Wellness with Candice

My Illness to Wellness Journey

Medical Assistant, Motivational Coach/Speaker Transformational Life and Health Coach on path towards Functional Medicine Health Coach Certification. I have always had a sense that "there's is a greater purpose for my struggles." Since I was a little girl, I have had the belief that everything happens to us for a reason. Also that each interaction with others, is either part of the lesson, part of the message or a combination of the both. Simply put, we need one another! Evolution requires it! I believe that lessons in our life are not meant to be malicious, they are meant to transformative. They are essential to growth and who we are to become. Similar to the butterfly's cocoon and what it must endure before it's transformation, yet they turn into something beautiful!

My illnesses started early and seem to never stop. I have battled mysterious illnesses since I was walking. I have multiple autoimmune illnesses that I manage daily and the mental, emotional and physical limitations brought on by them. It all started to get really bad a few years ago after an 8 year very unhealthy and abusive relationship. I thought I was just dealing with stomach issues from the stress of that. First diagnosis, little did I know it was part of a illness that many fight silently and for some never find out that is the culprit of their ill health. Celiac disease (sprue) that was only found AFTER I demanded a second opinion after the first doctor told me that they did not know why I was having joint pain, swelling, etc. The 2nd doctor ran tests for it that came back positive. But not knowing all that I do now, I had no idea what being gluten free meant, nor the implications of not adhering to that restriction. Fast forward a few years to 2013-I was good about avoiding gluten most of the time, but still gave in as it is REALLY DAMN DIFFICULT to give up gluten! Change is hard!! But I was also still having a lot of dairy and did know that it was causing cross reactions just like as if I had been eating gluten. All of this I learned via trial and error as I began to tune into my body and listened to the clues it was giving me every second of every day. This was the quiet before the storm though. The real culprit of my weight, sleep, mood, brain and even my bowel problems...Hashimotos Thyroid Autoimmune Disease.

It is a thyroid disease that in the beginning stages will not show on tests but the damage is being done. As my own body attacked my thyroid, my weight, appetite, moods, temperature regulation, monthly cycles and cognitive functions were all taking a hit! Hashimotos was sinking my battleship!! Eventually this disease will burn out my thyroid function to nothing and render it useless. (But not if I have anything to do with it-BIGGEST reason that I eat clean-to avoid it worsening!). By the time it was discovered in December of 2013, the damage was done and several other autoimmune’s reared prepared their torpedo attack as well! First was palindromic rheumatism that I had been battling since 2008 advanced to seronegative rheumatoid arthritis. Then the lupus diagnosis with brain lesions after discovery of them and tests to rule out multiple sclerosis.

Then came the hardest thing I have endured and far more painful than the 3 babies I brought in to this world. A heart attack at age 43. Just a month before I turned 44, the telltale chest pain/pressure and not feeling well, (and dizziness that led to me falling out of the shower earlier that day), all led to me calling 911 as I had a sort of sixth sense that something was wrong. Again, being in tune helped save my life. I had already been exercising and eating clean diet before the heart attack, so luckily when they did the cardiac catherization to look for blockages there was nothing significantly blocked but I did find out that I have a congenital heart defect called myocardial bridging. This is a condition that I have had since birth that has gradually gotten worse and without knowledge of it I have pushed my heart harder than I should have. This condition caused one of my main arteries in the heart (Left Coronary Artery) to grow under the heart muscle-or tunnel/bridge under heart muscle. When my heart contracts, it squeezes that artery and decreases the oxygen to the rest of my heart, brain and body. This causes coronary artery spasms and those hurt and trigger heart attacks. Scary stuff. But I am on top of the doctors and looking to get a procedure called “bridge unroofing”. That will bring that artery back to the surface where it will be free as it was meant to be!

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