It’s been two weeks since I got home from my retreat. It’s been a very rough two weeks. I came home and immediately got sick, physically, bad enough to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. It was a culmination of bad food, emotional outpouring when I saw my girlfriend, the many feelings I had had been reacquainted with on retreat, a 180 degree change in my diet and several unknowns at work in my brain. Let’s just say the end result was not pretty.
I spent the night and half the next day in the hospital being prodded, poked and asked a battery of questions. According to the doctors, nothing was wrong with me but a bad reaction from food poisoning. Somewhere deep inside I knew they were dead wrong. My body felt like I had been plugged into a wall socket and was vibrating, buzzing and my head was pounding. I wrote it off as little sleep and my migraine, that was now on its third day.
Each day got progressively worse. My hands and legs began to cramp and shake, my head and heart pounded like it was trying to escape from my chest, and I had the feeling of being on a boat, a kind of swaying in my head that made me dizzy. Next came the involuntary and not so pleasant movements and jerks that would tire me out that I had to stop and lie down. I began to get a bit worried to say the least. I went to my chiropractor and message therapist trying to get some relief. I joked that I was impersonating MJ Fox so I could remain in a positive state of mind. I meditated everyday trying to calm the ever growing panic I was starting to feel. What the hell was wrong with me?!
My practice allowed me to remain relatively calm and I tried to find the root cause of this “dis-ease” in my body and mind. By Friday the movements became so bad I reached a breaking point emotionally and broke down. If there was nothing wrong with me I must be loosing my mind! I reached out to my Holistic Functional Medicine doc, who is also my chiropractor. He got me right in, I could see and feel the alarm when he saw me verses three days before. He did some energy work and found some trigger point that created a wave over my body and stopped the movement, I cried as the release came over me. I explained to him what I was feeling and he listened intently. He gave me some homeopathic serums and explained that I had created a perfect storm. From the diet change, food poisoning, emotional stress and other things that culminated all at the same time, that my body was full of toxins causing inflammation and effecting my brain. He strongly suggested I get an MRI at once.
Herein lies the turmoil, my neurologist was a month out and she wasn’t even going to be in the office for two more weeks. I took the serums/medicine and by Friday night I was exhausted, both mentally and physically. My head wouldn’t stop pounding, my body wouldn’t stop moving, my hands would not do what I asked of them, I felt like my core was a lightening rod and it would build up energy then zap the muscles in my shoulders or my legs and cause wild spasms.
I slept almost all day Saturday. I had learned a reset and it was lying down and sleeping. I slept deeply for around 28 hours and when I awoke, I felt calm and just the tingling. I sat quietly with Chris and watched a show until the wave of exhaustion hit me again and off to bed. I thought to myself, yay it’s over, I just needed to sleep.
Sunday came. I woke up and took an assessment of how I was feeling. I did my practice, had a cup of coffee and sat outside in the warm summer morning. My arms, hands, legs and feet were doing the jerky thing again and I was swaying. A new motion had started in my head and neck and I began to think this is really serious. I took it easy, napped and meditated off and on all day until I lost the ability to speak. My throat and face would spasm into this horribly painful positions, like someone with cerebral palsy. I couldn’t chew or swallow and I was totally out of my mind with fear. Off to the ER again…
I checked my ego at the door, which was leading to my embarrassment, and with help, walked into the ER. I was scared out of my mind but had a sense of calm at the same time. All through this, my practice has afforded me a safe place I could go when this flared up. I finally got my MRI. Clear… they said I had Dystonia probably caused by a severe allergic reaction from my antidepressant. They gave me Benadryl and told me to stop taking the meds and go see my neurologist.
Monday came, no change. Chris had taken a video of me at the worst and sent it off to my Holistic Functional Medicine doc. He had other ideas. Since they ruled out MS, Parkinson and a lesion, and the regular docs wouldn’t think outside the box and gave me Benadryl, he began aggressively treating the inflammation in my body and my brain. He strongly suggested that I change my diet since he was pretty sure it was an autoimmune dis-ease that was mimicking all these nasty diseases.
Fast forward to today. For the first time in weeks, my hands are my own, the buzzing my body feels more like touching your tongue to both terminals on a 9V battery. My body is still, my mind feels like I’ve been on a month long cruise and never got off the boat, my eyes are focusing better, my voice is not strained though my throat still feels a little tight, only mild tremors in my hands and an occasional random spasm in my face. My whole body aches as if I’ve done a triathlon. My mind is clear and quiet and my heart is feeling joy, optimism and relief. I am full of gratitude and compassion for the only doc that listened, gave a damn, and never gave up thinking outside the box to the mind body connection.
Two Travelin' Chicas... A Grand Adventure 
Oh Johnna. I don’t even know what to say. It’s certainlybeen a nightmare of the worst kind. So relieved to read the end when your caring doctor was able to diagnose correctly and give you what you needed. I’m so sorry you’ve been through this. Take care of yourself. Thank God you have CHRIS
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I’m so sorry you’re going through this. Sending you lots of love – speak766
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Every bit helps thanks Friend
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So glad you are a centered person. I would have been out of my mind with fear.
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