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Understanding LUPUS – a conversation with Angel Altman
11 Plays5 days ago
A LUPUS diagnosis prompted Angel Altman to investigate alternative treatments which led to the establishment of the Tea of Life Apothecary.
Angel Altman is a nurse who lives with LUPUS the auto immune disease. Hearing a doctor tell you that you have an autoimmune disease creates an emotional rollercoaster that often sees people increase the speed of their physical decline. In some people it creates a determination to not let the diagnosis define you and a resolve to ensure that the illness does not control you.
Angel is definitely in the second category.
In this episode of Fit For My Age, Angel recounts her journey with host Michael Millward and describes how her passion for winning her personal battle became a purpose that led to the establishment of the Tea of Life Apothecary.
In their conversation Angel covers
- What LUPUS is
- How auto immune conditions often develop
- The no drug strategy she has adopted
- The lifestyle changes she has introduced
- Some of the natural remedies and treatments she has used.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencastr. Because Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform that makes every stage of the podcast production process so easy.
00:00:16
Speaker
Use the link in the description to visit Zencastr.com. It has a built-in discount. Hello and welcome to Fit For My Age, the health and wellbeing podcast from Abbasida.
00:00:30
Speaker
I'm your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida. Today I'm going to be learning about Lupus from Angel Altman who has been diagnosed with that condition and we'll find out how Angel manages her condition and what she has done in order to help other people as well.
00:00:50
Speaker
Very importantly on Fit For My Age we will not be telling you what to think but we do hope to make you think. Angel is based in Ohio in the United States, one of the states that I haven't visited. But if I ever get the chance to go, I will be sure to make my travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club because as a member of the Ultimate Travel Club, I have access to trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, all sorts of travel and holiday.
00:01:19
Speaker
You can as well because I have put a link in the description to the Ultimate Travel Club, which has a built in discount. on membership fees so that you can travel at trade prices as well.
00:01:30
Speaker
Now that I have paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of Fit For My Age that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to. And so will be worth telling your friends, family and work colleagues about as well.
Angel Altman's Background and Diagnosis
00:01:45
Speaker
Hello, Angel. Hello. Thank you for having me. It's a great pleasure and I really do appreciate you finding the time to have this conversation with me and also to share the story of lupus. I'm feeling very privileged that you've decided to do that with Fit for My Age. So thank you very much. You're welcome. I'm excited to be here. Great. Please could we start by you explaining a little bit about who you are and your story with lupus.
00:02:11
Speaker
So my ah as you said, my name is Angel Altman. I own T of Life Apothecary. I've been a nurse for almost 30 years and I've worked in various aspects of nursing. I've done med-surg, I've done OB-GYN, orthopedics, family medicine.
00:02:29
Speaker
The last 10 to 12 years, I have spent more in a holistic alternative functional medicine world, and that's where I've really picked up a lot of of insight and knowledge and things that I've found very useful on my own journey.
00:02:43
Speaker
In 2015, I was diagnosed with lupus. It came basically from being a nurse and knowing that, you know, if you typically have one-sided joint pain, maybe your right ankle, your right knee, that tends to be more osteoarthritis. But when you have bilateral joint pain, both ankles, both knees, both hips, both elbows, that usually is a good indicator that it's autoimmune.
00:03:10
Speaker
And I had struggled with that for several months. And so knowing what I knew, i finally decided to go talk to my doctor about it and Over the course of several weeks, they did a lot of blood work, a lot of different testing. And at the end of that, what what they determined was I did, in fact, have an autoimmune illness and that I was diagnosed with with lupus and that it had taken
Holistic Health Practices for Managing Lupus
00:03:35
Speaker
pretty good hold. You know, at that time, I was pretty much told I was almost, yeah i was around 40.
00:03:40
Speaker
And I was told that probably by the time I was 50, I may be in a wheelchair, maybe needing to use oxygen. And that just didn't seem like the right the right way I wanted to spend my fifties. You know, that was just not, that was not the the middle age that I had envisioned.
00:03:56
Speaker
So working in the holistic practice that I was in at the time, I went in, I made sure that I spoke with the doctor. I got a plan started. I became very serious about my health. I became very serious about my health journey and advocating for myself. And I have spent the last 10 years working to restore my health and avoid that wheelchair And I've also been working to help other people along their path and their journey to restore their health as well.
