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P H O T O G R A P H S B Y J O N A S J U N G B L U TS T O R Y B Y S A N D R A S . S O R I AP R O D U C E D B Y J U L E S M O O R E

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I WAS IN MY MID-T WENTIES, and I was practically bedridden. My legs were swollen, my muscles hurt, my belly was bloated like a balloon, and despite what had once been a healthy ap-petite, I weighed in at less than 100 pounds. My gut was a mess, my immune system trashed, and my once exuberant energy nonexistent. It started as unexplained swelling in my legs (40

pounds of water weight that left me unable to wear anything but span-dex) and a misdiagnosis of leukemia, my health spiraled out of control.

� e problem was, no one knew what was wrong with me. For years I schlepped in and out of medical facilities all over the country, including the famed Mayo Clinic, racking up nearly half a million dollars in uncov-ered medical expenses, seeing countless doctors, and giving what seemed like the equivalent of my body weight in blood every few weeks for years. Liver doctors. Kidney doctors. Vascular surgeons. Rheumatologists. He-matologists. � ey didn’t have any answers; they had guesses. And all of them turned out to be wrong. I was put on pain killers, steroids, antibi-otics and water pills and was told that was all doctors could do for me. I spent all of my time and money hoping someone would fi gure me out.

So, after a life-threatening bout with C-diff colitis, I quit my job to fi gure out how to heal myself.

I discovered integrative and functional medicine, embarking on years of self-study. I learned how to stop treating my symptoms with Band-Aid approaches by studying holistic modalities, earning a degree in integrative nutrition along the way. I also gathered a team of inte-grative doctors and healers who helped me identify the root cause. Or in my case, causes: � ey found Lyme disease, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, Bio-fi lm, Myocitis, Hypothyroidism, Epstein Bar, Leaky Gut, Chronic Candida, Small Intestinal Bacteria Overgrowth and so much more. � ese M.D.’s went beyond conventional testing and looked deeper into the root cause of my health issues.

� e bottom line: I was “toxic,” a term western medicine doesn’t understand. You name it. I had it. I was off the charts for heavy met-als, mold and practically everything else they tested me for. What I needed was a full-blown detox in the truest sense of the word—not a trendy 2-day juice cleanse. � e funny thing is, I thought I was healthy (no drinking, drugs or fast food). However, I learned toxins come from countless places—pesticides, toothpaste, dish soap, laun-dry detergent, perfumes, shampoo, processed foods, car exhaust, cos-metics and more. While the word detox is thrown around a lot and is often misunderstood, functional and integrative medicine uses detox practices to reset your digestion and reduce the exposure of toxins.

I reveal this detox journey in my book Eating Clean: � e 21-Day Plan to Detox, Fight Infl ammation, and Reset Your Body, where I go into great detail on how to detox your food, cleaning supplies, personal-care products and beauty products. Being healthy isn’t just about eating clean, it’s about living clean. What we put on our skin gets absorbed into our bloodstream and our liver has to fi lter these toxins to keep us healthy. What I soon realized is that many of the symptoms that we suff er from, everything from acne to arthritis, can be healed by cleaning up your gut health (where almost 70% of your immune system lives) and supporting your liver on a daily basis to remove toxins from our lifestyle. While Western medicine hands us a drug or topical ointment to get rid of the symptoms, it's not address-ing the underlying causes of those symptoms.

One of the most fascinating discoveries I had on my unraveling back to wellness was biofi lm. To my surprise, this wasn’t something that was ever addressed by all those top doctors and medical centers. It was something that was introduced to me by a brilliant woman and friend of mine, Geri Brewster, an integrative R.D. who at the time was helping me balance the bacteria in my gut.

AFTER A DECADE OF SUFFERING WITH HEALTH ISSUES THAT TOP DOCTORS HAD NO ANSWER FOR, AMIE VALPONE HEALED HERSELF BY CLEAN EATING, DEEP DETOXING,

AND DEALING WITH A PERVASIVE CULPRIT WE ALL SHOULD KNOW ABOUT—BIOFILM.

THE ULTIMATE

STORY BY AMIE VALPONE

PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID ENGELHARDT

STYLING BY DANNY SEO

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