It’s the kind of story that the Arabian Business “resilience” section, which we introduced late in 2020, was designed to tell. On an exclusive podcast, Mikhaila Peterson charts her extraordinary story of how she decided to deal with 20-plus years of chronic health issues by bypassing the medical profession altogether, undertaking a journey of self-diagnosis that has resulted in meat-only diet and a bucketful of mental fortitude.
From the age of two, Mikhaila Peterson suffered from an agonising condition that doctors labelled “idiopathic rheumatoid arthritis” – which meant they could identify the symptoms of swollen joints but not the cause. It ultimately resulted in hip and ankle replacement surgery in her teens and prolonged bouts of depression. After being told that this condition was permanent, and feeling a prisoner in a body that refused to respond to medication, she took matters into her on hands and, through a process of elimination diets, discovered almost all of her issues were down to food.
The health issues didn’t quote stop there, though. She caught Covid last year and was then a principal carer for her father, noted academic Jordan Peterson, who suffered his severe own auto-immune problems as a result of anxiety medication.
Now 29 and with a young daughter, she has decided to chart it all in a new book – which is set to be released this year. During an extended family trip to Dubai, a means of escaping both lockdown measures and the cold winter of her home, she paid a visit to our studios to chart how she battled through it all and why she is working on both a book – provisionally titled “Could be Worse” – and an app with her father to promote resilience and wellness.
The conversation also touched on her work managing her father’s time, the ongoing culture wars and her own, highly successful podcast.
(Source: ArabianBusiness YouTube channel)
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