Sharing some details on how I overcame my autoimmune struggles, balanced my body, and am now symptom free. Download the free eBook here.
Hello friends! How are you? I hope you’re having a great morning so far. I’m having a day full of client calls and looking forward to some adventures with the family – we’re heading to Disney for a long weekend to celebrate Liv’s birthday. I will share the adventures AG Stories! The kids have been asking for events or trips instead of birthday parties and I love that. Way less stress all around and more fun.
I’m usually weird about celebrating personal things — for example, I never tell anyone when it’s my birthday — but there are two milestones I’m celebrating this month, and I’m embracing every bit of those huge milestones:
– One year symptom-free
– One year of negative signs of lupus
How I overcame my autoimmune struggles
My main symptoms
Less than two years ago, some strange things happened regarding my health. I went from feeling fine* — I still felt occasional anxiety and fatigue at times — to dealing with mysterious rashes, histamine issues, joint pain, and extreme fatigue. I couldn’t recover from workouts, and if I did something particularly intense, I felt like I needed to sleep for the rest of the day. My eyes also gave me a lot of sadness. I’ve written quite a few blog posts about my eye saga, but it ended up being blepharitis, meibomian gland dysfunction, and dry eyes.
The last glow in my eyes was a little over a year ago. We have seen Nutcracker As a family – it’s one of our favorite traditions – and I felt my eyes light up during the show. Suddenly, it was burning, itching, and neon red. Once that was over, we rushed to Walgreen’s to buy Claritin — I knew at that point that it was part of the histamine response — and I got out my contact lenses so I could put my glasses on. I was in much better shape, but I still had eye flare-ups on a regular basis.
This was my last one.
My autoimmune story and signs of lupus
Two summers ago, my primary care provider helped me run some blood tests, and everything came back *normal*, except for two signs of lupus. When one is positive, there is a possibility that you have lupus, but when two are positive, it is very likely that you have lupus. While 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 heal myself.
While I had gotten some possible diagnoses from my primary care provider and a dry eye specialist, No one could tell me why this was happening. I knew my body was crying for help, that something was causing the inflammation, and I was determined to find out. I was Newly accredited IHP Level 2 certification, So I put my new skills to work. The goal was to discover my deficiencies and toxicities so I could bring everything back into balance.
How I overcame my autoimmune struggles
I have made fundamental changes in my life. Doing functional labs on myself, changing my diet, and focusing on my nervous system was a game changer. Over time, my autoimmune and histamine issues went away, my eyes stopped bothering me, and my energy and focus returned.
By last December, I felt much better, and my lupus signs were negative. Last week, during my annual blood test, both markers were negative again, which was a huge relief and a testament to the progress I’ve made. Well, I was nervous to get the results because I had been feeling great for the past year, but it was a sigh of relief.
(You can see here that the ANA test was positive in July, and negative in December!)
And negative again last week when we tested again:
And negative dsDNA twice in a row as well. Wahoo!!!
That’s a bit too long for a blog post, so I wanted to share some of the things I implemented and learned in the process. I free downloaded 7 things that helped me a lot, and The link to get a copy is here. Simply add your email and everything will be sent to you automatically.
Please keep in mind that this is not medical advice. I’m just sharing my experience and hope this offers some ideas or support if you’re in the same boat. It’s also sharing some hope because the way it is *now* may not be permanent. Healing is possible, and it may be difficult to see that in the moment. <3
Sending lots of love to you.
xo
Jenna