This question came up over and over again throughout the course of my grueling health journey. After working with pediatric patients and autoimmune adults my entire career, I had realized my entire childhood/teenage years was suffering from undiagnosed toxic mold exposure, PANDAS, OCD, autoimmunity, and severe nervous system dysregulation.

Like the majority of patients and clients I’ve had over the years, I was thrown into the medical merry-go-round. I consistently came across providers who tried to treat symptoms with pharmaceuticals, missed the root causes of why I was sick, and led me into consistent dead ends, unable to actually empathize with me or understand what I was going through. None of them actually understood what it was like to be chronically ill or autoimmune, or what it felt like to truly suffer in the way I did as a patient. Why would they fight for an answer, if they never experienced what it was like to be in my shoes?

One of the most important things to me as a practitioner and nutritionist is the ability to empathize with everyone I work with, in some way or another. It’s rare to find a practitioner/provider who has truly been through the journey themselves, and regardless of how pure and loving their intention is, it leads to healthcare that is unsupportive, confusing, and in some cases, completely incorrect. I refuse to ever say, “It is what it is.” There is always an answer, and I will always help you find it.

The hardest thing about realizing I was suffering the first 2.5 decades of my life: all of these things are proven to be reversed with the right care (functional medicine), and I’ve seen it my entire career. I refuse to let anyone believe this is a way of living, and that there isn’t a way out. All of these can be reversed, and I’ve seen it, been a part of the reversal cases, and done it myself.

Here is my story. It’s the reason why I’m a practitioner today. It’s the reason I will fight endlessly for every person I work with until we find the answer.

I was ‘sick’ for the first 25 years of my life. I was born at 28 weeks via an emergency cesarean birth with a grade 3 intracranial brain hemorrhage (bleeding all over the brain). My twin sister suffered a grade 4, but thankfully had an incredible neurosurgeon to avoid major damage. I spent the first months on earth inside the NICU, then had heart monitors monitoring me once I was finally able to go home. Somehow, my brain bleed healed itself and I had no major complications moving forward, until I was 6 years old.

At age 6 I had kidney failure. It’s called post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis. It’s a mouth full, I know. Basically, I had strep throat had led to kidney failure. It was the first case in 20 years at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, and no one had known why this happened. How could a 6 year old have the inability to fight off strep? How was my immune system so compromised, that it led to organ failure? No one told me this was an autoimmune-like response until I was 25 years old. I went through spinal taps, dialysis, and treatments for months until I was discharged. My childhood was never the same after that.

Functional Medicine wasn’t really a thing yet. This was the mid 90s, and the majority of the population was ignorant to the concept of finding root causes of treatment. So, I had no follow ups with nutrition, lifestyle, or even basic care of maintaining health. The kidney failure was done with, so apparently I was ‘healthy’ via their standards. They couldn’t have been more wrong. I had developed asthma after that incident, but again, they didn’t connect the dots.

Moving into my elementary and middle school years, I had developed severe obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) (mostly debilitating intrusive thoughts and the inability to even leave a room without doing 5 tasks), tics, PANDAS (undiagnosed) anxiety, depression, severe weight gain, fatigue, migraines, and more. I couldn’t walk around a lap around the school track without going to hide in the locker room, crying with the inability to understand why it was just me who couldn’t do it. I couldn’t eat “normal” food like everyone, and not be clinically obese or have migraines. Like everyone else, I lived off of a Standard American Diet, took a TON of antibiotics for any and everything, and didn’t have resources to understand true health and wellness. All of these symptoms were dismissed by any pediatrician or anyone I spoke to. My dysregulated periods (2 years into having them) were considered “normal,” even though I had severe PMDD. This hormonal dysregulation led to ovarian cysts that eventually ruptured. Their solution? Birth control. Thankfully, I had a mom who disagreed with using oral contraception to control something like ovarian cysts. At this point, I thought this was the typical suffering and just “what happened” when you grow up. For some reason, it felt 10x heavier than what everyone else was going through. I felt crazy and confused, and honestly, unable to comprehend how I could actually live a happy life if this is what living felt like.

Moving into my teens and early 20s, I had developed severe alcoholism and substance abuse. There were no answers to the things I was feeling. No affirmations. No empathy. No hope or encouragement that life didn’t have to be this way. It honestly felt like a living hell existing this way. The neurological inflammation alone from toxic mold can lead to anxiety, depression, and mood disorders. Add a medical system who consistently gaslights you into thinking you have anxiety or that everything is ‘normal,’ and you start to believe you will never get better. You are on a cocktail of medications prescribed by your doctors, to try and manage what symptoms you do have. I was on a cocktail of Adderall, antidepressants, and klonopin, which did nothing but further exacerbate my depression, anxiety, and OCD.

