This is part nine in a blog series on my 15-year journey to better health. Want to start from the beginning? Click here to read part one.

You must read, you must persevere, you must sit up nights… If one way does not lead to the desired meaning, take another… until, if your strength holds out, you will find that clear which at first looked dark.”

— Giovanni Boccaccio

After the improvements in my pain, life felt more manageable—though some pain and many other ailments still persisted. The next year, I again got shingles three times—this time across different parts of my body, including my face and in my eye. Over the next few years, my pelvic pain continued to worsen, resulting in multiple trips to the emergency room, with me convinced I had an ovarian torsion or cancer or something else horrible, but doctors found nothing wrong.

Anxiety still ruled my days, and I struggled to control my temper. By this point, I was drinking every night in attempt to escape the churn in my head. But the drinking felt like living with a puma on my back—another threat impossible to escape—and COVID only made it worse.

In the Fall of 2021, two years after the pelvic surgery, I read a book about how drinking alcohol can increase anxiety, so I decided to quit drinking on Christmas Eve. My anxiety skyrocketed for months afterwards, but I grinned and bore it, knowing I couldn’t go back. I read another book that explained how alcohol can deplete your body of magnesium, which is key to keeping anxiety at bay. After testing revealed my magnesium was far below the levels recommended by several doctors I followed, I began supplementing. Slowly, my heightened anxiety settled back to its usual (and still elevated) baseline.

As the ovulation pain continued to put me out of commission for one to two days each month, I decided to focus my attention there. I found a highly regarded women’s health doctor 45 minutes away and booked an appointment—even though the wait was eight months.

As for the rest of my issues, I was out of ideas on how to resolve them. So with the improvements in pain and anxiety I’d recently made, and the upcoming appointment for my pelvic pain, I tried to make peace with my current state. I resigned to living this way, urging myself to show grace on hard days—and to accept that as “good enough.”

A Potential New Path

Around this time, my son’s health had also reached a breaking point. From infancy, he battled reflux, infections, and later, food intolerances that left him underweight and struggling with digestive, energy, and mood issues. Traditional doctors offered partial answers, but we knew something deeper was being missed.

By the time he was 11, our search led us to a functional medicine practitioner in Reno who looked for root causes—an approach that finally resonated. The treatment plan was intense, requiring major diet changes, supplements, and close symptom tracking. To support my son, I chose to go through the program alongside him.

In my first consult with the functional medicine doctor, we went over my symptoms from his intake assessment form, and I explained my long and varied history of ailments. I told him about my struggles with energy, poor mood, chronic pain, shingles, digestive issues, thinning hair, and more. He asked me if I had any history of food reactions. I mentioned the initial discomfort with bread after our months-long paleo diet years ago, but said I hadn’t really noticed much else.

By the end of our first session, I was discouraged by the doubt in his voice. He admitted I wasn’t a clear-cut case, but suggested running tests and meeting again to see if he could help. The tests included a large set of blood tests to check biomarkers and food sensitivities, plus saliva and urine tests.

All The Pieces Fall Together

I unintentionally held my breath as I joined our second meeting. After a few polite greetings, the doctor jumped in to say he had good news. He told me the test results showed some clear issues that he would be able to help me resolve. He started by saying that I definitely was having food reactions, as my food reactivity test results were one of the worst he’d seen in his practice. He explained that many people don’t notice—like living through a five-alarm fire, where you no longer register the extra smoke or heat.

At the end of that 75-minute appointment, I had a list of diagnoses that tied my scattered symptoms together. It felt like someone had finally turned the light on in a dark room. Here’s what he found:

• Autoimmune Thyroid Disease (Hashimoto’s): A condition where the immune system attacks the thyroid.
• Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO): Excess bacteria in the small intestine causing bloating, pain, and food reactions.
• Leaky Gut (Intestinal Permeability): A compromised intestinal lining leading to widespread inflammation.
• Adrenal Exhaustion (Stage 4): Burnout of the adrenal glands from chronic stress, causing fatigue and an unstable stress response.
• Low Stomach Acid (maybe secondary, maybe primary): Insufficient stomach acid leading to poor digestion, nutrient deficiencies, and SIBO.
• Secondary Blood Sugar Dysregulation: Imbalanced blood sugar causing energy crashes and brain fog, caused by several of the primary diagnoses.
• Secondary Low Blood Pressure: Chronically low pressure linked to fatigue and stress intolerance, caused by the Adrenal dysfunction and Hashimoto’s.

As he listed them, I felt both validated and overwhelmed—finally, there were answers, but I had so much to learn. I was shocked and excited to have names for what could be the root causes of my long struggles. And as he continued to explain how these things impacted the body, making connections to so many of the ailments I was experiencing, I became even more excited.

I felt both validated and overwhelmed—finally, there were answers, but I had so much to learn.

He helped me to understand that the leaky gut and SIBO were causing a temporary increase in food reactions (since unprocessed food was getting into my body before it could be converted into an accessible form). And that was what drove my immune system to go bonkers and not only attack these unexpected particles, but also my thyroid. He told me that the inability of my stomach to turn my food into the energy sources it could use, plus the immune activity and the attack on my thyroid were heavily contributing to my fatigue.

He explained that food sensitivities, SIBO, blood sugar swings, thyroid attacks, and chronic stress were all pushing my adrenals into overdrive, which was the key contributor to my anxiety, anger, and lack of rejuvenating sleep, even though I was sleeping long enough. And this adrenal issue was the same thing I had discovered through a book I had found in the office of the holistic doctor a few years earlier.

He added that the inflammation from the autoimmune issues and food sensitivities was likely driving the chronic pain across my body, as well as hormone imbalances that could also affect pain and hair growth. He also clarified that the over-activity of my immune system was compromising it’s effectiveness, leading to recurring illnesses such as shingles. Suddenly everything made so much sense.

The Difficult Path to Healing

After I had a better understanding of the underlying causes of dysfunction in my body, the doctor moved on to explain the program I’d need to follow to get better. Because I had SIBO, leaky gut, and autoimmune issues with a long list of reactive foods, I was put on a very restrictive 30-day diet to give my gut time to heal. To help with nutrient deficiencies and gut healing, I was also given a slew of supplements at the start.

Once symptoms improved for SIBO, he explained we’d move into a 2-3 month follow-on phase where I would reintroduce previously reactive foods and phase out most of the supplements. He was clear though, that with Hashimoto’s, and my body’s response to it, gluten was one thing I would never be able to eat again. And there would likely be other foods that would need to be permanently avoided (most commonly dairy and eggs), as well as some supplements that would remain indefinitely.

While the diagnoses were a relief, the path to recovery felt almost as crushing as the ailments themselves. But I had committed to going through this process, both financially and for my son, so I spent the next two weeks creating spreadsheets and overhauling our fridge and pantry, our meal and snack options, and our grocery choices to execute on this plan.

Within a few weeks, everything began to change.

Within a few weeks, everything began to change. Not only did I get back a level of energy I’d had 15 years earlier, but my digestive issues completely resolved, my anxiety began to vaporize (I hadn’t been away from the rumination in so long I’d forgotten it was possible), and the remaining leg, hip, and arm pain went away, with only the monthly ovulation issue persisting.

For the first time in 15 years, I knew healing was possible—not just for me, but for anyone willing to put in the effort.

Stay tuned for my next post, where I’ll share more details on how functional medicine differs from traditional care—and the even greater gains I experienced with this approach.