I wanted to write this blog post in hopes that it might help a friend or a friend of a friend who might be going through what I have been through these past 2 years. In the following post I will tell my story, how I was diagnosed, how I found functional medicine, and what I did (supplements I took, diet I followed, products I used) to help me be well on my way into remission.
Let's start with the basics. I've always considered myself a pretty healthy person. Not like, Cross Fit or Beachbody healthy, but I'm a pretty big fan of vegetables, I used to exercise at least 4 times a week, I have never smoked and I do not drink. In my eyes, that was being healthy "enough". But in the beginning of 2015, I got a rude awakening.
A few months after having my daughter, Annelise, I got incredibly sick. The first thing I noticed was that I was so lethargic ALL THE TIME. Most afternoons by about 4pm I had a hard time staying awake. I specifically remember one Sunday
morning I had the hardest time getting out of bed. I felt like I had ran a triathlon
in my sleep (I’m just going to pretend like I even have a clue what that
must feel like), and all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. My whole body ached like I had lifted weights the entire day prior. My face
was swollen on one side, the same side of my tongue was swollen and my
lymph nodes under my ears and on my neck were swollen. I got out of bed
and barely got to church services that morning, and as soon as I got
home at about 11:15am, I went straight back to bed and slept until 4pm
that afternoon. I stayed up for a few more hours and laid back down at 7pm and didn't wake up until the next morning. I also started losing clumps of hair in the shower. Just a ton of hair. And started having night sweats, which aren't normal at all for me because I'm usually the one freezing cold at night and under all of the covers. I felt as though my body was falling apart and I couldn’t understand why. I chalked it up to just having a baby and maybe my hormones weren’t quite back to normal. And maybe I was just sleeping during the day because of waking up in the middle of the night with a hungry baby. But still, something didn't feel quite right.
Soon after the day that I had to sleep all day, I noticed chronic fatigue. I wasn't myself. I didn't have the energy and I would beat myself up because I knew I wanted better for my kids and husband and knew that they deserved better too. Something I specifically remember was my "tired" feeling different than normal tired. Friends would ask how I was and I would say tired and I remember them saying, "yeah, me too. I just went to the mall and then grocery shopping and I just want to head home, take a shower and veg out on the couch". And all I wanted to say was - "no, you don't understand. I don't think I'm going to be able to get out of my house today, or in the shower, or off of my couch for that matter." I wanted to say - it's MORE than tired. But it was so hard to explain to everyone. Because other than my hair falling out, which happened only in the shower and during blow drying mostly, I didn't LOOK sick. That's the thing with invisible illness. You feel alone sometimes because you have to cancel plans, skip out on things you would normally do because you don't feel well, but all you get is "but you don't look sick". So in the following days I called and made an appointment with my Primary Care physician to discuss my symptoms. (I will add a list of ALL of those symptoms later, below.)
While waiting to get in to see him that week, I started to notice lumps that were coming up under the skin on my hands. They would come up and then disappear after a few hours, but they were always a little tender and painful and that is how I would notice them. It looked as though my veins would have a clog and get huge and swollen under my skin. I would have more pain under my ears and this time it would shoot down the sides of my neck like it was in my salivary glands. I started having pain under my right armpit and then would get a tingling or numb sensation in my right arm that would go all the way down into my ring finger. I started having excruciating pain behind my right knee. Pain in the back of my neck. Pain and aches in my abdomen. I would have muscle spasms, again in my right arm. I felt full all of the time even when I hadn’t eaten. But I also ate “comfort foods”, no dieting or cutting back, and no exercising because I always felt so tired and weak yet I noticed I was still losing weight. That was definitely a red flag to me because I’ve had a hard time my whole life losing weight even when I was dieting and exercising.
When I finally got in to see my doctor, he ordered a complete blood count to see if we could narrow down what was going on. When the results came back here is what we found:
White blood cell count : LOW out of range
Red blood cell count : LOW out of range
Platelets : LOW out of range
Mean corpuscular hemoglobin: HIGH out of range
Red Cell Distribution Width: LOW out of range
%Monocytes : HIGH out of range
%Neutrophils : LOW out of range
%Lymphocytes : HIGH almost out of range
#Neutrophiles : LOW out of range
Autoimmune Diff : ABNORMAL
Anti-Nuclear Antibodies: POSITIVE
This set the ball rolling. Obviously, something was VERY wrong. The doctor referred me to a rheumatologist who specializes in autoimmune conditions to see if I possibly had lupus, multiple sclerosis, or something similar. What the antinuclear antibody test tells you is that basically your body has turned on itself. I hated that thought. I hated lying in bed at night and thinking that something really bad was going on inside of my body and there was nothing I could do about it. That my body was attacking itself but I didn't know why. I just had to sit and play the waiting game to get into doctors appointments and wait for test results.
When I finally got in to see the rheumatologist, she ordered more blood tests. The results this time were as follows:
Positive Anti-Nuclear Antibody: 1:320, Patterns – speckled and homogeneous
Urinalysis : White Blood Cells in Urine HIGH 5-10
Immunoglobulin 2: HIGH out of range – range goes up to 489, I was 727
Immunoglobulin 4: HIGH out of range – range goes up to 153, I was 372
Semi-Quantitative Anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide test: NORMAL
ANA9 test: showed that I was NORMAL and did not test positive for Lupus, Sjogren’s Syndrome, Mixed connective tissue disease, or Scleroderma.
When he walked back into his office with blood test results he said, "you are in low in this and that, and oh, you already know you have Hashimotos, and ...."
HUH? WHAT? I have WHAT? No, I didn't know I had Hashimotos. An autoimmune condition where my body attacks my thyroid. Finally, we were getting somewhere. I finally had a diagnosis. This was in February of 2016. About a YEAR after I got really sick. He also said that because of my antibody number, he thought I possibly had another autoimmune condition but didn't exactly know which one.
So this is where functional medicine comes in. No offense WHATSOEVER to my friends in the medical field, but we have had some of the worst experiences in our 9 years of marriage with the medical field. From a doctors office sending Adam someone else's paperwork for his cancer treatment (with the other patients name marked out with a sharpie (we could still read it) and a > sign added to the dosage), to my OB telling me my water hadn't broke with Connor (and it had) to doctors misdiagnosing, not catching things, or being just plain rude. I was pretty much done with seeing conventional doctors if at all possible. I also wasn't content with "you will have this your entire life and will have to take a pill each morning to control it." That wasn't good enough for me. I was too young to be this sick & I wasn't going to accept the answer that there was nothing I could do about it.
So I began my research in functional medicine and that's when I found Dr. Amy Myers. She is a functional medicine practitioner in Austin and has people from all over the globe come and see her. She's that good. Reading on her website her explanations of what effects our immune system, our gut health, and how detox could reverse some autoimmune conditions was life changing. So I ordered her book "The Autoimmune Solution". I started on the autoimmune protocol diet at the beginning of March 2016 and stayed on it without cheating until the end of January of 2017. The diet is basically NO grains, oats, rice, pasta, corn, eggs, dairy, potatoes (sweet potatoes are ok), tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, sugar, nuts and seeds, processed foods, fried foods, legumes, and caffeine. So for 11 months I basically ate meat, veggies, small portions of fruit & bone broth. Lots and lots of bone broth. (SO good for gut healing!!) For the first 4 months or so, I'm not even going to lie, it was rough. People with Italian in their blood don't really eat to live, they live to eat. And you are supposed to be able to reintroduce foods back in, but I didn't just to stay on the safe side. We also now eat all natural, organic unless we are away from the house and then we do the best we can. My goal was remission. It always has been. I wanted to go to my doctor, have my antibody count under 35 and know that I did the research necessary and maybe took the hard road, but was able to put this disease in remission by myself. So back to the diet. After about month 4, it was a breeze. I was just used to it and I started to feel so much better so I knew I could stick to it. What threw me off was traveling a little around Christmas and New Years and getting so burned out while watching family and friends eat yummy foods, and I started cheating with dairy, potatoes, corn and sugar in January. Either way, my antibody count since starting the diet had decreased significantly. When diagnosed, my antibody count was 398. 11 days into the diet, I went back for more blood results and it was at 182. And it has continued to drop with every blood test.
