Regina turned her health struggle into a positive business to support others!

My name is Regina Wieland. In April of 2010 Katherine shared my story of how I overcame the symptoms of Crohns Disease, Chronic Back Pain and Psoriasis by eating a plant based diet.  I now have another amazing testimony about the healing benefits of being a Vegan.

Early last year during my regular teeth cleaning, the dentist noticed what he called “shading” on my X -Ray.  After being sent to an oral surgeon and having many more x-rays and tests, they determined that the ”shading” was a large mass in the roof of my mouth.  They needed to do a biopsy find out what it was. At this point I had no idea how serious this was. When they admitted me to the hospital for my outpatient surgery they thought it was cancer.  What was to be a simple biopsy, turned into major surgery. They discovered I had Osteomyelitis (severe bone infection) in the roof of my mouth. It had eaten away all of the bone on one side, and two of my teeth were being held in only with tissue. After spending 5 days in the hospital, they sent me home with an IV port in my arm and I had to receive IV treatments of antibiotics 3 times a day for 6 weeks. I wasn’t able to work due to my compromised immune system.  As if this wasn’t hard enough to deal with, I was told that the bone would not grow back and I would have to have bone grafts to rebuild my mouth. I would also have to have two teeth pulled and replaced with false ones.

Throughout this recovery process I continued to start each day with my homemade fruit smoothies.           I throw in some frozen fruit, soy milk, orange juice, flaxseed and soy protein powder. The only thing we changed was adding a little extra protein powder.  I continued to maintain my normal Vegan way of life,    although I did contact Katherine after I got home from the hospital due to my concern about all the medication I had to take. She gave me great information about things I could add to my diet that would help cleanse by body after the medicine.

Once my mouth healed from the surgery, I had x-rays weekly. What the doctor noticed, was that the bone was starting to grow back! My weekly visits turned to monthly, and now after a year the bone has almost grown back completely.  I have never had to have another surgery nor have my teeth pulled. The doctor was amazed and believes that my recovery was due in large part to my plant based diet & those fruit smoothies.

Regina has started a business, called The Passionate Vegan, that offers personal chef services and to-go meals .  Please check out her website www.passionatevegan.com.  For a sneak peek of her delicious food, she’s shared her chocolate chip cookie recipe with us!