Have you ever heard the phrase “you don’t know how bad you feel until you start feeling better”? Well, I can tell you from experience that it is the absolute truth.
I had battled not feeling myself, not sleeping and putting on weight for over a year. I am in my early 40’s, have a good diet and exercise (running and weight training) 4-5 days a week. I have a good job and good home life. So what’s the problem?
I finally started putting the puzzle pieces together after I was turned away from donating blood because my blood pressure was too high (140/103). Because I have a family history of high blood pressure I went to the doctor. However, I went to the wrong doctor, an HMO practitioner. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that HMO doctors are inept, it’s just that they do not have the time to spend with a patient to figure out what the issue really is. But that’s another topic for another time. The HMO doctor put me on blood pressure medicine as soon as he heard I had a family history. I reluctantly took the pills, even though I was not convinced it was the solution.
After two weeks of hair loss and achy muscles (side effects of the BP medicine) I went back to the doctor. He gave me another pill and I took it. One day at home, I went to get up from a sitting position and the room when black for a second. It was at that point that I knew high blood pressure was not the problem (the reading was 90/60) but a symptom of another issue.
I sought out and found a doctor that actually has time to practice medicine. After spending about 45 minutes with him and a couple of tests it was determined that I had a cortisol imbalance. This hormone should have a higher level in the morning, allowing you to wake up and a lower level at night, allowing you to go to sleep. My levels were reversed. That explains why I couldn’t sleep at night, why it took everything I had to wake up in the morning, why I was so exhausted and the weight gain.
This doctor referred me to Twila Johnson, who started me on a detoxification program to flush toxins from the body. I also started taking a natural supplement that helps regulate cortisol levels in the body. I didn’t have to wait long for that good night’s sleep. It was that one day when I woke up after sleeping about six hours that I realized how good I felt. Since I was feeling bad for so long feeling good felt strange. A few days later I was running and instead of making myself get through the run, I felt like I didn’t want to stop.
In our very hectic lives we tend to forget that we live in a toxic environment. The food we eat is loaded with preservatives, grown with pesticides and raised with hormones. Have you ever tried to pronounce the ingredients in the packaged foods we eat? Let’s not talk about the fast food arena! Taking a walk or run outside we are breathing in exhaust fumes from car, trucks and buses. The water from our faucets has bacteria in it. So what do we do? Run and hide in a sterile plastic bubble? Absolutely not!
Start eating organic when possible, get a good water filter system in your house and set up time with Twila to discuss how to rid your body of a life time of built up toxins. Also, make sure you are taking a good quality multi vitamin and other supplements that Twila can also help you with. Twila has been a great help in assisting me with getting my body back to where it should be, healthy and strong.
I can’t tell you how good I feel today! |