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You certainly didn't choose to get sick. But you can choose how you deal with your illness...
Hello,
Welcome to the Healing on Hive community!
This community was created for all those who have an illness and are seeking to heal themselves. Our goal here is not to judge the path you have chosen, the treatment you consider best for your case, nor to recommend medicines or alternatives. Here we simply want to share our journey, our small victories, and our learnings in search of better health.
I believe that together we are stronger. So if you have been feeling alone in your search for healing, you are very welcome to join this community!
Why did I decide to create this community? A little bit of my history
I have been at Hive since the beginning. I started my journey of writing for a blockchain platform on Steemit and when it broke, I moved to Hive and started creating content here.
Initially, I was writing about travel, because I had been living nomadically since 2017. However, with the pandemic, I needed to return to my country and it was here that I was diagnosed with severe cervical dysplasia, back in 2020, as I have already told in this post here.
For those who don't know, cervical dysplasia is a lesion caused by the HPV virus and is considered a precondition for cervical cancer. Traditionally, the treatment offered for this disease is surgery that can either remove part of the cervix (conization) or burn away the damaged tissue (LEEP procedure). In both cases, what occurs is not only the destruction of the damaged tissue but also a mutilation of the cervix, something that seemed shocking to me at the time.
Not only did I think that the surgery was a rather imbecilic solution to the problem, but when I read about its side effects, I was even more frightened. No doctor had explained to me that either with conization or LEEP I could face problems such as loss of sexual desire and ability, and canal stenosis (closing of the cervical canal), among other issues. The only thing I was told was that it would be more difficult to insure a pregnancy.
I remember I was stumped in my gynecologist's office when I suddenly had an a-ha moment. I said to her "Ok, I have bad, pre-cancerous cells on my cervix, but isn't there some kind of a peeling to remove these cells, if they do it on people's faces, why don't they do it on the cervix?". She laughed as if I was a complete idiot.
But I thought that those surgeries were close to barbarism, and I promised myself that I would study alternatives before taking any kind of anesthesia and, erased, opening my legs for a surgeon. And so I did.
Then I found a study that talked about the use of green tea extract, in a specific concentration. I was living in the Netherlands at the time and bought the substance and started to use it, following the same protocol indicated in the study. 3 months later, by taking the green tea extract and doing an intravaginal application, it was possible to see a significant reduction in the lesion. However, my gynecologist requested a colposcopy with biopsy and the result was "adenocarcinoma in situ", meaning that I had cancerous cells in my cervix.
I got desperate, but even so, I kept listening to my intuition and looking for alternatives, as I explained in this post here. In this search, I found a naturopath in the USA who offered another treatment, called escharotic treatment, and I decided to try it.
When I talked to the naturopath, he immediately warned me: your biggest difficulty will be someone to apply the treatment for you. At the time I remember I told him "Don't worry, my gynecologist is very open-minded, she will certainly help me with this". To my amazement, the naturopath was right. Not only her, but four other doctors refused to perform the treatment, including doctors who already knew about my case and terrorized me with words like cancer, metastasis, hysterectomy, and many others.
I had the help of two nurses who literally embraced my cause and helped with all the treatment application that was accompanied by the naturopath from a distance.
Throughout the treatment, I had very strong cramps, which was not expected. However, at the end of the whole process, I had a normal pap smear, with no cancerous cells. According to the naturopath, 98% of the women who undergo the treatment eliminate the HPV virus. However, even without cancerous cells, I was part of the 2%, since my exams still indicated the existence of HPV 16 and 45.
I continued taking the supplementation suggested by the naturopath and following up, but in June 2022 I had Covid, and soon after my exams indicated a 10-centimeter cyst on my right ovary.
My gynecologist suggested I should follow up with tests. But after the second transvaginal ultrasound and an MRI, the doctors indicated that it was an endometrioma.
My gynecologist referred me to a surgeon, who, in a telemedicine consultation of fewer than 30 minutes, gave me hormones and told me that I would have to have surgery to remove the cyst.
I, naturally, did not find any of this normal. For me, there was something wrong. After cancer, I now have an endometriosis cyst. This story seemed very strange to me. So I decided to go back to research and what was my surprise when I found out that endometrioma is considered a marker for deep endometriosis? In most cases, it is associated with intestinal endometriosis. Everything was starting to become clearer now and I closed my diagnosis myself.
During the treatment, I even started to feel a little bit of a sensation before going to the bathroom, but as this was not frequent I thought it was just a constipation problem. Similarly, sometimes I thought my belly was a little swollen, but I was never quite sure, I started having pain during intercourse and feeling extremely tired. I thought there was something strange about it, but since I didn't have frequent symptoms, I sometimes thought it was just something in my head.
When I found out what the symptoms of intestinal endometriosis were, I had no doubt that it was my case. And to make matters worse, I found this study that clarifies that in many cases cervical endometriosis is a rare condition that is mistaken for cervical cancer. I still don't have any answers, but I believe I had a misdiagnosis from the beginning.
More references that I've found
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16021490/#:~:text=Cervical%20endometriosis%20is%20a%20benign,persistent%20symptoms%20may%20warrant%20surgery
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28182083/
Searching for a cure for an incurable disease
My whole journey has caused me to completely lose confidence in doctors. To be honest, I'm not sure if "losing confidence" is the right term. In fact, what I have learned from my experience is that I believe in science and that DOCTORS ARE NOT THE OWNERS OF SCIENCE.
I think the pandemic exposed a lot of the fragility of medical science, and what it showed us is that medicine today is much more about developing treatments, rather than researching a cure. The reason? Healing people is not profitable. Making people sick and creating medicines and treatments is.
For this reason, I have decided to give up traditional medicine to seek treatments and I am looking for alternatives. For me, doctors and examinations help in the diagnosis and also in the follow-up of diseases. But it is we, the patients, who need to roll up our sleeves and seek information and alternatives for our cure. This is what I have been doing.
In my specific case, although doctors say that endometriosis is a chronic disease with no cure, they don't know the origin of the disease and, therefore, are certainly not looking for a cure. So, I keep looking for alternatives and go on the path of my journey.
Not an easy path
How would you feel if one day you had a wrong cancer diagnosis? How would you feel to know that after being diagnosed with cancer, but in fact what you really had was a chronic disease with no cure? In fact, this disease will turn your life into absolute, pure pain. You will have pain during menstruation, pain to have sex, and pain to live...
I guess I don't need to tell you that during this journey I lost not only faith in doctors and treatments. It also cost me my mental and financial health, which was consumed during this whole process. Along the way, I lost friends, lost my family (who were never on my side), and was judged a lot, especially for following paths that I believed in. I wonder to this day if I would have had that surgery that I never wanted and still come across endometriosis.
I learned that the healing journey is unique because no one knows more about your body than yourself. We have to learn to listen to our intuition and also accept our limitations. I do believe that our body is able to heal if we give it the right conditions and provide balance to it. For me, illness is the result of imbalance and nothing is more natural than being out of balance, especially in the society in which we are living.
We need each other
I strongly believe that human beings are beings that need the collective to live. That is why I created this community and want to invite more people who are going through a health problem to join it. I understood that healing can be a lonely and very tortuous journey and it makes a difference to have people by our side.
I don't think anything can change our lives and perspectives more than an illness. So this community is open to all those who are looking for ways and alternatives to healing themselves.
And in case you are wondering, "But I am undergoing traditional medical treatment, can I still participate?" The answer is "Of course you can". We are not here to judge treatments, but to encourage you to learn to listen to your body to find the best tools for your healing journey.
You are very welcome and count on us on your journey!
