Living with Lupus and Polyautoimmunity: My Journey from Misdiagnosis to Immune Resilience

Kay
May 12
4 min read

Struggling with lupus? Autoimmunity? Discover how detoxification, hormone harmony and nutritionist coaching can help manage flares and fatigue — reach remission from an expert in autoimmune support.

When Healing Felt Like a Full-Time Job (and My World Got Smaller)

Before I even had a clear diagnosis, my life was already shaped by autoimmunity.

Multiple miscarriages, seizures, a growing list of food allergies, skin rashes, and chronic fatigue that left me feeling like I was underwater. I was reacting to more things than I could tolerate - from gluten to perfumes, air fresheners, and even natural skincare products. My skin, joints, and gut were always flaring in one way or another.

What’s even more telling?

I was already diagnosed with alopecia as a child and vitiligo in my teens - two clear autoimmune conditions. But they were brushed off. Overlooked by being told it was IBS. Treated as isolated issues, not the early whispers of a much deeper immune imbalance.

Later, what followed:

Hashimoto’s
Sjogren’s
Lupus SLE and APS
Epilepsy
Psoriatic arthritis
Arthritis

This clustering is known as polyautoimmunity, and it’s more common than most realise. In fact, up to 30% of people with one autoimmune disease go on to develop others, due to shared genetic, environmental, and immune-related factors(Anaya et al., 2006)

Why Was I Doing Everything “Right”… but Feeling Worse?

By this point, I had already qualified as a nutritional therapist and was working as a personal nutritionist near me for clients seeking holistic support. I followed protocols. I tried autoimmune diets, AIP, low histamine, and anti-candida approaches. But still, I kept spiralling into crashes I couldn’t predict.

Here’s what I hadn’t yet connected: Autoimmunity is not just your body attacking itself - it’s an immune confusion driven by cumulative stress, overload, and unresolved inflammation. And most of what I was doing - removing foods, pushing through workouts, fasting - was adding more physiological stress to a system already inflamed.

The Hidden Link Between autoimmunity including Lupus, Histamine, and Toxic Load

The more inflamed your body becomes, the harder your liver has to work to process:

• Histamine

• Environmental toxins

• Oestrogen and hormone metabolites

• Medication residues and food additives

When Phase I and Phase II detoxification pathways can’t keep up, your histamine load rises and you become increasingly sensitive. This has been observed in both mast cell activation disorders and people with chronic inflammatory diseases (Maintz & Novak, 2007).

This isn’t just “random intolerance.” It’s a detox backlog, compounded by gut permeability and enzyme deficiencies that impair histamine breakdown (Comas-Basté et al., 2020).

Symptoms often include:

Skin rashes and hives
Reacting to fermented foods or high-histamine ingredients
Sensitivity to smells and skincare
Bloating, anxiety, flushing, and insomnia
Swinging between constipation and diareah
Heartburn
Brain fog

Repair: The Phase That Most Protocols Skip

The turning point came when I stopped focusing on elimination and started focusing on repair.

✅ Supporting my gut lining with nutrients like zinc carnosine and glutamine (Zhang et al., 2023)

✅ Improving histamine clearance via DAO support, liver cofactors, and binders

✅ Reintroducing diversity to train the immune system to tolerate, not react

✅ Strengthening detox capacity - not pushing it with endless cleanses (de Oliveira et al., 2019)

✅ Addressing root triggers like infections, mould, trauma, and nutrient depletion.

Oral tolerance—the immune system’s ability to accept foods and antigens without overreacting—is regulated by gut barrier health, short-chain fatty acid production, and immune cell regulation in the gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT) (Mowat & Agace, 2014). Disruption in these mechanisms can lead to increased food sensitivities and perpetuate autoimmunity.

A Diagnosis That Changed Everything—But Didn’t Define Me

When I was finally diagnosed with lupus, it wasn’t devastation I felt. It was validation. For years, I had been living in a body I didn’t recognise—doing everything “right” but still spiralling. That diagnosis changed my life. Not because it gave me a label, but because it gave me a language. A map. A way forward. It allowed me to stop guessing—and start supporting my immune system with strategy instead of fear. You are not broken. You are not overreacting. You are not your diagnosis. But you do deserve a plan that honours it.

Why Clients Choose Inspire Nutrition for Autoimmune Resilience

I support root cause and not tape the symptom for:

• Multiple autoimmune conditions

• Histamine intolerance or MCAS

• “Mystery” symptoms dismissed by GPs

• Chronic gut issues with overlapping food reactions.

We use functional testing, trauma-informed coaching, detoxification programs, and nutritional therapy to build a repair-first protocol and a clear road map to how to reach remission. I work both as a nutritionist near you (UK) and abroad.

Struggling with lupus, autoimmunity or debilitating gut symptoms? Discover how detoxification, hormone harmony and nutritionist coaching can help manage flares and fatigue — reach remission from an expert in autoimmune support.