Montag, 2. März 2009

My Fibromyalgia Journey

It started about 20 years ago when I increasingly got more and more tired and felt sick. But the doctors could not find anything. At the same time I had muscle pain in the left upper arm started, which had increased over a number of years. In addition, my memory and concentration decreased. Although I would say that I am in general quite smart I very often felt like an idiot when I was searching for the appropriate words or terms. When I wanted to say something, I would forget what I wanted to say while I was actually talking. Regular tasks like paying bills or any other administrative works became close to impossible over the years. What drove me crazy most was that I did not remember where I had put things just minutes before. I asked my physician if I might have Alzheimer’s, but he just laughed at me.

Through my profession as a success and life coach I liked listening to people and was trained to listen well to what people where saying. But listening was increasingly difficult and one day I had to realize that after a couple of minutes of listening to other people they had lost me because my brain was not able anymore to bring the words I had just heard into the right context. All I was hearing was a mumbling that did not make any sense to me – or rather a noise.

The worst thing was that I did not know what was going on in and with my body. Nobody could tell me. And since I was merely living in kind of a “cloudy” state it took me years to realize what was really going on. As a matter of fact I started to realize this disease in its whole context only after I got a lot better. But since I did not realize what was going on I was not able to effectively communicate to others what was going on with me. As a matter of fact, I’ve even lost some friends due to the symptoms of this illness.

My symptoms started in my early thirties and slowly increased. During the following 20 years they became so bad that I could not work anymore and some years later my doctor placed me on disability pension – which they found the “main” reason was depression. The reason for this diagnosis was my constant fatigue. Today my new doctor and I know that all this was not a psychological problem but in fact it had a name: Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). But until just recently I still did not know what this Fibromyalgia really was and what symptoms were connected to that disease. Neither did my family doctor.

Then I was sent to the hospital where I spent a full week for tests. They scanned my brain for tumors (because of my head-aches and dizziness), my heart (because of my chest pain), my stomach and colon (because of the irritation and the pain). They placed me in the sleep lavatory to monitor my sleep because they thought I had sleep apnea – after all there had to be a reason why I felt so tired. Of course they did not find any of these problems. So the conclusion was again: ‘depression’. Did you ever feel that your family doctor had kind of a dirty smile in his face when he saw your test results – and you knew exactly that he thought you were wasting his time with unbelievable symptoms? Well, my doctor did. It was not difficult to read his face at all.
The biggest problem was that there was nothing I could take for a relief. The only thing offered to me was Cortisone, and since I know what it does to the body this was way out of question for me right from the beginning. The only thing my family doctor had to offer me on top of that was pain killers. But because my body is not used to medication I did not react well on them and had to do without. I know that you can get addicted to them, so I didn’t really mind having to live a life without painkillers. But I had to live with my pain until I found an alternative solution.

By the early 2000’s the symptoms became so bad that I could hardly do anything. But what do you do all day long when you are still young enough to turn the world around? I tried to read, but never remembered after what I was reading – I did it nevertheless, hoping that this might help slow down the degenerative process. There is only a certain amount of hours you can stand to watch TV. However, there were many times when I just wished I could have died. I would never end my life myself, but there were many moments when I prayed that I could go. If I would say that there was no quality to my life, this would be an understatement; I merely existed. However, this year I turned 53, I guess I will have to wait a little bit for that.

In summer 2004 I then heard about new products that were supposed to help the body to reverse severe diseases like cancer and Fibromyalgia. First I was totally excited and could not wait to learn more. But then my mind intervened and I thought, “That’s certainly just another ‘best’ product of which we already have thousands”. Over the years I have tried about everything there is on the natural, holistic, alternative and complementary health market and nothing had helped. Besides, since I was living below the poverty line with my disability pension there was no way I could afford that. The fact that over the last ten years I had spent ten thousands of dollars in products and therapies to no avail, made it even easier for me to not taking it into consideration.

But then in December 2004 I received a call from a friend who runs a pharmacy and who specializes in alternative cancer treatment. He told me the most incredible story I had ever heard:

One of his clients had been diagnosed with cancer and his tumor had already reached the size of about five inches in diameter. The family was looking for alternatives to the traditional medicine and since my friend has a good reputation in alternative cancer treatments they consulted him. He gave this patient the mentioned products and told him to drink a lot of water besides taking these supplements. A week later they realized that the tumor had started to move – towards the surface of the body. Another week later it had reached the skin where it burst and discharged. This “cleansing process” lasted about ten to fourteen days and after that the wound started to close. That was it. That was the whole story.

I am telling this story because I have learned during the last four years that our body has the capacity to get rid of any disease if it has the right nourishment. There is no big difference between a pimple and a tumor – for the body. It just treats both the same way, if it can.

However, when I heard this, the hope arose that these products might also help me with my Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue, and my friend encouraged me to give it a try. My next question was, “How on earth shall I pay for that?” After a few days I suddenly realized that I was asking the wrong question. The question should NOT have been “Can I afford these supplements?” but “Can I afford not to take them?” Like I told you, I was too young to die and had absolutely no quality of life. At that moment I could not imagine how to live another twenty years like that. The next morning I woke up with the answer already in my heart. I knew what I had to do; I could not afford NOT to give it a try. At that point there was far more to lose than my money.

So I invested $100 (what was huge for me back then) and postponed to pay one of my bills.

The fourth day being on these supplements I suddenly realized that I was working for six hours uninterrupted on my computer. I soon became hungry—not tired from working such long hours, but hungry. This was another miracle since I had not been particularly that hungry for the last ten years. I thought this might be an exception. But the next day I tried again: I was working four hours before getting tired. The day after: eight hours. The day after that: eight hours again. This was the moment when I stopped believing in a coincidence.

But then the unbelievable thing happened: for the next two weeks I totally forgot to take these products. I guess my subconscious mind wanted to proof it wrong.

The first week I could go on working for eight hours a day, then the fatigue came back, each day a little bit more and I found myself more and more sitting and laying on my sofa, like in “old” times, not knowing whether I should watch TV or sleep. Two weeks later I was totally back to “normal”: the thick fog around me, muscle pain, fatigue that physically ached, not finding the right words, having problems concentrating, falling asleep several times a day wherever I was, and even the fears and anxieties that I did not have during the time of taking the products, all came back. That’s when I realized that these products even have an impact on the psychological side. Now I HAD to believe. I could no longer ignore and negate it. After taking these supplements frequently my energy and stamina soon returned. Since then I work between eight and twelve hours every day, six days a week – with the exception of another break. I have now been taking these products for almost five years.

These nutrients have saved my life and maybe it will save the lives of many other people as well. So I have dedicated my work to distribute this knowledge and be of assistance to other affected people.

My gratefulness goes beyond my ability to express it.



Copyright 2009 by Maja Iten



About the Author:

I’m a life and health coach since 1984. I suffered from Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue for more than 15 years and was even put on disability pension for 8 years. My intensive search for answers and my unwillingness to accept my FMS/CFS to be ‘incurable’ led to new very interesting answers. Through trial and error I have found a combination of treatments and methods that gave me relief to an extent that I’m now mostly symptom free. Because I want to share my experiences with other concerned people I wrote the e-book “Attacking The Incurable – Healthy & Natural Ways of Fibromyalgia Relief”.

http://www.fibromyalgianaturalrelief.com

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