When Western Medicine Fails

Where do you turn when western medicine fails? How do you reconcile the one thing you thought you could turn to in sickness and in pain? When deficiency rears it’s ugly head, where can you possibly run to that may have the answers for you?

How different things were back then…

A myriad of pain, a torrential downpour of disastrous symptoms that rendered me useless, wondering if I’d make it through the storm…

Like I was caught in the squall with nary a raincoat or umbrella.

That was my daily narrative a few years back.

(For the whole story, start here.)

In my search for a savior to all this suffering, I opted to seek the help of traditional doctors, the medicine and treatment we all grew up with and are used to seeing.

At a loss to comprehend the nightmare that had trapped me, my hope was that someone out there could comprehend this strange occurrence that had overtaken my entire being and would point me in the right direction.

A desire left unfulfilled…How sadly far from the truth this all was…

In fact, it was absolutely shocking to see the flabbergasted, at-a-loss responses of these physicians.

my simple hope was that someone out there could comprehend this strange occurrence …and would point me in the right direction.

I started the spring seeing an orthopedic surgeon and a vein specialist for my surgeries and my next stop was a primary care physician in our area. This guy was young and I can’t imagine he’d been practicing too long.

I had such a lengthy list of symptoms spanning a period of several months that I couldn’t keep them straight, so I typed them up and brought the entire full length document into the appointment to explain my predicament.

He took one look at that sheet and immediately enveloped a deer in the headlights persona – frozen and terrified.

I wasn’t doing so well, myself.

Biting back pain and hoping for a miracle answer.

Barely containing the flood of tears when the nurse asked my reason for visiting.

Trying, yearning, to explain how incredibly intolerable the pain was and how the medicines they were pushing at me weren’t going to work.

Not being heard.

In disbelief that I must go home and face the same impossible situation the same way, with no answers, no hope for escape…

My heart, so discouraged after the appointment…I experience a kind of pulsating adrenaline attack in the parking lot, surges of pain shooting up and down my back in a horrifying way.

I cannot say but that my other appointments with other physicians in their own respectable fields were just as bad, if not worse.

No one could look me in the eye.

No one seemed to be able to connect with me on an empathetic level; the feeling of being pushed to another specialty, referred out to be someone else’s problem…hastily prescribed medications scrawled on a sheet to appease the monster of pain inhabiting me…yet another sleep med, another anxiety pill.*

Not a single one tried to take the time to find out how I’d gotten to the place I was in. Not a single one aimed to fix the problem at it’s source.

Why was my nightmare being met with yet another nightmare in a world that’s supposed to help hurting people?

I visited the PCP, another orthopedist, a physical therapist…a vein doctor who told me stop having kids…a surgeon who told me carpal tunnel syndrome was looming in my near future. The orthopedist and the physical therapist gave me completely opposite instructions as to how to handle my pain-ridden muscles.

I ordered Melt balls, funny contraptions to press on my sorrowful back, pain-relieving ointments, and received a handful of massages.

I began to look into pain management specialists…and was aghast at just how far I’d gone in order to erase the pain that encompassed. I called…and never made the appointment. Falling into that world, to me, was giving up. I couldn’t reduce myself to merely relying on pain shots and injections to stem away the reality.

I was the person excavating the pasture for that precious treasure hidden, only to come up empty. Despite all my digging in this field of traditional medicine, the only thing I’d unearthed was my own waiting grave.

Gouging into the barren soil, I simply gouge my own heart.

Where do you turn when western medicine fails?

How do you reconcile the one thing you thought you could turn to in sickness and in pain? When deficiency rears it’s ugly head, where can you possibly run to that may have the answers for you?

When western medicine fails, you turn to natural healthcare, instead. Natural healthcare operates on the premises that the human body is meant to heal itself.
Natural healthcare seeks to fix the underlying problem,
not just soothe it with a bandaid treatment.

I know this now. But how little I was aware of back then.

But let’s back it up a bit…I didn’t get here overnight…

The Puzzle Piece of Nutrition

If you were a product of the 80’s, like me, then you can relate –

boxed hamburger helper and packaged cereal and snacks. Kudos bars and Cap’n Crunch.

My thoughts on health and nutrition were far from…
well, true health and nutrition.

I was used to seeing lots of boxes pile in from the grocery store. Raiding the pantry for a dozen Oreos in the afternoon, the freezer for ice cream before bed.

Not that my parents only did boxed meals to feed us. They made homemade items, as well, but it was never pressed upon me the difference between the one versus the other. And there was always junk food in the house.

So of course, being a kid on this kind of diet, I became an adult on this kind of diet. Convenience and tastiness and I never learned to cook.

This went on for years.

By the time I arrived at this crucial period of body breakdown, little did I realize what state my body was in to begin with.

And no education meant no clue as to what was wrong with me…or what could save me.

A Miracle Plan

I scribble furiously what my ears cannot believe to hear.

Details outlined on the scrap of page in front of me.

This is the plan?
An impossible diet is going to save me?
Is this really going to work?

The naturopath seems unscathed by my disbelief. Cool, calm, and collected, this is just how it is and why would I think anything else would work?

My education was about to begin.

We swung by Wegman’s on the way home, a worthy pit stop to replace the scads of sugar-laden, chemical-induced foods in our pantry. Filling our cart with carefully selected proteins and veggies, I wondered at how I was going to make it through when we had relied so much on sweet items and things in boxes to fuel us.

Swirling in my head were the words from my visit… Leaky gut…Candida…Adrenal Fatigue…words all so new to me.

Leaky gut syndrome was enabling toxins to filter through the lining of my stomach into my bloodstream. Once they’d reached the bloodstream, they had free and full access to my entire being, caravaning a red stained road to reach every inch and corner of me.

