MY HEALTH STORY
ALMOST EVERYTHING I TEACH ABOUT ILLNESS & WELLNESS IS EXEMPLIFIED IN MY STORY.
I was sick since birth, which is no surprise since my mother was under intense stress while I was in utero. My health problems started out as simple things like colic and lactose intolerance. By the time I was in elementary school, I had already experienced a major traumatic event and symptoms of frequent headaches, fatigue, and abdominal distress appeared.
At this point, my mom took me to an iridologist, a very alternative type of practitioner who made all her health assessments by what she saw in my irises. She told me to stop eating grains, sugar, and dairy. So, at eight years old, I started my first medical diet. This was before medical diets were trendy. The term “grain free” could have been something from another language. But, my mom tried diligently to implement her recommendations into my diet and I improved so much that a few years later, I was back to eating normally.
One day, when I was about 10 years old, I noticed a lump on my leg the size of my hand, which turned out to be a mysterious infection in my lymph nodes. Although this was successfully treated with antibiotics, my health went downhill from that point on. My gastrointestinal symptoms returned. In Jr. High, I filled the toilet bowl with a fluid that looked like coke and was subsequently diagnosed with a kidney disorder believed to be caused by an autoimmune disorder. However, nobody could figure out what autoimmune disease was causing it. By the time I reached high school, I was no longer able to attend school in person and developed a hormone condition that shuts down hormone production from the brain down, a condition believed at the time to primarily occur in extreme athletes or extreme trauma victims. Conventional medicine did not know what do do with me so I tried naturopathic medicine.
Naturopathic doctors ran a better arsenal of tests, the results of which revealed I needed to be referred to specialists. At this point, I became a patient of UCLA hospital but not without first starting supplement and diet regimens which noticeably improved my functioning. At UCLA, I had a team of doctors and my team lead was one of the foremost endocrinologists in the country. During my time under their care, they found many puzzling lab results but did not know how to treat me. So, I transferred care to the Mayo Clinic, where I found another team of doctors puzzled by my case. For the next few years, I scraped by with help from naturopathic medicine, rigid therapeutic diets, and anything I could apply from my own reading. I also tried visiting some famous doctors to see if they could offer any help. With the combination of just these things, I was able to put my hormone condition into remission, stop symptoms of my kidney condition, and reverse signs of autoimmune disease.
Everything changed when I found my late rheumatologist. He was a Stanford fellow and would explain his patient protocols using PubMed articles. By the time I saw him, I felt like I was dying. At my first visit, he whipped out a piece of paper that listed the potential triggers of chronic illness and we systematically worked our way through that list over the next few years of treatment. He treated me while I attended medical school and I experienced dramatic improvement after being treated for hidden chronic bacterial and viral infections and heavy metals. Besides being my doctor, he also became a friend and a mentor who taught me how to practice like he did. A few other doctors came on board during this time and I was eventually diagnosed with mold toxicity and Lyme Disease.
Since that time, I have devoted myself to understanding the complexities of diagnosing and treating the causes and overlapping conditions associated with chronic disease.
While many of these conditions take years to heal from, I have been able to apply nearly everything I practice medically to my own health. I have nearly eliminated metal toxicity, eradicated many of my Lyme infections,
and have made amazing progress in mold treatment. Through my experiences, I have learned that healing is a process and a lifestyle. It doesn’t usually happen in 3 months or with a handful of the right supplements. It happens as you uncover layers of your health and yourself.
HEALING HAS BECOME MY STORY & I AM SHARING EVERYTHING I LEARNED SO IT CAN BECOME YOURS TOO.