Wow I can not believe I have been on this journey for just about 5 months now. So much with my health has changed for the better. I have been off all 8 of my medications since April and looking back I can not believe I was ever prescribed so many harmful chemicals. I am now fully convinced that everything the doctors had me on was doing more harm then good. 

Over the course of the last 5 months my functional doctors and nutritionist together have worked with me to find the root causes of all of my issues. We have tried different supplement combinations to try and fight everything as naturally as possible. Currently my vitamin intake list is quite long but as we we make progress the list begins shrinking and eventually the goal is to treat everything as naturally as possible. 

In my last update I mentioned that I was going to be doing a bunch of tests to determine what exactly was going on. The whole model of functional medicine is to treat the person as a whole rather then treating the symptoms of any given illness. below this I am going to talk about each test we did, what I learned, and our plan of attack. 

The first test we did was the Wavi brain scan. I had to wait about a month for the results but they were worth the wait and it was so cool to see what exactly was going on with my brain. I mentioned before that I had been having some pretty severe memory issues. What was so interesting was being able to see all of it on the screen and finally know for a fact that the medicine I was on really was not only destroying my body but also my mind. 

The first set of markers dealt with my reactions and brain voltage. As you can see my reaction voltage was low showing things were not signaling properly. My brain reaction time however was with in the range but on the faster side. The place were I really mentally struggled was physical reaction time. While my brain was able to acknowledge things were happening my brain was not sending the signals to my body in time to react. My physical reaction was so slow that there wasn't even a spot on the chart to mark it. 

The next markers I actually found quite interesting. I scored within normal range on T/B ratio and Frontal Alpha balance. The reason this shocked me is because I have ADHD, Anxiety, and Depression. One thing they mentioned was that it was possible that so many years with out ADHD medicine I have learned to cope and adjust even though my ADHD is still very much there. As far as the FAB score on the day of the test I wasn't feeling depressed and did not have anxiety so I was able to get a score that didn't show either of these. 

The next markers were the trail marking markers. This test actually stressed me out quite a bit during and I got so frustrated. I scored poorly on both sections because I kept forgetting which number or letter I had clicked last and I would have to start over and recount each time. I find myself doing that a lot. I can't hold the counting in my head and often times have to say it out loud with out any distractions in order to finish a task. Watch me cooking or baking in the kitchen and you will see. 

The test was able to tell us a few things. 
1. My brain is not signaling my body properly
​2. I suffered a recent concussion, which I did about two months prior to the test. 
3. I was definitely having memory issues.
​4. Things in my brain were 100% not working how they should. 

The end goal with this test is to attempt to improve the voltage in my brain and the overall inflammation. I highly doubt I will get my lost memories back but I have enjoyed relearning past events through the stories of friends when it is something I had forgotten. I would love to talk with old friends again and learn some of what I've forgotten. I don't know what I am missing but I know there are many good events gone. One positive is I can rewatch many movies and its like a new movie. I also am able to have a few firsts again. 

I was actually quite excited to do this test. I mean what other time in your life is someone going to let you put poop in the mail?? What's not to be excited about?? KIDDING. Anyways this test was very inciteful. It showed all the markers within your intestinal tract.

Within your gut there are good bacteria and there are bad bacteria. The good bacteria help everything run smoothly while the bad bacteria fight the good bacteria and cause chaos with in your gut. 

As shown in this chart my Keystone (Good) bacteria with all out of wack. Ideally you want all of these numbers to be in the green. A lot of the time over use of antibiotics and different medicines can throw these off allowing for the introduction of the bad bacteria.  

Now on to the opportunistic Microbes AKA the bad bacteria. I had SEVERAL bad bacteria in my system which over time caused tiny holes in the lining of my gut leading to leaky gut which was a major player in ALL of my other issues. I had Staph, 2 types of  strep, 2  types of Klebsiella, and H. pylori.

Due to all of the fighting between my good and bad bacterias my over all health of my gut was in bad shape. It was allowing inflammation to leave my gut and float to other areas in my body which in turn faired up my Intercranial hypertension, My migraines, my IC, my PCOS, my endometriosis, my MCAS, and in general made my tired, sluggish, and in constant pain. 

