"You have scleroderma. There is no cure. There’s not even a treatment for it. I’m sorry.” “That’s what my rheumatologist and pulmonologist told me. I sat there, stunned, with a diagnosis of an incurable, terminal, autoimmune disease with symptoms which worsened, distorting face and hands, and turning internal organs (such as lungs) solid.

Surely there was something I could do. My father was a Chinese herb doctor/acupuncturist. He said you balance the meridians and the body heals itself. He was curing diabetes back in the mid-Twentieth Century with Chinese herbs. People flew in from all over the world. I saw them get well. I knew it was real. I did the urine tests.

The scleroderma website said there was no evidence that particular foods made any difference in the disease, for better or worse. I didn’t believe that. I had watched “Forks Over Knives,” read “The China Study,” and had been to the Gerson Institute where I learned to juice and eat a strict diet of foods that Dr. Max Gerson had discovered cured degenerative diseases, one of which is cancer. I set about to change my choices in food and did a lot of Tapping for the release of trauma in my life.

Still, I was floundering. I didn’t know which foods to eat. I had been vegan for two years, and some of the symptoms had stopped, but I was weak and 97 pounds. I felt something was missing in my diet, but I didn’t know what.

Then, out of the blue, Danielle Duperret popped back into my life. She found my website and made contact. We had been friends back in the 1980s when I met her, but she’d moved away and we’d lost track of each other. Now, at the point of my greatest need, there she was, trained in nutrition and willing to help.

We corresponded for months, her gentle encouragement and wealth of knowledge offered generously. Finally I took the nutritional survey of brain chemistry, metabolic type and blood type, and back came a diet of foods that were ideal, all the way to foods to avoid.

It was very difficult at first, because almost everything I was eating regularly was bad for scleroderma, but Danielle helped me with the thrashing and hostility that comes with having to totally change one’s diet. On the other hand, I had begun to go downhill, so I agreed to give it a three-week trial period. I began to see improvement almost immediately. I had more energy. I felt less toxic. My teeth stopped being so sensitive. I could think better and had more stamina.

I have recommended Danielle to friends with incurable autoimmune diseases and one with a bizarre reaction to poisonous insect bites that has lasted for more than twenty-five years. Danielle is able to get to the bottom of the issue, drawing from an array of eclectic healing techniques.

Today, I’m on the mend. I have discovered the joys of foods I’ve never eaten before (such as Jerusalem artichokes), and don’t mind not eating foods I love (such as rice), because I don’t want anything I put in my mouth to slow down my recovery. Danielle said it was not forever that I’d have to be on this strict diet; it was only until I was well.

Back at the beginning of my healing journey, the Lord Jesus told me I would get well, but it would take longer and be harder than I thought. It has certainly taken longer, and changing my food so drastically has been harder, but now I know what to eat, what to avoid, and I can feel the relief in my body as it no longer fights the food I eat. I give it things that help it heal (such as Bing cherries, quinoa, and bison) and it responds with deep, restful sleep and a greater ability to concentrate, and to deal serenely with stress. I truly believe Danielle’s finding me at my point of desperation was a divine appointment designed to put me in contact with the one person I would trust to provide the answers I needed most. 

I am most grateful."