Part of the reason why I wanted to start this blog was because my health journey has been SO challenging. I’ve been very depressed to the point where I’ve been in bed in SO much pain for weeks. Without the support of my amazing friends and family and honestly just hope and perseverance because sometimes even the people closest to you truly don’t understand what you’re going through, I would have never gotten through it. I feel that I need to dive into the beginning of my health journey so that you can fully understand all the trials and tribulations it took for me to finally start feeling better! It wasn’t an easy journey by any means… So, I first realized I had chronic migraines when I was around 15-16 years old. I thought I just had regular old headaches, as did my parents, but when they started getting more intense and were accompanied with nausea, blurry vision, brain fog, and fatigue I realized they were so much more than just a headache. After going to multiple doctors and trying a variety of pain medication, my dad recommended that I go see his Chiropractor friend Dr. Gina Travis(My dad went to school and practiced Chiropractic for most of his life). Once meeting her and telling her my story and what I was going through, she put me on a tight regimen of fruit and vegetable supplements taken 2x daily, neck and shoulder exercises to strengthen the spine, and chiropractic adjustments 2-3x a week. After one year my migraines miraculously disappeared! I went on for 3 years feeling pretty good, with the occasional migraine or two a month but not as debilitating or frequent as they had been. Fast forward to March 2017, after getting engaged to my wonderful fiancé Erik, I decided to go on birth control which ended up being the worst decision I have ever made, because once I started the birth control my migraines came back and worse than ever. I then went on to abuse Ibuprofen and Excedrin to get through work and life. Once, the pain meds stopped working I knew I had a BIG problem. So I made appointments with multiple neurologists to help get to the bottom of my problem. I got an MRI done on my brain to see if I had a brain tumor which thankfully I did not, and the search continued. After months and months of trying various preventative medications with horrific side effects I came across an amazing neurologist who suggested I try both Botox and Aimovig. I had to get prior authorization for Botox(which was my first choice) so I opted for Aimovig. The first month was tough, I had minor side effects and didn’t really see a huge difference in the number of migraines I was having a month. During this time, I was also having sever digestive discomfort and decided to just tackle everything at once and went to go see a gastroenterologist as well, and with lots of testing was told that I had SIBO, IBS, and severe acid reflux. I started changing my diet significantly and tried to be on a mostly alkaline diet, taking out specifically acidic foods since that was what bothered me the most, and incorporating more alkaline food and beverages. With the change of my diet and month three of Aimovig I started feeling SO much better! I originally had 20-25 migraine days a month and as of month three I had five. FIVE!!! I’m tearing up thinking about it now, because I was so miserable and in SO much pain, I thought that was going to be my reality forever. So here I am now, almost a year and a half later while quarantined because of COVID-19 and finally having time to tell my story! As of now I have 1-3 migraines a month, most of my digestive discomfort is manageable if I stick to my strict diet and I feel like I am finally living a somewhat normal life, while still taking necessary precautions to make sure I don’t get sick. I wanted to start this blog for many reasons but my main reason was to be able to help anyone who is going through the same thing that I went through. While I was in my worst state, I took the time to research everything about health and nutrition and follow so many bloggers who were bravely talking about their stories in the hopes to help someone who was going through similar things like me. I learned so much from them, as in what foods heal your body, natural ways to mange migraines, and supplements that help manage symptoms. So my blog will consist of yummy recipes that I love, supplements that I take, diving into which foods heal your body from within and which foods cause more inflammation and may be the culprit of why you feel sick, and miscellaneous Health & Wellness information! Stay tuned 😊
#health #healthfood #healthandwellness #migrainesufferer #SIBOsufferer #chronicpain #healingwithfood #healingfromwithin #healthiswealth
