So, here's what I do, what I know works, and what will definitely work to fix your problem:
1. I don't consume any meat or dairy. Not only are they a digestive burden in terms of energy, they contain a lot of proteins and other various natural compounds that your body does not like and which cause chronic inflammation and immune response.
2. I consume mostly leafy greens, vegetables, sprouted microgreens, a small amount of nuts, a limited amount of fruit, a few tablespoons of chia/ground flax seed; supplements like vitamin B12, D3, selenomethionine, biotin, iodine (Lugol's formula), and vitamin C; I also take certain herbs/adaptogenic supplements like maca root powder and ashwagandha; and I only drink water, nothing else. I do not cook any food and I do not consume grains. All of this on a daily basis. I get an incredible amount of nutrition with a very low caloric density and I'm giving my body as much room as possible to allow it to use the energy it needs to repair itself rather than using it to digest the overburdening high calorie, difficult-to-digest, and inflammatory foods. VERY occasionally, I will allow myself to eat something cooked, but I keep it healthy... like a cooked sweet potato/yam. I do this because it's nice to have a warm, cooked meal here and there, but I'm very disciplined with what I eat, so this is like maybe once every month or every few months. I don't set some interval because I don't want to look forward to it. I just focus on maintaining the diet I eat and if one day I just feel like I really want something cooked, then I'll eat it. It's usually only a one-day deviation, though. Do not consume any oils. The only oil you should be consuming is the oil that is naturally occurring inside the nut or fruit or plant that you just ate. When oils are pressed out of plants, firstly, you're simply consuming too much fat and it becomes burdensome to your digestion, and, secondly, these oils immediately begin to oxidize when they are exposed to the air (basically, the second they leave the plant they came from). If you blend fruits or vegetables up in a blender and then let it sit for 10 or 15 minutes, you'll notice that bright pink color from the strawberries begin to turn brown or discolor. Same principle. It's been exposed to the air and it oxidizing. It's worse for oils, though, because oxidized unsaturated fatty acids cause vascular inflammation and contribute a great deal to the modern causality of cardiovascular disease. Any inflammation that you cause to your body through the food you consume, remember that it will cost you in energy and resources. Your body has to deal with that inflammation... it can't just ignore it... which means it has to use it's own energy to create chemicals and immune cells to neutralize that inflammation. When your body is so overburdened with chronic inflammatory immune responses that it doesn't have enough energy or resources to deal with the amount of inflammation it's experiencing on a daily basis, this is when "autoimmune" conditions start to manifest outwardly in the body (like skin problems, arthritis, digestive problems, etc.).
3. I fast. Specifically, I perform long-term water-only fasts. I eat nothing and drink only water for a period of days to weeks. The longer, the better. Ideally, if you could go between 2-3 weeks that would be a good target, but it will likely take a few tries going only for a few days. Some people are very determined and they can go straight from never having fasted to fasting for 2 or 3 weeks. As determined as I am, I only went around 5-6 days the first time I fasted, but it was during the winter and my body doesn't deal with cold temperatures well.
Start with adjusting your diet and begin doing research on the benefits of water only fasting (search for benefits specifically regarding healing, not weight loss) and how to plan for a fast. I have found this resource to be spot on in terms of what to expect when fasting:
What are the common stages of water fasting and what occurs at various stages during the fast? > Fasting > Water Fasting
www.curezone.org
It helps you to stay committed while fasting when you have an idea of what to expect at each stage of fasting, which is why I think this information is valuable.
If you have the financial resources, there is also a clinic in Santa Rosa, CA called True North that will help you do the fast. They have a team of medical doctors monitoring you daily throughout the fast and you stay at their facility for the entirety of the fast. They also feed you for a period after the fast to make sure that you recover properly. Doing fasting alone without the diet can work, but it will be slower and the benefits are less likely to persist since you will be dumping inflammatory garbage back in your body as soon as you're finished fasting. Likewise, changing the diet alone without fasting can work, but it will be slower than doing both. The first time I healed from 5AR inhibitor use, I didn't really do any long-term water fasting... I only had a very strict diet. So, it is possible to heal without the fasting, but I would do both because.. why not get better faster. Not only that, you'll likely feel far better than you ever have at any point in your life when your body has repaired itself.
Keep in mind that I'm not recommending these things to you from a dogmatic perspective. I'm not a vegan and I don't have some other reason or crazy ideology behind the way that I eat. I consistently do what I do because I've proven it is the best way to live based not just on my own experience, but also base in actual scientific logic and reasoning, much of that being deduced from clinical literature. I definitely stay away from all dairy, but I do have meat once a year and sometimes 2 or 3 times if there are very special occasions that come up. If you're wondering how I eat and you picture me sitting here as I'm writing this just eating plain-*** romaine lettuce, that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm just eating whole leaves of romaine lettuce. It's actually quite a simple and refreshing lifestyle. I don't have to think or worry about how to prepare or cook food. I just eat it as it is. It's kind of boring, but you adapt and your taste begins to change and soon you're able to discern very subtle flavors you never could before. Things that taste bland become bright and colorful. Things that once tasted bitter to you become sweet (for real). When you're not flooding your body with excessive sugars and salt, your taste will change.
At some point, you may think to yourself "what's the point in doing all this or living if I can't even enjoy food I've always enjoyed?" And that would be a valid question if doing this didn't actually cause major positive changes in your body chemistry. However, it does. It will take a little time to adjust to the taste of these foods. Not too long, but maybe a few weeks. It will also take around a month to two months for your digestive system to get used to eating this way. You'll have diarrhea and an upset stomach and then it will just stop after a few weeks. This is because your intestinal bacterial profile is adjusting to a new ecosystem. Bacteria that normally feed on fermented meats and grains will have some adverse interactions and then they will die off as colonies of different types of bacteria that feed on plant matter replace them. Your digestion will become very clean and you'll begin to notice that you have a lot more energy and that you don't need as much sleep as you normally have needed.
I've been doing this for awhile now (probably 4-5 years at this point) and believe me, if the benefits of doing this didn't far outweigh the enjoyment I used to get from eating foods I ate before deciding to follow this lifestyle, I definitely would not continue doing it. And it's not like I can't eat those things anymore... I just don't really have any desire to eat them anymore because I almost always instantly regret it due to the way it makes me feel after eating it. Sometimes I do it anyway, but very rarely because I like feeling good more than I like the pleasure I get from eating certain foods.
Anyway that's about it. If you diligently and consistently do what I've told you regarding diet... at least for around 3 months... you'll easily recognize very positive physiological changes and those changes will give you the encouragement and incentive to continue down that path until you feel like you're completely healed. And then, when you feel like you're fully healed and maybe you want to experiment with eating other foods again, then go for it. You control what goes into your body.. not some ideology. I doubt you'll want to change, though, after experiencing the huge physiological changes. There's probably a whole lot more I could say, but it's just far too much to put into a post. If you have any questions, just ask. Remember, the goal is to put your body into a state in which it can heal itself.. and most of that is accomplished by getting out of its way by not putting things in it that are burdensome. It's not necessarily the healthy things you put in your body the make you healthy. 80% of the battle is not consuming things that are burdensome to your body and the rest is giving your body easily digestible nutrient dense food.
