I am sharing some details on how I overcame my autoimmune issues, brought balance to my body and am now symptom free. Download the free e-book here.
Hello friends! How are you? I hope you are having a wonderful morning so far. I have a day full of client calls and I’m looking forward to adventures with the fam — we’re going to Disney for an extended weekend to celebrate Liv’s birthday. I will share the adventures further IG stories! The kids have been asking for events or outings instead of birthday parties and I’m into it. A lot less stress and a lot more fun.
I’m usually weird when I celebrate personal things – like I never tell anyone when it’s my birthday lol – but there are two milestones I’m celebrating this month and I’m embracing every single part of these big milestones:
– a year without symptoms i
– one year of negative Lupus markers
how I overcame autoimmune struggles
My main symptoms
A little less than two years ago, some strange things happened with my health. I was feeling *fine* – still had occasional anxiety and was tired at times – until dealing with mysterious rashes, histamine issues, joint pain and extreme fatigue. I couldn’t recover from exercise, and if I did something particularly intense, I felt like I had to sleep for the rest of the day. My eyes also gave me a lot of trouble. I have written quite a few blog posts about the eye saga, but it ended up as blepharitis, meibomian gland dysfunction and dry eye.
My last flash in the eye was a little over a year ago. We saw Nutcracker as a family – one of our favorite traditions – and I could feel my eyes light up during the show. They were suddenly burning, itching and neon red. As soon as it was over, we ran to Walgreen’s to get some Claritin – at which point I knew it was part of the histamine reaction – and took out my contacts so I could wear glasses. I was MUCH better but still had regular eye flashes.
That was my last one.
My Autoimmune Story and Lupus Markers
Two summers ago, my PCP helped me get 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 high chance you have lupus. Although I was disappointed with the results, they made sense to me.
She 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 research and see if I could get better.
While I had some potential 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 newly certified IHP level 2, so I put my new skills to work. The goal was to discover my deficiencies and toxicities so that I could bring everything back into balance.
How I Overcame Autoimmune Problems
I have made significant changes in my life. Running functional labs on myself, changing my diet and focusing on my nervous system changed the game. Over time, my autoimmune and histamine issues disappeared, my eyes stopped bothering me, and my energy and focus returned.
By last December I was feeling much better, and my lupus markers were negative. Last week, during my annual blood test, both markers came back negative—a huge relief and confirmation of the progress I’ve made. TBH I was nervous when I got 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 the ANA was positive in July and negative in December!)
And negative again last week when we tested again:
And negative dsDNA twice in a row, too. Woof!!!
It’s too long for a blog post, so I wanted to share some of the things I’ve implemented and learned in the process. I made a free download with 7 things that helped me the most, i the link to get a copy is here. Simply add your email and everything will be sent to you automatically.
Please note that this is not medical advice. Just sharing my experience and hope this can offer some ideas or support if you are 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 can be hard to see in the moment. <3
Download the free e-book here.
Sending you lots of love.
xo
Gina
