My Story
My life changed when I was 8 years old. I was an excited girl looking forward to Christmas. However, on December 18 in 1975, I watched the man I loved and adored suffer a massive heart attack and pass away two days later.
That man was my father. He was just 47 years old.
There was no Christmas that year.
Life had suddenly changed. I changed. I started to question everything. A habit I have maintained into adulthood.
I felt so helpless when my father passed. I didn’t know what to do. I vowed I would never feel like that again in my lifetime. I promised myself I would learn as much as I could about the human body and disease to quench my thirst for unanswered questions.
I met my beautiful husband when I was just 18 and going through a difficult time at home.
My in-laws adopted me into their life at this point.
Life had changed again. I had changed again.
Despite the dark times, I now had a “new” father and a man who would eventually become the father of my three gorgeous boys.
Both of them have been hugely influential to my career path and to the person I am today. My life was being shaped by “fathers” once more and I didn’t know it at the time.
I became a pharmacist in 1990. I loved this role and all that it entailed. I even owned my own pharmacy for almost 10 years.
It was a very challenging career, yet also highly rewarding and inspiring. The clinical experience and the precious relationships I will always cherish.
However, the last few years in business saw me questioning our health system and the way we treat disease. People were getting sicker instead of better and taking more drugs than ever. How was this possible? I’m glad I question.
In July 2005, my “dad” passed away from a long battle with prostate cancer. Life changed again. I changed with it too.
Watching him go through cancer made me realize once more just how lacking our health system really is.
Traditional medicine just focuses on “getting the cancer out”. It never asks why we get it in the first place. I questioned big time.
I no longer felt my training was sufficient to really help people heal. So, I began studying naturopathy and herbal medicine to fill in the gaps of my knowledge and to help me get to the root cause of people’s disease.
Little did I know whilst I was doing this, that I myself would be in need of healing. I developed adrenal fatigue from working too hard in my business which eventually presented as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (a type of hypothyroidism which is autoimmune based).
I thought I was going mad. I no longer felt like myself and I was unable to sleep. I was gaining weight fast and experiencing so much fatigue and body aches/pains that I found it so hard to function. I had symptom after symptom. I searched high and low for a doctor who could tell me how to heal, but all the doctors I saw had no real solution for me. They only had one alternative. A prescription drug. I’m so thankful I question.
I said no thanks to them all.
From my background, I’m well aware there’s certainly a need for a pharmaceutical option sometimes. But, not as much as what’s prescribed nowadays. Many doctors are still focused on “one pill for one ill”, treating symptom after symptom instead of seeing the patient as a whole.
Disease needs to be treated using an integrated approach, combining conventional medicine with alternative medicine, to achieve the best possible outcome.
The merging of these two fields is the basis for functional medicine, which better addresses the healthcare needs of the 21st century.
This is what I focus on.
I am still on my own healing journey. I’ve deeply researched my condition and how it connects to other systems. I have tried so many healing modalities, used many allopathic medicines and experimented with so many beneficial foods. Our bodies are so clever and when they are given all that they need, healing is inevitable. It just takes time and patience to see the results since nature works at a different pace to us.
Hippocrates, the father of medicine, stated centuries ago that “all disease begins in the gut”. That’s the basis for me being “The GUT Detective”. This “father” knew the answer. The gut is complex and interconnected with many other organs. It is here where we start to heal.
I now choose to look at life “through my father’s eyes” and heal all that is broken inside. Myself included.
I’m committed to lifelong learning and to questioning. The life of my two fathers serves to fuel passion within me and to drive me forward.
I feel them close to me in the presence of my loving husband and my three beautiful sons by my side.
Thanks PAPA!! Thanks DAD!!
In health and love
Alida Deligeorges ♥ ♥
