This is My Story: Part II

Photo Credit: A Bowl Full of Lemons

Part II

After the dust settled, I really began digging deep into health and functional medicine. My knowledge base on natural health was outdated and needed to be “brought up to date”. I began reading health related books, listening to podcasts such as Dr. Cabral, and taking advantage of health summits such as the most recent one by Dr. Hyman, The Broken Brain Series. As I listened and read more and more about the different dis-eases of the body and the underlying root causes, all I could do was nod my head as I related to so many of the factors that lead to dis-ease:

1. Poor Sleep
2. Nutrient Deficiencies
3. Chronic Stress (which includes overtraining)
4. Toxin Overload

Just to name a few… I had been blinded by the idea that my body was healthy and strong enough to take on everything I was doing to it, and for a while, it was. But eventually, it could take on no more, and it began catabolizing or shutting down.

The Why

The factors involved in my health decline go way back past the move I mentioned in Part I. However, I’m going to stick to that starting point and give you a brief look at my life at that time.

I was a full-time work from home mom. I worked 8 hours a day minimum for a corporate company on my computer which I worked on in the kitchen so I could have all eyes on deck. My kids were being home schooled full time, ages 10 and 2 (they turned 11 and 3 a few months later). My 2 year-old was nursing as well as co-sleeping. I had just been through an emotionally traumatic event a little less than a year prior and was still trying to heal from that. I was mending my relationship with my husband; attempting to maintain a meditation practice and workout regimen, all while managing the household: cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc. Life was not ideal; not for me, nor for my family. Even though it was what I wanted, and thought I could do, I realized, I just couldn’t do it all. So I set out to make some changes. I just knew that if I didn't attempt to bring balance into our lives, my health and relationship would eventually fall apart.

First change was to get our children out of the house on the weekdays. 

First days of school, September 2018

My work productivity was declining and I needed to focus. The constant back and forth between work and my kids’ needs was driving me mad. So in September of 2018, they were off to school and daycare! It was what they both wanted anyways, so it wasn’t too hard of a transition. As a result, the household felt less chaotic and more balanced. There were less messes to clean, and I was able to have a full day of peace and quiet to focus on my job. My stress levels reduced greatly just by this one change!

Second change, wean my daughter from night nursing and help her transition to sleeping in her own bed. 

This was how I always woke up! It's cute, but it'll do a number to your body overtime.

This was a tough one and took quite a while to accomplish. I knew that the changes had to be gradual, so we took it slow, starting with night weaning and ending with her sleeping in her own bed, full-time. While I enjoyed co-sleeping, the lack of sleep was really starting to take its toll on me both physically and mentally. I just knew I couldn’t be a great mother if I didn’t get a full night’s rest. So we made the changes, and today, I can proudly say, our youngest sleeps through the night, most nights, in her own bed! We both wake up way happier than before!

Third change, take control of my physical health. This one, I’m clearly still working on! I was learning a lot via the podcasts, books and health summits. I was beginning to understand why I was in the state I was in, and what was required of me to get back to optimal health. Even though I “knew” what I needed to do, I was still allowing everything else in life to take priority. It was only until I discovered (a little over a month ago from today) that I was rapidly losing hair  that I realized I needed to take action…and I needed to take it now!

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So, What is Wrong?

Now, before I dig into what I learned and the protocol I am following to heal my body from the inside out, I want to just recap on the symptoms I was still experiencing:

• Insomnia (I’d wake up and be unable to fall back to sleep)
• Post-nasal drip which led to constant clearing of the throat
• Hoarse voice
• Ear pressure, pain and feeling of fluid in ears
• Jaw pain
• Headaches
• Muscle aches
• Poor recovery from my workouts
• Digestion issues (lots of bloating and poor metabolism)
• Acne
• Longer menstruation
• Metrorrhagia (bleeding between periods)
• Pelvic pain
• Mood swings
• Depression
• Anxiety

These symptoms are all over the place, and that’s because when one thing is out of  balance, the rest of the body follows. Why? Because the body is interconnected; from the head (and brain!) all the way to the tip of your toes!

Now, I will say that I no longer have the ear pressure and pain which I contribute to the practice of swallowing raw garlic every night before bed. I started the practice out of curiosity, knowing that garlic oil helps to clear ear infections, and it worked like a charm after about a week! I also stopped singing for 8 hours a day and moved to listening to podcasts. That may have helped some the TMJ symptoms as well, ha!

