Living in an Autoimmune Fog

I need to say it to someone. Anyone who cares to listen. It's not something that's easy for me to talk about. I tend to think if I don't talk about something it will make it less true. That illogical thinking isn't getting me anywhere, so here's my confession: I have battled my entire life with one seemingly random physical condition after another. As a child, it was allergies and asthma. The treatment? Drugs and hospitalizations. As a young adult, I added IBD to the list, as well as frustratingly undiagnosed thyroid symptoms, PCOS and debilitating migraines. My body went wildly out of control for all four of my pregnancies, which took my own research and concentrated effort, along with a great deal of prayer to even achieve in the first place.

Ruminating on all the hospitals, doctors, medication, tests, then my own learning and applying healthy eating, supplementation and exercise, still being here at 36 and wondering what in the world is wrong with me... well, it all makes me tired just to think about. Could it be that I had so many unrelated diseases? I have sat in many different doctor's offices in my lifetime and heard the same words, over and over. "Tests show there is nothing wrong with you." "You need this prescription for..." Being a chronic people-pleaser, I have believed them and continued to berate myself for being unable to combat these things. Recently, God has taken me on a journey in the Bible that has helped me address my fault of caring too much what other people think of me. And I was able to take steps to move away from my fear of man. As a result, I've been brave enough to start questioning, and researching (thanks to my writer's skills.)

I have had a doctor answer my question of why I am still overweight even though I do not overeat and I exercise regularly, "If losing weight were easy I'd be thin." Another doctor, wanting to prescribe a low dose anti-depressive to treat my migraines said "At that dose, there's no way you will have any side effects." I promptly had to quit taking them because my mouth broke out with sores and my tongue was numb. I'm not saying that I believe all doctors are unconcerned about the individual who sits in their office looking for answers. I have at least three personal friends who are medical doctors and there is no doubt in my mind that they do what they do because they truly and absolutely care about the people they are trying to help in the best way they know how. What's more? They are super smart people! I grew up with one of them and I have always been amazed at her intellectual ability. And I know that the nature of a medical profession in a world that looks for any opportunity to profit on the mistakes of others makes it a hard thing to deviate from the accepted practices. That being said, when I "average together" the medical profession as a whole, what I've long wished for was a trained medical doctor who was willing to think outside the "medical doctor box." To treat the whole person, not just the symptoms. To base their care on the single living being sitting there on the table rather than the statistical average of all people.

I have long thought of myself as having one basis for every physical problem I have. I have known intuitively that there has to be one reason why all of these "autoimmune" problems are happening to me, over and over and without responding to any medications. Recently my jumbled thoughts and foggy intuition have helped me to stumble upon a cascade of information that could be the answer to my condition. It's all wrapped up in my genes, which have been affected in a way that causes my body to think of itself as an enemy. I am literally attacking myself with my own immune system. 

I can see this in all the daily struggles with pain and illness I am living with right now, as I am in an active phase, or "flare-up," possibly due to a nasty virus I had in December. Even with my migraines. I found THIS helpful book recently, and the way it described how a migraine works sounded so familiar. People with migraines have a part of their brain that overreacts to normal stimuli, such as weather and hormonal changes, flashing lights, loud noises. And it's true, those are the things that most often trigger violent pain in my head. How do you avoid any of those things? I have had migraines triggered just by glancing at the little flashing lights on my children's toothbrushes that tell them how long to brush their teeth!

It's all about overreaction. Ultra-sensitivity. I've known this about myself all along, but it never occurred to me that there might be others that had the same struggles. I've discovered even among my friends those that suffer the same sorts of problems. Some of them are not as far along on the journey of information I am, others are beyond me and confuse me with the "language" I haven't quite caught the grasp of yet.

So now my objective is to discover how I can convince my body that it doesn't have to respond in such an extreme way to everything. I'm going to try some new supplements, tweak my diet some more, and have a positive attitude laden with a dependence on prayer. And I'm not going to believe everything I'm told, especially if it doesn't make sense or prove true. I'm going to look deeper. I'm going to find out how I can be healthy for my family, and not continue to give in to pain by slowly becoming a hermit because I never leave my house. I'm determined that as long as I'm still breathing, it's a chance to find the truth. And when I do, I'm going to use it to help others like me. I promise.

THIS is next on my list of things to try. I know nothing about this doctor and little of why he has come to this place in his thinking, but when I look at the practical and natural ways he suggests I alter my lifestyle to feel better, I am encouraged to have hope. Natural doesn't make my body overreact. Natural doesn't cause my tongue or my ankles to swell up. Natural doesn't add more symptoms on my already full plate. Natural is more gentle. But natural takes patience. So I'll give it some time and see what I come up with.

Thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment.