
When You Feel like You are Not Healing Yourself on GAPS
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*content contains graphic images of rashes. do not scroll down if you don’t want to see!*
That moment of doubt when your symptoms don’t go away or start to get worse even though you may have been on GAPS for months at this point. When you really start to wonder, “Is this even working?”
PREACH. I have never suffered from this feeling more than the last time I went on GAPS Intro. I had to go back on this protocol as an emergency- due to my skin initially, and then because my doctor figured out I had lyme disease, which is why my skin wasn’t getting better.Then we realized it wasn’t actually the lyme that was making me so sick, it was the record-breaking amount of a pesticide called 2-4D in my system.If you want to know more details, you can read about my story here.
Rashes
{{{P.S. ***This post contains some pretty graphic, sensitive pictures of rashes. If you do not want to see that sort of thing, do NOT keep reading, and do NOT scroll down!***]]]
Regardless, this is what my skin looked like when my GAPS practitioner recommended I go back on GAPS intro immediately, which would be the start of my 5th time on GAPS intro.
Pretty gnarly.I wish someone would have told me this was only the beginning of my skin stuff during this intro round.Even though Becky Plotner, my GAPS practitioner + invaluable mentor-hero, did tell me I had a lot to detox. I just couldn’t really grasp what that meant at the time. And even now, the amount of toxic substance I need to expel from my body still boggles my mind.
Well, when I went back on GAPS intro and got serious about detox support, this above rash went away in about a week and I could start wearing pants again haha. All seemed well. And then a couple of days later… another rash appeared by my eye. This stayed for about a month.
Then this rash migrated down my face to under my nose and around my mouth. This stayed for about 4 months.

January 2020

March 2020
Not Getting Better After Almost 6 Months
Why am I not getting better?!?! I would ask Becky every single time I saw her.Why is this taking so long?I’m self conscious about going out in public because I have rashes all over my face. And deep down inside, even though GAPS had worked so well for me before my toxic exposure to all of these pesticides, I started wondering, ‘is GAPS even real, or is this all bullshit?’
Becky just kept on telling me that I had a lot to detox. That I had a lot of toxins to shed and that they were choosing to come out through my face, for whatever reason. I just needed to be diligent about detox support and keep going. BTW, I had been on extended stage 2 for at least 4 months at this point (if you’ve done this, you know how intense it is!). Way past the point where I felt like I was supposed to be feeling better. My skin was definitely supposed to be cleared up by now! Historically, my skin had always cleared within weeks of intro.
Also being really fixated on my rashes, it was easy to ignore my other physical stuff that was most definitely improving- I started sleeping through the night better, and after 2 months of not being strong enough to leave my house, I was able to go out into the world again, run errands, that sort of thing. And I was passing parasites all the time! But my progress all happened SO SLOWLY that it almost came as a shock when the major healing milestones would hit.I tried introducing quail eggs 5 separate times before they actually started working.Dairy took even longer.
But around the 6 month mark of extended stage 2 GAPS intro, I had healed my egg and dairy allergies (confirmed via blood test), my insomnia, passed what seemed like a million parasites + parasite eggs, ~40 gallstones, was able to leave the house, and started being able to work again. And yet, the rashes just kept morphing, moving, shifting over my skin, but they were not going away!
Every time I would meet with Becky she would basically say the same thing- just be patient and support yourself with detox. So for all the clients I’ve told this to, I know how you feel! It ultimately sucks hearing this answer. haha.
Confirmation Detox was the Culprit
However, after about 6 months on GAPS intro, Becky and I decided that I was probably strong enough to start taking iodine orally. Now iodine is the strongest medicine known to man in my humble opinion. No parasite, bacteria, fungus, virus, or cancer can survive in the presence of it. It also chelates metals, which I knew I had a lot of. Iodine was the most heavily prescribed chemical in America before the pharmaceutical industry became what it is today.
Describing iodine is its own thing, worthy of its own post. So I’m not going to get into the ‘hows’ here. Also, I do not recommend trying this without a skilled practitioner supervising you! It’s really dangerous, and if you do not know what you’re doing, you can end up giving yourself hashimotos.
I had been taking iodine for 5 days (3 days at one drop, and my 2nd day at 2 drops) when the biggest, scariest, most intense rash of my life started. You guessed it, more detox.
It started out like this.
And grew into this.

