A Teaspoon of Sugar or a Pinch of Salt - Please

As I began my research on Iodine deficiency I learned that this isn’t something you just go to the Health food Store and pick up. It’s a delicate balance that really should be administered by someone who knows what they are doing. Once again, I felt discouraged. I was pretty sure a medical doctor wasn’t going to work with me on alternative methods and with no insurance and a reluctance to trust the medical community, I wasn’t easily turned to them anyway.

I kept researching Iodine in connection with Fibro and was eventually led to Power Health. Their website had an extensive list of Podcasts where the doctors explained some of their therapies and results with Fibro. They also went on to explain ‘functional medicine’ and their desire to treat the patient and not ‘just’ the disease. They offered a free consultation to see if you met the criteria for their treatment and I took them up on it, expecting a ten minute consult where they would be sure that, for just $$$.95 I could be cured. I had to wait almost a month for an appointment, but told them if they had a cancellation I could make myself available on very short notice. I was sent some paperwork (a 42 page medical history with a complete questionnaire) to fill out and waited.

Power Health did call and I was able to get in to see the doctor in a little less than two weeks. I had an extensive (approximately hour and a half) interview with Dr. Rutherford. After a lot of questions about the paperwork that I had filled out earlier, he assured me that Fibromyalgia was real and so were my symptoms. He also felt that I had symptoms of problems with my thyroid and digestive tract. Since I had been warned repeatedly in the islands that I should have my thyroid checked and had also been experiencing some digestive difficulties, this was an easy diagnosis for me to believe, but I still could not see how they were all connected. I was then given the opportunity to continue and have an elaborate physical performed by both Dr. Rutherford a Chiropractor in Functional Medicine and Dr. Gates and Neurologist Chiropractor. I made an appointment for the following week.

My meeting and physical with Dr. Gates was very interesting. He proceeded to help explain Fibromyalgia to me. I appears that is more neurological than I had previously though. The neuro-transmitters that carry the signals for pain to your brain are worn down creating a well-trodden pathway; thus the almost constant pain in certain areas of your body. My brain needed to be retrained to heal over these pathways. In other words I was feeling pain that might or might not ‘really’ be there, but the neuro-transmitters and my brain were convinced it was, and therefore, I had pain. If that doesn’t completely make sense to you, you’re not alone, because I’m still trying to wrap my apparently misguided brain around it. Due to all of this my reflexes were pretty week and non-existent in my ankles. My balance was terribly impaired and I could not find my nose.

Let me explain that nose and balance thing. You know how you see in the ‘side of the road’ drunk tests, the  cop asks you to  walk a straight line by placing one foot directly in front of the other heel to toe. Next they ask you to hold your arms straight out to the side and touch your index finger to your nose, well, stone cold sober, I cannot do either of those. On the heel to toes thing, I don’t even place my foot on the ground and I’m tipping over, and finding my nose – forget about it. As a matter of fact, when they asked me to put my feet next to each other and close my eyes and just standing there, I immediately tipped to the right, and had to be caught before I hit the ground. I joked to the doctor that I certainly wouldn’t pass a drunk test, and he asked me if I wanted a note. Obviously, my brain is seriously impaired.

It was also determined that my digestive tract problems were probably due to the almost complete breakdown of my stomach lining (and the doctors thought I may have or be developing an ulcer) and therefore food was not being digested property. This breakdown of the stomach lining was also the case of my not being able to ingest nutrients, and I was suffering from several serious vitamin deficiencies, particularly Vitamin B12. They were convinced that I had a condition known as ‘leaky gut’; which means that undigested food particles where filtering through my stomach and intestines into my blood stream causing me to be filled with bacteria and infection.

The part of my physical with Dr. Rutherford confirmed this diagnosis of ‘leaky gut’ and he determined that my thyroid was enlarged on the right side.

Again, I was assured that they could help me should I choose to enter into treatment. I would first have to go through a series of blood tests and a spit test (this was to determine how well my adrenal glands were working) to confirm their diagnoses and fully proceed with treatment.