As for the remaining symptoms, I’m not 100% sure what is wrong since I decided to skip the labs and go straight for the protocols. However, I have a few guesses:

Candida or Bacteria Overgrowth in the Gut

There is no doubt in my mind I have some sort of yeast or bacteria overgrowth in my small intestines/gut. My clues? One, my initial infection was an overgrowth of yeast or bad bacteria. Two, the multiple uses of antibiotics/steroids destroys the bacteria in the gut and leaves you completely susceptible to yeast overgrowth and eventually, gut permeability. Third, thyroid and hormone based issues tend to stem from CBO due to lack of nutrient absorption and inflammation from leaky gut. Finally, I have some food sensitivities to eggs, gluten, and coffee/caffeine and immediate reactions to fiber/carbohydrates. My gut definitely needs cleaned and sealed!

Low Progesterone (which equals to Estrogen Dominance) OR Low Thyroid

One impacts the other, but which I am dealing with I am unsure. The two have very similar symptoms such as hair loss, low mood, issues with menstruation, acne, etc, so it’s difficult to pinpoint which one is the underlying issue. I'm leaning strongly towards low progesterone/estrogen dominance based on the symptoms I am experiencing, but I am genetically predisposed to low thyroid/hypothyroidism. Therefore, I intend to address both. 

Heavy Metal Toxicity and Toxin Overload

Tuna is high in mercury, but man is it delicious!

If you move as often as we do, you probably know that each environment requires a period of adjustment for the body. The water, the plants you are surrounded by, the air, and the toxins that are filling your new home all require your body a period of adjustment and detoxification. And if you have the MTHFR gene mutation, detoxification does not come easy for the body. It needs assistance! I don’t know what gene mutations I may have, however, between the new home toxins, the high levels of chlorine in our water (which can affect the thyroid and lead to hair loss!), and our addiction to raw seafood, particular tuna and oysters, there’s a high possibility I have an overload of toxins, specifically mercury and chlorine, that I need to get rid of ASAP. 

Now, these are just the main underlying issues that I need to address. Other factors that need to be addressed include sleep, physical activity, nutrient deficiencies, managing environmental toxins, and having a daily destress protocol. 

With all these factors involved, I decided to develop a plan to take back my health; a protocol consisting of physical cleanses as well as life changes in order to bring my body back to it's natural, healthy state. 

Stay tuned! Next post I will dive more into the plan and protocols I am following!

This is My Story: Part I

Photo Credit: A bowl full of lemons

PART I

If you follow me on Instagram, you will know that I am currently going through my own little health journey. As I stated in my post, I have always had a love for health, nutrition and fitness. It started back when I was recovering from anorexia at the age of 13; I had used it to recover in the healthiest way possible. Ever since, my passion has always been the one thing I could count on to keep me afloat during the toughest of times. For example, it helped me through years of depression. It also taught me self-love when I was healing through emotional trauma. Fitness and health have also always been my go to for learning and education. I could listen about it, study it and practice it day in and day out without ever getting tired or annoyed of it. I guess that’s why they call it a “passion”.

I live to workout!

But being a health and fitness guru doesn’t leave me completely immune to downfalls such as nutrient deficiencies, overtraining or the like. Sometimes, we health and fitness enthusiasts don’t always practice what we preach and as a result, we’re given something new to fix or resolve: ourselves.

Now, I’m not going to go too far back into my past to explain my current condition, although, it is important to understand the whole picture to include past relationship with food (I had an eating disorder at 13), emotional traumatic experiences (school bullying and relationship struggles), genetic predispositions (for me that would be hypothyroidism, diabetes, high blood pressure, just to name a few), etc. Instead, I’m going to start from where I believe things started going “down hill” and how they contributed to where I’m at now.

At the end of 2017, we had just moved to a new state during one of the most hectic times of the year: Thanksgiving/Christmas. Not the best time, but at the beach, it’s sort of the only time, so, we rolled with it. It was definitely a stressful time between moving and having to make sure all the gifts were purchased, but isn’t that why Christmas time always involves alcohol and cookies? It’s guaranteed to be stressful! And so is moving! But we made it through. The holidays passed, we were settled in, life was good. That was until my husband lost his job just a couple of months later.

 

This is home

At first I didn’t stress because he was given a pretty nice payout that could hold us for at least a good 4-5 months. But as months passed and no job found, I began to worry. On top of that, my children were still home full time (as I worked from home full-time) and I was still in the process of healing from past emotional trauma. I was going through quite a lot, but I was maintaining a morning beach meditation practice, working out daily and eating really well, so my body was able to handle the stress. At least, so I thought...

Several months after the job loss, I discovered I had an infection - the first one in over a decade. I figured it was just an anomaly, so I thought nothing of it. I made a few attempts to heal it naturally, but I was being really impatient, so I went straight for the antibiotics. My thought process was, my body is healthy and strong, so I could just use the antibiotics, kill the infection and reinnoculate my gut with good bacteria/probiotics right afterwards and everything would be fine. But I was wrong! All I did was start a chain reaction of issues that would eventually lead to what I have today.