00:04:26
Speaker
That sounds great. And I'm assuming that you have avoided the wheelchair. I have. Brilliant. um I turned 50 last year and i have not got the wheelchair or the oxygen tank yet.
00:04:39
Speaker
Congratulations. That's brilliant to hear. But Lucas, what is it? You say it's an autoimmune disease. What does it actually mean? So your immune system is designed to protect you.
00:04:51
Speaker
If you come in contact with ah a pathogen, a cold, a virus, a flu, your immune system is called into action and it it isolates that particular invader, overcomes it and gets rid of it. um that's what our That's how our immune system is designed. That's what it does. When you have any type of autoimmune, it loses the ability over time to differentiate between friend and foe, meaning it begins to treat your natural cells as if they were a invading pathogen and it begins to attack your own organs. So for me, lupus was beginning to attack my lungs. It was beginning to attack my joints and things like that.
00:05:36
Speaker
For other people, it may attack their gastrointestinal tract. It might be more of a heart thing that they deal with, more cardiovascular. Every body experiences it in a different way.
00:05:49
Speaker
And so autoimmune basically begins to attack your body. And if you don't address that and help to slow that process and to reverse it in some ways, it will continue to destroy organs. in And it's basically your own immune system that's doing that.
00:06:07
Speaker
So it's almost the case of like, yes, you can be told that you've got lupus, but by following the sorts of things that you've embarked on, that sort of journey that you've embarked on lupus doesn't have you correct brilliant okay i've done quite a few episodes of fit for my age where i've been talking to people who've been describing holistic medical solutions to various different issues and one of the things that has come to be a realization big learning for me is that what we consider to be medicine which is basically drug-based medicine is really around about a hundred years old
00:06:48
Speaker
the sort of medicine that you're talking about as holistic is thousands of
Comparing Holistic and Modern Medicine
00:06:53
Speaker
years old. Correct. Yes. This is something that has been around, yes, for centuries.
00:06:59
Speaker
So how did the the holistic journey start that would help you deal with the lupus? So every chronic illness is different. When you're dealing with autoimmune, from what I have experienced and what I have learned, you really have to start with yourself. Autoimmune is often a self-neglect disorder, disease. And that's a lot of times that's hard for people to hear. i'm just going to say that that is, this must be something, a very tough thing to have to say to yourself. It is. and As a practitioner, something difficult to say to other people as well. It is. certainly And it's, it's very hard to hear as well. Yeah.
00:07:41
Speaker
So is it a case of, yes, this is it. I've, done something in the past which has potentially contributed to the situation that I'm in now.
00:07:52
Speaker
That is a medical person, so I suppose you have a... Is it easier being medical, being a nurse, to accept that? No. I don't think it's easy for anyone to hear that and accept that. And ah whenever I first started my journey, um when that information came to me, I kind of laughed and said, no that's that's not true. I take care of myself.
00:08:13
Speaker
By self-neglect, What I mean is um i want you to think of all the people that you love in your life, you know, and the people that we we worry the most about and the people we take care of the most. And that's usually our spouse, our children, our parents, our siblings, our best friends, sometimes our coworkers.
00:08:33
Speaker
These are the people that we love the most. And if one of them was ill, we would go out of our way to take care of them, help them do whatever they needed. A lot of times...
00:08:45
Speaker
to our own detriment, meaning if I don't feel really well, but my spouse or my child needs me to do something, I'm going to push myself to go take care of them because they need me. I want to be there and take care of them. I don't care in the moment. And I will say that, oh, don't worry about me. I'll figure it out later. I'll take care of myself later.
00:09:08
Speaker
But later never comes for us because there's always someone else that we have to take care of that we want to be there for. And a lot of times what we do is we continually push ourself to the back.
00:09:21
Speaker
And over time that takes its toll. It truly, it it also impacts how we care about ourself, our level of self-love. One of the biggest, there's, there's several studies, but one of the biggest contributing factor to how well you're going to do with any kind of treatment is how much you love yourself.
00:09:42
Speaker
So on a scale of one to 10, one being the worst, 10 being the best. How much do you truly love yourself? And what I found when I started my journey, I loved other people. I, what I felt like I loved other people at a nine or 10 level. I gave everything to my relationships, to taking care of people, to being there for others.
