Holistic Wellness Blog

The power of Vitamin C IV's!

coping with chronic illness functional medicine guillain barre syndrome life with lyme radha's journey Oct 15, 2018

I recently started treatment for Lyme disease and have been working closely with a functional medicine doctor. Part of my routine now is to go in twice a week for highly concentrated Vitamin C IV's and glutathione. I would like to say only at first I was skeptical, but it has been a month and I am still a bit skeptical!!

I have definitely felt a drastic difference after getting the IV's but I have also had three sessions that I didn't notice any difference at all. The last couple of weeks my body has been really slow to absorb the IV's and they have taken three hours instead of the 90 minutes they tell me to plan for. This week has been pretty rough because I came down with a chest cold on top of everything else so they decided to double my IV bag today. I had plenty of time allotted so I figured I may be laying on the BioMat for 4-5 hours and much to my surprise, it only took two hours! I am thinking this meant my body really needed it and was just...

The Power of CBD

chronic illness support coping with chronic illness functional medicine guillain barre syndrome life with lyme natural remedy pain relief radha's journey spoonie tips Oct 08, 2018

I recently started taking a CBD supplement and have to admit I was extremely skeptical at first. I guess I was hesitant because I couldn't quite grasp how powerful hemp could be since it is not considered a drug like marijuana. I went to a conference last fall when I first learned about CBD and Endocannabanoid Deficiency. I had never heard of this before and although it planted a seed in my mind about CBD, it did not inspire me to try it for my own health issues. I suppose since nerves only have the ability to heal 1mm per day, I felt a little hopeless that any thing could really help speed up the process.

The last few months I have been experiencing entirely different symptoms of severe and some times debilitating joint pain throughout my body and my fatigue has been back with a vengeance!

I currently have four different doctors opinions that are contradicting each other so I have felt a little lost and haven't been sure where to turn. I'm currently going...

The Ups and Downs of Healing

coping with chronic illness guillain barre syndrome radha's journey Mar 05, 2018

I rarely post these health updates but I just thought I would share the ups and downs. I think the hardest lesson I have had to grasp about healing is that it is in no way linear. My mind still tries to focus on cause and effect but it just doesn’t seem to work that way.

This past month has been pretty killer. I had a pretty good January and was feeling back to my normal healthy self. I would only have nerve pain on very cold days and I only had one or two days with fatigue. Then at the end of January everything fell apart. First, I got food poisoning and then four days later my nerve pain increased severely. After five days straight I finally broke down and took two gabapentin. The pain went from a 9/10 to a 3/10 within the next hour. I instantly felt a little silly for waiting so long and then the brain fog I experienced the next day brought full clarity to why I waited. The following day after the brain fog my arm was finally feeling like a 3/10 without any...

Believe What YOU Want

mental health radha's journey Feb 05, 2018

I clearly remember sitting around a table discussing our weekend plans when Monty said that he would be taking me to a tree to pose naked that evening. He said he knew I didn’t care if I was body painted or just butt naked. In my head I laughed a little and was quite nervous to go down to the beach and strip naked at a popular sunset spot! It is not that I don’t care but that I have realized my once conservative beliefs on nudity are rather silly and have no basis.

But here were my next thoughts while contemplating if I was up for the task. There is no aspect of my life that I strive for the approval or acceptance of others so why should I follow societies beliefs on nudity when I don‘t even know where they come from? To me being nude is our natural state and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. It is not “perverted” or “dirty” unless that is what YOU have...

5 Books I Would Read Again

book club coping with chronic illness mental health Jan 08, 2018

These are my five favorite books I listened to in 2017. If you haven't read them yet, I strongly encourage you to!

Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod

This book is a complete game changer. Every person I have shared these principles has benefited from putting them to use. I tend to be a morning person but I think this would be super helpful for people that drag themselves out of bed in the morning. Hal has a super interesting life story and the morning routine he created is absolutely wonderful. One of the best parts about it is that you can really customize it to what resonates best with you. He also has a ton of free resources on his website.

The Five Second Rule by Mel Robbins

This is the best audio book I have ever listened to. Mel is a passionate, motivational speaker so listening her did not feel like listening to an audio book at all. She has a great TED talk if you want to use that as a preview! The five second rule is all about counting backwards from 5 to 1 as motivation...