Along with the diet, I took supplements to strengthen my immune system as well as heal my gut. When I first started, these are the supplements I took: Tons of Vitamin D & B12, L-Glutamine,
Resveratrol, Microb-Clear, Curcumin, and a ProBiotic. I've slowly figured out what helps and what doesn't so I'm currently taking a Multivitamin with Zinc, Copper & Selenium in it, the extra Vitamin D & B, a probiotic, and DHEA. Once I started taking the 10mg of the DHEA I realized that my hair stopped thinning and falling out so much.
Resveratrol, Microb-Clear, Curcumin, and a ProBiotic. I've slowly figured out what helps and what doesn't so I'm currently taking a Multivitamin with Zinc, Copper & Selenium in it, the extra Vitamin D & B, a probiotic, and DHEA. Once I started taking the 10mg of the DHEA I realized that my hair stopped thinning and falling out so much.
Then came the detox. I started realizing all of the toxic things I had in, on, and was putting in my body. So I changed all of my products to all natural. From toothpaste, shampoos, and deodorant to even makeup. I will list below all of the natural products I use for anyone interested. I also went and had all of my mercury fillings removed by a biological dentist. If you want to know more about getting all of the unnatural things out of my body, it's a little more sensitive material, just email me and I will fill you in on that. I also started using an infrared sauna for detoxing which was one of my favorite things ever, and started taking Methylation support to help my body rid of any toxins it might have had left.
So to wrap up this story (do I hear slow clapping? I do, don't I?) my antibodies were slowly declining this entire year. It was a hard road, often so stressful trying to figure out what to take, what to cook, how in the world we were going to get the extra funds to get some of these things done. But it was all worth it. I had an appointment for blood test results this week and I'm really happy to say that my antibodies went down another 29 points since the last visit. Which means, if I keep going at the same pace I have been, in 6 months they will be under 35 and I will have put my Hashimotos in REMISSION. 6 MONTHS.
If you have been sick but no doctor can figure out what is going on and your symptoms sound a lot like mine (full list below), contact me, I would love to chat with you and help you. If you already have an autoimmune condition and you want some more info on the diet, supplements or detox, again, or if you would like to know some of the causes of autoimmune conditions that I have found out in the past couple of years that you wouldn't even think of because they aren't talked about ... I'm here and I want to help. There ARE other options than just accepting that it's a life long disease and you have to take a pill. And there will be ups and downs, but if I can be in remission just 1 year after diagnosis and 2 years after becoming really sick, then there is a lot more to functional medicine than the conventional field wants to let on. Oh, and stress management is a huge key as well.
So below is a list of symptoms I had to start with as well as natural products I've been using. Let me know if you have any questions at all!
SYMPTOMS
Fatigue
Hair Loss
Night Sweats
Headaches
Memory Loss
Brain Fog
Pain under armpit
Pain under ear and down jaw line
Lumps on hands
"Moon Face" (round puffy face)
Back Pain
Heart Palpitations
Neck Pain
Numbness/Tingling in Arms into fingers
Swollen Tongue
Eczema
Swollen Face upon waking
Itching
Bloating and feeling full
Muscle Weakness
Joint Pain
Muscle Spasms
Sensitivity to Sunlight
Low Blood Pressure
Kidney Pain
Dark circles under eyes
Swelling of Liver
Melasma of the skin
Thinning of outer eyebrows
Severe Knee Pain
Would get exhausted in hot shower
Poor sleep / Never feeling rested
Swollen Lymph nodes
Vertigo
ALL NATURAL PRODUCTS
Toothpaste - My Magic Mud (it is made out of charcoal, coconut oil and bentonite clay and I LOVE it. It is black and turns your mouth all black, but it is all natural, helps with sensitivity and also whitens.)
Deodorant - Schmitd's Rose and Vanilla
Shampoo & Conditioner - I've been using Acure but thinking of switching to PureHaven because I have heard it helps with hair loss and thinning.
Body Wash or Soap- PureHaven Lavendar soap
Moisturizer & Lotion - Pure Haven Dream Cream (this works wonders on eczema and psoriasis you might have)
Makeup - W3LL People out of Austin Tx - LOVE!
Medicine & Calming - Essential Oils
Other than that, I don't use anything else on my body.
Here's to healing and growing, and reclaiming my health!!
Thanks for reading!