My journey from Hellville to Wellville
“Your heart beats so fast and so hard during the night, that the bed is almost moving. It’s kind of scary.
Are you sure you don’t want to see a Doctor?”
“No, I am fine, I am just tired”.
Tachycardia – the first red flag that I completely ignored. Just like all the others: shortness of breath, lack of sleep, tremors in my arms and legs, excessive weight loss, extreme sweating (me, who was not sweating even after having run a Half Marathon), sensitivity to heat (me, who was always cold), pain in joints, muscles weakness and painful cramps especially during the night, endless fatigue, puffy eyes, ridged nails, dry skin, fine hair, nervousness, anxiety, irritability, mood swings – I had them all! And sure enough, I ignored them all. Blaming everything on tiredness and my stressful, overloaded job. How could I ever be sick when I have always been the healthiest and the sportiest person you could meet? It must have been “just tiredness”.
I really wasn’t aware until random people started pointing out that I must have a health problem, most probably with my thyroid. The conversations were more or less like this: “I am sorry to disturb you and I don’t mean to scare, but did you check your thyroid lately? You most probably have a dysfunction”.
You can imagine my eyes bulging right? Ehm…hello? Do we even know each other?
By the time the third person in two weeks addressed me with this matter, I started wondering… Could I really have a health problem? And what is a “thyroid”? Where is it even located and what are its functions? I did what most of you would probably do, I opened Google and typed: t h y r o i d – “The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland in the throat. It produces hormones that help regulate many bodily functions, such as metabolism, heart rate, and body temperature”. I run to check my throat in the mirror, and it hit me – my throat was massive with my thyroid minimum 3 times bigger than it should be!
So, that’s why people on the streets, planes and train stations, pointed to my thyroid – I had a huge goiter. So that’s why my heart was bouncing so hard during the night (and now during the day also)? So that’s why I suddenly started sweating like crazy and being sensitive to heat even during winter? I MUST HAVE A THYROID PROBLEM.
It was April 2017 – the beginning of endless doctor visits, blood works and check-ups. When you used to be “the healthiest in the World” and get suddenly sick, you quickly realize how important health is and the less attention we pay to it. When my first Endocrinologist – a young, tiny lady with short legs and baby eyes (let’s call her Dr. Smurfette from now on), received the results of my very first blood tests, she asked me to come to the clinic IMMEDIATELY.
Wait, what? We have an appointment in one week, why would she want to see me right now? I freaked out but was happy to go see her, maybe she had some good news for me – ugh, my ever positive and naïve attitude!
“Your TSH has a value of 0.002 – basically non-existent. Your thyroid is over-reactive. You have Hyperthyroidism also called Graves/Basedow disease”.
“Excuse me, what did you just say?” it all sounded Chinese to me.
What does it even mean? What is TSH? What is over-reactive thyroid? What is hyperthyroidism and who on Earth are Graves and Basedow???!!!
“Well, you don’t have to worry too much. Many people, most women have a similar problem.”
Oh…if many people (mostly women) have a similar problem, I am reassured then…or am I?!
“But, why do I have this problem? How come I got it? Is it curable? Will I ever get back to my perfect health?” I asked with terrified eyes.
“Nobody really knows why people get thyroid problems, most probably genetics..or maybe stress. You will have to take medications from now on. Let’s start with 6 pills per day.”
At that time, I was trusting doctors blindly and would have never questioned their judgements, diagnosis or, in this case, the doses of the prescribed medication. If Dr. Smurfette says I need to take 6 pills per day, let’s take 6 pills per day.
A few days later I noticed that I have started to feel little better. I could sleep and rest again, I had more energy, my heart bounced less and the tremors in my body were milder. However, a few weeks later, the only thing I wanted was to sleep, I was yet again, tired. But a different type of tiredness this time – I was literally exhausted. I could not get out of my bed in the morning. Moreover, I was highly demotivated to do anything…ANYTHING, not even things that I loved, like going for a run in the morning.
I noticed that my entire body was retaining liquids, my hands, my legs, my face. I started looking like Michelin man, or at least I was feeling like one. My fingers were swollen, I had the feeling to have wooden fingers and could move them with difficulty, especially in the morning. I tried to keep calm and carry on with my treatment and my 6 pills per day but when even my tongue got swollen and I started talking like a drunk man, I called Dr. Smurfette.
“I cannot talk properly anymore. I cannot spell the words and my entire body expanded!”
“Oh, don’t worry, it can happen. Trust the process. Just reduce your doses to 3 pills per day” Dr. Smurfette tried to reassure me.
I trusted, again.
