My Hashimoto’s Journey (diagnosis, symptoms, & now, remission!)

First - if you’re new here - welcome! I’m a certified functional nutritionist (in training!) and recipe developer who helps women feel empowered in their health journey, learn how to confidently eat well, find healing and support during chronic illness, and gain kitchen confidence through simple, delicious recipes for you and your family!

I’m taking us on a journey today - a journey quite literally through my life. Don’t worry, it’ll be the spark notes version, but I am truly so excited to finally put my entire thyroid disease and natural wellness journey in one (written) place!

A question I hear often is - can you heal Hashimoto’s disease? Sadly, much of the medical world would answer that it’s a life-long disease that can’t be healed.

I’m walking, living proof, my friend, that it can be done!

My journey with Hashimoto’s Disease (and putting it into remission!)

Let’s chat about this saga in phases, shall we? I think it’ll help both of our brains.

Phase 1 - College Fallon started having joint pain, insomnia, anxiety, skin issues - things nobody was concerned about whenever I tried to dig. I often heard simple responses (from medical professionals and well-meaning friends and family alike) that I probably needed new running shoes to help my knee pain, I likely was just overworked as a college student, maybe I was drinking too much coffee as a barista, etc.

In fairness, some of those things weren’t wrong. I was over-exercising, under-eating, drinking way too much coffee, and under a significant amount of stress from various factors. But should a 19 year old really be dealing with all those symptoms?? (In hindsight, heck no!)

Thyroid Disease Symptoms. For the…loss??!

Phase 2 - Happily married at 21 years old and baby boy number one joined us the following year. But, plot twist, what if baby TWO joined us just 18 months later, wouldn’t that be cool?!?

In truth, it WAS and I wouldn’t change a thing - I love how our little family turned out. My body, however, was struggling. My second son was born via Cesarean and immediately had a lot of health issues. I had a rocky third trimester and postpartum that was riddled with low thyroid symptoms: exhaustion, insomnia, migraines, joint pain, panic attacks and anxiety, GI issues, numbness and tingling in my hands, feet, and face…if you can think of a symptom, I likely had it. I felt nearly debilitated.

While we were digging for answers for my son, I was on my own back-burner sort of journey trying to find answers for myself as well. Thankfully, I had a practitioner run a thyroid lab since I was freshly postpartum (again) and lo’ and behold: Hashimoto’s.

A word I could hardly pronounce much less define or navigate.

I was handed medication and a life-sentence, that’s it!

Because we were also desperately seeking help for my very sick son, the Lord led us to healing through food through a sweet friend. I was ready to do anything in the world for my precious baby and I, nearly overnight, jumped into a Paleo/Whole 30 style of eating (with some learning road bumps of course!).

We were transitioning from a Standard American Diet that was not totally off the rails, but certainly not what I would now consider truly supportive, and so we saw leaps and bounds of healing after beginning to eat real, whole food. However, I quickly got trapped in a downward spiral of cutting more and more foods as we began to discover allergies in my son. Before long, I was stuck in a headspace of believing food was the cause of all my symptoms and issues. And not just processed food, mind you - I started fearing real, whole food.

I cut nearly EVERYTHING. Dairy, gluten, soy, grains, nightshades, beans, legumes, coffee - during a very long season I could eat 7-10 TOTAL foods. I got down to my lowest weight ever and I don’t mean that in a good way - I was SO malnourished. It hurts my heart to even look at this picture (you can see my sweet baby’s broken out cheeks too - we were just SO sick!).

Hashimoto’s and Diet - a limited, hard journey for a while

Phase 3 - This will be a slight fast-forward through MANY years of ups and downs - healing, backslide, adding foods, losing foods, thousands of dollars on tests and supplements.

I stayed the course - I drank lots of bone broth. I ate organic. I still avoided dairy and gluten and all the things I had heard were “bad” in the autoimmune world. And I was still utterly STUCK.

I had found a lot of healing, but I could not get past a certain point. I was still having daily back and joint pain, mental health swings, sleep issues, and I couldn’t eat anything. This pattern continued for around 5 very long hard years.

In the most beautiful and unexpected way, my third pregnancy with my third sweet baby boy brought a truly divine surge of healing. The backstory is a long and beautiful one, but after believing I would not have any more biological children, we had a precious surprise pregnancy that also brought a lot of uncertainty. During my pregnancy however, I felt amazing. I had several people offer prophetic words of encouragement that they truly felt the Lord would use this pregnancy and new phase of life for a lot of healing in me. In fact, my third son’s middle name is Josiah, which means Jehovah has healed. We chose this name in faith and hope that the Lord was doing something big.

