Going from a Pharmaceutical junkie to Holistic Diva

Talk about knowing all pharmacueticals !!. I was the queen of pharmaceutical use. I swore if I just kept at it and trying all the pills my Dr’s were prescribing me, I thought that at some point I’d hit the jackpot and find my magic pill. Never did.

I really don’t wanna bore you with the list of pills and meds I’ve been on while I was living during the trial and error phase. That phase lasted a full two decades of my life. Talk about brain fog trying to remember moments and events is like walking through a damn corn field maze.

Knowing what I know now it’s very disturbing to think of the years I wasted chasing the wrong health battle. All the mental disorders...fibromyalgia blah, blah, blah..you name it and I was diagnosed with it. Even though I never fully had all the symptoms to each diagnoses I was given, I had enough to fit the criteria for many pills.

If I really have to go back and think what were the first pills I starting taking for any health reasons I’d say it was lactose intolerant pills. I’ve had stomach issues and abdominal pain along with IBS since I can remember. I’m thinking like 8 or 9? I swore they were my magic pill for my stomach pain even though it didn’t really do crap. I was always backed up or couldn’t stop going. I remember my childhood nights being spent up all night long holding my stomach crying. My mom would come check in on me but it became such a regular thing that she just thought I was being a baby or a too sensitive. Little did we know I had already been bitten and was showing the first signs of Lyme disease.

I Greek danced for my Greek church growing up, played soccer, danced, performed and did gymnastics. It was all my passion along with doing hair and makeup,drawing and writing poetry.

Then came the menstrual cycles, bullying, cliques, rumors and partying.

How about I start with the menstrual pain. Here comes taking more Tylenol and ibuprofen then my mom was giving me. The pain was like slow death. I can’t compare it to anything else because till this day even with the pain from Lyme Disease, I’ve never had that form or type of pain. I basically hemorrhaged when I was on my cycle. Would take up to 1,800 mg’s every 6-8 hours and my cycles would last about 10 days. I would skip school without my parents knowing and would try to sleep it off at my neighbors house till it was time to come home.

At the age of 15 I discovered cannabis, weed, whatever you wanna call it. It quickly became my new medicine. It would totally wipe out my period cramps that I later found out was endometriosis at the age of 19. Wiped out my stomach pain and headaches, helped me stay focused in class, calmed my nervous system and I was sleeping! Little to say I was hooked! Not to mention I struggled with insomnia most my childhood and when I found weed I began sleeping at night. Before that my grandma would rub my back till I fell asleep.I was also prescribed codeine at 16 but my parents never knew. My cramps were so bad that I actually functioned well on high doses of codeine. Most people would’ve been knocked out. Not me. That’s how bad the pain was. It only made me feel some what normal during my period cycles. Once again I was hooked.

After a few years running off of codeine, ibuprofen and weed by the time I was out on my own in the world at the age of 19, paying for my own place, bought a car and was working full time as a hairdresser I slowly slipped into what Dr’s at the time called depression and panic attacks from being on my own and taking on a new independent life. But when i think back before that I remember my senior year I began feeling these weird out of body experiences. I would feel like I was an alien on another planet or didn’t belong here. I’d feel so dissociated from people but I never knew how to explain it. It was almost like a bad trip lol! This was the beginning of my neuro-Lyme symptoms from having it in my body for so many years already. It had attacked my brain and my nervous system. So since it was diagnosed as depression I began my journey of many trials of antidepressants , anti-anxiety meds for insomnia and mood stabilizers. Little to say I can barely remember details and events from the age of 19-39. I’m 40 now.

By the time I’d gotten married I was 23. Moved out of state and left my whole world behind to live as a new wife in a whole new state to do things I’ve never done before. I was scared out of my mind. Probably scarier then getting Lyme disease lol. I have a huge Greek family and left behind an awesome clientele. But I was ready for change. It was time to grow up and be a REAL adult!

4 years later here comes the chronic fatigue symptoms but just thought it was being warn out due to being a parent. I was a stay at home mom that was also taking hair clients during the day. Can I say INSANITY? The days never ended and the nights didn’t exists. I needed fuel. So what do I know best? Pharmaceuticals! I was sure there was a magic pill to rev up my energy.