By the end of summer, hence 4 months into my treatment, I had done 7 blood tests and changed the doses of my medication 5 times, jumping from 6 pills to 3 to 2 to 1 and back up to 2 pills per day, depending on the values of my new best friend TSH. I was certainly feeling better than I did at the beginning of the treatment, but I was miserable. I had the feeling that, every time I changed the doses, I was entering into someone else’s body. It was not me anymore. I was losing and gaining weight back and forth. Within days I could lose or gain up to 4KG! My face and fingers were still swollen all the time, my eyes were super puffy and were dripping (like if I was continuously crying), my skin was dry and I had the horrible color of a sick person. I was honestly desperate, but I trusted. I trusted Dr. Smurfette, I trusted the modern medicine, I trusted the “process”. Until when, at beginning of September, my hair started falling and I am not talking about the usual “autumn hair fall”. I was not losing strands of hair, I was losing entire LOCKS of hair! By beginning of October I lost 95% of my hair…One could not look at me without feeling pity. Because it is exactly what I was…pitiful.
November 2017
Hit rock bottom but trying to disguise despair & sadness with a smile
“Dr. Smurfette, I am losing my hair, I am losing it all! It is horrible, I don’t know what to do.”
“Oh, yes, it can happen. It’s one of the side effects. Keep the doses but integrate with some supplements of Magnesium”.
I decided to change the doctor (also due to my relocation to a new country) with the hope that the new one could be more helpful in this dreadful journey I was on. At that point, I did not know that Doctors, in general, do not cure diseases, they only suppress symptoms.
My second Endocrinologist was recommended to me as, allegedly “the best in town”. She was an elderly lady, overweight and quite scary. I nicknamed her “Hogatha”, not only because of the physical similarity (I swear the God they were looking THE SAME! She even had the same wart on her nose as the cartoon character) but mostly because of the similar aggressive attitude. It was obvious that she was also struggling with some health issues on her own. Her crooked eyes were bulging out and every time she was breathing you could hear a weird noise coming from her throat. I remember thinking: “How could she possibly help me heal, when she needs help herself, probably even more than me?” Nevertheless, I tried to get rid of these unconstructive thoughts. I wanted to believe and hoped in a miracle. Little did I know at that point, that when it comes to health, there are no miracles. But I will talk about this later. Now let’s go back to Dr. Hogatha.
Dr. Hogatha checked all my blood tests for the past year, analyzed my throat and, sure enough, advised to do a blood test. She also prescribed a new medication with a different name but with the same ingredients and advised to start with 3 pills per day. The months were passing by one after another. Every month I would do a blood test to check my TSH, FT3, FT4 and (what was extremely important to Dr. Hogatha) the Antibodies. Every month, with my new results, I would go see her, hear her yelling at me, that the results are still not perfect (as if it was my fault!) and have the doses of medication changed, from three pills to two, to one, to half, then back to one, to two, to three, and so on. I fell into utter despair and could not see the light at the end of the tunnel anymore.
The only good news was that my hair begun to grow back. I had this new short, feathery baby hair appearing. I got so used to my new routine: medication – blood tests – follow-up with my Dr. – medication, that I almost forgot how my life before hyperthyroidism was. I forgot how it was not to be sick, not to take medications, not to do blood tests monthly, how to sleep well, how to enjoy life without constantly thinking “I am sick. Will I ever get better? What if I get worse?” I started developing panic attacks and anxiety that I might get cancer and die young.
About one year into Dr. Hogatha’s treatments, I was not getting any better, but I was at least happy that I was also not getting worse…or was I? I was lacking Iron, Calcium, Magnesium and God-knows what other element of the Periodic Table. I was sluggish and without energy all the time, I was bruising from the slightest touch, my fingers were even more ridged and fragile, my eyes puffy, my skin super dry. I was having nightmares each other night, and horrible mood swings. My friends started calling me Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. They were right. I was really Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – one day nice, another day grumpy. I could spend one day crying for no particular reason and the next day I was flying of happiness.
By September 2018 I had to move to another country again. I packed my luggage with medications for my thyroid and moved to the USA. Of course, one of the first things I had to do is to look for an Endocrinologist.
My third Endocrinologist was a copy of Papa Smurf, literally. He was somewhere between 60 and 70 years old, short, with a white beard, had a Santa belly and tiny, smiley eyes. I told him why I was there and of course he asked to do all the tests again. I got prescribed a new medication with another name but same ingredients. Same same…but different, I thought. Dr. Papa Smurf told me to start with two pills per day and that we will check the blood for the next 2-3 months, if the results won’t get any better, we should think about proceeding with a thyroidectomy (removing the thyroid with surgery) or kill the thyroid with the radiation. The concepts were already familiar to me, since I kept researching and reading about my condition ever since my very first diagnosis.
How would I live without a thyroid? Taking medication for the rest of my life.