While on antibiotics, I had contracted what I believe was bronchitis. I had it all: congestion, cough, mucus build up, etc - it sucked, but I pushed through it, doing what I knew was best for my body. At the same time, we were preparing for our family trip to Disney that we were leaving for in a couple of weeks…

Yeah, I know! Talk about timing! No job, expensive trip, sick body, airflight – Great combo of stress overload! Add to it more news that my company had just been purchased by another company – which means I just lost a sense of job security – and yeah, you could say I was slightly stressed and chronically worried about EVERYTHING.

At the tail end of my sickness, we took off on our flight to Disney – and my ears would not pop. Instead, it felt like fluid was pushed into my ear canals the moment the pressure changed. I spent the entire flight trying to get them to pop, with no success. Talk about painful! I spent the entire week with muted hearing and this constant feeling of things moving in my ear every time I swallowed or yawned. Just when I thought I was getting better from weeks of bronchitis, this occurred. Now I was really getting annoyed. I was supposed to be this model of health and fitness, so why the hell was my body falling apart on me!?

After our trip, my sinus cavities were still congested and my ears, still clogged and painful. So I decided to seek answers. My first stop, the ENT. I was so positive that I was going to get some answers during my appointment that day. But after an exam and a hearing test, all that was concluded was that my hearing was near perfect, even though I struggled to hear, and that the “trapped” fluid could just be from tight jaw muscles pushing against the ear canal and causing blockage. The cure? Don’t yawn, no excessive chewing (bye, bye gum) and eat soft foods…what!? That’s it? All I could think was, something is just not right. And so I continued to dig…

At that same appointment, I was beginning to show signs of something even worse occurring in my body…but what, I would not find out until a few days later.

It was November of 2018 when my body said enough was enough. What started as a cold turned into a multitude of unexplainable symptoms: Facial edema (my face was swollen), fever, shakes, fully body pain, nausea, vomiting, dehydration, loss of appetite, asphyxia or tightening of the throat, ear pain, pain in my abdomen where my liver was located, among several other symptoms. It. Was. Awful. I didn’t know what was going on, although based on my research and symptoms, I had it narrowed it down to a possible EBV viral infection. Of course, being the person that I am, I tried to recover from it naturally through rest and hydration. But after over a week of seeing no changes, my husband finally forced me to go to emergency care.

 

Not even a filter could hide the swelling

The doctor could not figure out what was wrong. She said she believed it was just a combination of multiple infections taking over my body. I had told her I thought it was the EBV virus and asked her to test for it, which later on, came back negative. Since she was unsure of what was going on, I was given fluids and prescribed antibiotics and steroids as well as given nausea reducing medications so that I could attempt to eat. She also withdrew blood to check on my liver enzyme count and gallbladder since both were swollen and/or tender.

Being as sick as I was, I wasn’t going to turn down the antibiotics and steroids - even though I debated several times. After all, it was the use of antibiotics that had gotten me to this point! After a few days of being on the prescriptions, most of my symptoms had disappeared and I felt almost normal again... except for the consistent sinus irritations and the tight feeling in my throat.

I returned for a follow up and to review my blood work, which at the time I had very little knowledge about. I was told simply that my liver enzyme count was up and that I was borderline anemic. This was shocking news to me considering I just had my iron counts tested only a few months back and was told that they looked great. She prescribed me proton pump inhibitors with the assumption that my tight throat was related to acid reflux, more steroids just in the case the swelling returned and asked that I get an ultrasound done on my liver to make sure nothing was wrong.

After a couple months, I never touched either meds, but I did finally decide to get the ultrasound done. Based on my research, I was sure the elevated enzymes were related to me being sick, but in my mind I was thinking, better safe than sorry. So I went. Finds out, nothing was wrong with my liver and my gallbladder was just a bit sludgy. Hmm ok. So still, no answers, but at least I was somewhat better.

Even though I had mostly recovered from a majority of the symptoms I was experiencing, I was still dealing with minor chronic symptoms such as sinus congestion, post-nasal drip, muffled hearing, ear pain, tightness in the throat, digestion issues and insomnia. But between the holidays, birthdays, new careers (yes, we both started new jobs/positions at the exact same time in January of 2019!), and other things going on, I just didn’t have the time to address them, so I just “dealt” with them, hoping, that through proper supplementation, healthy eating and good habits, they would eventually resolve themselves.

During this time, I also started listening to health podcasts and reading health related books. I figured I could at least educate myself on the underlying root causes of many dis-eases of the body and, in the process, learn about what I could do to heal my body. And THAT, I did!

To be continued in PART II...