Lost Garden

Ágoston Dóka – or as most people know him, Guszti – reads our blog. Our writings, especially my struggles and journey, inspired him to share his own story. Not just to recount what he has been through but also to inspire others, give hope, and perhaps help those who see themselves in his situation.

“If even one person sees themselves in my situation and draws strength from my experiences to not give up, it will have been worth it,” he wrote to us when he first reached out.

Guszti’s story is an example of resilience, determination, and faith – because sometimes, when nothing seems to help, one realization can change everything. Below, we share his story, which is not only inspiring but might even be life-changing for those who have been battling unexplained pain, illnesses, and symptoms for years.

Guszti’s Personal Story

So, here’s my situation: for the past 25–30 years, everything has hurt. Muscles, joints – it feels like I’m rusted at a cellular level. I’ve always felt like I was functioning at just 60–70%. Now, after turning 50, that might not sound surprising, but I’ve been feeling this way for 30 years – I wasn’t 50 back then.

I’ve never experienced the joy of movement because even getting out of bed in the morning was painful. Despite this, I’ve kept exercising – running, cycling, working out – in spite of the pain because if I hadn’t, I’m certain I wouldn’t be alive today.

Almost every month, and often weekly, I had to take a packet of Flector powder just to get through my daily tasks. To give you an idea, I couldn’t even stand on one leg to put the other into my pant leg while getting dressed because my hip joints hurt so much. If I lay on my side with my legs straight, I couldn’t lift the top leg because my joints were in such pain.

This condition also took a massive toll on me mentally. There were many times when I had suicidal thoughts because of the hopelessness of the situation. Of course, I’d never act on them because I have a family to care for, and I can’t cause them that kind of pain.

My other problem, which has also persisted for more than 30 years, is the cracks at the tips of my fingers that are excruciatingly painful whenever they touch anything. I constantly had to tape up my fingertips because the pain was driving me insane. There were times when they would bleed, and I was on the verge of tears. Sometimes, 5-6 of my fingers were taped at the same time. And this went on for decades, day in and day out.

I went through countless examinations, spent hundreds of thousands on blood tests, and visited doctor after doctor, but no one could tell me what was wrong. Long story short, I’ve been researching for years to figure out the cause of these symptoms because I refused to accept that this was just the way it had to be. I read countless books and articles by knowledgeable people – not from tabloids or unreliable forums. I instinctively felt that my symptoms might be caused by some deficiency and the resulting dysfunction or imbalances in my body.

The first and most important realization I had was this: every illness is the result of a prolonged deficiency of some kind!

This means that while you may not feel hungry, your cells are suffering from a lack of something – nutrients, minerals, vitamins. Nature is the most logical system in the world. For something to work perfectly and perform its tasks, it must have everything it needs. This includes nutrients (both macro and micro), vitamins, minerals, enough water, oxygen, and physical activity – that is, exercise!

If any of these are missing and a long-term deficiency develops, the body weakens, becomes ill, deteriorates, and ultimately falls out of the cycle of life. People still downplay the importance of nutrition and dietary supplements. But your body is built from what you eat – it has nothing else to work with.

A study was conducted from 1965 to the early 2000s. Over those 40 years, the nutrient content of cultivated plants decreased to one-tenth, even one-twentieth, of their original levels, thanks to industrial farming methods. And now, another 20 years have passed since then.

Even those who do everything they can to eat healthily still need dietary supplements.

For a while, the body can seemingly “get by,” functioning at a minimal level, but eventually, deterioration sets in, and illnesses start to appear if something is missing. You can spend time pondering whether your issues are due to some hereditary factor, but it’s completely pointless. You can’t do much about your genes – if something is written in them, it’s written. However, you can absolutely focus on giving your body everything it needs!

According to relatively recent studies, even genetic defects only manifest under favorable conditions for them. So, as one of my many steps, I started taking a lot of vitamins. I haven’t been sick in years. I can’t even remember the last time I had a cold or fever. I haven’t had a sore throat, and nothing has brought me down. Even when everyone around me got sick, I remained healthy. During the Covid era, I shared a car or enclosed space 5-6 times with people who tested positive the next day or two. Nothing happened to me.

Our bodies are incredibly complex biochemical systems where everything is interconnected. One single component affects multiple processes, so naturally, a deficiency in one can negatively and pathologically impact many others.

By the time I arrived at the understanding of deficiency diseases and started taking vitamins, I had tried many things. I followed a paleo diet, which helped me lose 12 kilos. That wasn’t a bad thing, as I was already 97 kilos, but unfortunately, it didn’t solve my complaints.

