczema and obesity, her health hit rock bottom. Desperate for answers and long term relief, she went to an acupressure healer in 2012. Here, for the first time, she learnt about the body’s innate healing mechanism, and the action needed to support this healing. Smitha made changes in her food and overall lifestyle. She overcame not only her own health issues but that of her daughter too. Here is her heart-warming journey from illness to wellness naturally!

Smitha Hemadri
40 years, Program manager with an MNC
Bangalore

As a child, I would suffer from lot of respiratory issues but these were not life-threatening. I grew up in an environment where medications were freely available, covered by my father’s medical benefits. So typically whenever we would fall sick, popping pills was very common; in fact we would get it straight from the pharmacist ourselves. We would take calcium tablets or vitamin C tablets just like chocolates.

As I got married in 2001, I would have severe allergies, cold & cough. It was not asthma, but frequently occurring dust allergies. If there was smoke somewhere I would catch an allergy, if the weather would change I would catch a cold. If I didn’t keep a check on these, it would become really severe and go on for almost a month. As these issues are so common these days, neither me nor anyone around me thought I had any major ailment.

In 2010, I had severe skin eczema which only got worse with time. My body would turn like stone where I could barely lift my hands and legs and felt a lot of pain. I don’t know the exact condition because no doctor was able to tell me what it really was. I would just take symptomatic steroids as medication to suppress the allergy. When I consulted an allergy specialist, he told me allergies can happen to anybody and it is now lifelong.

2010- 2012: Hitting the rock bottom

At this time I continued to have other major issues which included obesity. I used to have fissures regularly but as my second daughter was born in 2008, the condition became very severe and I had to undergo a fissurectomy operation.

I also developed life-threatening food allergies. It started innocuously on a coffee date with my husband, when my body broke into severe rashes and swelling the next day. My throat, my eyes, my lips… my entire body had swollen up. I ended up going to a doctor who gave anti-histamine injections. These allergy episodes started to recur with just about anything I ate. I was vegetarian at that time, but coffee, tea, curd and sugar were part of my routine. I did eliminate tea as I noticed it triggered a reaction, but other than that I could not discern any pattern. Even a vegetable would at times give me an allergy. The doctors advised me to take steroid medication every time the allergy happens. Desperate for a solution, I decided to look for an alternative and went for Ayurveda treatment. Over next one year my rash related symptoms definitely reduced although the issues of cold and cough continued. Since I had relief from allergic symptoms, I decided to leave my medications, but then the allergies came back and this time with a vengeance. I landed up in the hospital twice, when my throat and tongue had swollen up so much that I could not swallow anything at all. My hands and legs were like stone, I was barely able to move, literally sleeping all day as it would feel so painful and heavy.

The turning point

In 2012, one of my friends introduced me to a Tamil Nadu based acupressure healer. It is here that I learned that the body will heal itself, if you just allow the body to heal instead of suppressing the symptoms through medicines. All my allergies were actually body’s way of throwing out junk (toxins). For the first time I got an awareness of how the body works.

The healer told me to quit all my medication including my calcium supplements which I was taking from 2005 as preventive medication. I also quit all my steroid medications and it was extremely painful as I was so used to medicines.

The key foods that I removed from my daily intake were dairy, maida & white sugar (the white poisons).

I would eat as per my body’s call for hunger and thirst. Whenever my symptoms were really severe I would go on vegetable liquid broth and consume that as my food all day.

Initially, my nose just kept running like a tap for almost two months. The healer reassured me that it will go away when the body has completed its job of elimination. He explained that, acupressure only aids in the elimination process but the body already has a perfect healing mechanism within. I was so desperate for a change that I followed the guidance and did not take any medicines. And finally after two months, my runny nose actually did stop! Even my rashes started to heal. They would appear on and off. I used to apply lacto calamine lotion and coconut oil on my body whenever these appeared but no medication. All this happened for a year but the frequency and the severity started reducing, eventually these allergies stopped too! With the new lifestyle I also lost a lot of weight from 70 kgs to about about 60 kgs.

