My Holistic Health Journey | pt. 1

I’m so happy to finally share my Holistic Health Journey pt. 1 with y’all! The word journey is key here—I’m not expecting to see overnight results and I understand this can (and will) take months and even well over a year. But I’m committed and I’m confident that I will heal my autoimmune condition.

If you’re more of a video-watcher check out my IGTV video here!

My Holistic Health Journey | pt. 1 — Symptoms & Diagnosis

In December of 2018 I was diagnosed with an auto-inflammatory disease called Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS). You’re probably like wtf is that because that’s exactly what I said when I heard those two words for the first time. To sum it up...AS is arthritis that affects my spine and large joints. 

Symptoms

As you know, I love fitness. I move my body every single day. My love for fitness stemmed from my being a dancer growing up and getting into fitness in college. 

During the summer between my junior and senior year at ASU I interned at a PR firm in Solana Beach. This caused me to start sitting for longer periods of time since I was working at a desk all day. (even though I was still working out 5x/week). I started developing awful pain in my sciatic area and lower back. My mom told me it was probably from all the sitting I had been doing...makes sense. She advised me to stretch more (she’s really into yoga and stretching and is probably more flexible than me), which I began doing but the discomfort in my sciatic would not go away. 

I went back to ASU to start my senior year and the pain was on and off--excruciating at night and first thing in the morning, but then I would do a workout and feel a million times better. It was a never ending cycle of suffering, getting relief after some sort of movement, then losing sleep over more agonizing pain. Being so active and young, I was extremely frustrated because everyday things like just getting into a car brought on pain. It became my new normal, until one day I couldn’t even walk or sit or stand or do ANYTHING without being uncomfortable. It was so bad I had Ed take me to the ER. The doctor had me do some simple leg exercises (which I couldn’t even do), prescribed me pain killers, and sent me home.

I tried everything to relieve the pain: massages, visiting the chiropractor, taking time off working out, stretching, eating right (so I thought), but nothing was working. As I mentioned before, the pain was pretty on and off--it would last a couple weeks, then I’d be pain-free for a couple weeks.

Fast forward to graduating college and starting a job in downtown San Diego, I became so paranoid that I would bring on more pain by sitting too much during the day so I stood at my desk a lot. Also during that time I was eating a lot of oatmeal for breakfast, brown rice, and chia seeds (more on this in my recovery journey). I was also eating a lot of salmon, leafy greens, berries, healthy fats, and exercising regularly. To my belief I was doing everything right, but nothing was working. I lived like this for about two years until one life-changing month…

Diagnosis

In November of 2018, I woke up one morning to find my right eye a little red and irritated. I panicked because I was going to Scottsdale that weekend and I really didn’t want to have pink eye so I bought some drops and used them as much as possible during the two days leading up to my weekend getaway, but it was only getting worse. The morning of my flight, I drove to the ER and he said “yep, definitely pink eye” without even really looking at it. He prescribed me pink eye drops, I picked them up on the way to the airport and was on my way to Scottsdale! During my weekend getaway, I was constantly washing my hands, and trying to wear my glasses as much as possible, but even with the drops my eye was not getting better. 

My first night back in San Diego, I woke up in the middle of the night to the WORST THROBBING pain of my life. Nope, not my sciatica...it was my eye. I went into the kitchen at 2am, opened the fridge to get some water, and was hit with instant pain. It literally felt like Tom Brady threw a football directly at my eyeball.

The next morning I made my mom take me to the ER because the throbbing was only getting worse and the white of my eye was completely red. If my eyeball caught even a slight glimpse of light it felt like someone was punching me in the face.

We drove to the doctor, ice bag in hand over my eye at all times, and the doctor suggested we run a test to see if my cornea was scratched. She went to get the test and came back to inform us they were out of the kit needed to run the test. UGH. Luckily, the Torrey Pines location had the test in stock so she sent us there. I should also add it was like THE sunniest fall day in San Diego so going outside was absolute torture. We got back in the car and drove to Torrey Pines. 

