I’ve spent several days, weeks even, trying to compose this article. Each time I think I have it, something happens that makes it even better. At this point, I’m almost overwhelmed by all I want to say. I’ll do my best to put it into words. But just how does one describe something that seems so… miraculous?
I think I’ve always been ill. I have had flashes. Moments. There were even entire days and maybe weeks (although that might be stretching it a bit) while Brian and I were traveling. Mostly, they were moments so sublime that they dragged me out, beyond the haze and the pain, into so much blinding wonder or joy that I couldn’t help but let myself get lost in them. When Brian proposed, one Christmas morning, on one knee in front of his parents and sister, I was lost in so much sheer excitement and joy – of course I bounced everywhere for the rest of the day. When I saw my uncle all dressed up and ready to walk me down the isle, I was swept up in the moment and never came down off that cloud my entire wonderful wedding day. There were days at a time while we traveled across the country in our overpacked motorhome that I was so absorbed by the beauty of majestic mountains, winding rivers, and dramatic plateaus that even the pounding sinus headaches or the gut-wrenching abdominal pains couldn’t hold me back from trying to soak in as much of it as I could. And, when I held my precious little baby boy in my arms as he gazed up at me with those big beautiful blue eyes – nothing could distract me, save the tears of overwhelming joy that this little person had chosen me to be his mother.
But these were moments. What about all the rest of the time? It seems like so much of my life has been shrouded in pain. Physical and emotional. The last seven or so years, since becoming pregnant, have been a steady decline. It’s as if the process of giving life was draining mine away in turn. The physical drain of bearing children and then spending several months immediately afterwards not really sleeping had sent my body into a spiral downwards. Emotionally, I began slipping. I had detoxed myself just before getting pregnant, in order to purge smoking out of my habit list. I’d promised Brian – and myself – that I wouldn’t smoke anymore if we were going to have kids. We were ready, so I quit. In the process, I had researched some herbal assistance to cleanse some of the toxins out of my body. I had never felt better. I’d even gotten back to very near my ideal weight. Then pregnancy, and gestational diabetes, seemed to throw me out of whack. Despite the fact that I started eating better than I ever had before, no amount of green veggies was going to work at that point. The downward track had begun.
Fast-forward to December, 2009. I have a disc, collapsing in my back. While the back pain for that seemed to have gotten better after a year of working out and doing exercises from a physical therapist, the knee pain I’d originally gone to the doctor had not only gotten worse, but is now in both knees. My Irritable Bowel Syndrome, diagnosed just before I was married in 1997, was once again worsening. I’d had my first colonoscopy, but nothing appeared to be wrong, so the diagnosis held. I’d begun seeing a Rheumatologist, who diagnosed me with Fibromyalgia, a cronic pain disorder. To me, Fibromyalgia has been my body’s way of screaming out to me for help. Yet, what could I do? Every doctor I saw wanted to put me on more medication, until I was taking eight different prescriptions. It would have been ten, but the cardiologist agreed to wait and see if the fibromyalgia treatment worked before trying anything for my high blood pressure and cholesterol. I was watching my diet, but the cholesterol wouldn’t go down, the blood pressure stayed (I’ve always been a low-salt kind of girl!), the old hiatal hernia (diagnosed back when I was a high school junior) started acting up and I was on something for reflux as well. The allergies themselves were slightly better managed by the new prescription of Singular, but I was supplementing Benadryl on a regular basis still, and both Tylenol and Tums were regular visitors too. I finally saw an eye doctor to try and solve the splitting headache pain that was now centering on my left eye, but she firmly explained to me that my eyes were in great health, but I was clearly under a lot of stress…
In fact, nearly every doctor I saw either said I was in perfect health and should not be experiencing the pain I was (desperately) trying to describe to them, OR… that they only ever saw “this kind of degredation” in “older” or “geriatric” patient.
Geriatric? Great. So I have half my doctor’s trying to tell me to “manage stress better” and shaking their heads as if I were a hypochondriac, and the other half worrying over me as if I was prematurely tipping headlong into an early grave. And, frankly, with the way I felt – my money was on the latter. If it weren’t for my beloved husband and my two beautiful children – and that knowledge that I had a wonderful thing going on there… well, I don’t know that I wouldn’t have just given up entirely. There wasn’t a week that passed where I didn’t cry at least three-four times. Possibly more. Not just a wispy tear here or there, but deep-down, shuddering, hold-myself-together-with-both-arms-or-I’m-going-to-shatter-and-I-don’t-know-what-happens-then kind of crying. I was adrift with despair, and Brian and the kids were the only real raft I had left that I could be sure I could rely on.