At this point, I was living in toxic mold and had no idea. I went to the E.R. three times living in that apartment for anaphylaxis and hives that covered every square inch of my body from face to feet. I was given steroids and antibiotics that made everything worse. No one thought to look for toxic mold in the home, toxic burden, or even in the gut .They all just said, “We don’t know.”

Throughout this point in my life, I had already begun my clean eating health journey and going to school for holistic approaches/natural medicine. My original career was to become a Naturopathic Doctor, so I was diving into the preliminaries of the gut, how toxins from food contribute to dysregulation, utilizing organic when possible – all of the things you begin to learn when you transition away from a Standard American Diet. While it had given me a better mental space, the weight of the toxic mold, parasites (blastocysts – ugh!), and pathogenic bacteria was too powerful to fight against.

At 23 years old, I overdosed. It was accidental, but it was a result of the never ending cycle of my health declining paired with trauma. I now believe I was subconsciously trying to end my suffering. I had experienced major traumatic events (including sexual assault, physical abuse, an airport shooting – to name a few) in addition to my chornic health issues. With the cocktail of medications put on from my doctors, no answers to why I was feeling the way I was feeling, the inability to find the root cause of my horrible OCD, anxiety, and depression, I self medicated to the point of fully losing myself. I felt hopeless. I didn’t realize until later on in sobriety that I was subconsciously trying to end my life. I went into intensive therapy to address trauma, and never had a sip of alcohol again (still to this day!). In that same timeframe, I knew enough was enough. I had to fight for my life, since no one else was. I moved to Portland, Oregon, and began my prerequisites for the Naturopathic Doctorate while simultaneously obtaining my Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (FNTP) certification. I had incredible teachers and mentors that helped me find some basics of my health issues, such as blastocysts parasites, but everyone still had missed toxic mold. While I had slightly improved physically, I was still declining. My mental health was the best it had been (thank you sobriety and therapy!), I still was declining physically. I had developed severe food allergies, sensitivities, and rashes all over my body. Although I had made massive progress in my mental and emotional body working with trauma healers, my physical body was still declining.

Fast forward to Austin, TX. I moved there to join a functional medicine practice and work alongside an M.D. This man was incredibly brilliant, so much so that I constantly referred to him as Dr. House. He got all the cases from providers in the area that nobody could figure out. Within 1 week of me working there, he knew I had toxic mold exposure and MCAS (Mast Cell Activation Syndrome). We tested, and BAM! I had 6 different mycotoxins present in my body, and I had 3 fungal colonies (yeast and toxic mold) off the chart. One of the toxic mold was 10x off the chart elevated. Not only was he the first provider to ever tell me everything from my entire life was connected, he even helped me realize I had an autoimmune disorder called Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR), which is a sister of Fibromyalgia. I was in 6/10 pain every day, and we finally had a correlation to why. We utilized the treatment we had for patients on myself, and within 2 years, I was an entirely new person. We found the root cause, and treated it. I had been a part of the care team for patients who I also saw reversing their chronic illness and autoimmunity: things that we are told are impossible. I witnessed Lupus, Hashimotos, and rare autoimmune reversals. It was breathtaking to see peoples’ lives change once you figured out their why.

Fast forward to today. After my treatment for toxic mold, blastocysts parasites, and chronic dysfunction in the body, I’m living a life I never thought was imaginable. Even halfway through my treatment, I was feeling better than I knew what was possible. Now? Depression, anxiety, and OCD is gone. My rashes never came back. My chronic fatigue diminished. My mental clarity is sharp. I am HAPPY, and I realized I wouldn’t have gotten here without addressing the root cause of dysfunction. The life I live now is one I never thought was attainable. Sheer existence makes me happy. I feel excited to live my life, constantly eager to learn more, grow more, and love more.

This is my “why”. I think of myself: the little girl and teenager suffering for years without help, the girl in her early 20s accidentally overdosing from the inability to cope with the pain, to the woman who was suffering silently as an adult without reprieve from pain. I think of how I fought for myself, all of those versions of myself, and refused to give up until I found an answer. And as I continue this healing path for myself, I promised I would tirelessly and endlessly find these answers for every patient and client I work with. I refuse to let another person believe their life can’t end up the way they’ve already dreamt it could be, because it can be that way.

There is always an answer – you just need someone who won’t give up on you. As a practitioner, I promise to never give up.