We checked in and the receptionist asked why I was there. I was completely overwhelmed, frustrated, scared, and confused, which led me to break down into full blown tears. I’ve already endured years of throbbing discomfort in my sciatic and now I had to deal with this horrific eye pain. I literally thought I was going to lose my eyesight. However, there was a silver-lining in all this…

!WARNING! Gross photo coming up…

yes, my eyebrows are freshly micro bladed here. 10/10 look IMO.

They sent my mom and I to a waiting room in this huge hallway, where we sat watching the Pioneer Woman on TV, ice bag on my eye, and newly microbladed eyebrows feeling crisp and looking real raw. I actually don’t think I’ve ever looked or felt uglier. (something my mom and I laugh at still to this day). My new doctor rescued us just before Ree Drummond was about to make some odd Thanksgiving dish and just my luck...he was really hot (from what I could see out of one eye). It felt like that episode of Friends where George Clooney is Rachel’s doctor. Even my mom gave me that look like “woah he’s cute.” (and yes guys, I have a bf but I’m still allowed to appreciate a cute doctor lol).

Hottie took us into a dark room (thank goodness because 1.) my eye needed some relief from flurescent hospital lights and 2.) I looked horrendous, and started asking me questions about what was wrong. He didn’t think my cornea was scratched, it was clearly something internal that needed more analyzing. 

After looking at my eye, hottie diagnosed me with iritis. He began educating me on what iritis is and why people get it, then he asked me if anyone in my family has Ankylosing Spondylitis. My mom jumped in and said “yeah her dad does!”

Hottie suggested I see an eye doctor that day and kindly scheduled an appointment for me. He was seriously the most knowledgeable ER doctor I’ve ever had and I am so thankful for the weird turn of events we had that day.

I saw the Dr. early that afternoon and he prescribed me steroids for Iritis. After picking up my eye drops, my mom and I clearly were not going to work that day so she asked me if I wanted to make it a fun afternoon. One thing I should mention about my mom is that she’s like my bff and we’re really good at turning negative situations into positive ones. So, glasses, ugly sweatpants, and ice bag covering my eye and all we ended up running some fun errands and stopped for a cozy fall latte. The eye drops were quickly helping and already relieving the pain. 

The steroids worked, but on one of my final drop days I forgot to take them, and my eye had another iritis freak out, leading me back to the doctors office for more drops. Pro tip: always follow the directions when prescribed medicine. Once my Iritis episode was over, it was time for me to actually find out if I had AS.

I started seeing a Rheumatologist who suggested I get some bloodwork done to see if I carry the HLA-B27 gene. My results came back negative, meaning I do not carry the HLA-B27 gene so she was hesitant to fully diagnose me until I had an MRI done, aka the ultimate claustrophobia test. 

We scheduled another doctor’s appointment and I went into the doctor one late evening to get the MRI. Since the MRI was being done on my back/hips, my head was able to peek out of the hole (hole? machine? tube? idk). The doctor handed me a pair of ancient looking used headphones and a laminated piece of paper containing numbered music stations so I could listen to music while sitting in the scary tube for the next hour. I told him the number of the number I wanted to listen to and he looked at me and laughed, “out of all the MRIs I’ve done, you are the first to pick that station.” It was the jazz station ...who wouldn’t want to listen to that?! It’s relaxing and the closest thing to Bossa Nova I could find. 

Honestly the MRI wasn’t that bad and actually didn’t make me feel claustrophobic at all. When I got the call from the doctor, he informed me they did indeed find fluid in my sciatic area, which is caused by AS. Now, I was officially diagnosed with AS, an auto-inflammatory disease that could greatly affect my spine in the future. 

I went back to the rheumatologist (who also has arthritis), and she suggested I start taking Humira (you know the commercial where they list like a million side effects). “Efffff no” I thought. There is no way I was going to begin taking a drug that could lead to even more complications down the road. Since I live by the famous Hippocrates quote, “let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food” I decided I was going to heal myself from within...