I feel this is the start of a new era for me - which is why I wanted to write an introductory post before I'm losing this moment in the search for the smaller puzzle pieces I'm expecting to uncover in the next few months.
In short:
- I've started a road towards getting 'healthy'
- I might be interested in becoming a therapist/healer myself if my road towards health is as effective as I believe it might be
Becoming unhealthy
Basically I'm now starting to realize this all might have started from birth onwards, but let's go back to the end of 2015, which my more regular readers will know as 'the moment where it all went wrong'.
The very very short version is: I made a wrong step while descending some rough edged stairs while traveling through Russia. What was supposed to be a 9-month travel sabbatical became a 'did something wrong on day 3 and only accepted after day 60 that traveling wasn't possible anymore' kind of experience.
Ouch. My and my boyfriend went home, where we didn't have an apartment anymore as this wasn't supposed to be a short trip, and I went on a long journey towards searching for a diagnosis that made some sort of sense.
I have been dealing with limited mobility since:
- I can walk 1000-2000 steps each day, with 'only' a few hours recovery time needed
- I can walk 5000 steps every other day, next day needs recovery
- Once or twice a year I'll be 'able' to do 10000 steps but at the end of the day I'm crying from pain and I know next day I won't be able to go to the bathroom by myself amongst others
The cause of this all is a splintered bone which is scraping/damaging the cartilage from the next bone, and since cartilage is basically unable to heal itself (? at least according to my regular doctors and surgeon) I'm screwed while waiting for the joint to get damaged more and more over the years. The damage is inoperable: the placement of this particular bone is so deep in my foot there are no surgeons who even 'dare' to try to reach this bone as potential secondary (and just as or even more painful) additional bone damage is too big of a risk.
At the age of 28 I learned this was 'it': one unlucky moment would leave me with mobility challenges, probably even worsening ones, until old age.
The first missing piece of the puzzle
A misstep can happen. Right? That a piece of bone had damaged which meant I couldn't walk anymore like I had done before is just what it is: bad luck.
Things started to make less sense when I noticed my other foot, the one that was supposed to be healthy as I hadn't done anything 'wrong' with it, started to hurt too. On the exact same place, in the exact same joint.
Some doctors visits later and it was confirmed: cartilage damage/arthrosis in that foot too! But how? Was something else causing these problems? How can both joints be affected while one was supposed to be from 'trauma' and the other from 'random unknown causes'?
That fact, where I didn't get answers from the regular doctors, started to plant a seed in my mind: there must be something wrong in the systems of my body instead of this single point of focus.
The second missing piece of the puzzle
In the years after a few other things happened to my body:
- I experienced pain in my fingers - sometimes so bad that putting on socks was hell
- I gained weight (made sense right? I was moving way less!)
- I lost the beautiful curls in my hair, instead it became easily damaged
I tried to talk everything right: gaining weight while moving less made sense, losing curls was a given according to my hair stylist, I was already going to be 30 years old soon?
But the pain in my fingers wasn't something I was willing to accept. So I went to the doctors again, trying to find out if I maybe had a rheumatoid disease. To make a long story short: I didn't, they recommended having silver rings measured on all my fingers so I couldn't bend them as much which would lessen the pain over time.
Another half answer, I thought
I wore the rings for a few weeks off and on but I instinctively knew it wasn't the right thing to do: those 'mobility supports' only make a person use their joints less which is never going to strengthen them. They were also falling off whenever I actually wanted to use my hands, so they ended up in a drawer to never be used again.
Note to self: sell the silver and buy HIVE with the proceeds! :D
I just felt like again I hadn't gotten a really satisfying answer from 'the doctors' and been given a half-solution. Probably something that would help me in the short term, but not in the long term.
The dozens of other missing puzzle pieces
I have such a long list of physical challenges I've had to deal with starting from puberty (which is probably hint 1, that it all started when hormones flooded my body):
- Pain in feet with normal use, causing a lot of frustration during PE classes in all 6 years of my secondary school but more and more walking became a chore that limited me
- Lots and lots of back pains, which I needed to go to therapy for from the age of 16 while not being able to sit through school exams and later during University years adding a lot of stress during commuting by train (would I be able to get a seat for the 20 minute ride or not? Would I get scolded at again if I took the seat that I was supposed to give up to someone else because I looked so young so I couldn't be unhealthy?)
- Cartilage damage in my knee in my early 20s
- Head aches of the suicidal sort for a full year when I was 25 years old
Again, summarized, but this short list of things doesn't sound like a healthy body to me - and although I was searching through a bunch of therapists from all sorts for answers I never found them.
First steps towards a solution?
When talking to a friend last New Years Eve he was talking about going to a certain natural therapist who measured some food intolerances and found a few items he had to avoid. His reason for going was sudden adulthood acne he wanted to get rid of, and after avoiding certain food items he ended up with a clear skin and a bunch of energy he wasn't even aware he had lost before.
I started researching natural methods of healing - again. I had done so before but not all therapists imbued me with trust. Although I'm very much open to natural forms of healing I DO love science. So I was searching for a therapist who could point me towards a form of natural healing based on science.
And there it was: Orthomolecular medicine, but even better: Psycho-Neuro-Immunological medicine.
A quick definition from Wikipedia:
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), also referred to as psychoendoneuroimmunology (PENI) or psychoneuroendocrinoimmunology (PNEI), is the study of the interaction between psychological processes and the nervous and immune systems of the human body.[1][2] PNI takes an interdisciplinary approach, incorporating psychology, neuroscience, immunology, physiology, genetics, pharmacology, molecular biology, psychiatry, behavioral medicine, infectious diseases, endocrinology, and rheumatology.
As a psychologist very aware of the interaction between psycho/neurological process and somatic processes I was intrigued. And that's where it all started: my search for health through natural medicine with a scientific basis I'm part familiar with and which is part unknown to me as it's such a young research field.
What's next:
I wrote this piece to have something to go back to when I'm writing the actual road towards getting healthy. I just started this process so it might be a while before I have some actual results to share. But for now I want to share a few more pieces in the next few weeks:
- My past search for natural medicine
- My current understanding of Psychoneuroimmunology
- And probably while I'm going through this process updates on my healing process
Stay tuned! And if you have any experience with Orthomolecular and/or Psychoneuroimmunologic medicine I'm dying to know!