https://youtu.be/7MbAlImhK_U — Hi guys. Um, so let me start off by saying this is my first time telling my story.
I found that as I tried to write everything down, I had a really hard time remembering it. I so embraced the program and not thinking about what life was like pre-DNRS in those years when it wasn’t so good…so I had a hard time remembering a lot of stuff. So some of it’s fuzzy and if it seems like I can’t remember my own life, that’s why. But in the mid-2000s, I was living in South Florida with my longtime boyfriend, three dogs, running a successful chiropractic practice, traveling, exercising, socializing. Life was good, life was full. This is me with my best friend and we’re in Burano, Italy, obviously being very silly and just having a wonderful time. And that’s what life was like back then. It was good.
So around 2007 or so, the windows in my office started leaking and the landlord instead of actually taking care of the windows, just started spraying chemicals to cover up the smell of mold and mildew. And so being in South Florida, this was almost a weekly event during the rainy season. And at times the smell of chemicals was so strong that we would have to prop open the front door and the back door, see a few patients and then go stand outside and get some fresh air. And this went on for a while and at the same time, my relationships started going downhill and one of my dogs developed kidney cancer and had to be put to sleep.
I started getting sick a lot and not only getting sick but just taking a long time to recover and that really started to affect my practice as well. Employees started to get sick as well and I forced the landlord to test for mold and he wouldn’t share the report with me, which is always a great sign. And instead just had his handyman come in and cut pieces out of the walls and that was their version of remediation and then they came back in and they sprayed with this chemical called Microban, which basically masks all mold spores for 48 hours and they tested within 48 hours and then were happy to show me the report and say, look, you’re fine, the office is safe.
At the time I didn’t have the money to start a legal battle with a big corporate landlord and I couldn’t get out of there. So I did the best I could. Obviously it was very stressful, but I was still able to hang in there, still able to lead a somewhat normal life and I used my go-to coping mechanism of exercise. I’ve always been an athlete and that was always my way of dealing with stress and was able to cope that way. So finally in 2012, my lease was ending and I was told that if I needed an extra month in the process that it would be double rent for each month. Again, did not have the money to do that. The rent had gone up steadily every year. So I started nice and early and started looking for new locations and found one and spent months with lawyers and real estate agents and ironing everything out and then that fell through. And so started again. Lawyers, real estate agents, months and it looked like it was just right there and then that fell through. And obviously that left the window very small.
At the same time my best friend moved to Arizona and finances were really tight from again, being sick, rent increasing. One of my other dogs was ill, had to be put to sleep and my new relationship ended through an email of all things. So the effects of things were really starting to show up: psychologically, emotionally, was really stressed, really worried and I wasn’t sleeping.
I finally found a new office and I had one month to renovate it, move in and get ready to see patients and get back to work. And at that point I came down with what I thought was the worst flu I’d ever had. I was in bed for two weeks straight. I couldn’t even open my eyes, couldn’t watch TV. My head hurts so bad, my eyes hurt so bad. All I could do was just kind of lie there and just hope I could fall asleep.
And after that, life was never the same. The fatigue never lifted. It just got worse and worse and worse and every week some crazy new symptom would show up and it affected every area of my body. I had migraines, insomnia; I’d never had sinus infections before and now I had them on both sides and couldn’t get rid of them. I was dizzy, I was nauseous. I had fluid and ringing in my ears, blurred vision, pain in my teeth, severe joint pain that would just travel all over my body. I would lose my voice completely, couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t think straight. My office manager was my brain during that time and I’m pretty sure to this day he thinks I’m crazy.
I was short of breath, I had heart palpitations, chest pains, pain down my arms and legs, tremors. I had bladder issues, muscle weakness and I can go on and on and on.
I got so ill that my mom had to come down and take care of me for a couple months.
I came up with a schedule where I would work three days a week and so I would work a few hours and then I would go right home and I would either get into bed or lie on the couch and I would stay there, try and get up enough energy to be able to go to work in two days. And that’s what I did for quite a while. It was really hard at this time because I couldn’t use exercise to cope, so all of those negative emotions and feelings that were just coming in floods, I didn’t have my standard coping mechanism of how to deal with it.
I became very isolated. I had no energy, so I didn’t socialize at all and any invitation I just immediately turned down because I just knew I couldn’t do it. I became sensitive to sound and light, chemicals and I really felt like I was going crazy. I couldn’t understand how I was one of the healthiest people I knew. I ate right and I exercised and I took vitamins and I got my rest and I did all the things you’re supposed to do, but I was the sickest person I knew. And I had friends that did the polar opposite of that and they were absolutely indestructible.
Driving became really difficult. I couldn’t process what it meant when the red light went and the yellow light went and the green light went and it took every ounce of my concentration to go, oh, I need to brake or oh, the brake lights on the car are going off in front of me, I need to brake.
