I share some of the details of how I overcame my autoimmune struggles, brought balance to my body, and am now symptom free. Download the free ebook here.
Hello friends! what are you doing I hope you’ve had a great morning so far. I have a day full of client calls and I’m looking forward to some adventures with the family — we’re headed to Disney for the long weekend to celebrate Liv’s day. I will share the adventures IG Stories! The kids have asked for events or trips instead of birthday parties and I’m on it. Much less stress all round and much more fun.
I’m usually weird about celebrating personal things – for example, I never tell anyone when my birthday is lol – but there are two milestones I’m celebrating this month and I’m embracing every part of these huge milestones:
– one year without symptoms and
– one year of negative Lupus indicators
how i overcame autoimmune struggles
My main symptoms
Just two years ago, some strange things happened with my health. From feeling *okay* – I still had occasional anxiety and was sometimes tired – to dealing with mysterious rashes, histamine issues, joint pain and extreme fatigue. I couldn’t recover from workouts, and if I did anything particularly intense, I felt like I needed to sleep for the rest of the day. They also gave my eyes a lot of grief. I have done several blog posts about the eye saga but it ended up being blepharitis, meibomian gland dysfunction and dry eye.
My last glow was a little over a year ago. we had seen The Nutcracker as a family – one of our favorite traditions – and I could feel my eyes welling up during the show. Suddenly, they were burning, itchy and neon red. Once it was over, we ran to Walgreen’s for Claritin – I knew at that point it was part of a histamine response – and took out my contacts so I could wear my glasses. I was doing MUCH better, but I still had regular flare ups.
This was my last one.
My Autoimmune Story and Lupus Markers
Two summers ago my PCP helped me get some blood work done and everything came back *normal* except for two Lupus markers. When one is positive, there is a chance you have Lupus, but when two are positive, there is a very good chance you have Lupus. While I was disappointed with the results, they made sense to me.
He referred me to rheumatology, but since my symptoms were manageable and I had been dealing with them for about a year at that point, I really wanted to do some digging and see if I could treat myself.
While I had some possible diagnoses from my PCP and my dry eye specialist, no one could tell me WHY this was happening. I knew my body was crying out for help, that something was causing the inflammation, and I was determined to figure it out. i was a newly certified IHP Level 2, so I put my new skills to work. The goal was to discover my deficiencies and toxicities so I could bring everything back into balance.
How I Overcame Autoimmune Struggles
I made substantial changes in my life. Running functional workshops on myself, changing my diet and focusing on my nervous system changed the game. Over time, the autoimmune and histamine issues disappeared, my eyes stopped bothering me, and my energy and focus returned.
Last December, I was feeling much better and my Lupus markers were negative. Last week, during my annual blood test, both markers were negative again—a huge relief and a testament to the progress I’ve made. TBH I was nervous to get the results because I’ve been feeling great for the past year, but it was a huge sigh of relief.
(You can see here that ANA was positive in July and negative in December!)
Again negative last week when we tested again:
And negative dsDNA twice in a row, too. Wow!!!
It’s too long for a blog post, so I wanted to share some of the things I implemented and learned in the process. I made a free download of 7 things that helped me the most and the link to get a copy is here. Just add your email and everything will be sent to you automatically.
Please note that this is not medical advice. I’m just sharing my experience and hope this can provide some ideas or support if you’re in the same boat. It’s also to share some hope because the way things are *now* may not be permanent. Healing is possible, and it may be hard to see right now. <3
Sending you lots of love.
xo
Gina
