Nutritionist Looks forward to educating others about Dysautonomia at 2021 Low carb San Diego Conference, August 26-29
Mary Ruddick is an internationally acclaimed nutritionist currently based in Africa, where she is studying traditional tribal diets and their impact on health. She is the author of the book, Beat Autoimmune and she treats patients online via her private practice.
But for more than 12 years of Mary Ruddick’s life, the thought of helping others achieve good health was not something she was able to focus on, because she was struggling mightily with her own declining health.
Mary will bring a wealth of personal experience with her to the 2021 San Diego Conference next month where she will deliver a presentation entitled Dysautonomia and Post Viral Syndrome, A Dietary Approach.
The presentation is particularly timely, as dysautonomia appears to be afflicting a sizable subset of COVID-19 patients.
Learn more about the Low Carb San Diego conference here, to register for tickets, meals, and CME/CMHE credits. The conference will be held live and in-person, but virtual options are also available.
“Dysautonomia is a disease of the nervous system, and it’s typically triggered after a very virulent virus,” Mary explained. “We see it often after COVID, but before COVID, most doctors hadn’t heard of it, so it usually took years to get a diagnosis.”
“Dysautonomia was previously considered a zebra illness,” said Mary. “Now, as a result of COVID, it’s mentioned on Jeopardy, it’s in the newspapers. It’s becoming a household name. And that’s a wonderful thing, because people will get diagnosed sooner, but it’s also a tragic thing, because more people are getting it and it’s terrifically disabling.”
Mary has personal experience with the effects of the dysautonomia and a long list of other medical conditions. It took her more than a decade to finally reverse the cascade of painful and mysterious diseases that afflicted her beginning when she was 18 while she was in the Bahamas for a semester abroad. She recently spoke with LowCarbUSA® founder Doug Reynolds about her ordeal in LowCarbUSA® Podcast Episode 75.
Mary’s symptoms were devastating, and debilitating. The teenager who had previously been running as much as 70 miles a week, was now barely able to stand, and she developed a tremor, brain fog and struggled to communicate with others. She began having seizures, sleeping for entire days, and experiencing excruciating pain in her legs.
“It was three years before I learned I had an active mycoplasma infection, a bacterial infection that causes chronic flu-like symptoms, and that I later learned is a trigger for autoimmune conditions.”
Dysautonomia was one of the many diagnoses she received over the next decade of her young life.
Mary’s journey was long and arduous, but once she had successfully restored her health, she was able to get back to her life, and she began formally studying nutrition.
She is now the Director of Nutrition for CaptainSoup.com, Enable Your Healing, The REIGNS Method, and the Back to Joy Program.
“I’m so excited to present on such an important topic at Low Carb San Diego,” Mary said. “I’m going to be on the same stage with so many individuals I highly respect, many of whom I send my clients and patients to. I’m deeply moved about having the opportunity to speak about a condition, dysautonomia, that is now affecting tens of thousands of people. I feel very fortunate to be able to help spread wisdom, so these people can heal themselves quickly, instead of going through a decade or more of illness as I did. The timing couldn’t be more perfect for such a subject.”
When asked what advice she would give to people who have struggled to overcome health issues without finding answers, she responded without hesitation.
“I would say there’s probably three things,” she said:
- First, remember that no one is coming. No one is fixing this for you. No doctor is creating a pill. It’s not happening. You’ve got to engineer your own healing. You have to keep in mind that any practitioner you work with is your employee. You don’t have to take their advice. I think I see a lot of patients forget that we’re actually hiring them.
- The second thing is that you really want to be methodical with the things that you try. I often find that people who say they’ve tried everything, when I asked them pointed questions, they actually haven’t tried much at all. So commit to whatever protocol you’re going to try and give it a realistic timeline before you decide if it’s really working or not.
- Third is to implement a mindset of stoicism. I find with illness, we need a very strong mindset. To get through. illness can be the greatest gift, it can be the greatest character creator in us and it can really grow us up in a lot of ways. It’s a real gift to be able to live a joyful life despite whatever we’re going through. Unless you can get your mindset calm or happy, it’s very difficult to heal.
Mary believes it’s important to focus on the larger picture in order to find solutions to medical problems.
“I find many people get lost in the weeds,” she said. “People will dissect the body and look at the little parts and say, because of this, I can’t do this. And they’re not looking at the whole body. We need to ask ourselves, is this a nervous system issue? Is this an immune system issue? Is this a hormonal insulin issue? What system do we need to rebuild?”
Mary explained that her work with Captain Soup came about after she experienced personal benefits from eating a soup-only diet when she was sick. “I’m excited to get the word about Captain Soup, because it’s really a great tool you can use when you’re too sick to cook for yourself,” she said.
“When someone consumes nothing but soup, and I mean that quite literally, nothing but soup, it gives the gut a complete rest. We want pre-digested warm, soft food, especially for someone who has microbial imbalance, nervous system dysfunction, immune system dysfunction. Soup allows your gut a complete break, so that it can start to regrow itself. It basically lets the body do its own healing. And most importantly, with a well-formulated soup like Captain Soup, it has good ratios, so high fat and moderate protein and minimal carbohydrates. So it’s very soft, very warm and gentle on the gut lining.”
If you’re interested in hearing more of Mary’s thoughts on nutrition and healing, be sure to visit the 2021 Low Carb San Diego conference event page. The conference will be held live and in-person, but virtual options are also available.