It was really that hard to drive. And so began two and a half years of searching for an answer and I went to every doctor, traveled all over the place. I went to ENT’s, cardiologists, pulmonologists, gynecologists, urologists, dentists, fatigue specialists, immunologists, general practitioners, functional medicine doctors and even the Mayo Clinic. All of those visits ended the same way. The doctor would give me some bizarre diagnosis that I knew because of my medical training was so not right and I just also knew in my gut that that wasn’t the answer.
And at that point I would start arguing and I would argue pretty strongly with the doctor. Um, that would go on for a bit and then I would burst into tears. And I am fairly certain that all throughout Florida in many doctors’ offices there were pictures with very strict instructions to the front desk, do not let this woman in. She is crazy.
I was difficult to say the least. So I had every test you could imagine, CT scans, MRIs, x-rays, gallons of blood work, multiple sinus procedures, two surgeries. I took every supplement ever made or known to man. I was on antibiotics for over six months straight. I took antifungals and I did a lot of chiropractic and acupuncture just to be barely functional. I was always searching and looking for the newest treatment, the latest fix. That sliver of hope that this could maybe fix things.
I’ve never added up the exact money I spent. It’s well over $100,000 and I’ve just kind of left it at that, but it’s well over $100,000. Life was very bleak. I was fearful, I was hopeless, I was isolated and I was so miserable, I didn’t want to be around myself.
So in February of 2015, I was finally diagnosed and I was diagnosed with chronic inflammatory response syndrome and for those who don’t know it’s mold sensitivity.
And I thought, hallelujah, my prayers have been answered. Finally, I know what’s wrong with me. We can fix this. The nightmare is over. I found a doctor that didn’t think I was crazy and actually did some blood work that showed, oh, you’re not lying and you’re not just making this up. There’s really something wrong.
I could not have been more wrong. So the first treatment step with mold sensitivity is extreme avoidance. And so I was told in no uncertain terms that I could not go anywhere there had been water damage or any kind of mold. And if any of you have been to South Florida, you know that that is a very tall order. It is a damp, humid place.
This led to me becoming super paranoid. I would check everywhere I went. I I never looked at anyone because I was looking at ceilings and carpets and windows and does this look like there’s been any kind of water intrusion because I can’t see what’s beyond that wall or past the ceiling. And of course, this led to becoming even more sensitive and more reactive and a heck of a lot more sick. So at this point, and I’m not sure if you can see in the picture, but I have these little nasal strips over my nose.
The theory here was, well, if I could just block those mold spores from coming in, it would be okay. And so I started wearing these in the office because I was really struggling to work.
Needless to say, they were very uncomfortable and also incredibly embarrassing. I mean, it looks like a sci-fi movie. I’m partially transforming into some kind of amphibian or something.
I did inspections at my home and at my office and found mold at both places. So I had to battle my landlord to get the place remediated and both remediations at my house and at the office were just incredibly stressful. It was a battle on both fronts for months on end.
I thought, okay, if we get it remediated, I’ll be fine and again, we can get back on track. Again, you know where this is going, not so much. So I was actually worse after the remediations.
Couldn’t tolerate my house. Had to move into a hotel and that’s where I lived for the next five months.
I started wearing a mask in the office and so that is what greeted patients when they came in the door. And you know, my older established patients, they knew me, loved me and bless them, they were loyal to the day I closed my practice. New patients, they hightailed it out the door and I don’t blame them one bit. That’s not very reassuring when you’re looking for help.
I became very negative, very angry, very obsessive. I had these just continual negative dark thoughts running through my head. And I thought if I could just find a safe place to move my office, I would be okay. I could get re-established and I could start again. So I found a beautiful new office. It was perfect. You couldn’t write a better scenario. It was a great location. It had a built-in patient base and it was fully decorated.
I had it inspected for mold, had it deep cleaned and decontaminated from mold spores. Again, very expensive process. I worked there one day and I was bedridden for a week or two, somewhere in that neighborhood. So it was at that point that I realized, okay, something’s got to give. We’re at a real critical point here. So I closed my practice, left my home and moved to Atlanta to live with family.
Even though I was very ill at that point, I was so relieved to not be caring for others when I felt like I was dying. Um, and it was also really nice to know that on those days or weeks when I was really struggling just to take care of my own daily needs that I would have help and someone to help me do that.
At that point I was so sensitive and so reactive that I reacted to my car simply because it had transported items from my office and so I couldn’t tolerate my car. I couldn’t tolerate items that had been in my home even after they were cleaned and decontaminated multiple times.
I was barely able to tolerate my mom’s house. Um, I was able to stay in one room that was separated from the rest of the house, but barely. And so I spent the majority of my time outside even though it was late November and it was cold and I just layered and bundled up and tried to make the best of it.
My mom’s house also had mold and so we had to have that remediated–but luckily that’s where the story takes a turn. The man that she hired to remediate her house specializes in dealing with people that have become sensitized to everything and anything and it was one of the first times in a long time that I wasn’t treated like I was crazy and that someone actually understood. And that’s how I found out about Annie Hopper and DNRS. So he bought Wired for Healing for me and he bought the DVDs for me. And, I was super resistant at first. Super, super resistant. I was really at a point where I didn’t have it within me to get my hopes up again and I just could not take the disappointment of trying one more thing and it not working and I just I didn’t have it in me to to be disappointed again.
But my manners overtook that and I felt obligated and so I started reading the book. Slight difference. So it took me a year and a half to recover and I always describe recovery as the toughest job you’ll ever love and I’m stealing that from the Peace Corps. Thank you. At times it’s glorious and it’s joyful and it’s uplifting and other days it’s just plain hard work.
And it’s a gradual process and for me it’s went and then they came and then they came back again, but they eventually went away for good. And I started to become more positive, more upbeat and I actually started smiling again. It took me a year and a half to recover and I always describe recovery as the toughest job you’ll ever love. At times it’s glorious and it’s joyful and it’s uplifting and other days it’s just plain hard work.
I had lots of obvious milestones during my recovery. Going into my mom’s house for the first time and just eating a meal indoors and watching TV was huge.Going on my first bike ride,
staying at my cousin’s house, whose bathroom so obviously needed to be remediated and looking at it and laughing and going, I’m okay. This is no big deal. Eating gluten for the first time, that was pretty nice and going hiking for six miles.
I really tried to notice the smaller shifts and the more mental and emotional shifts that were going on; things like I started liking TV shows that just a few years ago I found really stupid and annoying and all of a sudden I was laughing out loud at these shows and loving them.
I wanted to reconnect with friends and family that I hadn’t talked to in years. I stopped rushing and when I was talking with a friend and we were discussing a certain store and he said he wasn’t sure if I could go there.
I just assumed he meant that I needed a membership and I realized, oh, this is big. This is really big because my automatic knee-jerk thinking had changed. I had no idea he was talking about safety. Didn’t even cross my mind. I didn’t think that way anymore.
I celebrated all the shifts, big, small, little, everything in between, and life now is very different. Very, very different. And back to being me. I had become a shell of a human being and I’m back to working, traveling, doing the things that I love, the things that bring meaning and joy to my life. And so one of the things I do, this always gets me. One of the things I do is I volunteer at our local no-kill shelter and I’m one of the volunteers that happily takes on some of the challenging dogs that have behavior issues and that other people are a little afraid to deal with and I help train them so that they can be adopted. I could have never, never done this prior DNRS for so many reasons, but the biggest one is that I had become very afraid of dogs when I was sick. So being able to just jump in and handle these guys is a huge, huge change for me and it just brings a lot of meaning and passion to my life.
One of the biggest things that I enjoy every day about recovery is I’m just a regular normal person now. And I realized that pretty much anyone outside of this room will not understand that and it doesn’t seem like an accomplishment or anything to celebrate or get excited about, but I know all too well that you guys get that and that sense of normalcy is freeing. It is so liberating to not need special accommodations or have to plan out every last detail of everything and to just be able to say that sounds like fun. Let’s go.
So this is me with friends and we are in a dark, wet, smelly cave in Tennessee. And the best part is I didn’t smell it. They did. I didn’t smell a thing.
So throughout my recovery, I really had to return to the five pillars repeatedly, to help keep myself focused and on track. I had to remind myself all the time that my limbic system dysfunction was the root of everything and even though I might need to see a doctor and I might need some some medical support and some medication or supplements, that was just supporting my system in the process and what was really fixing things was healing my limbic system and doing DNRS. I was very consistent with rounds. Um, I found that I needed to do two rounds first thing in the morning.
If I left them till the end of the day, boy did that hour sound like a lot. But if I did two rounds in the morning, half hour is not that bad, so I always made sure I did that. I also did buddy rounds and I found those hugely helpful. I was very resistant to those at first too, which was a common theme for me. I was always no. It’s not for me. There a great way to connect, they’re a great way to inspire yourself and especially on those days or weeks when you’re feeling really resistant and just not into it and not feeling it, you’re a lot more likely to phone it in when it’s just you, but when your friend is there on the other end of the computer Skyping with you, you’re not gonna phone it in for them. You’re gonna show up, you’re gonna do a good job. And so on days that I was nah, I really rose to the occasion because my friend was there.