Walking Out of the Storm

coping with chronic illness gratitude guillain barre syndrome radha's journey Oct 16, 2017

My last blog post was close to a year ago. I have had a slight aversion to say the least. I titled it "Is The Journey Over" and less than two weeks later I ended up back in the hospital with Guillain Barre Syndrome again and unable to walk. My question about the journey was quickly answered as my healing had to start from scratch. My first hospitalization was in July and it took about four full months to start having good days again, this time it followed a very similar pattern. The first time fatigue was my biggest issue, this time both fatigue, numbness, and seizures have been problematic. The fatigue started to lift about four months later but I had to stop working out and start working even less too. Listening to my body and not pushing myself has been challenging - it's hard to battle your true nature.

Now that I am getting close a full year of recovery I feel like I am seeing the light. I can start making plans again and most...

Is the Healing Journey Over?

coping with chronic illness guillain barre syndrome radha's journey Jan 09, 2017

I haven't posted an update in quite some time! Healing took awhile but I finally feel like myself again. I still don't have my reflexes back but nobody seems too concerned. The fatigue is gone and I am working full time and exercising again! I have been working out most mornings but my strength is still 50% of what it was. I want to start working harder on that in the new year and my doctor gave me clearance to go full speed ahead. I am cleared for everything but hurdles! I still have a couple minor disconnects in the nerves that make it easy for me to trip. It caused me to fall down outside and down the stairs a couple times but I haven't had any falls lately. I read that it can take over four years to get back to normal strength levels but I am hoping with my personal training knowledge I can beat those statistics.

An article by neurologist Dr. Parry explains why strength suffers "Surviving axons send out small branches called collateral sprouts that restore...

Two Months of Healing

coping with chronic illness gratitude guillain barre syndrome radha's journey working with chronic illness Sep 26, 2016

The bumpy road continues! I know I am making progress but it is very subtle. I feel a little embarrassed to admit this but I think I cry almost every night. Nothing major, just a minute or two of pure frustration being released. I have these moments every day that I forget that I am not fully capable of my normal activities and lifestyle. Overall, I have full function of my body now although the right side is significantly weaker. This weekend I lost control of my right leg for a couple hours but it seems to have fixed itself. My biggest obstacle is the fatigue and knowing what my limits are. I tried seeing three clients in a day and spent the entire next day vomiting. It was a pretty clear sign that I am not quite ready for that workload yet. I am still unable to work full time at this point but am pushing my limits every day.

I have gone off of the Neurontin and am able to stay awake all day now. I have wanted to make the best use of all this time in...

The Price of Having a Life

coping with chronic illness gratitude guillain barre syndrome mental health radha's journey yogic philosophy Sep 12, 2016

It seems like having a life comes at a price during recovery. I went to a weekend long meditation retreat in New York and having been paying quite a price ever since. I seem to keep forgetting that I am not my normal healthy self. I wake up every morning slightly disappointed that I still don't feel well. But even though I have been severely exhausted since I got back, the trip seems worth the setback. It was nice to have a little freedom. I remember driving on Friday and realizing I would be in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York all in one day made me feel like myself again. I had to take a 2.5 hour rest break in the middle of the four hour drive and then when I arrived I felt like a limp noodle and had to lay down for quite some time. The excitement dissipated and I felt a little defeated. I drank more coffee this weekend at a meditation retreat than I think I have drank all month but the caffeine helped me push through. I also took more steps this weekend than I have...

The Laughing Doctor

coping with chronic illness guillain barre syndrome radha's journey Aug 29, 2016

I haven't really known how to give an update these days as it seems like nothing is changing. I did have my neurology appointment this week and he said to expect to struggle over the next few months and not feel like myself for a year. In a way this news felt disappointing but in a way it was a relief that it is "normal" to feel this way. My doctor was laughing at me a lot during the appointment - he laughed that I have already taught a couple yoga classes and trained a couple clients, he laughed that I went for a run, he laughed that I thought I could beat this. He couldn't believe how hard I have been pushing myself and found it quite funny how I thought I could just get my life back to normal. He told me that I need to get it through my head that I can't win - the nerves take a long time to heal and this is going to be a long journey. He laughed again that he was actually tempted to double my dose of Neurontin in hopes that it would sedate me and I would rest...