Because, when you’re there, nobody but family (and even then, only the closest ones) wants to get too close. You’re a sinking ship and part of them can sense it, like a strange whining noise off to one side in the back of their heads. So you hold on as best you can and ride through it all, just trying to keep enough above water so you don’t stop breathing.
I was in so much pain. Physical pain. Sure, I was under some stress, but damnit – so were other people around me! How could THEY manage to get through it, if it was normal? Is this how everyone feels? And, if so, how could these other moms around me not just lay down and die??? There were days it hurt so much that a part of me wanted to. Fortunately, I had my beautiful little family. I wanted to get better. To be a better me, so I could be better for them. So I kept plodding along, to each and every damned doctor appointment. There were little glimmers of hope along the way, but each one that didn’t FIX anything just brought me a little further back down the slope in the end.
And then one day, out of the blue, Brian sends me an email:
This was advertised in the Aspectarian. Their theory sounds good but I’m skeptical about the methodology. I tried googling for independent reviews of it but didn’t find anything useful at a quick check.
http://www.midwestallergyrelief.com/
It would be nice if it’s everything they claim, but I have doubts.
Anyway, thought I’d share.
Brian doesn’t send me crap in my inbox, mind you. He knows I already get something like 100 emails a day that just end up getting deleted after a glance over the titles. I don’t have time for nonsense – I get too overwhelmed – so, naturally, I click the link. He’s “skeptical”, but he’s sent it anyway, so it bears at least a glance…
Twenty minutes or so later, after having perused the site and watched the video of a news report they have there, I call him at work. This is a VERY close approximation to the conversation that followed:
“How much did you look at? Do you know what they are saying?” I ask him.
“I didn’t have time to look too much, and I can’t watch the video at work,” he tells me.
“I think I want to try this,” I tell him. Then the tears start welling up in my eyes. “No, I HAVE to try this. They say they can CURE allergies, Brian. CURE them. I don’t know… I’m skeptical… but if it WORKS… I think I have to try. If it DOES work, and I DON’T try it… I can’t… I need to try this.”
“So… make an appointment,” he says.
“Are you sure? I mean… we can’t afford it right now.“
“We’ll spend more than that in copays this month as it is, based on what we’ve been spending. Nothing else has worked, and it can’t hurt to try. Just make an appointment and see what it’s all about and we’ll take it one step at a time. If you want to try it, then let’s do it.”
Have I mentioned lately how much I love my husband? So. Very. Much.
I called them within about ten minutes or so after that. I didn’t want to lose my nerve. I was still skeptical, myself, you see. Still so very wanting to believe that they could do what they say, but really – doubting it. But I couldn’t risk not trying.
My first appointment was January 7th, 2010. By January 20th, we’d confirmed we could use the money in the health spending account to cover it (since Brian had set one up after we’d had SO MANY doctor’s appointments the prior year) and that evening Brian and Jareth had their first appointment. The next day, January 21st, Kayla had hers. Within ONE WEEK, I could tell that there was a difference. Within ONE MONTH, I had gotten to a point where I had realized that I had energy equivallent to when I was in college, AND I had successfully weaned OFF one of my fibromyalgia medications AND cut the medications for my Irritable Bowel Syndrome in half. TODAY, I called and asked to have the packet to wean down off of one of my other fibromyalgia medications as it is giving me TOO MUCH energy. At this point, even when I’m NOT under the influence of that particular medication, I feel like I have more energy than I have ever had in my entire life. Maybe when I was a child, back before I can remember…? Maybe I had this kind of energy then?
Don’t get me wrong. The knees still hurt, so I’m not giving up a couple of my meds just yet. There’s a different kind of problem there. I’ve also noticed other things. I had a head injury back in July of 2001. The swelling to my brain didn’t end until they were at the point where the next step would be drilling a hole to drain the fluid. Five days in ICU, ten days in the hospital total, with months of seizure meds and follow-ups. The swelling crushed my olfactory nerve, and one day I realized I’d lost most of my sense of smell as a result.
