MY STORY
I’ve been passionate about health and wellness for as long as I can remember. As a former college athlete, I know what it feels like to be mentally and physically well. As a child, I was sick more often than my sisters and friends, and I had weird symptoms that no one else had. But it wasn’t until later when things got really bad. Beginning in my late teens and early 20’s, I began suffering from chronic “mystery illnesses.” I’ve frequented both ends of the wellness/illness spectrum, and it’s been a wild ride!
After suffering from “mystery illnesses” and chronic symptoms for 10+ years, I finally figured out what works best for me; to feel my best, look my best and perform my best. I learned to heal myself from the inside out. I healed chronic inflammation in my gut, my brain, and my skin. I calmed and repaired my dysregulated nervous system after being diagnosed with anxiety and depression, and reduced episodes of both chronic and acute symptoms and diseases that took an enormous toll on my daily life. And now I’ve been able to help 100’s of women do the same in my private practice (we’ll get to that part)!
On my decade+ long health journey, I have been inspired and amazed by many of the stories I’ve read, listened to, or heard about. It has been healing, comforting and encouraging to hear other’s stories, so to help anyone, like you, that comes to my website looking for help, here goes mine…
Despite always having a knack for the wellness world and trends, my true health journey started in college when I started experiencing chronic health issues. During finals week of freshman year, I was hospitalized for terminal ileitis (inflammation of the small intestine) after having appendicitis like symptoms and rushing to the ER. In addition to the inflammation in my small intestine, they later found adhesions covering my lower right abdomen, my appendix twisted in a knot, and cysts on my fallopian tube.
I was initially discharged on a “possible crohn’s disease” diagnosis. For 9+ years following this hospitalization, I saw countless doctors and specialists searching for answers. I got colonoscopies, laparoscopies, endoscopies, ultrasounds, CT scans and more. Every doctor I saw had a different perspective on what they thought it was. Here are some of the things that I was told it could be: crohn's, ulcerative colitis, celiac disease, IBD, IBS, post-infectious IBS, SIBO, endometriosis, lupus, lyme disease, connective tissue disease, the list goes on. Blood tests, procedures, surgeries, and doctors appointments failed to pin-point what it was.
That initial episode of terminal ileitis was like a light switch for an immune reaction in my body, turning on chronic issues that I had never experienced before. I was no longer able to digest foods that I had tolerated my entire life up until that point. I had severe back-pain where I was put on pain-killers for months at a time, sharp pains that felt like knives jabbing into my abdomen, extreme bloating to where I looked 6 months pregnant and debilitating GI distress that changed how I could function day-to-day (I had diarrhea for 9 years!).
Exhausted from seeing doctors and getting test after test with no clear answer or remedy, I decided to take healing into my own hands. I started by experimenting with my diet. I cut out gluten, and later dairy, sugar, grains, and legumes and eventually found myself on a paleo/primal diet. I found this to be the optimal way of eating for me, as it freed me from the worst of the debilitating symptoms that I was experiencing. I had to be quite restrictive and careful with my diet, but I found relief.
I continued eating this way through my remaining college years, and would occasionally flare if I drank alcohol or ate triggering foods. It was doable and I was able to keep on living my life.
I graduated college and thought I had it figured out. I would eat healthy (strict paleo) and exercise rigorously (6+ days per week) and this would be the way to sustain optimal health. At the same time, I was working 3 jobs, 1 of which was teaching full-time in the most crime-ridden and underprivileged neighborhood in central Florida. I nannied in the afternoons after teaching, and worked evenings and weekends as a server at a local restaurant. I was over-caffeinated, overbooked and chronically stressed. I was running in overdrive 24/7 but I didn’t realize it at the time.
Then, 2 years out of college I got acutely sick again, but this time it was worse.
I was on my way to a massage for neck pain that I had been experiencing. I pulled into a parking spot and out of nowhere I couldn't remember how to turn my car off. I couldn’t physically move my hands to take the keys out of the ignition, or open the car door. I felt drunk and disoriented and had no idea what was going on. I couldn't remember my phone number or home address. I’d reach right when I meant to reach left and felt like I was moving in slow motion. I went to the ER for stroke-like symptoms.
They put me at the bottom of the triage because I was able to form words (albeit, slowly). 5 hours went by and they finally got me in with a doctor. They suspected it was “just vertigo,” and tried to send me home. After I insisted something was wrong, they ordered a CT scan of my brain.