The results of this test meant things HAD to be done immediately. I went on a 3 month gut detox which I just finished in August. I am continuing the vitamins I started during that 3 months for one more round just to ensure we killed off everything that shouldn't be there and evened out the numbers of the things that should.  I will retake this test in a few months to make sure everything is good but I feel so much better already. I went from 24-25 migraines a month to a total of 2 in the past 60 days. I honestly did not know what migraine free life felt like for many many years. My IC flair ups also decreased from every two to three days to a single flair up in 90 days and even that flair up was just a dull ache and constant urge to pee but no constant burning pain. 

The next set of testing we did was allergy and food sensitivity. My food allergy testing showed I had an allergy to Gluten and Casein. I did celiac testing and was determined to not have celiac but I did have an allergy to it. Casein is a protein found in milk and it was determined that I am allergic to that but not lactose intolerant which is something else all together. Lactose free milks and dairy products still contain the casein protein. I have found that I can have A2A2 milk, goats milk, and sheep's milk without issue.  

The sensitivity testing showed I was having issues with a lot of different foods that I previously thought were okay for me to eat. Most notable foods were:

• Bovine-derived dairy due to casein
• Whey
• Kola nut
• Arrowroot
• Chives
• Tomatoes
•  Brewers yeast
• Cane sugar
• Shitake mushroom
• Allspice
• Cinnamon
• Coriander
• Thyme
• Vanilla
• Barley
• Oats
• Wheat Germ
• Clams
• Mussels

I have noticed when not eating the foods in the high or very high category I have way less flushing reactions and when I do eat them it is when I have the worst MCAS reactions. My functional doctors told me that the reason I am having such high sensitives to so many foods is due to the MCAS which is being triggered by my leaky gut. In time when everything is healed I will be able to eat the higher flagged foods in moderation. The foods I will likely never be able to safely eat are Oats, Casein containing dairy, and gluten containing foods. 

During this whole process my blood test results on most things has drastically improved. Even my cholesterol which was easily over 300 before is now down to 201!! The biggest problem right now is that when I went off all the the medicines it deregulated my blood sugar and I put on weight. Previously I was on metformin and Topiramate which kept weight off but the minute all that stopped my metabolism slowed down and I put on 52 pounds. Due to my insulin resistance brought on by my PCOS no amount of healthy eating or working out has been able to help with the weight loss. It also shot my A1c way up putting me right on the line of having diabetes.  The next step is to do a few months of semiglutide, a limited diet, and some personal training or additional work out routines. Personally I am fine with the weight I am currently but at this weight its a slippery slope towards diabetes and I have to lose it all in order to have things regulated properly. Long term if diabetes were not a risk I would likely be pretty happy where I am, maybe just a bit of toning. 

Other things that are making work outs hard is I am still dealing with the 3 tears in my hip. Because of the tears I am limited on what work outs I can do. I am not cleared for pole or dance. I did get approval to do aerial silks and lyra as long as I do not push it. I purchased an at home rig, silks, and a lyra hoop in order to do it at home for now. I am starting to do water aerobics again however I recently learned I have exercise-induced bronchoconstriction when doing deep water exercises so I can only do the shallow water classes. I also found out I have POTS so I have to monitor my little humming bird heart to prevent myself from passing out. I've purchase an at home EKG monitor to monitor readings more frequently. I am also on the search for a new heart rate band since Amazon canceled the Halo. My resting heart rate averages between 92 and 115 so monitoring things is important. 

If you have read this far I commend you. Thanks for caring enough to get through my long winded posts. I don't know how the next few months are going to go but I am hopeful and prepared. I will be sure to post a new update soon. 

I'm three days into this new journey and it is both overwhelming and exciting. I stopped 7 different medications three days ago and still have one more to go before I am medicine free for the first time in many years. There was a time were I was medicine free and wouldn't even take ibuprofen; that time feels like eons ago. My body has been absolutely destroyed in so many ways over the past decade by poor decisions made hastily by medical practitioners and it terrifies me to think about the lasting effects and possible permanent damage that it all may have done to my body. I am 32, the same age my mom was when she passed from her own medical issues. If anyone would have asked me 15 years ago if I thought I was going to make it to this point my honest answer would have been no but now having actually made it I have a determination to fight to fix these horrible things happening with in my body. Will I make it to 50? I dont know, I hope so. Truly. This chronic pain and the constant in and outs of the hospital have made me question it all in the past. It has been such a hard journey to this point. So many days where I have laid broken and defeated on my bathroom floor crippled in pain. I desperately want to move past it all. This new journey is perhaps my second chance at living a better more pain free life. Doctors and pills didn't work, if anything they made it all worse. This is what I have to do to be better and I am ready. 