For the first time I actually felt confident in my doctors. They understood my reluctance to simply take pharmaceuticals and assured me that this was never their first approach, but that it might be absolutely necessary at some point. They also understood my financial restrictions and were willing to work with me. That first day they did a sampling of the type of treatment they would do to see if I responded and the physical response was positive. I have to admit the treatment seemed a little ‘woo-woo’ to me at first, but later they explained exactly what they hoped to accomplish and when I saw a positive response I agreed to enter into treatment with them. 

More on the treatment and my progress in my next post.

CRIPPLING EVENTS

In my last post I brought you up to my move to Nevada, but after reading it over I found that I left out some very important information, so please bear with me while I backtrack.

During the three years that I lived in the Caribbean when the temperature hovers between 80 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit year round I had many times when I was cold. Cold like you can’t get warm cold. I had a friend there who was a doctor and he kept encouraging me to get my thyroid checked. He told me that anybody who was cold in the Caribbean had some sort of medical problem. I of course, laughed this off. I had had my thyroid checked numerous times in previous years and the tests always came back normal.

While still on island during one of my visits to the local clinic, I complained to the doctor of pain all over my body. He proceeded to conduct a very technical test. He pointed to various areas of my body and asked me if it hurt there. When I responded in the affirmative to over 90% of the places he pointed he told me I had Fibromyalgia. I was stunned. First, to receive this diagnosis. Second, at the method by which he came to it.

Of course, when I told my family they kind of gave me that look. When asked about the procedure of the diagnosis ‘the look’ became attitude. I have to admit that even I was pretty skeptical. I had several friends who had been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and I was sure they had received more thorough testing in the States.

This is what started my research into Fibro. It didn’t take me look to realize that I had received the standard test for Fibro and how little was actually know about this disease. It seemed to me that this might just be the new ‘designer disease’. You know that one that all the fashionable ladies have and everyone talks about, but nobody has any definitive answer, treatment, or cure for.

To say that I felt discouraged about this would have been the understatement of the century. This and the problems with my right leg were really starting to get me down. I felt as though I was in constant physical and emotional pain. During this time I also had a Spiritual crisis of sorts. This isn’t something I want to get into on this blog, but I do want to mention it so as to paint the picture that I was not in a good place. I have a lot of faith, and even during the spiritual crisis, I was able to hold onto that with the knowledge that God and Jesus Christ love and care about me. I have no doubt that they know my name.

I don’t think I was ready to admit all of this at the time, but my decision to leave the island was largely based upon the fact that I knew I needed medical attention that I would not be able to receive there. It was difficult for me to leave, but I had wanted to live at Lake Tahoe since 2005 and decided that if I was leaving the ‘Blue Waters’ of the Caribbean I would be content to settle on the ‘Blue Watters’ of Lake Tahoe.

OK, now I’ve brought you up to the point when I came to live in Nevada. I should mention that the trip here was not easy. Over 22 hours from the time I left St. Croix until I landed in Reno, NV, four different flights and through five time zones. I was exhausted. My arrival in Reno was around midnight PST, but that was actually the early morning hours in the ATZ (Atlantic Time Zone-Caribbean). After spending the night in Reno and traveling up to Lake Tahoe to see the new apartment, I felt as though I could sleep for a month, and that’s about what I did.

I got to Tahoe on May 30^th and I thought I was going to freeze to death. I was constantly freezing. I forced myself to get in the local pool and work out, but I never did dip my body into the lake that first summer. Everyone was saying that it was cooler than normal, so I consoled myself with that knowledge and chalked it up to my body needing to acclimate. Fortunately, that cool summer turned into a mild winter, because I never did seem to acclimate and I was always cold and I mean shivering cold. The problems with my leg intensified and if I was going anywhere that I knew I had to walk long distances I started using a cane.

By the spring of 2014 I was resolved to being a cripple. I couldn’t walk very far, but walking was better than standing and sitting was the worst. Some days my arms, neck and shoulders hurt so bad it was impossible to lean back in a chair and even laying down was agony. I started having trouble with my hands. They hurt and wouldn’t work. Typing and therefore, writing became an arduous chore. I tried very hard to remain cheerful and hopeful that I would begin to get better, but could see no change in sight.

