To fully understand the passion I have for the concept and practice of natural healing I'll have to take you back to my pre-teen years and run you through my life from a medical standpoint. You might want to sit down, maybe grab some popcorn cause this will take a minute. Feel free to skip ahead 😊

So let's start with about the age of 8. I was a very active kid growing up. I lived on a small farm with animals and lots of space to run around so even when I didn't want to be (too hot) I was always outside. I remember I would explore the woods around my house looking for any & everything I could find. I would pretend I was treasure hunting. One time I found wild blueberries! I was so excited about that (yes, I confirmed with my mother before eating them). Sadly, I never found any buried treasure, but I did come out with lots of ticks, a couple of which resulted in Lyme disease. I was a textbook case with a pretty bullseye. Fast forward a little and I started developing allergies. It started with a small case of the typical sneezing, runny nose (hay fever) type symptoms and over the years progressed to full blown sinus infections that lasted for weeks. When they finally went away I felt ok for maybe a week or two, then I was getting another one. It was awful, truly. I stayed medicated with some form of allergy & symptom relievers regularly to function. I also swore I was allergic to chocolate because I ate a Reese's cup one time and broke out into hives. I was around 12yrs old and it scared me so I swore that it had to be the candy. I told my mom I wasn't eating chocolate ever again lol. I actually didn't eat a drop of it for years until one day I rationalized that I may have overreacted. I reluctantly tried a piece of plain chocolate with no issue. It wasn't the chocolate, but I wasn't totally wrong about the Reese's (I'll get to that). By the time I was a senior in high school I had also developed gastrointestinal issues to a point I would eat something (what I ate changed regularly), then I may or may not have to run to the toilet with a case of diarrhea. I couldn't figure out what was wrong since the food trigger was really never the same. I mentioned it to my doctor, but nothing was ever done. I noticed my energy levels had rapidly declined around the age of 16-17 too, despite how active I was. In hindsight with how exhausted my immune system was it's no wonder, but at the time I had no idea what was wrong or how it all tied together. Not to mention I always tried to be the tough guy so I didn't tell my mom about the true extent of my ailments. If I had she probably would have had every scan known to man done before I turned 18 lol. Either way, by the time I shipped off to college nothing had changed so I just pushed through as best I could, but spent most days feeling tired & "blah." After that I decided to join the military. OIF had just come to pass and since I come from a long line of military vets (THANK YOU to each and every one of you) it was just something I felt I needed to do. Despite being in the best shape of my life & eating healthy I was still battling fatigue, constant sinus infections & GI issues. My day to day life was absolute misery by this point. Then, I got pregnant with my son, and oh my goodness can you say AWFUL experience?! My body just wasn't handling it well right from the start. I had random bleeding early on that prevented me from being able to do my daily exercise routine and despite being on a very healthy diet I was gaining way more weight than I should. The doctors looked at me like, "Yeeeeeeah I'm sure you're sitting at home eating donuts and just don't want to admit it." You want to talk about mad? Nothing was further from the truth, but they had no answers so it must be me, right? Then at 30wks I went into pre-term labor. I walked myself into the hospital 5cm dilated not realizing my water had broken. They detected no fetal heart tones at first so I was rushed in for an emergency c-section. My son barely made it (THANK YOU to the OR staff for your rapid resuscitation efforts or he wouldn't be here). It was an absolute nightmare. He is a thriving young man now with only residual nerve damage in his legs (did I mention he had been breech?), but no one could ever tell me why I delivered early. As if that wasn't enough I wasn't able to lose the pregnancy weight like I should despite doing everything right! I was eating just the right amount of calories needed to maintain my breast milk production, eating healthy foods and exercising EVERY DAY no matter how tired I was. I would even do workout videos holding my then 6mo old on my hip if he was fussy just to make sure it happened! Did it help? Nope. I only lost the standard pregnancy weight of 20lbs or so and nothing more. It should have been closer to 50lbs. Over the next year I went in and had allergy testing done per the recommendation of my primary care provider, and as it turned out I was allergic to around 47 out of about 56 different environmental things I was tested for. Shocker. I immediately started taking rush therapy allergy shots. They did provide some relief to the every day hay fever symptoms, but did nothing for the GI, weight or chronic fatigue issues. I also broke out with a case of shingles!! I'm like really?! That's something you normally get when you're over 50 not 24. Oh and get this... not only did I get shingles much younger than normal I also got them twice, much closer together than the average repeat cases. Yay for being an overachiever 🙄 By the time I was 25 I had gone through a second pregnancy. It was deemed high risk due to the nature of my first pregnancy so I had to get weekly shots in the hip to try to prevent another pre-term delivery. I was also put on bedrest, developed gestational diabetes and still delivered early at 34wks. It was almost an identical labor process too. I walked myself in, then went straight back to the OR for another emergent c-section. After I had my daughter I was right back in the same boat trying to lose the weight I had gained that didn't want to come off. It was seriously like deja vu. Finally, my new family practice doctor said, "I think they must not have tested you properly for thyroid issues before. Let's just check again and see." Sure enough I was diagnosed with hypothyroid. I'm like that would have been useful to know BEFORE I went through two pregnancies, especially since I told every single Doctor I ever saw that I had a family history of hypothyroid! ended up having about 80lbs worth of excess weight I couldn't shed regardless of how hard I worked or what I tried. Not to mention I am certain that is what caused the early deliveries. So, at this point I was no longer taking allergy shots but then I started developing... ASTHMA! Yep, as if I didn't have enough to deal with already I started having random asthma attacks that were all allergy induced. So I would be fine, just out walking the neighborhood, then bam I was wheezing and coughing. I also found out I was wheat intolerant. That had helped some of my GI issues, but not all. So by the time I was 27 I had thyroid disease, asthma, chronic allergies, GI issues, shingles, Lyme disease & residual weight gain to deal with. By the time I was 35 I had developed little lumps under my skin... lipomas it turned out but were they normal ones? Nope. I had the rare angio type that developed blood vessels which meant they HURT when you pushed on them. So when your kid leaned over in your lap and their elbow pushed down on your thigh it felt like a hot poker rather than a slight pressure. I had had my first retinal migraine. It freaked me out because it came out of nowhere and the entire right side of my peripheral vision in my right eye went dark. I could not see anything beyond directly in front of me and to the left. It lasted for half an hour, then slowly went away. I didn't have high blood pressure, any coughing fits, nothing that could trigger such a thing but I sure got it anyway! Then over the next year it developed into migraine with aura, but painless. So lightning would streak across my field of vision in both eyes at random and I literally could not see. So I would have to stop what in was doing, sit down, close my eyes and wait for it to go away. No one could tell me why my body was just continuously having issue after issue, and weird ones to boot!!