After a shock diagnosis, Roveena Gata-Aura found herself on a personal wellness journey that led her to go vegan
Real life stories
Growing up in an Indian household, Roveena enjoyed a varied diet and ate a range of cuisines from all over the world. She was fit and active, enjoying pilates and box fit as well as travelling regularly, so when she was diagnosed with an auto-immune condition it came out of the blue.
“Around 2010, I started noticing inflammation in my hands and joints and was eventually diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA),” she tells us. “I, like many people, associated arthritis with older people, so the diagnosis did not make sense to me at the time. But I quickly learnt that RA, an autoimmune condition, can happen to anyone, at any age.
“I was swiftly prescribed high strength anti-inflammatory and disease-modifying anti-rheumatic medications to help with managing the pain and reduce the risk of any joint damage,” says Roveena. “I also had to have regular blood tests and eye tests due to the medications I was on. However, the general symptoms from the RA and the side-effects from the medications were intermittent and the chronic pain I was experiencing was debilitating emotionally and physically, which meant that I had to take a day at a time, due to my symptoms presenting differently each day.”
The diet link
Roveena began noticing that her symptoms got worse after eating certain foods (particularly nightshades). “I recall clearly having a conversation with my rheumatologist at the time and requesting advice about nutrition for my condition,” she says. “But I was informed that nutrition was completely anecdotal, and the only dietary advice he suggested was to perhaps remove tomatoes from my diet.”
This led to a personal health journey in which Roveena studied and explored how she could better support her condition through food, and she completed a post-graduate degree in Evidenced-Based Nutrition Science in 2020.
“My goal was to eventually come off the medication and manage my condition through diet and lifestyle. I knew it was ambitious and would not be a straightforward or quick journey. I initially focused on a Mediterranean-style diet, but over time I changed my dietary habits and focused on a more whole food plant-based approach, although not fully, due to doubts around my own self-compliance. My blood test results and symptoms were showing progressively noticeable improvements, but I was still not close to achieving complete remission.”
Take the plunge
After a conversation with a friend in De
