I think the answer to this question is different for everyone. I’m not here to tell you why you should chose alternative medicine. Heck, I’m not even here to make you change your mind about the lifestyle that you choose to live. I’m here to tell you why I choose to live this lifestyle. Why I choose alternative medicine and a more natural approach to life in general.
I have always felt “sick”. I have had anxiety on and off throughout my entire life. I spent most of my teenage years on antibiotics for chronic sinus infections (which they don’t even give antibiotics for anymore) and chronic bronchitis. I took multiple kinds of allergy medicines everyday, I took multiple inhalers, I took over the counter medicine like sudafed and advil daily and I still always felt sick. I got to the point where I was so dizzy at certain points in my day that I literally could not stand from all the pain and pressure in my head. I also started having numbness and tingling in my hands and feet. I needed to stop feeling this way.
I braved the Dr’s and a barrage of testing to try and help me find out WHY I was sick. My primary care physician ordered all kinds of tests. She checked me for Lupus, MS, Brain Tumors, all the things that you NEVER want to find out you might have let alone have one of those things come up positive. The results of all her testing was that I was vitamin D deficient. That’s the only thing modern medicine could tell me. She suggested I try seeing an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist.
After viewing my medical history and all the sinus trouble I had in the past the ENT sent me back to the hospital for an MRI to determine if I had a lingering sinus infection deep in my sinus cavities that may have to be surgically removed (the CT scan I had just taken wasn’t enough). The MRI again thankfully revealed nothing. And the allergy testing began. The 24 tests performed on my back didn’t yield satisfactory results so they stuck 65 needles in my arms (did I mention I have anxiety?). After being used as a pin cushion for what felt like eternity, they held a ruler up to all the welts on my arm that kind of looks like what you use to measure servings of spaghetti, the bigger the spaghetti serving the worse your allergy… or something like that. My allergies were feeding a large Italian family for at least a month! I had a reaction of some kind to everything that they tested me for. I had what they considered to be a severe reaction to 59 of the 65 allergens. Now I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve never really been GOOD at anything my whole life. I was GOOD at being allergic! I was basically told not to leave my house. Don’t spend time outside, don’t open your windows in your house or the car, get an air conditioner and be a hermit, but by the way, you’re allergic to everything inside too (mold, dust, your animals, YOUR FEATHER COMFORTER) so good luck with life. They didn’t really tell me “good luck” they told me they wanted me on immunotherapy for the next 5 years, but not just any immunotherapy, I wasn’t getting off easy with shots (shots aren’t easy they are terrifying, especially after being stabbed with 65 needles in a day) I was recommended drops, drops that you take every day under your tongue and aren’t approved by the insurance company because they are super new and will cost you $1500.00 a year but you can make monthly payments drops. {insert photo of someone fainted on the floor here}
I went home with extremely swollen arms to think, and scratch, and scratch some more, and swell, and try and scrub the purple marker that they numbered all 65 needle pricks with off my arms. Although the cost of the drops was daunting I recognized the fact that I had severe allergies. I have known this my whole life. But there was something about the thought of immunotherapy that put me off. Although they can’t guarantee that it works I know people who have used it that have had very positive results with it. But slowly introducing myself to things that I am allergic to so that my body builds antibodies and eventually gets used to having these allergens present freaks me out a little bit. WHY do I have such an extreme sensitivity to all of these things? The answer to that question is something that my ENT and immunotherapy couldn’t offer me. And I went to the Dr. to learn WHY I was sick. So I begrudgingly moved on.
While talking to a friend I learned about a local (when you live where I live local means an hour away) business that specializes in making custom remedies for people using TBA or Total Body Analysis and Kinesiology to determine what the body needs to correct itself (sound familiar?). I called and made myself an appointment and I have to admit I was skeptical with a capital “S”. When I sat down with my TBA Practitioner I told her that I had allergies and that I wanted to try correcting them with her remedies rather than immunotherapy “as if that could happen” I thought to myself. What she told me was what was most astounding. She told me that I had anxiety, she told me that I had digestion problems (oh man did I ever), she told me that I had problems with my heart (I had surgery when I was 19), she told me that I carried to much grief (I have lost an astronomical number of people I love), she told me things that she could have NEVER known and things that I didn’t tell her myself. I felt like I was standing there completely naked and exposed, it was all I could do not to cry. How on earth could she possibly know this? I’ve been betrayed by my body! But as upsetting as it was at first, it was also astounding. If she could tell all of this just from touching me, could she actually help my body correct all of these things that were ailing it?
I went home stunned with instructions not to eat corn, milk, or peanut butter for the first 5 days of my remedy. I wasn’t sure what on earth I would eat because she just eliminated all my major food groups, but I was determined to do as she said and legitimately give this process a chance to help me. After 2 days on the remedy I have never felt better in my whole entire life. My lungs cleared, the pressure in my face and head started to relieve itself, I felt like I could breathe for the first time in as long as I could remember. I stopped experiencing the numbness and tingling in my hands and feet, my digestion improved. I never wanted to eat corn or milk or peanut butter ever again! But as I added them back into my diet 5 days later I STILL felt great. When that remedy was gone I went back for another, and another, and another, some of them making noticeable changes to my health like my first remedy and some of them making what I like to refer to as “behind the scene” changes, ones that you don’t notice right away but can look back on later and marvel at how far you’ve come.
When I walked into that office I had no idea that it would change the way I was living my life. I didn’t have the slightest inkling that I could feel the way that I feel now. Throughout the course of my remedies I stopped having panic attacks, I stopped needing the anxiety medication I was on, my digestive system regulated itself, my allergies went away and with them all the pain and pressure and dizziness. I feel better than I have since I was a child, all because I found a natural way to detox the toxins that I’ve been accumulating from my body.
The first remedy I took I knew that I wanted to use this process for the rest of my life. What I didn’t know at that point was that anyone can learn how to do this. I bought my test kits about a year in to my treatments. My TBA Practitioner graciously allowed me to shadow her, my full time job provided me the flexibility to work half days on Mondays so that I could pursue this new found passion. In no time I was making remedies for my dogs (that’s another story), for my family, for my friends, for anyone that was interested in what I was doing and would allow me the opportunity to work with them. That is how Holistically Healthy was born.
I think that it goes without saying that the more committed you are to your health the healthier you become. Remedies alone can help you heal but if you continue to have a terrible diet and expose yourself to an obscene amount of unnecessary toxins (smoking, chemicals, etc.) then the remedies will take longer to help your body correct what ever issues it’s having. I was fortunate to already be living a relatively “clean” life when I started my remedies. It made it easier for my body to detox. Since I started my detoxification process I have taken a much larger interest in all of the ways that my body accumulates toxins and where they come from. I have made other changes in my household and personal care products to help keep me at my healthiest in between remedies. I can’t tell you when the last time I was sick was. I still make myself a remedy every couple of months to stay on top of my health and relieve my body of any toxins that I’m accumulating.
Discovering this form of alternative medicine has without a doubt changed my quality of life. I look forward to helping others discover their happiest healthiest selves!
Never miss a post subscribe to the blog and learn more about alternative ways to detox and stay healthy.