Psoriasis healing story of CNN News anchor

Zain Verjee, 41, was born and raised in Kenya. She is a journalist, worked for CNN for almost 14 years. Earlier she worked as a News Reader and at the time of quitting her job, she was anchoring the Europe Morning Show for CNN International from London. Now she has started her own production company.

So, what’s special in that? Why I am telling you all this?

Here it goes- She got psoriasis at the age of 8, a case of severe psoriasis. Her scalp was covered with thick silvery white psoriasis patches. On cracking, puss and blood would come from these psoriasis flakes. Also, these flakes used to fall on her clothes and her chair every time. Every day in the morning, her pillow would have a lot of broken hairs and broken psoriasis flakes. Thick layers of psoriasis scales were present inside her ears and on the area behind her ears. In an unfortunate incident, she was asked to leave the swimming pool because her psoriasis covered body was making other people uncomfortable. She was 22 at that time.

So, I am really curious to know that how she managed to heal her psoriasis to such an extent that she was confident enough to show her face to millions of people everyday. I am sure that your curiosity is no less than mine. Let us reveal her psoriasis healing story in her own words.

Psoriasis Diet is the long term solution for Zain Verjee

In her own words, a restricted psoriasis diet is the best way to get long term healing results. But, to follow a strict psoriasis diet is not a cake walk. It needs a lot of self discipline, a very strong will power and enormous family support. Without the support of her mother, it would not have been possible for her to fulfill her dream of becoming a journalist and show her face to millions of people every day through the television.

She visited a clinic in South Africa along with her mother to get some help. There she was told about the importance of diet and other healing techniques like meditation and positive visualization. She found Dr Pagano’s book about natural healing of psoriasis useful as well. She emphasized on self education about the science of natural healing and the role of diet to design a personal diet regimen.

It is really interesting to know that with diet and lifestyle changes, she enjoyed a remission period of 10 years. Yeah, you heard it right, a time period of whole 10 years when she restricted her psoriasis symptoms to such a large extent that she was living a completely normal life where psoriasis was not driving her life anymore. Recently she experienced a flare up and she is trying her best to board the wagon of holistic healing of psoriasis again 🙂

Her diet regimen

Foods not allowed

Refined sugar, tea, coffee, soda, red meat (except lamb), shellfish, eggs, citrus fruits, mushroom, nightshade vegetables (tomato, white potato, eggplant, chili pepper, paprika), white refined flour products (white bread, pizza, hot dog, bakeries), white rice, yeast, plum, strawberry, blueberry and dairy products. Alcohol and tobacco (smoking) is also not allowed.

Avoid processed food and packaged (canned) drinks having preservatives or flavoring agents.

Foods she would eat

Vegetables– broccoli, spinach, cucumber, celery, french beans, carrots, cabbage, sweet potato, and most of green leafy vegetables. She enjoys a lot of green leafy salads without any salt or dressing.

Fruits– Apple, pear, banana, papaya, pear, apricot, avocado, melons

Dairy– low fat milk and low fat plain yogurt (without added sugar)

Grains and legumes– Brown rice, whole grain bran and whole grain pasta

Liquids– Apple juice, melon juice, freshly prepared vegetable juice, low fat milk. Not to forget to drink a lot of water

Meat and fish– Grilled fish and plain grilled chicken (lamb is fine). Grilled turkey breast and roasted duck (white meat)

Miscellaneous– Almonds, dates, prunes, honey.

She recommends olive oil for cooking and drinking warm lemon water in the morning.

Things beyond Diet

Physical Exercise– Regular exercise and workout for 1-2 hours a day

Vitamin Supplements– Vitamin A, B12, D, Folic acid and Zinc

Herbal teas– American Yellow saffron tea, chamomile tea

Steam bath– Sweating in the steam room for 30-60 minutes a day

Meditation and Relaxation– Meditation and creative visualization for 1-2 sessions of 30 minutes each. Creative visualization or positive visualization is the technique that used imagination and affirmations to make the goals and dreams come true. She would imagine that she is following her diet and lifestyle commitments sincerely and her skin condition is improving. She would imagine while relaxing on the floor of her bedroom that her skin is improved and she is sunbathing at the beach.

Read more: Sunlight, Vitamin D and Psoriasis

Regular meditation and relaxation practice helped her to maintain a positive attitude towards life by keeping stress at bay.

Topical creams– Nature based herbal topical creams, free from any side effects. She didn’t mention any brand name.

Things to learn from her Psoriasis healing story

If she can rise above her skin struggle and achieve her dream of becoming a TV journalist, then there is no reason that why we can’t heal our psoriasis. What we need is- a firm dedication, a positive frame of mind and openness about the problem. Once we are open about our problem, then the people around would also us with all they have.

One more thing- most of the diet rules followed in her diet regimen are common to all of us. We have learnt about them in Dr Pagano diet regimen and Alkaline diet program. But, we need not to follow her diet program blindly. Just use it as a reference, design your own diet program. I am sure that we have a lot of diet rules in various articles of this blog. So, I am sure that you would be able to design your own diet program, best suited to you.

Conclusion

First of all, let us be thankful to Zain Verjee for sharing her amazing journey from severe psoriasis to becoming a successful TV journalist. Also, it is so generous of her to share her psoriasis healing story in detail for benefit of all of us. We wish her the best of success in all her future endeavors.

She has recommended a healthy psoriasis diet, positive changes in lifestyle, positive attitude towards life and enormous family support to deal with psoriasis. Her psoriasis healing story gives all of us a ray of hope and motivate us to start our own journey of holistic healing.

“Never quit, keep walking on the path of holistic healing and live a better life. You are bigger than psoriasis.”

Read her full article on CNN here.