ROY Keane’s daughter has opened up about her excruciating experience with lupus, saying her father’s “brilliant sense of humour” and free-from superfoods helped her through her “darkest times”.
Caragh Keane, 29, from Manchester, was diagnosed with lupus, an incurable condition which causes the immune system to attack healthy parts of the body, in 2021, aged 25, after experiencing joint pain, alopecia and painful blisters on her face and body.
The fatigue and “severe stabbing pain” forced her to turn down her dream teaching job, and doctors told her she would need to spend the rest of her life on immunosuppressants and potentially have chemotherapy.
Caragh said she blamed herself for her diagnosis and thought her “life was over”, but her mother Theresa and father Roy have been her “rock”, adding: “I wouldn’t be here without them.”
Feeling there was “no way out”, her life changed when she altered her diet to anti-inflammatory and gut-friendly foods and found her symptoms improved, inspiring her to create her own brand – Superkeen Foods.
With the brand’s award-winning cereal and products, which are gluten-free, nut-free, milk-free, egg-free, 100% natural and autoimmune protocol-friendly, Caragh hopes to help others with lupus on their healing journeys.
She told PA Real Life: “When I was diagnosed, I mourned the person I had been and the person I felt I should have been.
“But when I look at it now, it’s obviously led me on this journey and I’m grateful for the good moments.
“With the main overarching aim of being inclusive and knowing you’re not alone, I hope that I can help people.
“Everyone’s on their own journey, but we’re all in it together.”
Symptoms of lupus can include joint and muscle pain, extreme tiredness and rashes.
For Caragh, signs of the chronic autoimmune disease started with painful blisters on her hands, followed by severe fatigue and hair loss.
The tiredness was so extreme that she had to pull over while driving to take a nap one time and she fell asleep during a hair appointment, leaving her feeling “absolutely mortified”.
She said: “The fatigue was unbearable, but you just power on.”
After finishing her teacher training, Caragh started experiencing severe joint pain, to the point where she could not turn the steering wheel in her car.
She went for a job interview at her “dream school at the time”, but during the mock lesson she led, Caragh said she could barely move due to the pain and burst into tears afterwards.
She was offered the primary school teaching role but said she had to turn it down because she was too “poorly”.
She said: “After that, I was essentially bed-bound for a month-and-a-half, and then my blisters spread across my chest and face and my alopecia was really severe.
“I had been experiencing fatigue and memory loss for about six months, but you just plow through, thinking, ‘Well, nothing’s that extreme, I’ll just get on with it’.”
SEEKING HELP
When the physical pain prevented Caragh from getting out of bed and caused her to faint, she sought further medical advice and underwent blood tests.
This led to her official lupus diagnosis in 2021 and, with doctors telling her she would need to spend the rest of her life on immunosuppressants, she questioned: “What is my life going to look like?”
Caragh explained: “Since your immune system is essentially attacking itself, you feel like you only have yourself to blame, which is horrible.
“You think, ‘Why is my own body attacking itself? What have I done to cause this?’
“In the darkest times, I thought, ‘There’s no way out of this’.”
Feeling her “life was over”, Caragh tried meditation to find some “relief” and “inner peace” – but ultimately it was her family that helped the most.
She said her mother gave her continuous reassurance, saying, “you’re going to get better, your body can heal itself”, and her father’s “brilliant sense of humour” and passion helped lift her spirits.
Caragh said: “My mum very much believes in the power of your body being able to heal itself… and even when I have flare-ups with my health, she helps put things back into perspective.
“Everyone’s on their health journey and I’m along with them.”
“My dad is incredible as well.
“He’s the best person for advice and I think he’s helped me so much.
“I feel really lucky to have them.”
With their support, Caragh said she wanted to turn her experience into a positive and started researching ways to alleviate her symptoms.
This led her down the path of anti-inflammatory, unprocessed and gut-friendly foods.
She tried her own recipes, including bone broth and loaded sweet potatoes with avocados, chicken and “hearty vegetables” – and soon saw an improvement.
Caragh said: “I started eating real whole foods, so I focused on good meat, fish and healthy fats, veggies and fruits, gut-healing foods like bone broth and fermented food, and supplements.
“I started noticing my hair growing back and all my blisters started fading on my face.
“My joint pain subsided after a few months and then I remember thinking, ‘There are lots of people out there suffering that don’t know the healing properties of food’.”
NEW JOURNEY
Caragh then considered creating her own products to help others “reset and heal (themselves)”, and this led to the creation of Superkeen.
Launching this month in stores and online, the products will soon be stocked in places such as Whole Foods, Planet Organic and later in Selfridges, and Caragh feels “grateful” for the positive feedback she has received.
NHS guidance says medicines are important in controlling lupus, but it also states that those with the condition should eat a healthy, balanced diet, including vitamin D and calcium, to help manage symptoms.
Caragh said she is currently managing her lupus with her diet and she is the “happiest (she’s) ever been”.
Caragh said: “Not one size fits all, but the bigger picture is to have a brand where everyone feels that they can reach for it, no one has ingredient anxiety and they feel positive.
“Everyone’s on their health journey and I’m along with them.”
To find out more, search @superkeenfoods on Instagram or visit the website at: superkeenfoods.com.