How I got to where I am today.

Alrighty, I'm gonna lay out how I got to where I am today healthwise. Then I have a plan on updates, research and encouragement along the way. I'm praying this will help me to stay faithful and perhaps help others.

This is the state of my health as of today: I have hashimoto's thyroid, several autoimmune problems going on...one of which is attacking my joints in my fingers. I have quite severe arthritis in several fingers, and it is slowly spreading. I have difficulty sleeping at night, and digestive problems. Basically my body is slowly attacking itself, medical professionals would say there is no cure for these problems, autoimmune problems are a mystery. I have always been interested in alternative medicine, and from my research there are many who believe that these problems can be reversed or at the least, dimmed. (One described a light switch dial in which you can slowly dim the lights. They believe you can hit the dimmer on autoimmune to where it would not completely ever be gone but dimmed to the point of barely noticeable).

This is how I believe I got there. I've always been a type A person. Striving to be the best super Christian, super mom, super homeschooler, super everything. Literally kill myself trying. Ignored the advice to rest when my kids were napping when they were young. I was the mom who would race around cleaning the house while they slept. Pretty much lived on sugar and caffeine to keep going through most of those year. Had some health kicks here and there, but had my crutches to keep up the pace of life. I ended up having c-sections with all my kids which resulted in a complete hysterectomy 8 years ago because of massive scar tissue. Well I was stubborn, didn't want to use hormone replacement because of side effects, cancer risk, etc. So I used several forms of natural hormones through the early years, even tried the synthetic when I was desperate for sleep. Nothing really helped. I thought eventually surgical menopause would end. I went for years on 2 to 3 hours of sleep a night. I went to an osteopathic doctor that deals in anti-aging natural medicine. She had me on hormone pellets and discovered hashimotos thyroid on a blood test. Shortly after that my joints began swelling. Shortly before that time that these symptoms started, my beloved mother was diagnosed with inoperable stage 4 pancreatic cancer. This was a devastating time for me and my family, my brothers. My brothers, my mom's sister and myself cared for my mom the entire time of her sickness until her death 7 weeks later. Major stress events like this can trigger autoimmune responses which is very possible in my case, coupled with the other factors in my life at the time. Trying to find the root cause has been my mission, but it seems as though it is like a tangled spider web from the point where it started. But I have faith and hope in God, that He will lead and guide me. I want to share with you many things I have discovered and the things I have yet to discover in the future.