A little about our journey…

In 2010, Monica was diagnosed with Celiac’s disease after 2 years of misdiagnoses of skin problems. She was head-to-toe experiencing skin irritations and rashes...literally 90% of her body with this. So finding out she had Celiac’s disease and needing to live a gluten-free lifestyle was actually a blessing. Within weeks of eating a gluten-free diet,  she noticed a huge difference in her skin and the full-body rash started to heal. She has overcome and found ways to manage some sever health challenges that quickly followed; including chronic fatigue, migraines, post-traumatic stress disorder (from an emergency C- section), traumatic grief, medical trauma, anxiety, chronic pain, and fibromyalgia.

 

Because of Monica's diagnoses with Celiac’s disease, Annica decided to get checked as well. She wasn't having the same issues as Monica and actually didn't seem to have major issues she would even relate with Celiac's. At this time she was at a deep depression and disappear going through infertility.  Wanting to create life was a driving force in her.  She invested time, money, and her body into trying everything possible to have more children. The doctors were baffled because they couldn’t find answers to why pregnancy wasn’t occurring. After reading through information about this disease, she thought maybe this could be an answer to the 10 years of infertility, numerous medical & alternative procedures (including 2 rounds of failed IVF).

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So the journey began on how to live a gluten-free lifestyle. Back then there wasn't much about it on the internet and no resources in the community to help connect people going through the same thing. We began discovering how to alter recipes, eat out safely, travel more effectively and find companies that helped us out in this new diagnoses, We also found others were wanting help too! We began teaching and mentoring others with what has helped us and our company of the "Gluten-Free Twins" was born.  

 

In 2014, the same year Annica's celiac blood work came back in normal range, she was so excited to find out she was expecting…with no medical procedures or medicines!  She found there was a great correlation between Celiac's and infertility. The birth of Jedi was evidence of the power of foods, mindset and the healing power of the body. 

 

In 2016 Monica found herself navigating a different type of grief, trauma and loss with the unexpected ending of her marriage for nearly 2 decades to someone she adored. Learning how to cope, forgive and heal a relationship with someone who was still alive instilled a deep love for trauma, grief, forgiveness and resiliency training and healing work. 

 

In December 2019, our mom (who was the biggest health-nut we knew) unexpectedly became very sick and found out she had stage 4 cancer.  She passed in a very quick 10 days. This took us to a place of wanting to understand compounded grief and trauma more. We were extremely close to our mom and she was a "core" relationship for us and our blended family unit. The shock of her "here one day and not the next" opened our eyes to ambiguous loss, grief and the relationship with life/death.

 

In 2020, just months after our mom's passing and right when the Covid-19 pandemic began, Annica went in for a "simple" doctor appointment and found out she had stage 3 cancer. She went through surgery, treatments and healing in a whole new way. This experience effected her stomach very dramatically, with even the "normal" gluten-free foods were causing havoc. This took us both on a journey of the AIP diet and the power of foods differently. It's been a blessing to learn ways to heal the stomach again and gain strength to have life once again. 

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In 2022, Monica too found out she had cancer and was able to remove it quickly and recover faster because of the things we learned together through Annica's cancer experience. 

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Learning ways to get through the changes in life became our drive and motto. What we love to teach and share about is what has helped us come to peace, acceptance and more love in life.