I don’t have health insurance. I don’t trust the medical community and I had pharmaceuticals. I firmly believed that it was trusting my doctors during my treatment for cancer that landed me in this predicament and therefore I was not ready to turn to them for help.

I have several friends who are also cancer survivors, interesting that they have all been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. Everyone was on pain meds. I had a short bout with them, but decided that was not how I wanted to live. When the pain finally started to completely overcome me, I turned to research again. A friend suggested to me that I look into the possibility of an Iodine deficiency. While researching Iodine I was led to sites on Fibromyalgia and it's treatment. That is how I found the doctors at Power Health in Reno, Nevada that I am currently seeing.

 I’ll tell you all about that ‘new adventure’ in my next post.

CHANGES IN LATITUDES, CHANGES IN ATTITUDES

If you’ve read my two previous posts and then wondered what happened to me, I apologize. I have a hard time talking about myself and especially about this topic. You see, I would really like to live in a state of denial where I’ll wake up tomorrow and everything, at least as far as my health goes will be fine. I know that’s not going to happen, but some of this is a little too ‘real’ for me.

Anyway…I’m back and going to continue. I’ll try to catch up to present day here in the next few posts.

The next physical trauma came when I noticed a hard lump in my forearm on the outside just below my elbow. I was painful if I tried to lean on my elbows and I started to become concerned. When I saw a friend who was an Orthopedic Surgeon, he said it was some sort of tumor and though it would be best to watch it for a few months. When I told him that I had cancer, he decided that it should be taken out right away.

This ‘tumor’ turned out to be the bursa from my elbow joint. Occasionally, for some reason they will become inflamed and slip outside the joint. It was not a tumor, but did need to be removed. It was day surgery and I recovered nicely with a week.

The next day I returned to see the orthopedic surgeon and he immediately whipped out a needle that was about four inches long attached to a very large syringe, which he proceeded to stick right into the swollen red spot on my arm. What he drew out was not a pretty sight. I was put on a super dose of antibiotics, while they cultured the infection.

It turned out to be Strep A, most likely contracted in the hospital (although the doctor would never admit that). I spent about a month on antibiotics and was again quite sick from then. It took me about another six months to recover from this most recent medical adventure.

After all of this, I spent the next two to three years trying to recover from this serious of physical trauma and the cancer treatment. I just wanted to be ‘normal’ again. OK, I know there is no such thing as normal, but before I was diagnosed with cancer I had my own level of normal and I wanted to go back to that. My oncologist kept telling me that this was an unrealistic expectation. After all I was a few years older and had been through a lot; again I was getting the ‘you’re lucky to be alive’.

As time passed I accepted some of the physical abnormalities as my ‘new normal’. Things like I was lucky if I slept four hours a night. I was walking around seriously sleep deprived, but really didn’t know it. I knew where every public bathroom within a hundred mile radius of my home was, because I never and I mean never went two hours without needing one. I had a fairly constant mild but nagging pain in my right leg and had to be careful, because the least bit of trauma would cause it to swell. My immune system was completely shot. If someone sneezed in the next county, I caught whatever virus they were spewing. And so on.

By the end of 2009 my husband’s business was in the dumper. The economic ‘slowdown’ (ha,ha,ha) hit our area and unfortunately, he tried to hang on a little too long. There really wasn’t much work in his field anywhere in the country, so we decided to leave. That’s when we moved to the USVI in the Caribbean. The packing up and selling of most of our belongings was emotionally traumatic. We were seriously in debt, with no means of digging out. That and the fact that we were leaving everyone that we loved behind took a bigger toll on me physically that I recognized.

Once we were settled in the Tropics, I actually began to feel a little bit better. At the very least denial was a whole lost easier to come by, being so far away from some of the problems. I still wasn’t sleeping, but I think the warm, moist weather did a lot for me. I also was able to spend a lot of time in the water; either the ocean or the pool at the complex where we lived. Unfortunately, my immune system still wasn’t functioning properly and I was now exposed to a whole new set of viruses and bacteria. I seemed to be constantly fighting some form of infection. This and the fact that during my three years in the Caribbean I was subject to some serious emotional upheaval most likely contributed to my auto immune disease.

After three years I relocated to the US in the High Sierra of Nevada. More on that in the next post.