So my energy was hanging by a thread, my stomach felt like it was being tortured, my insomnia was off the charts, my anxiety was giving me hives and my brain felt fried. This is when my memory began to fade. Which is actually called brain fog from the side affects of Chronic Lyme. I’d leave my kids freshly cooked food out and totally forget to feed them. It was the worst and scared the hell out of me and I didn’t know how to explain it at the time and I didn’t want my husband to lose faith in my mothering abilities so I powered on. My families answer to all my issues were that I smoked too much pot growing up and it made me brain dead lol! I wish it was that simple. I’d take that over what Lyme was actually doing to my brain. It’s insanity!

Here comes the stimulant prescriptions and street stimulants. If it gave me energy and killed my fatigue so that I could continue to clean my house, cook for my family, play house wife, playmate to my kids, lover, wife, personal driver and hairdresser, I needed whatever stimulant I could get. I also lost my best friend to a drug overdose that year which pushed me over the edge and I just checked out. I couldn’t handle it all. Cheers to adhd pills and to the kind client who offered me cocaine verses a check. That ended up being the reason I confronted my family a year later that I had a problem. So I sat them down and cooked them an amazing dinner. I basically planned my own intervention! Rehab here I come. I’ll write a blog about that experience later..

Let me think... I was on an anti depressant, mood stabilizer, anxiety and insomnia meds along with heavy pain killers for my endometriosis which I later found out was actually the Lyme eating away the lining of my uterus and bladder. The crazy thing about this all is that I somehow managed. Non of my symptoms debilitated me or stopped me from performing my duties as a mother or a hairdresser until I was in a car accident in 2013 and then the real heal began. the trauma from the accident completed shut down my immune system and totally hijacked my nervous system to lock me into a fight or flight state and triggered all the inflammation from the infection to go haywire.

Fast forward a year after sobriety. All my symptoms were the same but now I was having nerve pain, random numbness in random areas and the chronic migraines. I figured it was due to being a hairdresser or the damage from all the meds and drugs after all these years so when I began my ”nerve and brain issues journey” I was sold I had arthritis and chiari-malformation of the brain but due to sobriety reasons I was not ok taking pain meds again. So I somehow tried managed the random pain and migraines without meds for 5 years until that damn car accident. The pain in my head, neck and back were so insane, debilitating and took my ass for over 5 years. After that accident every Dr I went to or every specialist I waited months to see all just had me leave their office with a new prescription filled with hope, I failed and took them without question forgetting about the rules to sobriety because I couldn’t take the pain anymore. I trusted every Dr and everything they fed me. I mean why wouldn’t I? They know best right? Boy was I wrong.

At this point I’m back on all my meds again and now adding major pain killers and strong muscle relaxers along with Botox injections from the accident. I’d tried every drug there was for my migraines for over a 3 year period. I felt like a total failure even though I hadn’t gotten back on the choice of drugs that got me to rehab in the first place but still... it was a chemical that altered you😔. Botox knocked out the pain for about 9 weeks. I went every 3 months for 3 years getting that toxic poison injected into me. Not one Dr mentioned how toxic or poisonous it was. Why would they? It’s working and it had me coming back regularly so that they could just continue to make money off my pain. Awesomeness lol! I later had to do massive work to undo what western medicine did to me for me to heal. I have no doubt in my mind that the pharmaceuticals prolonged and delayed my healing. Thanks car accident and thanks western medicine...NOT!

