SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) -- 47-year-old Brandee Helmich eats mostly whole foods these days. "I eat pretty clean," Helmich said. The lifestyle changes come after Avera helped the Sioux Falls woman undergo an elimination diet, a way to pinpoint food sensitivities. State Supreme Court hea rs NOPE case Tuesday Helmich lives with rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia and deals with pain and inflammation. "Had gained a lot of weight with the medications I was on, not being able to be mobile, at one point I was pretty much in a wheel chair and decided I wanted to take a more natural approach and see if that would help with flare-ups and weight and kind of how I felt," Helmich said. Through the elimination diet, Helmich cut out several foods, including processed foods, and noticed results right away. "For me, in the first three weeks, my inflammation pretty much went away," Helmich said. As she started adding foods back in, she found out what her body doesn't tolerate well. "I found for instance dairy and gluten caused me a lot of pain, inflammation, and flare-ups almost immediately. Now that I've been on it for a while I can go lactose free instead of no dairy completely," Helmich said. Dr. Dawn Flickema with Avera Functional and Integrative Medicine says elimination diets are a pretty common tool to use with patients. "Initially, this was really a kind of difficult thing for me to ask patients to do because I do think changing what you eat is probably one of the hardest lifestyle changes to make, but then clinically, we see so much benefit with patients making food changes that it's become a lot easier thing to counsel," Flickema said. While Helmich says the elimination diet wasn't easy, it was worth it. "I still have flare-ups. I'm always going to have a chronic illness, but I have tools to manage it now," Helmich said. Helmich says she has also decreased the amount of medications she's taking. She says one way she stays on track with her eating plan is meal prepping. ...read more read less