front of my leg. You can see the rash bubbling where the toxic gases are coming out.

no bones in sight! Also can see where I am forming a double butt cheek from the swelling.

comparing the left side to the right side, swelling wise. Pay special attention to the line where my leg connects to my torso and how puffed out it is.

And how it’s wrapped around, almost crossing over my spine! Leaving one free side that I could lay down on for 4 days straight.
This rash hurt and itched at the same time. Hot showers were my only relief and I would have to get up and take a few throughout the night because I was so uncomfortable. My hip was so swollen I could not walk right, and I could not sit on the toilet. I stopped eating for 4 days.
The Solution
I had an emergency meeting with Becky, and she advised me on how to stop the rash (stopping the iodine was the first order of business!), but none of it worked. I finally just stopped eating (definitely was not hungry!) and started taking 4 of these turmeric extract pills every hour along with 6 of these adrenal glandular pills per day.
After being bedridden, stuck on one side for 4 days, the swelling started to go down, my rash stopped oozing and pussing as much, and I started to regain my range of motion. I was out of commission for a week total, but it felt like I had been out for a lifetime. Like I had been transported to another universe for a vision quest, and feeling better had just landed me back on planet earth.
Arguably, this rash, the worst rash of my life, could mean that the state of my health was horrible, right? That GAPS wasn’t working. But in hindsight, that’s not what happened at all. Becky explained that iodine acts as a pump. She used the example that when you are pumping water up from a well, the first few times you pump it, nothing happens, nothing comes up, but you are creating the suction. So the first few days of iodine were fine for me. But then, when the iodine actually started removing the metals from my system, the yeast that was attached to these metals (yeasts bind to metals to protect you) started dying.
And when yeast die, each of these cells emits 176 toxic gases- ethanol (alcohol), acetone (nail polish remover), acetylaldehyde (10x stronger than alcohol, changes shape of proteins and can induce autoimmunity), etc, which is what caused my reaction to be the way it was- absolutely frighteningly horrendous.
After the fact, when Becky and I met again, she promised that I would never have a reaction that bad again. That the worst was over. She said usually a reaction like that only happens once, but if it did happen again (which in my case, it could because my toxic load was so high) it would be more mild.

this is what my rash looked like when it was healing. It took a couple weeks for this mark to fully go away. No scarring surprisingly.
The Transformation
My body was definitely different after that. After previously only being able to tolerate 1 cup of kefir at a time (kefir kills pathogenic yeast), I could drink as much as I wanted up to 1 quart and beyond. A month later, my nut sensitivity of 7 years ‘disappeared,’ and I went on a 3 hour hike in the mountains with people I had just met vs. at the beginning of my GAPS intro journey, I could not even go on a walk at all. Period.
The rash that had been on my face for 5 months in it’s various forms finally went away- a few weeks after my ultimate rash from hell healed. And it has been gone ever since.
And though my torso-butt-leg rash DID come back, it came back with less of a vengeance.

Way less intense! For this one I took turmeric capsules every few hours. Required 3 days of rest to heal vs. a whole week for the first one.
And then another time…

I found this one right before I went camping last weekend and didn’t do anything about it. It was fine + comfortable without treatment.

same rash as above: 1 week after regular detox support
Even When I Didn’t Believe I was Getting Better
So… I could tell myself I wasn’t getting better, but the reality was that I very much was. Last week I went on a 4 day camping trip! I did not treat that rash or baby it at all. I also went 4 days without detox support, which is a record for me. And a supposed ‘no no’ in a situation like this. I usually do an enema, sunbathe, and take a detox bath every single day, but I was fine without it.
In the past, I would have freaked out, canceled the camping trip, and waited for the rash to expand and explode.

July 2020. Happier and MUCH healthier 😀
But today, even though I’m still technically getting small rashes, I know that it’s from detox and that my immune system can handle it. I’m confident that I’m going to be fine, and I don’t have to freak out because my rashes are not going to be the big deal that they once were. I’m now free to live my life however I choose.And even though I am not 100% cured, I have DEFINITELY healed.
GAPS Certified Instructional Videos so that You can Transform Your Life
It took me: 3.5 years on GAPS, a lyme diagnosis, record-breaking amounts of pesticides in my body, an incredible amount of heavy metals, a GAPS practitioner certification, and 8 months working intensely with one of the top GAPS Practitioners in the world before I figured out how to do GAPS right + truly started healing myself. I don’t think it should take that much time, suffering, or study for you.
That’s why I created the GAPS Certified Instructional Videos approved by Dr. Natasha’s Son to completely change the way people go on GAPS forever. You’re in the right place if you want to See the Videos.
You are a phoenix reborn!
Hahaha I guess I am!!! 😀 😀 😀
Great article and very inspiring.
Thanks! I’m happy to hear that it resonated with you.
Woah so crazy you have been on intro so many times! What are Indicators that you need to go back on intro?
That’s a good question. Very nuanced, so I cannot put it all into this reply. But basically when you are not getting the physical support you need on full GAPS.
I can’t thank you enough to have put yourself out there and show us all what your detox has looked like.
I’m having rashes myself, mild ones, but this feeling of is this healing or just a reaction strikes me a lot.
This helped loads.
I’m happy for you Lauren.
And thank you so much again.
My best wishes to you, as always.
Thank you so much, Maria! Yes the feeling of ‘is this healing or a reaction?’ is one of the most emotionally triggering aspects of healing that I’ve experienced so far, and I wanted to speak to that. So glad you got something out of it. And I appreciate your kind words. <3 <3 <3
How awful! Thank you for using this to encourage the rest of us. I have definitely wondered from time to time if I am healing or not. I have the exact same rash under my eye!
Awful & Awe-some. I agree haha. Yeah the eye is a really common place to get these rashes, as the skin is thin and so it is the path of least resistance for toxins to come out.
Thank you Lauren, for your blog that is so enlightening and detailed, for your honesty and for the transparency and love you have for this difficult and amazing path that is GAPS, thanks for sharing. I also travel a tortuous path, I have been in the extended second stage for more than 21 months, with escape attempts but always without success. My suspicion of heavy metals led me to Becky, who immediately pointed out the way forward. But the question is, how did you camp for 4 days? What did you eat? How do you take GAPS with you ?? 😀 Best wishes!! Kiss kiss!
Andreia, OMG i FEEL for you! Yes, Becky is amazing. We are so lucky to have her.
As far as camping goes, I did not have to change what I ate at all! My partner and I have a gigantic cooler and a really nice propane stove. I think the main thing was that I prepared all of my food in advance (and brought all my meat stock + fermented brines as well!). It was car camping, but we were able to camp a little further in the woods and bring the cooler with us. Since that trip, I’ve had the most adventurous summer that I’ve had in 6 years. All thanks to that cooler, that stove, and probably Becky. hahaha 😉
Hi Lauren,
You say you went camping without your detox support. What did you not take?
Lorna Beech
Hey Lorna,
I did not do any enemas on my camping trip and did not take any detox baths. Usually if I skipped even a day of either of one of these I would break out into a rash. But I was fine on the camping trip for 4 whole days. 😀
Hi Lauren, I read your article again and I remembered to ask you if after the worst, would you start taking iodine again? Kiss kiss
I definitely intend on taking iodine again! I know it has so much medicine to offer me. I’ve just had to wait until more healing happens. And though I feel physically ready to try again right now, I am currently looking for a place to live and thousands of people just lost their homes [due to fire] in Southern Oregon. So I’m still waiting. It’s important to have a safe, stable home environment when embarking on an intensive detox journey as well. <3