Fast forward 5 years of being on all these meds and seeing at least 7 different doctors with no improvement and tons of money down the drain spent on therapy sessions, chiropractor, massage and still living with pain from the accident, on top of the inflammation that was triggered and fatigue plus totally addicted to energy drinks. Never once thinking it was messing with the functioning of my heart. I began getting anxious and frustrated. I was hitting brick wall after brick wall. False hope in all the trial and errors of meds that were suppose to do the trick. I never did find relief or the answers I was looking for. This is when I began toying with the idea of taking a holistic approach with my health journey. Something had to give. I knew I wasn’t crazy like my family was making me out to be but at the rate my brain was decaying, I was turning crazy. Who wouldn’t? This disease makes you crazy..over time. No help, no support and no understanding just left me believing they were right. I gave in to the crazy Greek girl agreement and that I suffered from being a hypochondriac. Those agreements robbed me and went on to last too long. I needed change. This was far from just being in my head or from a car accident but that's just how it looked on the outside while my body was actually slowly decaying over time on the inside.

After finally giving up hope that any of theses top specialists were going to put my pieces together a very close friend of mine referred me to a naturopath. Boom! Time to flip the script. Whole new ball game. A game I’d known about before when I was trying to treat my endometriosis naturally but never really followed through. I had to change everything and do things I’d never heard of in order to fight this new diagnoses of Lyme disease since I was in the late stage of it, antibiotics wouldn’t do me any good. the system already messed me up with years of antibiotics..I’d already been down that road. Those antibiotics left my gut destroyed and allowed the bacteria from Lyme take over even harder. They were ineffective and left me way worst off, bedridden, bad liver and complete compromised immune system. Thanks western medicine.

Lets power through about 2 years later going at this holistically. I had to change everything about my diet numerous of times to figure out what triggered my symptoms, never ending herb protocols that got very pricey considering insurance doesn’t pay for holistic methods 🤬 but they did help repair my gut and other issues, homeopathic injections weekly sometimes a few times a week and then it came to needing IV treatments because I wasn’t absorbing anything and I was just getting weaker.

I had over 6 different parasites and worms I hate to power through if I wanted to make any headway not to mention the yeast overgrowth and metals. It’s amazing what muscle testing can tell you. I committed to doing one coffee enema a day after doing much research on the best way to clear parasites, worms and candida. I’d tried many pill versions for parasite cleansing and they all just made me sick or made my stomach hurt and bloat so I wanted an alternative. A more direct and instant way. After 8 months of following through I past all the parasites. After week one my fatigue lessened. My gut issues were improving. It was a miracle. Lost some unwanted pounds along the way that the damn pharmaceutical packed on me too lol!

I began feeling a little better and wasn’t so bedridden as much. a Friend of mine that was on her death bed from this disease started looking into crazy out of the box methods to try and fight this one last time and she stumbled across stem cells! She researched and found this miracle Dr in Mexico. I let her go first. Thought she was nuts but then again this disease makes you go nuts. She went and was greeted by angels! She is just about in remission after a year and a half of seeing this Dr! Little to say I jumped on that wagon too and now I’m just about in remission and I’ve only gone once! I go back in 2 weeks to check my progress. So pumped!

Since then by the request of my new Dr in Mexico, I began having Reiki sessions to balance out my bodies energy system and to release past trauma. It’s been amazing. I wish I knew about this method years ago. Then had to work on my mindset. My Dr said mindset is over 75% of the driving force behind all healing. I had some Psych K sessions which is an alternative method through muscle testing that helps rewire and reprogram your way of thinking. It was a total game changer for me. I've continued to try my best to detox by going to the sauna rooms, colonics and eat a high alkaline diet. I used Purium shakes because my body still wasn't absorbing or digesting any food or nutrients.

I now use grounding mats and jewelry like healing stones to balance my energy and frequencies. I use essential oils and flower essence tinctures for my moods and anxiety. I use CBD oil for my pain, inflammation and insomnia, sauna sessions and coffee enemas along with colonics to keep my liver and colon parasite free, reiki, soma massage, frequency water and acupuncture have kept me off meds! Thank you Jesus! All these alternative and holistic methods have brought me back to life! Who would’ve thought all these out of the box, simple alternative methods would conquer all my demons, replace my fear with faith, repair and restore my body without any pharmaceuticals! NO MORE PHARMACEUTICALS! Thank you Jesus! Holistic to me means being whole or holy and right now I feel whole.

Thank you God, stem cells, herbs, flowers and alternative, holistic methods!