I will never forget the moment that the doctor came in, sat down, and looked at me seriously. She explained they found something on the CT scan. It was a large "lesion" in the left-parietal zone of my brain. It looked like it might be a tumor. They didn't know what it was, all they knew was that it was big and solid and they needed to do something about it quickly. The ensuing months were a blur.
That was almost 7 years ago. I realized, in that moment, that life is short and I could die. Death was a possible outcome and for the first time in my life I had to sit in a hospital bed for days on end, thinking, what if this is it? I was not the invincible 24 year old that I thought I was.
I was in the hospital for a total of 9 days. They completed a brain surgery to find out what it was and how to remove it, which was probably the second scariest moment of my life. Good news! It wasn’t cancer. It was a brain abscess, a bacterial infection that somehow passed my blood-brain-barrier. This was promising news in that it was most-likely treatable. But my neurosurgeon was flabbergasted. He told me this was not right, I was a healthy young woman. According to him ‘only HIV positive drug users who live in dumpsters and are immune-compromised get brain abscesses. Normally a healthy person's blood-brain-barrier keeps infection out.’
Interestingly enough (this was 2016) my neurosurgeon told me that he believes my brain abscess happened due to intestinal permeability (leaky gut) from all my gut issues, allowing pathogenic bacteria (strep) into my blood stream, through my compromised blood brain barrier and into my brain. To this day, he is the only conventional doctor that has looked at the bigger picture and considered a true root cause. All other medical doctors I saw told me each health scare I had in those 10 years was a “fluke” and entirely disconnected.
I was put on heavy doses of IV antibiotics that I took for 3 months via picc-line. I went on seizure medication (Keppra) that made me feel like an actual crazy person. I had home nurses, and spent the next few months in bed or at doctors appointments. Months went by. I felt weak, scared, sick and anxious, but I eventually healed and was told to ease back into normal life.
Despite countless appointments with doctors and specialists, naturopaths and therapists, I had no answer for why this mysterious, rare and deadly illness happened to me. Because of my prior health history, I knew it was all connected. I just had to figure out the “how” and the “why.”
My body went through a lot, post-brain-abscess. I was stressed, anxious and depressed and it quickly became debilitating. I suffered from panic attacks for the first time in my life. I was so fatigued that sometimes I couldn’t walk up the stairs or leave my apartment. I started getting night sweats where I would wake up drenched in my own sweat and have to change my clothes several times throughout each night. I wasn’t able to sleep. I would lay there all night with my heart beating out of my chest, overwhelmed with fear and worry. I was eating constantly, yet hangry and low energy all the time. I started getting cystic acne all over my face for the first time in my life. I gained 10 pounds of a “hormonal tire” around my abdomen. I was chronically bloated, brain foggy and moody. My period became either non-existent or 45-50 days apart. Within a year of my brain abscess, I was diagnosed with PCOS, SIBO, anxiety and depression.
My neurologist wanted me on SSRI’s and benzodiazepines, my OBGYN wanted me on birth control pills and spironolactone.
I was exhausted and my health was becoming a full-time job. I had to make a choice then and there that I was not going to put a bandaid on all of these problems that my body was screaming at me to deal with. Conventional medicine had saved my life, but wasn’t helping me be “well.” I needed to restore balance in my body through a combination of intentional holistic changes involving nutrition, lifestyle, mindset + more. If I had control over one thing it was how well I treated my body. What I put in my mouth, how I moved and rested, and how I took care of my mind.
I needed to balance my hormones by regulating my blood sugar, my stress, and getting myself out of 24/7 fight-or-flight mode. I had to restore function in my gut, support my immune system and help my body’s clogged up detoxification pathways. I needed to slow down, look at the big picture, address healing opportunities and actually listen to what my body was asking for.
Through a combination of nutrition, rest, movement, stress reduction, functional testing & targeted supplementation, I was able to eventually find balance.
I balanced my hormones, reduced systemic inflammation, cured my acne, calmed my GI-tract, lost the hormonal 10-15, found myself sleeping again and got my energy, stamina and enthusiasm for life back. I made changes that were attainable, efficient and gave me lasting results to feel better and live healthier. And now I get to help 100’s of women do the same!!
Life is too short to feel sick and scared all the time, I don’t want anyone to have to experience their health journey alone and without direction like I did.
With the right combination of nutrition, behavior and lifestyle practices (all part of The MaddHealthy Method framework), YOU can and will feel your best. I never thought I would, and here I am! :).