I also experimented with eliminating various foods, like flour, meat, or dairy, from my diet, but I saw little to no change.

Then came six months of being vegan. I pinned all my hopes on this, but unfortunately, it didn’t help either. It felt like I had better days here and there, but there was no lasting improvement.

Another period of despair and hopelessness followed. And then came the realization—perhaps, or rather most certainly, I was suffering from a general and severe vitamin deficiency. I started taking multivitamins, along with high doses of vitamin D and C—thousands of IUs and milligrams daily.

As logical as it seemed that consuming vitamins and minerals would solve my pain and the cracks at my fingertips, sadly, it didn’t work. There was some minimal improvement, and to this day, I’m convinced that this helped me get through a period when a major problem could have developed. Luckily, that didn’t happen.

Meanwhile, the picture became increasingly clear. After trying everything and drawing logical conclusions from my experiences, I realized there had to be something else missing—something still out of balance in my body that was keeping me in this terrible state. Something that orchestrates and regulates the entire biochemical system and affects everything happening within us.

And then came the divine spark. You know the saying, “Death begins in the gut”?

You might wonder what that refers to, but let me explain: gut flora. By now, almost everyone has heard about it, but it’s still not taken seriously enough. It refers to the collection of microorganisms living in the digestive system—hundreds of millions of good and bad bacteria that perform countless biochemical processes through digestion.

When this balance is disrupted, problems arise. Doctors often attempt to mask or manage these issues with symptomatic treatments, with varying degrees of success. But the root causes need to be addressed. Only then is there a real chance for recovery.

Give your body all the nutrients it needs, heal your gut flora, and it will heal you. There’s no other way! It may take months, half a year, or even a year or longer, but there’s no other chance for lasting improvement. You can try all sorts of remedies and undergo various treatments, but if your gut flora isn’t healthy, it’s all in vain.

If death resides in the gut, then health must reside there too—and it’s only logical that it resides in the same gut. And here’s the part most people don’t think about. Healthy, well-balanced gut flora thrives on plant-based nutrients, but what’s most crucial is dietary fiber. So, it’s not enough to eat a lot of plants (as I did during my six-month vegan phase); you need to eat a wide variety of fiber-rich plants to properly nourish the good bacteria, not the bad ones.

According to the literature, we need at least 25–35 grams of dietary fiber daily to properly feed the good gut bacteria, though this can go up to 50 grams or more. But unless you’re an extremely dedicated and diverse vegan or consume fiber supplements, you’re likely eating only a fraction of that—probably not even 10–20%. Do you think anyone tracks how much fiber they eat daily? Almost certainly not. I’ve never met anyone who does, not even highly health-conscious individuals, because they tend to focus on everything else when trying to solve their health problems, but not this.

Search online for food charts that list fiber content, and you’ll see that many vegetables, fruits, and other foods have surprisingly low fiber content per 100 grams—and very few are eaten in sufficient quantities. Look for dietary fiber supplements. You also need probiotics and prebiotics. Dairy and meat contain exactly zero fiber. And I’ve realized that the issue isn’t really with meat, as many believe, but rather that people don’t eat enough fiber alongside it.

So, what happens to the poor fiber-dependent good gut bacteria in our fiber-deficient diets? They starve, their numbers dwindle, and they can’t multiply. And if they’re starving and few in number, they can’t do their job properly. Meanwhile, if you consume more meat, dairy, and sugary foods, the “bad bacteria” thrive, causing chaos in your system.

Common sense tells me that if the good bacteria are plentiful and can do their job well, the body is much better equipped to handle other harms. Another positive “side effect” of a high-fiber diet for me was that, for the first time this year, my allergic hay fever didn’t show up at all. Since my tonsillectomy at age 13, every May-June-July had been dominated by allergies, with a runny nose and streaming eyes. But now, nothing! I also noticed that my skin is much less dry than before.

These are just the symptoms you can feel. There are countless processes happening beneath the surface that affect how we feel. Unfortunately, doctors don’t ask about your diet, your drinking habits, or your lifestyle. They can treat symptoms with varying degrees of success, but they can’t cure you. I’m not saying they don’t want to, but many of them don’t know how to approach chronic problems.

Nothing will cure you except a healthy, balanced gut flora—and giving it everything it needs for optimal functioning. Our immune system also depends on our gut flora!

Besides a high-fiber diet, there’s something else that’s very important: fermented foods. Get encapsulated gut bacteria, eat fiber, and consume fermented foods. Observe yourself. At first, you might experience increased gas, more frequent trips to the bathroom, or other unpleasant symptoms, but don’t let that deter you. I also had seemingly random and inexplicable symptoms appear out of nowhere, but over time, everything fell into place.