00:10:04
Speaker
But when I really broke it down, i would have said, Oh, I love myself at about a level four or five, you know, average, right? But do you go when you don't have energy in your tank?
00:10:15
Speaker
You lose a point. Do you do things out of expectation or obligation? You lose a point. Do you go for others when you really shouldn't, when you should rest? You know, for all of these things, you lose a point. And what I found was my self-love was probably around a one or a two.
00:10:35
Speaker
I always put myself last. I always took care of others first. So autoimmune becomes... For many people, they have that same drive. I want to take care of others. I want to be there. I want to be the best daughter, the best wife, the best mother, the best sister. i want to i want to be that person that takes care of everyone. But in doing so, they fail to take care of themselves equally. And that's a lot of times where where the problem starts.
00:11:02
Speaker
That's it very interesting. Yeah, that makes that certainly makes me think. Yeah, certainly makes me think. Reminds me as well of that safety talk that they put on the airplanes where if you're traveling with an infant, put your own oxygen mask on first. Because until you do that, you can't really properly help the infant, the person who needs your help. You've got to look after yourself. Correct. Before you can then look after someone else.
00:11:33
Speaker
And you can't do the looking after. as well as you would like to but it's also interesting that you can identify or attribute your own illness very clearly to the fact that yeah when you say oh well this type of illness that condition is sometimes related to things that we have done in the past and the first thought was oh okay well were you a party animal drinking etc etc etc but what you're actually saying is that
00:12:04
Speaker
it's not necessarily that type of activity that is the cause. It can be something that is quite philanthropic. You're putting other people before you, and that means that slowly, silently, you are putting yourself at risk of these types
Lifestyle Changes and Positivity in Healing
00:12:22
Speaker
of illnesses. Yes, yes, as well as many others.
00:12:26
Speaker
um Autoimmune is not always, many people have chronic health issues, and it does come from a form of self self-neglect and that that's a harsh word for so many but it it is what it truly is in its essence yes yeah and we have to um essentially be honest with ourselves and with other people about the the risks that we are taking in not looking after ourselves so you embark on this holistic medical journey what sort of things were you doing as part of that
00:13:00
Speaker
Well, the first thing that I found that I had to to address was, you know, my self-love and I had to work on that. By working on self-love, that doesn't mean become self-focused, self-absorbed, self-centered. It just simply means advocating and taking care of yourself equally to those that you love.
00:13:22
Speaker
So if you're going to work as hard for your spouse, if they're sick or your child, you want to work equally as hard for yourself. And for many people that, that makes them feel like they're doing something wrong or they're not, they're not giving others their fair attention, but, but we do have to take care of ourself equally. So that was one of the first things I had to do. The second thing was to change my diet completely.
00:13:47
Speaker
Sugar, processed sugar and artificial sweeteners are one of the biggest contributors to joint pain, any kind of inflammation in the body. And of course, autoimmune illnesses are by by all means very inflammatory. So you want to make sure that you change your food, your diet. Every meal should be trying to eat a multivitamin.
00:14:13
Speaker
You want an array of vegetables, an array of proteins, and very little starches and and complex or simple sugars. You want to eliminate those as much as possible and lean more into the healing, detoxifying, restoration type foods.
00:14:30
Speaker
And then the next step is to monitor stress. And we hear that all the time. And, you know, it's so easy to say, well, you got to monitor stress, but people don't really tell you what stress is doing to your body. And stress comes in the form of simply carrying your cell phone, being in in and ah a department store or in a grocery store with other people's phones going off and lights and sounds and people talking, you're constantly, your attention is being grabbed by all these things. And it causes your body to go into a state of fight or flight. Even though there's no danger, you become hyper aware, hypersensitive.
00:15:12
Speaker
And what that does is it diminishes and shuts down our immune system when we stay in a consistent state of heightened awareness. So learning to take a few moments to breathe, meditation, earthing, grounding, Epsom salt baths, getting into a sauna, just taking moments for yourself so that your body can return to a state of calm is, it is paramount to the healing process.