And sure enough, after my third baby was born (a miraculous VBAC in our home!), many of my food sensitivities had entirely gone away. I believe this was truly divine, and that the Lord also used the foundation of nourishment over the years, the brain retraining work I had done, and the continued and patient pursuit of holistic wellness in our food, environment, and lifestyle.

My thyroid panels, that had always been very up and down, began to look really encouraging and steady during this time, but were still very much “off” - I was so thankful for the progress I had found but also felt deeply there had to be more to learn and discover.

Years of real food, non toxic living, and crying out to the Lord were certainly changing things on a deep level, but I felt so limited in a lot of ways still. I missed so many foods. I missed the ability to travel and eat out without questioning everything. I wanted desperately not to be the “chronic illness girl” but didn’t know what I was missing in my health puzzle. Until…

Finding Food Freedom & Healing with Hashimoto’s

Phase 4 - I stumbled into the world of food freedom and pro-metabolic eating not long after my third son was born. I was utterly shocked at the idea that things like dairy, grains, coffee, legumes, chocolate - foods I had avoided like the plague for five years could actually have a supportive place in my diet. I was quite honestly offended! But I also knew I missed these foods and felt SO limited in what I could eat.

At the time I was still very much pursuing a Paleo-style diet, with lots of nut butters and flours, tons of raw cruciferous veggies, heaping kale salads - a lot of which left me feeling a bit dissatisfied with the way I was eating.

So when I discovered the world of more ancestral eating, it both ruffled my feathers and piqued my curiosity.

It wasn’t long before I started experimenting with raw milk, adding in collagen and gelatin rich foods, and using more traditional food methods.

I also started slowly increasing my carbohydrate consumption after all those years of being told “carbs are bad” - focusing on root veggies like white potato, sweet potato, etc, ripe fruits, soaked and sprouted grains, and began making sure I was eating enough. I had discovered that I was drastically under-eating from all of my Whole 30 and Paleo days and meals.

Within just a few months of some very sustainable and simple changes, I watched my thyroid labs look better and better. While this is not everyone’s story, I was even able to come off my thyroid medication very slowly alongside practitioner support. And I was absolutely ecstatic to be eating foods that I loved, all while feeling amazing, refining my understanding of true nourishment, and sharing with women online the freedom that I’d found.

Phase 5 - Those next several years included launching my business that took OFF in a way I never expected - I quickly discovered there were thousands of women who needed this message of healing and food freedom, who wanted at least ONE voice encouraging that we truly can step away from diet culture and away from the standard way of living in disease to find vibrancy through recipes that are nourishing, delicious, and simple.

We have certainly had a lot of ups and downs still - living in mold, moving several times, family emergencies - life stressors that took a toll.

But by the grace of God, today I live in beautiful food freedom eating real whole, food, my Hashimoto’s antibodies are under the diagnostic range, I have no Hashimoto’s symptoms, and I do not feel at ALL like I have a chronic illness - an identity I very much felt trapped in for a long time.

There were so many details, wins, and losses along the way, of course, but I’m continually amazed at the power of whole foods, holistic wellness, and God’s creation.

Today’s post is more about setting the backdrop for my own experience and to encourage you that there is hope for healing Hashimoto’s, friend.

I’m also excited to come back soon to chat more specifics of my journey, but as I was processing some of this with my husband last night and sharing my desire to “package everything up” to be able to share, he reminded me that my healing has come as a cascade of SO many little interventions over many many years. I say that not to discourage you, but to remind you to stay the course. There is hope! Our faithfulness, little by little, does add up.

I have no fun profesh photos to add here, just a raw phone shot on a day I felt so FULL of rejoicing over my healing!

If you’ve been around a while, you have likely heard of or used my meal plans that recently phased out, or possibly even read the beautiful testimonials of other women who found life-changing healing and freedom alongside me while using these meal plans. The plans were a massive part of my original platform and truly the food outline for how I found so much of my healing. I had been wanting to streamline, improve, and update much of what they included in order to continue serving you all in the best possible way, which leads me now to the exciting news!

My upcoming e-book, Nourish, is a repackaged version of all the goodness from the meal plans, in a format that is even MORE accessible. This book is all about the foundation of nourishing well - in a way that also brings enjoyment and simplicity to your food journey!

It includes never seen before recipes, meal plan inspiration, tips for building balanced meals and snacks for true deep nourishment, a seasonal eating guide, and everything you need for creating a nutrient-dense kitchen. I CANNOT wait to get it out to you! (I don’t have a release date yet, so be sure to hop on my email list for updates!)

As a reminder, this post is not medical advice and I encourage you to work alongside a qualified and gentle practitioner in managing any thyroid disease or symptoms, as well as running labs, etc.

Stay tuned for more of a breakdown on the TOP things that helped support my thyroid healing!

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