I am sure Dr. Papa Smurf meant well and his statement was supposed to reassure me, “Look, there are also other solutions, not only taking pills in different doses and checking the blood every month. We can just cut off your thyroid or radiate it completely with radioactive iodine and you will be living “in peace” with only ONE pill per day and you won’t have to do blood tests that often anymore”. Did it reassure me? Not a single second! The idea to get a part of my body removed was devastating to me, and not a simple part (like a wart or bad pimple) – THE THYROID!! The organ in charge of my body’s metabolism meaning, not only me, but every single cell in my body NEEDED the thyroid. It was December, just around Christmas, I left Dr. Papa Smurf’s office in silent tears… I was alone, sick and hopeless far from home and my family. I had never felt lonelier in my entire life.
On 25th of December, I woke up with a strange feeling. I could not explain what exactly, but I felt like something magical was about to happen. I took my phone and decided to google once again: “how to heal an overreactive thyroid naturally”. I had googled this many, many times before but the site that popped-up this time had never appeared before. A lady was telling her story about how she struggled with her Graves/Basedow disease for years and…how she CURED it with a detox program. I remember reading her story (same as MY story) and I was trembling. I noticed how all my muscles became contracted from excitement. I had never read anything as fast in my whole life as I did with her story. So it IS possible? It is possible to cure this horrible disease and finally stop this nightmare?! But How? How long? What to do? I wanted to know it all! She did not give too many explanations or details, she was talking about the power of fruits and raw food and at the end of the article there was an e-mail address. I wrote her immediately. I had to know how did she save her thyroid and managed to live a normal, happy life again. I wondered if the e-mail address was still valid. Maybe it’s an old one, maybe she will never answer, maybe nobody will ever read my desperate e-mail? Maybe it’s just like sending a message in a bottle hoping that the Ocean will bring it to the right person? Maybe it was all useless. Maybe yes. But I had to try.
A few days past and I got no answer, then on December 31st, the last day of 2018, I got her reply. “Dear Irina, your story is very familiar to me. I know how you feel. Would you be available for a quick call?” I couldn’t believe my eyes…
June 2019
4 months into Detox. Back to life, vibrant & energetic
The call was not that “quick”, we ended up talking for 2 hours. She explained everything what she did and offered her services to help CURE my condition. She reassured that within a few months my thyroid will work perfectly again. I was beside myself with happiness. I started the Detox Program on January 7th , right after my last blood test. On February 18th I had another lab test to do, to see how the values were (I was still on two pills per day doses) and to my huge astonishment, for the first time since the diagnose ALL THE VALUES WERE PERFECT! TSH perfect. FT3 perfect. FT4 perfect! I couldn’t believe my eyes. I cried again. This time of happiness! I committed to do the Detox program for 12 weeks but couldn’t stop there. With every month I was just seeing how my body, all my organs and glands were waking up and starting to work again. I went finally to the root cause of my “dis-ease” and was not addressing only the “symptoms” like all my “Doctors” asked me to do. My life started changing, I had more energy and I became so much more positive. It was as if I had been living in a black and white world that suddenly became colorful.
During each visit with Dr. Papa Smurf he was checking at my perfect blood values and was nodding: “Good, the medications are helping. We finally found the right doses. Continue taking two pills per day.” Little did he know that I had in fact started reducing my medication after each perfect blood test, from two to one, to half, to one quarter. By April I completely stopped taking the medication. My goiter also started getting smaller and smaller, meaning that the nodules that I had on my thyroid, were dissolving.
Dr. Papa Smurf probably thinks I am still taking two pills per day to this very day. You must ask yourself why didn’t I tell him about the Detox and the TRUE CURE for my thyroid? I gave it a try but from the look he gave me, I quickly understood that he would never have believed me, but maybe you will.
So how did I get from a hyperthyroidism survivor to a Detox Specialist and Health Coach eager to spread the knowledge of healing and passionate about educating and helping others to get their health under their own control?
Well, to be honest with you, I never planned to leave my corporate life and dedicate myself to something completely different. I certainly was not planning on becoming a Detox Specialist NOR a Health Coach. But little by little I started hearing a little voice inside me. At first whispering something indistinguishable, gradually becoming louder and clearer until it got so loud that I could not ignore it anymore. I finally understood that my true purpose in life was not making rich people richer, but help sick people to get healthy again just the way my health practitioner had helped me.
As a present for my 2nd “New Healthy Life” anniversary, I gifted myself the Dr. Morse’s Detox Course and as soon as I started it, the decision to embark this amazing journey of becoming a Regenerative Detoxification Specialist was just obvious and natural to me.
The story of my sickness is one with a very happy ending and I am blessed and happy that I can share it now with a smile. I truly feel that there is no one better to show you how to rise to better health, than someone who has already done just that. If you will allow me to, I will be honored to be just this person for you!
August 2020
Living, thriving and
enjoying long hair
again.
