They say the strongest thing you have is your story, so that is why I will share mine with you. I am not sparing much detail so that my patients can trust to share theirs with me.
I can help patients because I’ve been there myself.
I suffered since I was a child with multiple undiagnosed food sensitivities due to gut infections that I did not know I had, and unfortunately that no doctors looked into. This went on for so long it eventually turned into microvilli damage or Celiac disease.
This led to a lack of nutrient absorption and leaky gut which turned into a full-blown inflammatory nervous system attack. This had doctors investigating for Multiple Sclerosis and many other scary causes for neurodegeneration…eventually they called it “Benign Fasciculation Syndrome” (twitching muscles). I must add that it did not feel benign to me at all.
It surely doesn’t feel benign when one day your eyeballs feel like they are going to explode out of the socket, when you feel like bugs are crawling all over you, and you can’t stop moving your legs because of some unexplainable ache. Also, it does not feel benign, when your thick luscious hair is falling out in handfuls, when you go from completely sane to a sense of impending doom, full-blown panic attacks, waking up drenched in your own sweat like you just went swimming, and gastrointestinal urgency.
I was told that it was a common thing called Irritable Bowel Syndrome and that there was no effective treatment for it?! Turns out there is so much to do about it and now knowing what I know all of these symptoms together made so much sense. It has taken me thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars in education to figure it out mind you, but really it’s all just looking like common sense, that shockingly, isn’t that common at all!
It took me years to get a better gut-brain association and soothe my destroyed insides but it does not have to be for you. Any symptom pattern you have can be Investigated and explained. That is what Functional Medicine is!
I have applied this knowledge to my high-performing elite athletes that were performing well, even without proper nutrients, healthy stools, digestion, mindfulness, and sleep. I started treating them and they became better athletes with fewer injuries, more focus, and overall better performance. I started doing the same for CEOs and my regular chiropractic patients with chronic diseases. I have been able to make huge changes for my functional medicine clients!
The Vagus Nerve is the tenth cranial nerve and it is otherwise known as the “wandering nerve.”
It is of great significance in any of our bodies as it innervates most of our gut and numerous other organs including the heart. It can be a big part of many diseases and when I was not well, this was one of the major nerves with dysfunction.
Once I was healthy again, it only made sense to focus my clinic on gut and vagal health, since those two foundations helped me to retain my own wellness.