00:15:43
Speaker
Connecting with nature really, isn't it? ah Abandoning the modern world and all of its distractions and technology. and making some sort of connection with nature so that we can become more in tune with, aligned with natural rhythms in the world.
00:16:01
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. I'm a bit of a fan, have to say, that because one of the things that you haven't mentioned is you're not taking any drugs.
00:16:11
Speaker
This is no totally sort of like recreating or creating a lifestyle that is based around balancing the inputs into your body, both diet-wise and stimulation, what you see, what you hear, type situation as well.
00:16:30
Speaker
Yes. What sort of impact did it have on your condition, the lupus? Well, when I was initially diagnosed, I was told that things were progressing pretty quickly.
00:16:43
Speaker
I was told I would need to see a specialist to kind of manage things and that I would require, you know, some pretty serious medications to keep things at bay.
00:16:53
Speaker
And i asked the doctor if he would just give me three months to do things my way and see how, you know, see how I fared. And so that's when I really, i went all in. I changed everything that I ate. I literally changed what I watch on TV, what I listened to on the radio I started working on resetting the algorithms on my Facebook and my Instagram.
00:17:20
Speaker
The other component is whatever mindset you're in. So if you are a negative person or if you're someone who tends to be frustrated easily and you you get a lot of times i would become upset over social injustices in the world. And so I would watch that on my social media.
00:17:43
Speaker
Well, that algorithm sees that I've watched it and now it thinks, oh, she wants more. So it would send me more. And then I would end up at the end of the day being very overwhelmed, overstimulated, frustrated, upset. And these are not healing emotions. So what I did was I started working to reset the algorithm. I watched funny, uplifting, loving, kind, things that made me feel happy, things that made me feel safe, that made me feel loving, all of these are healing emotions. And over time that shifted my algorithms.
00:18:20
Speaker
I also worked very hard on making sure that along with my diet and what I ate, as far as trying to make sure that I ate a multivitamin every meal, I also implemented herbal teas, tinctures, a lot of different herbs that help support the body, help support the immune system. bring a bring back about a state of balance.
00:18:43
Speaker
Out of all of the all of the herbs that you've been using, which one would be the the most important one to use? For me specifically, in the beginning, I used a lot of ashwagandha. I found that to be um one that had a huge impact on on calming my brain and bringing me out of that fight or flight.
00:19:05
Speaker
As I have progressed through things, I find that just a combination of a lot of adaptogenic herbs. I i like ashwagandha. I love lavender. I like tulsi.
00:19:18
Speaker
I use a lot of mushrooms as far as medicinal mushrooms, cordyceps, reishi. I like to lean into more of a combination for the synergistic effect versus just one herb. I get that.
00:19:32
Speaker
Has your diet become more vegetarian? No, i tend to do mainly vegetables, meats, and fruits. I try to stay away from pasta. I try to stay away from any kind of carb. i mean, I have them occasionally, but but not with every meal. So I tend to just be more vegetable and and protein. And i I eat a lot of chicken and red meat. I do eat a lot of red meat.
00:20:01
Speaker
Right. So it's a It's a diet that is free from processed foods. Correct. And the complex carbohydrates. Yes. Right. Okay. So you must have done an awful lot of learning, an awful lot of research to get to this point.
00:20:18
Speaker
I have done my fair share. i have um i've I've worked with a dietician one-on-one. I've also worked with various, i've I've traveled all over the United States and worked with various specialists ah in different fields of holistic and alternative medicine.
00:20:38
Speaker
My goal with each each experience is to learn as much as I possibly can because you never know what person, what I might be learning today, six months from now, the person who needs to hear that may cross my path.
Tea of Life Apothecary Business and Services
00:20:53
Speaker
Yes. And one of the things that is very impressive about your story is that it's the people crossing your path and the people that you have provided a path for because you've taken what was a problem which became your passion and now you are creating the solutions for other people as well. and You've launched the Tea of Life Apothecary.
00:21:16
Speaker
I have a difficulty saying it, but I know what it means. Apothecary. Thank you. The tea of life apocryphal. Right. But um how did that come about? What was the idea behind it?
00:21:30
Speaker
Well, to be honest, I have a lot of family members with chronic health issues. In the United States, alternative and holistic medication is usually not covered by insurance. So if you want to go that route, you typically have to pay out of pocket.