Making family changes – the step-by-step journey

In 2014, my younger daughter who was 5 at that time, started to have similar issues. She had lots of skin issues which refused to go and recurrent cold or cough. Removing dairy from her diet was challenging because of family pressure. So I started looking for alternatives such as Ayurveda, but that didn’t help. Internally i knew I had to make food changes for her too. I decided to approach her healing in a gradual way. I first switched her from regular cow milk to organic cow milk. The severity of her skin issues slowly came down; her skin which was always wet and itchy became dry. That’s when I realized removal of the contaminated milk has resulted in relief. Eventually I removed this milk completely from her diet and I substituted that with home-made fruit juices. As she had experienced the healing, she also cooperated.

Then I encouraged my older daughter, aged 8 years to adopt the same thing. I explained to her that she must support her younger sister to overcome her suffering, and she complied. But trying to remove curd and ghee from the children’s diet was indeed a big thing, as it was a staple food for them.

Eventually I attended a dairy alternatives training, where I learned about milk and cheese options and about peanut curd as an alternative to dairy curd. I also realized the ethical part of being a vegan. I decided to educate my kids also about being ethical vegan to make their foundation stronger. That complete year was all about ethical coaching showing them videos and making them understand what animals go through. All this happened in a step by step fashion and curd was eliminated completely. By December that year, I eliminated ghee too. This of course was a big controversy in the family because in every festival, traditional dishes would include ghee and cutting these down was a big thing but I knew I had to do this to support my daughter.

When my daughter would be unwell, I would allow the eliminations (symptoms) to happen. I knew from experience that liquid diets worked. But instead of vegetable broth, which kids do not enjoy too much, I would offer her natural liquids such as lime juice, mausambi juice, and tender coconut water.

My daughter displayed dramatic changes in her symptoms. The heavy phlegm she earlier used to experience changed into regular runny nose which would clear in 3-4 days in due course. Her nights became much easier. Her skin cleared off completely!

I have written in more detail about the healing journeys of my daughters in this article.

Eventually, the following year my husband who could see the results in our children also gave up dairy.

Learning on…empowering self & others

By 2016 I was helping many other people especially mothers, who I came across on the internet or through friends, because I wanted to spread awareness. During this time, my aunt was at terminal stage of cancer, admitted in the ICU, and almost on her death bed. I contacted a Natural Lifestyle Expert from Sharan India. She suggested a juice-based diet for my aunt and said you may want to try. I started giving my aunt carrot juice & pomegranate juice even within the ICU. Within 6 days she was actually discharged from the hospital, her mouth turned from black to pink over time. My aunt, passed away within few months, but through this experience I learned about the potent power of raw foods to heal. This was my first introduction to raw foods.

In 2017 June I took a course from Kalyan Sarkar’s PSY Solutions online on the subject of Nature Cure. Even though I had already experienced the power of body to heal, this course deepened my learning about how the body works, in a very structured manner.

I have now incorporated more raw foods in my lifestyle; I eat cooked food only once a day i.e. at night. My breakfasts are now all fruit based. One major impact of this change is the amount of energy I have for the entire day. Now I can go on and on without getting tired. I could hit the gym on empty stomach with just lemon water. Also my eliminations (i.e. removal of toxic waste & recovery from ailments) are much faster when I am on raw foods.

Interestingly, many people have approached me to help them with their health issues including diabetes, thyroid, hearing issues, autism and even cancer. I coach people about the body’s innate wisdom to be in Health. I encourage them to take charge of their own health by making concrete changes in food and lifestyle.

Conclusion

The message I want to give people is that when making changes at home do not try to change anybody else. Many times, we end up in painful arguments and conflicting situations with family members. You have to respect their lifestyle and not judge them. You cannot force anyone; you have to motivate them through your own results.

Secondly, emotional and mental peace at home is very important. Bad food choices will keep you diseased for entire lifetime, but may not kill you. But depression, energy loss through complex thinking and unresolved emotions can really cascade the effects of a bad lifestyle. This can actually manifest as cancer. Of course our natural bodies will love a natural lifestyle, but it is extremely important that a person finds reason to stay innately happy. Only emotional wellbeing can usher in true physical wellbeing.

(About Smitha Hemadri: A computer engineer by qualification, Smitha works as a Program Manager in a leading MNC in Bangalore. She is a vegan baker & specializes in special needs like glutenfree, sugar free, diary free bakes. Smitha believes in philanthropy, her profits from baking are used for charity. She is a natural health enthusiast and believes in serving mankind as a health educator free of cost. In her free time, she enjoys reading and music.)

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