how I overcame autoimmune struggles

Sharing some of the details on how I overcame my autoimmune struggles, brought balance to my body, and am now symptom-free. Download the free ebook here.

Hi friends! How are you? I hope you’re having a wonderful morning so far. I have a day stacked with client calls and am looking forward to some adventures with the fam  — we’re headed to Disney for the long weekend to celebrate Liv’s bday. I’ll share the adventures over on IG stories! The kids have been asking for events or trips instead of birthday parties and I’m into it. Way less stress all around and a lot more fun.

I’m usually weird about celebrating personal things – for example, I never tell anyone when it’s my birthday lol- but there are two milestones I’m celebrating this month, and embracing every single part of these huge milestones:

– one year symptom-free and

– one year of negative Lupus markers

how I overcame autoimmune struggles

My main symptoms

Just under two years ago, some wacky things happened with my health. I went from feeling *ok* – I still had occasional anxiety and was tired sometimes – to dealing with mystery rashes, histamine issues, joint pain, and extreme fatigue. I couldn’t recover from workouts, and if I did something that was particularly intense, I felt like I needed to sleep the rest of the day. My eyes also gave me a lot of grief. I’ve done quite a few blog posts about the eye saga, but it ended up being blepharitis, Meibomian Gland Dysfunction, and dry eye.

My last eye flare was a little over a year ago. We had seen The Nutcracker as a family – one of our favorite traditions – and I could feel my eyes flaring during the show. All of a sudden, they were burning, itchy, and neon red. As soon as it was over, we raced to Walgreen’s for Claritin – I knew at that point it was part of a histamine response – and took out my contacts so I could wear my glasses. I was doing a LOT better, but was still having regular eye flares.

That was my last one.

My autoimmune story and lupus markers

Two summers ago, my PCP helped me run some bloodwork, and everything came back *normal,* except for two Lupus markers. When one is positive, there’s a chance that you have Lupus, but when two are positive, it’s a very good chance that you have Lupus. While I was disappointed by the results, they made sense to me.

She referred me to rheumatology, but since my symptoms were manageable, and I’d been dealing with them for about a year at that point, I really wanted to do some digging and see if I could heal myself.

While I’d had some potential diagnoses from my PCP and my dry eye specialist, no one could tell me WHY this was happening. I knew my body was crying for help, that something was causing the inflammation, and I was determined to figure it out. I was a newly certified IHP Level 2, so I put my new skills to work. The goal was to discover my deficiencies and toxicities so I could bring everything back to balance.

How I overcame autoimmune struggles

I made substantial changes in my life. Running functional labs on myself, altering my diet, and focusing on my nervous system were game-changers. Over time, my autoimmune and histamine issues disappeared, my eyes stopped troubling me, and my energy and focus returned.

By last December, I felt much better, and my Lupus markers were negative. Last week, during my annual bloodwork, both markers were negative again—a huge relief and a testament to the progress I’ve made. TBH I was nervous to get the results because I’ve been feeling great for the past year, but it was a huge sigh of relief.

(You can see here that ANA was positive in July, and negative in December!)

And negative again this past week when we tested again:

And negative dsDNA twice in a row, too. Wahoo!!!

It’s way too long for a blog post, so I wanted to share some of the things I implemented and learned in the process. I made a free download with 7 things that helped me the most, and the link to get a copy is here. Simply add your email and everything will be sent to you automatically.

Please keep in mind that this is not medical advice. I’m just sharing my experience and hope this can offer some ideas or support if you’re in the same boat. It’s also to share some hope because how things are *now* might not be permanent. Healing is possible, and it can be hard to see that in the moment. <3

Download the free ebook here.

Sending lots of love to you.

xo

Gina