For ten long years, I battled illness without answers or relief. It was a long journey that left me feeling lost and alone. I was shuffled from one specialist to another, enduring countless tests and procedures that drained both our finances and my spirit. Doctors threw around potential diagnoses like multiple sclerosis, lupus, and cancer, only to leave me with more questions than answers. It affected my marriage and the last years I had with my children while they were still at home.

During my senior year of high school, I was hospitalized for several days with a high fever, and though I was very sick, no one could pinpoint the cause. The doctors informed me that whatever it was had begun to affect my kidneys and immune system. After trying various antibiotics, one finally worked to calm my body down but from that moment on I really struggled with my physical and emotional well-being. I had always suspected that this incident had affected me but wasn’t sure how.

After that illness, life became a rollercoaster of fatigue and bewildering symptoms. Starting birth control at 17 was like throwing gas on the fire and my emotions spun out of control. I was eventually diagnosed with PCOS in my mid20s, even misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder, yet I pressed on, focusing on raising my young family while trying to cope with the relentless ups and downs. 

In 2014, our family moved to a new town and into a new home. Within just two months, I gained almost 25 pounds. Shortly thereafter, digestion issues began to emerge with daily abdominal pain and bloating, my gallbladder began failing, my blood pressure would swing high to low, a heart monitor showed thousands of heart palpitations a day, I had severe body pain, electric-like shocks, hives all over my body that would come and go with no obvious cause, debilitating fatigue, hair loss, the weight kept piling on no matter what I did, brain fog, swollen & painful joints, such extreme leg pain that I could not walk or stand most of the day for nine straight months….the list goes on and on. It was hell and I truly believed in 2018 I would not make it through the year.

All the while I was desperately going from doctor to doctor, including a functional medicine doctor. I was open to anything, but was getting zero answers.
 Then 2020 happened.

First, so many health accounts began to pop up online due to the pandemic. Instagram practitioners sharing their knowledge led to me researching diseases and imbalances I never knew existed. Second, in March of that year I had a fractured root canal tooth that led to me being rotated off & on antibiotics for a few months- 8 rounds in total. This completely destroyed my gut and landed me with C. Diff by the fall BUT.....

It was the best I had felt in almost 20 years. All my symptoms were GONE. Every single symptom- all of it just stopped. And that’s when I really began to dig for answers and felt like maybe now I was close to discovering what had happened in my body. It was clear the antibiotics were "killing" something, the question was WHAT exactly. I was so distrusting of doctors at this point though that I refused to find someone new. I had the root canal tooth pulled by a biological dentist and prayed that this, along with the antibiotics, had "cured" me. Symptoms slowly began to return but not with the same intensity. The debilitating pain in my legs and feet never came back and that alone allowed me to start living life again.

Unfortunately, in January 2022, after having Covid for the second time I developed Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. I could only eat six foods without breaking out in hives or going into anaphylaxis. Desperate, I reached out to become a patient at a functional medicine clinic in a nearby town. This doctor was an answered prayer and he confirmed my suspicions of everything I thought had gone wrong- from the infection in 1994 being significant, down to there having been mold in our home in 2014. 

He ran all new blood work and specialized tests and I finally got answers. I was positive for Lyme Disease and had severe mold toxicity, leading to the diagnosis of CIRS (Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome) which encompassed all the symptoms I had struggled with for years. My body was producing NO hormones- at age 44 they were all at post-menopausal levels. I also tested for Rickettsia, the bacteria that causes Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and Bartonella, both of which are known Co-Infections of Lyme. No doubt about it, what landed me in the hospital at 17 was a tick bite. My immune system worked hard to keep the infections in check, struggling more with each stressful event & illness, and then it finally crashed when we moved into a moldy home years later. 

I also began to understand the relationship between traumatic events in our lives and how those affect our physical health, even years later. While painful, I began to work through those events of my own life while healing my nervous system, which was stuck in fight-or-flight. I did fourteen treatments of 10-pass ozone, took thousands of dollars of supplements and so many other very expensive treatments. I pushed too far, too fast, all in desperation to get better but setting myself back for months sometimes. I have done it all and know what NOT to do. It’s now almost 3 years later and I feel better than I did at 20 years old. I am no longer under the diagnosis of CIRS, my MCAS is controlled 95% of the time, the weight is {{slowly}} coming off, my nervous system is healed and I have energy to exercise, spend time with my family, travel all over the world with my husband and have fun. Do I still have bad days and occasionally struggle with a symptom or flare up? Of course. Am I now in perimenopause and have new things to learn? Yes! I’ve learned to accept that health is a journey, and I may never fully be healed this side of Heaven- but I can 'control the controllables' and do all I can to support my body to be it’s best. I am just beyond thankful to God that I can actually feel alive again and enjoy life, all while serving Him to the best of my ability!

This challenging journey, filled with frustration and despair, ultimately led me to discover my passion for Integrative Health. It became my mission to help others navigate similar struggles, to find the answers I so desperately sought, and to reclaim their lives. My experiences shaped not only my approach to health but also my commitment to supporting women in their journeys to uncover the root causes of their symptoms and find true healing.

My Story.