Nope. What I’d lost was the ability to smell the finer details, clearly. Or maybe, the body CAN heal that after all, despite the surgeon saying that it was likely to be permanent. Over the last two months, I have gained nearly all my sense of smell back. Because I’ve gotten rid of so many allergies… I can breathe again. And those were mostly FOOD allergies – we’re just getting into the pollens and respiratory stuff.
The treatment is relatively painless, they say. After two years of allergy shots with no results, I can attest to that. With the shots, every other Monday night was my own personal hell. I wanted so badly for them to work that I was all but lying to the ENT nurses – telling them that the side effects I was experiencing were less than they really were because I had already been sent back to the starting point once. “Shots night” meant we met at a clinic so Jareth, Brian and I could all each have one shot per arm, which left us burning at first and then bruised later on. I would get a serious headache, dizziness, and fatigue. And then – I couldn’t sleep. Every other Monday night was one where I would toss and turn and then have brief bits of sleep where I’d wake up from nightmares and not get any rest at all. And, two weeks later, I’d have to go do it again and pretend (mostly for Jareth’s sake) that everything was going great.
That was every two weeks. Once I realized what this was going to do for me – I started scheduling as many appointments as I could. A few times, I even had two in one day, with a two-hour break in between.
I won’t say there haven’t been side effects to these treatments, however. There have been points where my body was detoxing so much I would just suddenly need to lay down and sleep. I could tell my body was going through something. And I started to realize early on that my body was communicating with me more and more through the process. One of the two doctors who administer the treatment described it to me as an “onion” effect. With each new allergy/sensitivity that was resolved, my body was better able to notice and communicate the other problems. There was a point, about one month in, where I began to feel like I might have a clue about what it felt like to go through chemotherapy – there were points where I felt the way my mother once looked when she was going through chemo. I cried and cried, and slept as much of it off as I could, while my body grappled with trying to tell me about EVERY DAMNED PROBLEM THAT EVER WAS, as it pertained to my health.
Please remember that I was (and still am) going EVERY DAY. Results not typical, unless you are going to fanatically try to get better as FAST AS FREAKING POSSIBLE, like I am. Most people could probably do this once per week and their body would have more time to adapt and adjust to the new input. But, at this point, you know I have been both desperate and used to the “no pain, no gain” philosophy. And it was working! No WAY was I going to slow down! I still haven’t yet.
Then they treated me for EMOTIONS.
That’s right folks – certain emotions, like Anxiety and Sadness, were literally giving me physical problems. THIS was the “critical mass” point for me. I’d been feeling crappy all week, like I was fighting something off. I wasn’t sure if I was sick or if I’d just been overdoing the treatments, but I was leaning towards “sick” based on nearly throwing up Tuesday morning. Brian had stayed home that day and I’d skipped my treatment. On Wednesday, I dragged my still-waning self into the office to get the treatment in. On Monday, I’d been having a discussion there about what exactly a treatment for emotions might help with. We’d talked about it in relation to Jareth, but on Wednesday, (oh yeah, this is LAST Wednesday, folks) I went in and suggested we do that one for ME instead.
I started feeling a little different before I’d even left the office. By Thursday evening, I was euphoric. I had never felt so good in my LIFE. I was grinning ear-to-ear and telling everyone I could catch the ear of…
The web site. Go there. Look at it. It WORKS. Here, I’ll link it again, to make it more convenient:
http://www.midwestallergyrelief.com/
There’s so much more that I can, and will say about this. In the last four days I have possibly accomplished more than I have in the prior four weeks towards tasks that have been sitting in my inbox for months. My energy is better. My focus and alertness have improved. I am absolutely amazed at what they have been able to do for me in such a short period of time. The results are dramatic and phenomenal!
I will continue this in a future post. I want to talk about the treatment itself – how it works. I want to tell you how the kids have responded. I’m hoping to encourage Brian to post his own results on his web page as well, since he has to schedule his appointments in the evenings and is taking the process more slowly than I am. I want to tell you about the great people I’ve met there, and how different an experience it has been than the cold, dry medical world I’d grown accustomed to.
Stay tuned. More to come as I have time!
