how I overcame autoimmune struggles

I share some of the details on how I overcame my autoimmune struggles, got my body back into balance, and am now symptom-free. Download the free ebook here.

Hello friends! How are you? I hope you’re having a wonderful morning so far. I have a day full of client calls and I’m looking forward to some adventures with the family: we’re heading to Disney for the long weekend to celebrate Liv’s birthday. I will share the adventures later. IG Stories! The kids have been asking for events or trips instead of birthday parties and I like it. Much less stress and much more fun.

I’m usually weird about celebrating personal things (for example, I never tell anyone when my birthday is lol), but there are two milestones I’m celebrating this month and embracing every part of these huge milestones:

– one year without symptoms and

– one year of negative Lupus markers

how I overcame autoimmune struggles

My main symptoms

A little less than two years ago, some strange things happened with my health. I went from feeling *fine* (I still had occasional anxiety and was sometimes tired) to dealing with mystery rashes, histamine issues, joint pain, and extreme fatigue. I couldn’t recover from workouts and if I did something particularly intense, I felt like I needed to sleep the rest of the day. My eyes also made me very sad. I’ve written quite a few blog posts about the eye saga, but they ended up being blepharitis, meibomian gland dysfunction, and dry eye.

My last flash in the eye was a little over a year ago. we had seen The nutcracker as a family, one of our favorite traditions, and I could feel my eyes light up during the show. Suddenly, they were burning, itchy, and neon red. As soon as it was over, we ran to Walgreen’s for Claritin (at that point I knew it was part of a histamine response) and I took out my contacts so I could wear my glasses. I was MUCH better, but I still had regular eye flares.

That was the last one.

My autoimmune history and lupus markers

Two summers ago, my PCP helped me do some blood work and everything came back *normal* except for two lupus markers. When one is positive, there is a chance that you have lupus, but when two are positive, it is very likely that you have lupus. While the results disappointed me, they made sense to me.

She referred me to rheumatology, but since my symptoms were manageable and I had already been dealing with them for about a year at that point, I really wanted to do some research and see if I could be cured.

While I had been given some potential diagnoses by my PCP and my dry eye specialist, no one could tell me WHY this was happening. I knew my body was crying out for help, that something was causing the inflammation, and I was determined to figure it out. Was a newly certified IHP Level 2, so I put my new skills to work. The goal was to discover my deficiencies and toxicities so I could restore balance.

How I Overcame Autoimmune Struggles

I made substantial changes in my life. Performing functional labs on myself, altering my diet, and focusing on my nervous system were radical changes. Over time, my autoimmune and histamine issues went away, my eyes stopped bothering me, and my energy and focus returned.

Last December I felt much better and my lupus markers were negative. Last week, during my annual blood test, both markers came back negative – a huge relief and a testament to the progress I’ve made. TBH, I was nervous about getting the results because I’ve been feeling so good for the past year, but it was a huge sigh of relief.

(You can see here that ANA was positive in July and negative in December!)

And negative again last week when we tested again:

And also negative dsDNA twice in a row. Wow!!!

It’s too long for a blog post, so I wanted to share some of the things I implemented and learned in the process. I made a free download with 7 things that helped me the most and the link to get a copy is here. Simply add your email and everything will be sent to you automatically.

Please note that this is not medical advice. I’m just sharing my experience and hope this can offer some ideas or support if you’re in the same boat.. It’s also to share some hope because the way things are *now* may not be permanent. Healing is possible and it can be difficult to see it in the moment. <3

Download the free ebook here.

Sending you lots of love.

xo

gina