I also did fantasy rounds, and that is so outside the norm for me. I am not a very creative person, but when I got bored, I started getting creative and silly and wacky and weird and that makes it a lot more fun. And I also did themes for rounds. Um, I hit a point where I kind of again gotten a rut with rounds and so I started every day picking a different theme, some new word that was uplifting or inspiring and forcing me to think outside the box of what memories do I have that could fit this.
I posted my pops wherever I could. I had him by my bathroom mirror, I had him by my bedroom door and I tried to constantly check in and just think, what am I thinking? What am I feeling? What am I doing? Is this health affirming?
If it’s not, it’s a pop, redirect, stop it. And I really tried to be a curious observer and one of the things that I was really surprised by is I had so much adrenaline with everything and I was totally unaware of that until I started to step back and go, holy cow.
I try to make incremental training fun and incremental training can be daunting at times. You’re pushing yourself a little bit, you’re going outside your comfort zone. And so one of the things with mold sensitivity is they tell you any paperwork or any pictures that have been stored in a moldy environment, you have to throw it out, you can never touch it again. And so I was told that all of my old family photos had to be tossed. Thank goodness, I didn’t listen to that. Put them in a bin and said we’ll figure it out later, I just can’t bear to part with them.
So I had a treasure trove of stuff to use for incremental training and the beauty of this is that they were old pictures and so I got caught up looking at old memories and happy times and I also got really caught up in looking at really bad hairdos. Thankfully, none of those were me. No, no, no. I will say my hair reached great heights in the eighties. I’m not sure that I ever attained quite that. But it’s a great example of trying to make incremental training fun, try and bring laughter into it and it makes it so much easier and it doesn’t feel like work.
I went hiking with my mom’s dogs because I love animals and I love the outdoors. And when it was time to start training on gluten, I ate chocolate cupcakes. I was serious about having fun with this. The other thing that I tried to do for incremental training is I had a lot of life happened when I was retraining and situations that I didn’t have control over and, you know, life happens. And I really tried to use those situations as incremental training to train around them and turn them into a positive thing that I could use to help change my reaction to stressful stressful situations.
I elevated my emotional state as much as I could. Music, dancing, I sang and I’m terrible at singing. So the louder and more off-key I sang, the harder I laughed. I was in nature as often as I could be. I watched comedies on Netflix and I really committed to trying to see the good in everything and whenever I saw thought about something negative or went, oh, I don’t like that, I immediately no, find something good to say about that.
So one of the things that was really challenging for me about recovery was the ebb and flow of recovery and I borrowed this from another retrainer on the forum and I just I think it’s genius, it really is.
So we have all been conditioned to expect that things progress in a steady upward line and
that’s not how it goes with this process. And I know Annie talked about it being up and down, up and down. I found that it’s a little more confusing than that. There are days when you feel like you’re going sideways, backwards and quite frankly, you can’t even tell where that line is headed. But I tried to remember that with all the twists and turns, eventually that line comes out the other side and is heading up again. And I found that really, really helpful.
The other thing that was really helpful with the ebbs and flows was coaching and being able to check in with someone that has gone down this path to help me see things in a different light, to reframe them and keep me focused. And the other thing I tried to remember is that everyone else is going through this too. Everyone else has ups and downs and symptoms really don’t measure your progress or your success.
A few other things that I learned along the way: record your rounds. It is an excellent tool when you are not motivated or you are traveling or whatever else. It is so easy to just record rounds and be able to listen to them when you need to. Several, several spikes and symptoms to finally see the pattern that typically after you have a spike, you get a big jump forward.
And so I really try to remember instead of thinking, oh my gosh, I’m spiking, what am I doing wrong? What did I do? And instead think, that’s awesome. I’m spiking. Good things are coming. I can’t wait to see what jump comes next. And for incremental training, everything is easier the second time around. If I did incremental training and it didn’t go well, I really try to remember, you know what? Great. Got that done, next time is gonna be so easy and it usually was.
The other thing I did is if I was struggling with a particular pop that would keep coming up again and again and again, I would try and do rounds that were the opposite of that. So for example, if I was frustrated and feeling a lack of progress or success, I would try and do memories and futures about accomplishment and things that I had done in the past that gave me this sense of accomplishment. If I found myself fortune telling all the time, I would try and do a round about when something wonderful happened, something totally unexpected that I could have never even dreamt of and it turned out so much better than I could have ever thought.
And when I was not motivated, I did rounds about passion and determination and hard work really paying off. And last of all, I would say, don’t overthink it. All of us come from a background of researching and analyzing everything. Don’t get caught up in the symptoms, don’t get caught up in the ebb and flow of recovery. You don’t have to be perfect, your rounds don’t have to be perfect and you won’t be and they won’t be and that’s okay.
Trust the path that so many people have taken before you. You have to be committed, you have to be consistent and if you are, your brain will have no choice but to change and you will recover.
Thank you.
