I finally met Kerri Dodson when I invited her to speak at the Palmetto Plant Eaters Club in December 2019. I’m surprised that it took so long as we are both very passionate about eating well and teaching others how to do so also. Kerri is a Certified Master Health, Wellness and Nutrition Coach, Certified Nutrition Therapist, and a candidate for Board Certification as a Master Nutrition Therapist. She focuses on helping those who are dealing with age-related weight gain, high cholesterol, fatigue, high A1C, dementia, or who are just looking for better overall health. Kerri also specializes in reversing autoimmunity with whole food nutrition. Much of Kerri’s nutritional education was spurred by her own severe health challenges which she has overcome.
Kerri struggled with her weight and infertility when she worked as a risk manager in law firms in her 30’s. She lost the weight through conventional means and began to sense that there was something more to wellness than just the number on the scale. She started reading voraciously about all aspects of natural health and became a health coach and went on to study nutrition science with the Nutritional Therapy Institute. She plans to pursue the national board certification and then start doing studies at the Institute for Functional Medicine. She is now 50 years old and says that she will have everything in place by the time she is 60. Kerri believes in four pillars of health: lifestyle, education, attitude, and nutrition.
Carla: When you spoke at the Palmetto Plant Eaters Club, you shared with us how you healed yourself from Lyme Disease. How long did this take and how did you do it?
Kerri: Despite being told that I could never conceive children, I had my son in 2013 who was a lovely addition to my teenage step-daughter and teenage adopted daughter. He was almost 3 years old when I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease. I was bitten by a tick in my backyard as I was cleaning it up. I didn’t think much about it until I started to get too tired to exercise (not good for a fitness instructor!) and a general sense of just not feeling well. At the same time my father went through some health scares and I thought my lethargy was due to the stress from handling his episodes. Slowly it started to get worse and I thought maybe it was adrenal fatigue. I developed pain in the area of my spleen that became unbearable.
I went to a functional medicine doctor in Savannah, Georgia, who spent two hours with me for my first appointment. The lymph nodes in my abdomen were so swollen that she could feel them. The doctor diagnosed me within weeks with Lyme Disease and I started treatment immediately. My CD57 test result was a 6 which is the lowest she had ever seen. I basically had no immune system and had to be on antibiotics for a whole year and my supplements were $800 a month. About 10 months in I started to feel much better but I still had a lot of inflammation. Sometimes just my shirt would hurt where it touched my abdomen. But my joints didn’t hurt, I no longer had numb patches on my head, and I didn’t feel like bugs were crawling on my feet anymore so I wanted to start weaning off the antibiotics.
Carla: Did the doctor speak to you about your diet?
Kerri: She knew that I ate relatively well though I was still eating animal products. There were times when I wasn’t feeling well and my husband wanted to make dinner for me and I’d request four strips of bacon. Ack! I attended the Remedy Food Project’s Whole Food, Plant-Based (WFPB) Nutrition Conference in November 2017 on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. All meals were provided with the conference so for four whole days I ate nothing but whole plant food. The last day in the hotel I was getting dressed, not thinking twice, and buttoning my jeans which I normally had to do delicately due to the pain and inflammation, but it was gone. Four days! It was amazing! I went home and told my husband I was going to eat WFPB for a solid 30 days.
Carla: How did that go and did your family join you?
Kerri: I did it just for me and I didn’t count the days. I haven’t stopped. My children aren’t on board with me but my husband went plant-based last July after having a horrible seizure in his sleep due to an adverse antibiotic reaction. He was like me in that he got sick enough and scared. Now he’ll eat any plant-based meal I create. He’s lost 30 pounds, his cholesterol dropped 20 points the first week, his blood pressure medications have been cut in half, his inflamed tennis shoulder has stopped bothering him, and his joints don’t creak and crack anymore. He came home a couple of months ago from playing tennis and told me that he had one regret in life. He said he wished he had gone vegan years ago. He’s playing the best tennis of his life.
Carla: Do you identify as a lifestyle vegan or a plant-based eater?
Kerri: It’s like when you start running. You do a run walk run walk then you do a 5K, then a 10K, then a half-marathon, then a full-marathon. Transitioning to this lifestyle is like that. There are steps. When you learn more and get stronger, you keep going. I started for health reasons. I’d eat fish on occasion but I can’t do that anymore for ethical reasons. Once you start down this path, it’s a natural progression and I’m still progressing. I no longer buy leather but I do still have some leather items. I’ve become more conscious about my cosmetics and toiletries for health and ethical reasons.
Carla: How is your health now?
Kerri: My health now is awesome! I think I have healed 95% from my Lyme disease. I believe there may always be some residual inflammation in my joints, but I can manage that well as long as I keep my dietary sugar intake low. I am 50 years old and “in that age range” (ie: perimenopause) but even that hasn’t been so tough and I credit a plant based diet. I truly feel that if I had not gone plant-based my health would not be as good as it is.
Carla: What a great testimonial for the healing potential of a healthful, plant-based, active lifestyle. Kudos to you! Best of luck with your studies and I look forward to keeping up with your ongoing success story.
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