I often refer to this deep health hole I have been in, which I am finally making progress crawling out of. 

I have thyroid autoimmunity, so I was avoiding eating food that creates imbalance and confusion in my immune system, as I have for the last 12 years. I’ve also been living in an endlessly moldy house that has been a devastatingly expensive and illness-inducing whack-a-mole situation. 

I kinda got lackadaisical about finding new possibilities for why I was so sick because mold is my kryptonite, and it’s got my immune system whacked out. Makes sense. So, I kept focusing on the mold in my house and in my body. But that wasn’t working at all. I just kept getting sicker. 

Because I tweak and experiment with my body every Spring and Autumn in my lymph and liver-loving program, RENEWAL, I knew my body was behaving strangely around toxins. Because, sometimes, despite a tighter diet, I would gain weight even when I would push detoxification. Strange. That feels pretty shitty, ...

Zuckerberg has me nailed. He knows that I will stay on Facebook for an hour if he puts dance videos in front of me. That man is NOT my favorite billionaire, but he sure knows how to tickle my fancy. 😉  Turns out, he has an uncanny ability to diagnose disease, as well! Who knew?!

Of the 5 million dance videos he has lured me into watching, one starred this brilliant dancer that goes by Allison Jacobsss. Allison is larger-than-life in the personality department and she swings her hips around with reckless abandon when she dances. It’s so joyful. And, as someone who loves to dance myself, I was incredibly inspired by a woman who was shaped like me putting herself out into the world so bravely! 

You see, Allison and me, we are fluffy in all the same ways; In all the same places. It’s not a typical fat pattern. So, when she shared that she had received the diagnosis of a common, under-recognized connective tissue/fat storage disease called Lipedema, I was intrigued! Not *just* becau...

In part one of this "New Skills" series, I shared how learning more about Applied Polyvagal Theory and actively strengthening the ventral branch of my Vagus Nerve have completely reset my frayed nervous system. If you missed that post, check out my chitty-chat on the blog here.

This week, I am sharing the second tool that helped me escape my health hole. 

Fascia Work! 

Thank GOD for fascia work. I cannot imagine living life without this anymore. Here’s the scoop:

My body was so bad at eliminating toxins. Epically bad. I run a cleanse/body reset program called RENEWAL each year in the Spring and Fall. My diet gets super fine-tuned, and I spend 6 weeks pouring TLC into my body. No matter what I do, I never lose more than 6 pounds. I have adjusted things 500 ways till Sunday, and nothing. Nada. Zilch.

To put this in perspective, I have a lot of weight to lose - probably about 30 more pounds until I am comfortable, but I am finally on my way down. Despite having the hea...

"Functional Medicine with a Dysfunctional Doctor" is what I am calling this chapter in my life. It's a little dark humor/ inside joke with myself that keeps me laughing through the struggle.

I am a doctor who helps people with chronic, complicated health issues. Ironically, I find myself deep in a health hole, just as complex as any I have ever sleuthed and solved before in my patients. I thought it might be useful to share as I unravel my own complicated situation and reach my full potential again. Do you mind reading a little catch-up sesh? I hope not, because it's necessary. Details matter, as I always tell my patients!

On September 9th, 2005, I became a mom and a doctor the same day. No joke. My classmates were walking while I was pushing. It was a "Holy shit! I think this means I am a grown-up now!" kind of day. (If I only knew how true that was! Zero to 100, baby!)

I was also in the middle of my second massive autoimmune flare, brought on by the formaldehyde in the cadaver lab...