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It was a crisp December morning in 2015 and I was enjoying my new job as a Practice Nurse, having recently retrained, but little did I know that everything about the life I knew was about to change. I worked my way through the morning with my patients and I began noticing an unfamiliar pain in my wrists. As the week went on the pain increased and moved to other joints around my body. It would typically come on in the afternoons and I would struggle to be able to do all of the bending, lifting and manual handling required in my job. It was very strange indeed that by the next morning I would be perfectly normal again and right as rain!
The symptoms worsened so I visited the doctors and was given painkillers to ease the pain - they did nothing. I went back to the doctors again and again; I wanted to know what was causing these strange symptoms, but each time I was palmed off with ineffective medication or advice. The blood tests were inconclusive and at one consultation the GP finally saw the pain I was in and concluded that I must have injured myself. I tried to explain that the pain would be gone in the morning- something he couldn't comprehend - it went down on my notes as a shoulder impingement. I was infuriated and frustrated no one was listening and after several more trips to the doctors I finally managed them to refer me to Rheumatology, only to find out the appointment was three months away - I couldn't wait I was in so much pain to the point that I couldn't lift my arm to turn on the tap to make a cup of tea, or even walk up and down the stairs in the evening. Something had to be done now!
This was when I decided to visit a chiropractor. The chiropractor worked in a holistic way and suggested that maybe I should look at my diet, as joint pain could be linked to food intolerances. It was news to me, but eager to try and reduce the pain, I embarked upon an elimination diet, to identify whether the foods that I were consuming were causing me any issues. This was the beginning of my understanding of holistic health, changing my health for the better and realising that there was so much more to health than what western medicine was currently offering.
After just one week of removing potential trigger foods from my diet my pain decreased and by three weeks the pain has completely disappeared! But that wasn’t all! Symptoms I’d been experiencing for years also disappeared. Other issues that I'd lived with for years, also started disappearing. The anxiety that I’d always suffered from, went and I felt calm for the first time in years. The awful period pains that had put me in bed for a day each month also vanished, along with the reflux I’d been suffering for the last couple of years. I lost 12 kg in weight which never returned, unlike the many diets I’d attempted in the past. Suddenly I felt full of life again – an all encompassing bouncy energy that I hadn’t felt since being a small child. I had regained my health and my life.
I decided that getting to the root cause of peoples symptoms was the way forward. Masking symptoms with medication helps no one and doesn't fix the problem or improve anyones health.
I learnt about Functional Medicine, Blue Zones (places were people live to the average age of 100 with a good quality of life) and trained as a Nutritional Therapist and as an Energy Alignment Method Mentor. I have made it my mission in life live the best quality of life I can for as long as possible. I have experienced a snippet of what life is like when you lose your health and I would say if you don't have your health you don't have anything. 'Happiness and Health' is everything and it is now my mission to help and guide those who want to find it for themselves.
Since regaining my health and am now living life to the full.
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