00:21:48
Speaker
And that can be very costly if somebody has chronic health issues. And a lot of times those people have already depleted savings or depleted their benefits simply because they've been dealing with a chronic health issue. So the first goal was to make it affordable for people who just are living day to day.
00:22:10
Speaker
And the second step was to make it available to anybody. You know, there's so many people that are looking for answers. And again, they're used to that.
00:22:23
Speaker
Go to the doctor, do what the doctor says. And many of many of them are on medications and they have been for years and they're not getting any any better. and And most of them begin to feel hopeless.
00:22:35
Speaker
I know for me myself, when I was diagnosed, I felt hopeless. I felt overwhelmed. I felt angry. There was an element of grief. There were so many things and it's hard to explain that to someone when you have an autoimmune issue you're dealing with.
00:22:52
Speaker
you don't It's not like a broken bone where you have a cast or a crutch and people can look at you and say, oh, you have a problem. Here, let me help you or let me hold the door for you or let me let me not ask so much of you.
00:23:06
Speaker
When you have autoimmune illness that you're dealing with or chronic health issues, those don't come with a crutch or a cast. And a lot of times people tend to forget that.
00:23:17
Speaker
And so people dealing with that feel very invisible and they, they feel very overwhelmed. And I wanted to give them a place where they could come, they could, they could be heard, they could be seen.
00:23:30
Speaker
and there were answers somewhere. And if I don't have them today, my goal is always to research and find them for you. Sounds great. When you say a place to go, do you mean a physical place or is this an online place?
00:23:44
Speaker
So I do have a physical store in Chillicothe, Ohio. i also do work through virtual. I work with a physician. We have a holistic health practice. I also do virtual 10 or 15 minute virtual meetings sometimes with customers to help them determine the best herbs for them.
00:24:02
Speaker
but yes, it's both physical and virtual. It's great. So anyone, anywhere in the world can take advantage of this. Yes. Great. Although there's tea in the title, It's not just tea that you sell, is it?
00:24:14
Speaker
It's not. What sort of things would people find on the website? So we offer here at the shop, we do offer some holistic approaches. um We do have PEMF, which is pulsed electromagnetic field, which helps to work on the immune system as well as stress, circulation, lymphatic flow in the body.
00:24:38
Speaker
We have red light therapy, we do Like I said, I also work with a physician. We do one-on-one appointments for people who are looking to start their own health journey in a more alternative, holistic way. i work on work with patients one-on-one to determine the best herbs for them. We have tinctures. We have topical applications.
00:25:01
Speaker
We're always bringing in new modalities. We do neural therapy here. which is small injections to reset the nervous system. We will be offering ozone treatments in the near future. There's just so many things that that people can utilize that help with the healing process.
00:25:21
Speaker
And we do offer a lot of that here. There are options that people can do some of these things at home so we can connect you with ways to do those treatments at home as well. Sounds great. Sounds great.
00:25:34
Speaker
And what is the website that people need to visit? It is www.teaflifeapothecary.com. Great. I will practice saying that.
00:25:46
Speaker
I will. statistics It's one of those words I have a sort of block on. But, you know, it has been really interesting. I hope that your health journey continues to be successful.
00:25:58
Speaker
And I really am very grateful for the time that you've spent with me today. Thank you very much. Well, I appreciate you having me. Thank you for speaking with me. it's been great thank you i am michael mill ward managing director abecida and i have been having a conversation with angel altman an alternative health specialist you can find out more information about both of us by using the links in the description outfit for my age our aim is proactive positive aging knowing the risks early is an important part of maintaining good health
00:26:35
Speaker
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00:26:51
Speaker
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00:27:05
Speaker
You can access your easy to understand results and guidance to help you make effective lifestyle changes anytime by your secure personal wellness help account. There is a link and as you would expect, the discount code in the description.
00:27:20
Speaker
I'm sure that you will have enjoyed listening to this episode of Fit For My Age as much as Angel and I have enjoyed making it. So please give it a like and download it so you can listen anytime, anywhere.
00:27:31
Speaker
To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. And don't forget to share the link with your friends, your family and your work colleagues as well. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think.
00:27:49
Speaker
Until the next episode of Fit For My Age, thank you for listening and goodbye.