Dark Times

Here is the rest of my story to date (this is not a full account of all my health problems or symptoms:

Once the doctor assured me my heart was perfectly fine, new symptoms began to show themselves as well. I began getting dizzy with really bad headaches. My vision started to change and everything looked blurry and out of focus. I would get weird flashes of light and developed an extreme sensitivity to fluorescent lights and computer screens (which was kind of a problem since I was a photographer).  I became nauseous and weak in the mornings and  my fatigue was unbearable. I would have moments of short term memory loss where apparently one to two minutes would go by with zero recollection. Simultaneously, I began developing a strange relationship with food (if you remember my first onset of anxiety occurred directly with putting a peanut butter ball in my mouth). I felt that my symptoms were tied to some new food allergy I had developed during pregnancy and if I could limit my intake of that particular food I would begin to improve. I knew I needed help so once again I went to the doctor.

My doctor was quite encouraging and ordered tests for me to get my food allergies tested (which of course came back negative to any food allergies), as well as a referral to see an optometrist. The eye doctor found that my right optic nerve was swollen and sent me to a specialist who confirmed it, and who than brushed it off as having to do with the small amount of weight I gained in my most recent pregnancy. My general practitioner didn't seem as confident it should be overlooked so she referred me to a neurologist. I had an MRI of my brain as well as a light test to check for epilepsy which both...you guessed it...came back normal.

It wasn't long before I began developing more symptoms. Crazy right? Not different symptoms, all the previous ones would remain, simply more. I got an extremely bad lip infection. It started with a cold sore and spread throughout my top and bottom lips. It was inflamed, bumpy, and incredibly painful. Every month I began getting 5 to 10 canker sores in my mouth and my tongue developed a thick white layer called thrush (a yeast buildup). I got rashes on my body and began losing weight and hair. The tips of my fingers crumpled up like I was constantly dehydrated and I began having extremely heavy periods (Sorry for the TMI but I was bleeding between 8 to 12 ounces a day). I had severe pains in my female regions and I felt irritable and grumpy constantly. Like a never ending PMS! I was hardly living. I was reminded of my poor health with every new sensation and the development of every new symptom. I once again went to the doctor who gave me an anti-viral for my lip/mouth infection, checked my thyroid and ran some more blood tests. Everything came back--say it with me now--normal!

My OB sent me to get a pelvic ultrasound because of my heavy bleeding and checked my hormone levels. Well surprisingly, everything came back normal  (you weren't surprised were you?).  Several months after I this I began having blood and mucous in my stools--which is a pretty scary thing if you've never had it. I was referred to a gastroenterologist who did a colonoscopy (since colon cancer runs in my family) and was checked for celiac disease, colitis, and crohns, which all came back normal. I was at my wits end. Can you imagine (I'm sure some of you can) what it feels like to go from doctor to doctor, specialist to specialist? Can you imagine waiting weeks for appointments and for approval from insurance to wait weeks to get an appointment and find out that you are seemingly NORMAL?!?! I knew how I was supposed to feel, and this was far from normal. These were dark times for me, some of the most difficult in my life. I was a mother of three little ones who needed me and a wonderful husband who took off way too much of his schooling to help ease my burdens. I was able to function, I was able to meet the basic needs of my children, but that was about the extent of what I had to give. Everything else I had was put into my illness. It was draining emotionally, spiritually, and physically.

I couldn't understand how my body could be in such turmoil with no explanation, no found cause. That is when I decided to start taking my health in my own hands and heal myself. I randomly had heard about a thing called Candida and for some reason it simply clicked in my mind. The thrush in my mouth, yeast rashes and a nursing baby who constantly developed thrush in her mouth. I realized I had taken antibiotics for a minor ear infection (I will share my opinion on this issue later :) just prior to giving birth and the combination of that, my diet, and pregnancy most likely developed caused a nasty, whole body, yeast infection. I began eating a candida diet and taking probiotics (which took some getting used to for my poor body which would vomit every time after I took them for the first while). I slowly began to improve. Most importantly I began to understand that I could heal. I knew it would take time, and it has, but that the dark times were slowly being penetrated by the light of knowledge.