My Health Crisis

Disclaimer: Medical information in the article is in regards to my personal history and is not intended to diagnose or prescribe.  Consult a chiropractor or other healthcare provider regarding any opinion or recommendation with respect to your condition or symptoms.  This post contains affiliate links. I make a commission for purchases made through the links in this post. These types of links are indicated by an *.

This quote is from the book Clean Gut*. If you are curious about more details on the gut microbiome, I recommend this book. It has a great explanation that doesn't require a science degree to understand.

In my life I've had two major health "eviction notices". These are stories about them, and the choices I was offered, the choices I made, and how those choices have impacted my life.

2002-2003 - I'm unsure the exact year.

My house was under major construction, the kitchen sink was on the floor of the dining room and the best I had for a kitchen was a toaster oven, a fridge and a plastic bin of drawers. Due to this layout I would generally pick 1 food that was easy to cook and just eat that, over and over again. After a few weeks, that food would make me feel sick, so I'd pick a new food. This went on for several months.
One night at our weekly poker game with friends I cracked a joke, that I seemed to be developing food allergies monthly. A friend who happened to be a PhD Chemist(and several years older) looked at me very seriously, and said go see a doctor, that is not how things should be.

To my own surprise, I listened. At the time I was seeing a doctor at an amazing health center that had medical doctors and alternative medicine practitioners. My primary referred me to their MD that handled allergies, and that doctor handled things differently then I had seen before. He spent 45 minutes asking me about my medical history. He wasn't as much interested in the file in front of him, he wanted to me to tell him about what was going on and what had happened. He was just as interested in my symptoms and any medical treatment in my past(childhood, teen years and such) as he was with my current symptoms. He was digging to discover the root of the problem, what triggered the issues.

At the end of the medical interview, he said he suspected that I was dealing with a candida(yeast) overgrowth in my gut along with leaky gut. His suspicion was that one winter, every single time I got a head cold, I ended up on antibiotics for a sinus infection. Changing my gut flora so dramatically that my body was unable to correct it on it's own. At the same time I was anorexic. My doctor wanted to order two tests, one that my insurance would pay for and one that my insurance would not. I realize that those two diagnosis are well known these days, but this took place nearly 15 years ago.

I opted to pay for the test and did the two tests, one to measure yeast(or I'm guessing a yeast by product) in my urine and one to test for leaky gut. Many silly jokes were made as I prepared my samples and mailed my urine off to a lab for testing.

Then came the results appointment. I still didn't understand much or any of this information at all, no one did. Google gave me information from websites whose validity I seriously questioned.

I remember that day, sitting across the desk from the medical doctor and him asking me over and over again. "Are you sure that you don't throw up after every meal?" The yeast positive test was high, not outlier bad test high, just high. The leaky gut test was positive as well, and also high. The thing was no I didn't throw up, I'm terrified of throwing up(as in I had to come to terms with this before I could consider having children). As for my symptoms, I had constant background nausea, it was so constant I didn't even notice it unless I picked up something heavy. What did happen is 5-8 times a day I'd have horrific diarrhea, the type that makes you shaky and sweaty. I had gotten so used to it, thought it was normal, that I could literally leave my desk, get sick in the bathroom and pull myself together to be back at my desk less than 5 minutes later. I had gotten so good at hiding it, my husband(at the time) didn't even know it was going on.

The medical doctor did the best he could in suggesting care and balancing pharmacological and alternative medicine solutions. I learned a lot about nutrition and how it was impacting my digestive system. Due to the condition of my "kitchen" and several factors in my personal life, made my ability to be compliant seem impossible. If you have ever tried to make major health improvements through major diet modification, you likely know you need support, you need the people you spend the most of your time with to believe that these changes are needed. If they don't believe it, you are not only fighting your cravings but you are also fighting your support. 15 years ago most people had never heard of the gut microbiome and many considered my diagnosis made up or outright false.

While I didn't completely correct the problem and to be honest, would likely need to stick to a very strict diet for YEARS to correct the damage. I did improve my situation. I learned to recognize the symptoms that meant I was pushing things too far. I removed a few key trigger foods from my diet.  I gave up soda to reduce my over all sugar consumption. I questioned any doctor who wanted to prescribe me antibiotics to make sure it was absolutely necessary, because I knew the side effects for me would be worse than the symptoms from sickness.

2004

One morning I woke up with both my ankles swollen to the size of softballs. I had no injury to speak of, they were just swollen. It was painful, but I'm tough so I ignored it and went along with my life. After a few weeks, my knees were starting to hurt and I was beginning to avoid walking. Eventually I broke down and saw my medical doctor.

She ordered blood-work and scheduled a follow up a week later. A week later I was in her office, my ankles were still swollen and she said two words, Rheumatoid Arthritis(RA). She said she had them run the blood work twice and it was negative there but the symptoms were spot on and RA isn't always positive in the blood work. She looked at me very seriously and said "You are young, too young to start RA treatments, I want you to seriously consider trying PT, chiropractic or acupuncture first".  That one request leaves me with guilt, survivor guilt. I'm a chiropractor now, I know what long term treatment of RA looks like and the risks involved with the infusions that let those suffering, suffer a bit less and have a quality of life.

I chose Chiropractic, by random chance a good friend of mine mentioned that a high school classmate of hers, had just opened up a chiropractic office and he adjusted extremities. I didn't understand RA at the time, I worked in information systems, I knew how to fix computer and interact with servers. I did not understand biology. I knew I had an ankle problem and so I needed an ankle solution, right? RA isn't a joint problem, it's an autoimmune disease. My immune system was attacking my joints. I know that now, I've studied many of these topics on my path to becoming a chiropractor, but I didn't know that then.

After my first adjustment, my ankle returned to their normal size. I listened to the chiropractor talk about a different way to look at health. How the body was connected and the nervous system controlled the timing. How the central nervous system is protected inside the spinal column. That chiropractic adjustments, "cleared the noise", they "silenced the room", so that my body to recognize what it should and should not be doing. It made sense, it matched up with much that I had learned during my first crisis. I listened and I followed his care recommendations. I kept going even when the symptoms were gone. After six months all signs of RA were gone. I was even starting to see improvement in my gut issues, something I thought would never happen until I could follow the strict diet.

It wasn't until a few years ago that I really put together what happened to me. Did I have RA? Do I have RA? I'm inclined to say yes as well as, maybe to those questions. There is no test(since the blood work was negative) and it's too late now to see if the early intervention stopped the disease process. I can only imagine where I would be today if that medical doctor had not given me the choices she did. Nor do I know where I would be if the chiropractor only treated back pain and joint injuries. The major health changes didn't happen with that first adjustment, they happened over time and still do.

If anything in this post feels personal, "hits too close to home" or sounds familiar, please contact a trusted healthcare provider and don't be afraid to ask questions.

I know my friends silently question, that I get checked and adjusted by a chiropractor weekly even though I have no pain.  That I see an acupuncturist regularly, and I do not budge on my diet restrictions. For me the consequences are too big. It's not a tummy ache or unpleasant trips to the bathroom. It's chronic headaches, it's fevers, it's whole body exhaustion and body aches. It's loss of time with my husband and children.  It's closing my office for the day, being unable to help my patients experience life to its fullest. This strict diet allows my body to focus on healing and function and the chiropractic care helps the coordination of all those functions.  If I want to be healthy, I have no cheat day.