I had these realizations in early December 2022. Since then, I’ve been eating loads of fiber, ordering probiotics, buying fermented cabbage juice and other fermented pickles from the market, and consuming them daily. I told myself I’d give it six months to see what happens. It’s clear that quick changes can’t be expected. For the first 2–3 months, nothing seemed to happen—nothing noticeable, at least. But I knew this was a slow process, so I stayed determined and kept eating fiber.

Then, suddenly, I started noticing positive changes that hadn’t been there before. Something had shifted, and I’m very hopeful for the future. I’m now many months into this journey, and the improvements still haven’t stopped. I have energy again, I’m motivated to exercise and move, and my pain is noticeably less intense.

Since April 2023, I haven’t had to tape up my fingertips—they’re not cracked or painful anymore. The last time I used Flector was February 2023, and I haven’t needed it since! I’ve tried everything, from paleo to veganism, but nothing has brought the changes that this fiber- and fermented food-rich diet has.

The key is understanding that so many diseases originate from the same source: an unhealthy, poorly balanced gut flora.

Over time, some people end up with constant pain, others develop high blood pressure, allergies, skin conditions, thyroid issues, attention disorders, sleep problems, autoimmune diseases, chronic gut problems, depression, obesity, cancer, or other seemingly inexplicable illnesses. But they all stem from the same root cause! There’s only one type of health, but disease and dysfunction can manifest in countless ways. It’s not just one organ or limb that becomes sick—every single cell in the body suffers and is diseased, and where the symptoms appear, that’s where we name the illness. It’s all very logical.

Of course, the worst-case scenario is a self-destructive lifestyle—drinking, smoking, and neglecting your diet and gut flora. A step better is when you stop self-destruction but still don’t pay enough attention to your gut flora and diet. But the best scenario is giving your gut flora everything it needs, because these little organisms are the key to keeping us alive and healthy.

Did you know that a simple course of antibiotics can disrupt your gut flora for up to a year? And even then, you have to do everything carefully and properly to restore it! Unfortunately, that usually doesn’t happen. By the time we reach our age, irreversible damage may have already occurred, but if we can alleviate any of our issues, then consuming a fiber-rich diet is well worth it.

Oh, and around February 2023, I found this site and ordered a test: mikrobiomvizsgalatok.hu. Just out of curiosity, to see if I was on the right track. A doctor later analyzed my results in a one-hour phone consultation. The whole process was fascinating. She has analyzed nearly 2,000 samples and says that even children now have severe microbiome imbalances, likely due to all the “goodies” parents feed them. We’re just starting to understand the long-term consequences of these dietary habits. It’s no coincidence that there are so many hyperactive, attention-deficient, or “problematic” children today.

In summary: if someone thinks they’re getting enough vitamins, minerals, and other supplements but still feels something is off, chances are they need to significantly increase their fiber intake. The key isn’t whether you’re eating fiber—it’s the amount of fiber that matters!

Many people think they’re eating healthily, and maybe they’re doing their best, but it won’t work until their fiber-dependent gut flora is in good shape. The gut microbiome regulates countless biochemical processes through the gut-brain axis. All we need to do is feed them properly. That’s it. Afterward, we can fine-tune our bodies, but with a healthy gut flora, we’re already 90% there. Maybe we can add a few more percentage points, but even if we don’t, it’s not catastrophic. However, if your gut flora is in bad shape and you feel like you’re functioning at 50%, you won’t even notice a minor improvement to 55%. Do you get the point?

For example, cancer won’t be cured by chemo or radiation. If your gut flora is healthy and your immune system works properly, the cancer should disappear. Going further, with a well-functioning gut flora, cancer shouldn’t even develop in the first place. This realization about the fiber-gut-health connection could be as groundbreaking for humanity as the invention of the wheel. It’s the Holy Grail of staying healthy. And maybe I’m not even exaggerating. But if I told 10 doctors about my 30 years of suffering and my discovery about fiber, I’m pretty sure 6–7 of them would still call me crazy.

But I have undeniable proof and results from experimenting on myself. Imagine if children were fed appropriately from birth. We could raise the first generation almost free of diseases—or at least free of the so-called “diseases of civilization.” But that’s a topic for minds far greater than mine.

I’m just a guy from Zala, lucky enough that while I had terrible, painfully unpleasant symptoms, they weren’t bad enough to kill me over those 30 years. Yet, I also refused to accept living on Flector and constant pain. I had the strength and will to fight through it and not give up.