My Journey to Functional Medicine

As a 37-year-old mother of two, I wondered why I felt so freaking bad everywhere…pain in my hips, my toes, constant neck aches which made it feel like I struggled to hold my head up from the tension across the back of my neck! I was active with my husband and children, enjoyed exercising, my diet wasn’t terrible, but for sure needed some help in reducing my sweet tooth, but it just made no sense. Not only did I struggle with the joint aches, my weight kept creeping up, and I was so physically exhausted, tackling the day was becoming overwhelming.

I felt like I was falling apart, falling behind, and getting worse. Mentally, I felt unworthy and although things looked good from the outside, I felt hopeless. I’m not even sure who recommended a local functional medicine nurse practitioner, but I knew nothing about functional medicine! I was willing to try anything to get to the root of the problem because other previous recommendations of prescription drugs from traditional medicine doctors only made me feel worse. I was tired and unhappy and wanted so much more from my life!

My Functional Medicine Nurse Practitioner started addressing my labs. Starting with a critically low Vitamin D level, but then she said “your Epstein Barr viral load is so high! I’ve been seeing this a lot with women your age!” I knew I had heard of this virus in my years as a critical care nurse, but wait…I had mononucleosis in 10th grade, that was over 20 years ago! Without investigating, I would have NEVER known that this dormant virus had reactivated in my system and was wreaking havoc on my immune system.

So now what? With a protocol of pharmaceutical grade supplements, not the gunk you buy at the local super store (who knew!), I marched out of the office determined to understand MY body more. As a nurse, I know the importance of caring for yourself! I wasn’t thinking that the stress from raising two children, a fast-paced critical care nursing career, and making crazy schedules work with a spouse in law enforcement would send a tiny dormant bug to create a cascade of disastrous effects.

This starts my journey of exploring functional medicine and that journey is far from over! I am only just beginning to scratch the surface for what I need to learn. My goal is to learn as much as I can to share with you!! To teach you to think in a way I never knew existed even while working as a nurse. I was fooled by traditional medicine despite working in that environment for 15 years at that point.

Nearly ten years later, perimenopausal hormonal changes have made the viral load (and my weight) creep up again, but I continue to learn what to do, products to trust, supplements to take and exercises to explore. I know there are alternative methods to build strength and resilience within my body so that aging isn’t quite so painful! And, I’ve got a lot more to learn! Thanks for joining me on this wild and crazy ride!