No wonder I’d had pain from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet.

Candida is an internal yeast overgrowth…it has several levels in how it affects those it inhabits, from bloating and “brain fog” to chronic fatigue. Candida feeds on sugar, including anything that tranforms into a sugar form, so all fruits and carbs were now out of the question for me.

Many people have candidiasis and many people are completely unaware.

And leaky gut and candida go hand in hand.

In essence, the basic plan on the road to healing was to:

~ boost my broken-down immune system…my days now beginning with a nutrient-packed powdered concoction to mix with water and guzzle down
~ treat with anti-fungals…to fight against all the toxins packed within my small frame
~ nourish on a Candida diet…the anti-sugar diet would serve to starve any further Candida growth and fill me with proper nutrients, instead
~ incorporate probiotics…to build up a defense for my compromised gut. A daily probiotic is key for everyone.
~ calm those ragged adrenals

Treat my body right and my body would start the process of healing itself. Or so I was told.

I was given the tools and info I needed to go make this a reality. On a wing and a prayer, I was hoping for a miracle.

I went to bed that night, holding onto this last shred of hope. When all had failed me in the traditional medical world, would the world of natural healthcare also let me down?

The first key to implement was a cortisol manager, a smooth, white pill that would prohibit any overproduction of cortisol my adrenals may be tempted to dish out in their overtaxed state.

I swallowed it down that night, climbed into bed…

And slept.

Eight. hours. straight.

Eight HOURS. No waking. I opened my eyes the following and it was like angels were singing over my bed.

I had not slept more than 5 or 6 hours at night in a year and a half.

And even then…not without laying bed for hours first…waking up in the middle of the night repeatedly…waking too early engulfed in masses of pain.

The first miracle of many.

The next month of sticking to the plan found my body undergoing all kinds of odd symptoms as the toxins were effectively released out of my body. Craziest symptoms ever!

By the time I hit the six week mark, all my horrid symptoms were just about gone.

Rejoicing and tears and awestruck exuberance over the excruciating season that was coming to an end. Counting the blessings of the smallest things, from now being able to change a diaper, to walking down the driveway with my little guy in arm…a baby I’d hardly held the entire seven months of his existence.

So, what on earth? What really happened to bring about this unlikely healing? Why did this all work?

The Truth Behind It All

Perhaps we’re all in a bit of a storm.

Caught up in the whirlwind of everyday life, where time is in short supply and every masked rainbow of relief shows in the form of our beautifully marketed advertising…save time here and pick up this easy dinner…stick this in the microwave for five minutes and ding! it’s done…your kids will love this and oh how quick and easy a snack it’ll be…

We’re living in a world, encompassed by a thousand messages
telling us to save money and save time.
And, in doing so, we’re exacting the greatest cost on our health.

We cannot go on any longer this way. With all our many ailments and diseases now, when will our eyes open to the truth that these are stemming from the toxins in our foods, our compromised water table, the chemicals surrounding us in society today?

I couldn’t take it any longer. My body couldn’t take it.

In a nutshell –

~ My body was completely compromised by years of eating processed, chemical and sugar laden, toxic food. You are what you eat.
~ My body was further compromised by the lack of defense in my gut. I had never taken a probiotic, yet had two surgeries and a birthing experience in this timeframe, all chock full of antibiotics, but no probiotics to keep the forces in my gut strong.
~ The antibiotics and carb-filled diet caused an overgrowth of Candida. The poor diet and lack of antibiotics caused Leaky Gut Syndrome, which allowed toxins to route through my bloodstream, affecting my entire body..thus, the fibromyalgia symptoms.
~ My body being so out of whack placed my hormones completely off-kilter, giving me severe insomnia and Adrenal Fatigue.

What a mess! And I wonder how many “Like Me’s” are out there? How many are caught in this same predicament…or are fast burning rubber down the same road…

~ But once I bypassed the route of traditional medicine – which never sought to treat the underlying problems – and turned to natural healthcare, I could finally address what was causing the ruckus in the first place.

And with my foundation of health on the right track,
my body could follow and begin healing itself.

So incredibly AMAZING.

What’s the message here?

Am I saying to pursue natural healthcare and completely forgo traditional medicine?

Absolutely NO.

There most certainly IS a place for traditional medicine – please don’t misinterpret – but when we’re abusing our bodies via our daily decisions and then seeking our doctors to “fix” us, we’re winding down a wrong road.

My prayer is that those who need this wake-up call, this guidance in their lives would read this and benefit. Chronic pain is a complicated and arduous road to avenue to navigate. Natural healthcare may not be the only answer, but it certainly is a foundational one and the place to start.

I’m overwhelmed with thanksgiving at how quick my initial turnaround was after such an intense season. The longer the sickness, the longer it takes the body to heal, and I’m ever grateful to not have walked in my pain but so long.

I’d been praying for a miracle…and a miracle is what I got.

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Are you dealing with a difficult illness or chronic situation? Feel free to send me a message or leave a comment below…I would love to pray for you 💚

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Note: I also saw two providers who really border more on the natural healthcare world earlier on in my sickness – a chiropractor who came highly recommended and a renowned trigger point specialist.
The chiropractor spent about 2 minutes with me each session and then charged me $50 a pop.
The trigger point specialist got so fed up with me when I didn’t get better, she told me I was subconsciously making it all up and needed to work on my mental health.
All to say, the quality of the practitioner is also a HUGE factor, whether traditional or natural. And neither of these providers ever discussed nutrition and diet with me.

*I don’t want to paint a poor portrait of all traditional providers out there. There are some who are very compassionate and caring. The biggest issue is trying to use traditional medicine to solve a problem that needs foundational care.