This blog details my experiences with SCA and what I am doing to treat it naturally. I hope this can be of great help to others who have it. Please feel free to comment or email me if you have any questions, or need someone to talk to who knows what this experience is like.
Sickle Cell Trait also has effects and no one really talks about this. Apparently in people who have the trait, cells can begin to sickle when people over exert themselves. This is something to beware of, please take care of yourself and get educated about how you can stay healthy if you have the trait or even think that you have it. Stay hydrated (this is ESSENTIAL as it will keep your blood cells from sickling), don't overexert yourself, avoid exercising or training in hot weather, and eat healthy! If you have experience with Sickle Cell Trait, please, please comment and say how you think it affects you or doesn't affect your life, knowledge is power! The videos below are helpful and informative, please watch and share, this may save someone's life.
Fatigue and anemia go hand in hand. When I was in high school and undergrad, I fell asleep often on the bus, train, or even in class, as I was always so tired, and used every opportunity I could get to catch a nap. Last summer, I began looking into becoming a vegetarian or vegan, as I was hearing so much about the benefits of ditching meat and animal products. Back in the summer of 2012, when I had first began looking into natural alternatives to treat Sickle Cell Anemia, I heard about T.J. Brown, whose health and wellness experienced dramatic, positive changes when he became a raw vegan (his video testimony is below and you can read about him here). The changes that he experienced led him to write a blog and become an advocate for natural alternatives to sickle cell and he founded the Sickle Cell Natural Wellness Group. In 2012, I started to pay more attention to my diet, adding more vegetables, however, I didn't go meat-free. Adding Moringa to my diet in August 2013 really helped to increase my energy levels, however, I still felt fatigued often. In the summer of 2014, when I was doing some research about being a vegetarian or vegan, I decided to finally go meat-free, and see how that would work for me. Through experimenting, I found that being a vegan wasn't entirely working for me, because I still needed fat in my diet, which I got through eating a lot of eggs (3 a day usually). Being a vegetarian did help increase my energy levels, however, I still needed the iron, etc. that meat provides. I knew my body was really craving meat when I started having dreams about chicken!!! I still do eat meat, however, it's much less often than the amount I used to consume. I have meat maybe about once a month or so, but my diet is mainly vegetarian/pescatarian and foods that are high in thiocyanate (read about it here & here is a list of thiocyanate rich foods). My body always lets me know when I need to have it, I just start to crave it after a while and that's how I know. But without having meat on a regular basis, I feel that my energy levels are better and I don't find myself as exhausted as I used to feel. I also try not to overextend myself by scheduling too many things to do in one day. When I became a vegetarian, I was getting some protests from my mom, who said that I needed to keep eating meat regularly. However, I stuck to my guns, and a few months ago, she actually became a vegetarian herself in order to manage her high blood pressure, and it's been working really well for her. She also started exercising as well, which helped bring the blood pressure down, and recently (within the past week) she has been trying Cayenne Pepper (read about C.P. here), which I have told her is good for helping regulate blood pressure as well. My family eats a lot of fish to make up for not eating meat, and it works pretty well (and tastes delicious!).
Video Testimonials on Natural Healing for Sickle Cell Anemia
T.J. Brown's Testimony, in which he speaks about taking risk, something we must do in order to venture out into the world of better health! This young man is so inspiring, hearing his testimony (3 years ago now) really helped me to see that change was possible for my health as well. https://youtu.be/mM-BuTmLE-c
Here's a testimony of a man with Sickle Cell Anemia who became a raw vegan, lowered his meat consumption, and has seen benefits to his health: (Start at 7:15) https://youtu.be/yUrS8d_VnMs?t=7m15s
This woman uses Coconut Oil, Oil of Oregano, and also
talks about factors aside from Sickle Cell that can cause pain in Sickle
Cell, and some of the side effects of Hydroxyurea: https://youtu.be/_8vviO1N-bc
This woman talks about how she has kept her son crisis free through natural healing using herbs, etc.: https://youtu.be/9CJKKhl3_zw
I just noticed that SS Natural Healings, which I have a subscription to but almost never read (lack of time/I forget) just posted about EvenFlo, which is a natural supplement to treat sickle cell. I have copied and pasted the first paragraph of the original post, and there are links to the post here as well.
"Even Flo - Natural supplement to manage Sickle Cell disease!
Even Flo is a natural pain reliever, which
contains the highest quality herbal extracts and nutraceuticals, was
created to manage pain in sickle cell patients and decrease the
frequency of crisis they experience. The product has undergone rigorous
clinical tests and has shown none of the side effects usually associated
with prescription pain medications. EvenFlo can also be used to
alleviate arthritis pain, ischemia in varying locations of the body,
PMS, muscle pain, hypertension, nerve pain, low energy, and anemia..."
I don't know much about Even Flo, except what's mentioned from the post on SS Natural Healings, but it sounds good so far, I'm definitely going to look more into it.