Three days ago when I cut the medicines out I knew a couple of them had rebounding effects and withdraw effects. I was ready for it. Part of my AIP means no OTC pain medicine or anti-inflammatory medicine to help cope with any pain. So far the biggest rebound I have had has been with my hormone therapy. For the past 2 years my whole system has been stopped, so basically like menopause, even my hormone levels in my blood panels showed menopause levels. Well stopping the medicine meant all the hormones are now flushing back into my body like a freight train at full speed. I am afraid that my cysts will come back but confident that the doctors at the natural center that I am at are doing everything to help get my system running like a "normal persons" system, something that my system has not done EVER. The hopes is a normal period that lasts 4-7 days vs 6 months and isn't ridiculously heavy as mine have been my whole life. We will see as time goes how that works out, I am hopeful... This morning I felt it coming on and I know the first one after 2 years of a stopped system is going to SUCK. Time will tell.

I wanted to talk a little bit about the diet I am doing. I touched on it in my videos but I wanted to share more on it. Basically AIP is an Autoimmune Paleo diet. You use the Autoimmune Protocol which is a series of steps for eliminating and then reintroducing foods back into your diet. Now because I am doing the gut restore program which is a 3 month program my nutritionist has me doing a modified AIP diet. I am 100% cutting out red meat, dairy, and gluten. I am doing AIP but rather then cutting all of the foods on the inflammatory list out I am cycling the foods every 4 days. I put in and then remove a new food from the list every 4 days and I never repeat a meal or a food. This makes doing meal prep and left overs practically impossible but it is thankfully only for 3 months while I finish the gut restore program and we fix the inflammation in my gut. I am waiting on the results from my 240 food panel as well as the results from my gut test. I am very excited to see what the results from those two tests say. I plan on doing the 240 food test again in 6 months after my body has healed to see how I am reacting with a better functioning system. I of course will share the test results once I get them. 

I purchased a couple books before starting AIP that I researched and felt would really help me on my journey. The simple Autoimmune Protocol handbook which goes into detail about how you can use food and herbs to heal leaky gut and essentially reverse autoimmune conditions. It is a fascinating read and I highly recommend it for anyone entering into a journey themselves with their health. The other book that I bought was The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook. This cookbook is phenomenal. It has a 4 week meal plan using the recipes in the book and even has a shopping list for each week! The other thing I love aside from that and all the various recipes included is the detailed lists included of foods to eat and foods to avoid. Those lists really help me when making my own lists. Overall the cookbook is just really well done and I think my favorite for what it is. 

Another part of my journey is keeping a log of my food sensitivities and my overall health during the 3 months. I purchased this amazing log on amazon. It has a 90 day log as well as a graph that you can fill out and see how your pain levels or even anxiety go up or down based on certain days of the month. I know they make phone apps for this but I am a pen and paper gal. My carpel tunnel holds me back from really journaling but this journal is just enough to make it so I can do it each day before the wrist pain kicks in. 

The really cool thing about this journal aside from the graph is how detailed it is for each day. I can go back and see when I ate a certain food and figure out time of ingestion and how long it took to trigger me. I can also document things like migraines or neck pain and keep that in the graph. This journal is amazing. I plan on doing this journal for two cycles of 3 months at least and comparing. 

Six months from now I am hoping to be in a much better place health wise. If I want to make it to 50 this now is what needs to happen. I can not go another day in a healthcare system that cares more about padding the pockets of pharmaceutical companies then helping to cure or better the lives of their patients. I won't do it anymore. I have to do better. We have to do better. 

Today is the day I make HUGE changes to better my health. Both medicines and foods were removed but I am ready to take on the new challenge. Watch below for the full update. 

As spring gardening adventures continue I brace myself for new adventures in the medical world. Watch below as I breakdown just a fraction of what has been going on with my health journey as of late. It is a long video update  but it's filled with  just about everything thats been going on. ​