Julia's Story

For as long as I remember I have had health issues and didn’t get much help from conventional medicine. I looked for alternative holistic therapies which helped to a degree but they were never ‘the fix’. My body has poor absorption and phase 2 methylation detox pathways so adrenaline and histamine were building up in my body.  I would get adrenaline surges which is why I could keep going, like my body giving itself its own EpiPen. 
 
I looked for alternative holistic therapies which helped to a degree but they were never ‘the fix’.

In 2020 I caught Covid and this was the final straw. In 2021 I was given an MCAS diagnosis and was told by the Healthcare Professionals: ‘Julia you brought this on yourself by taking years of fish oils and catching Covid.’ They confirmed my allergies and sent me on my way with high-dose antihistamines to take for a year or so, but there wasn’t any more the Doctors could help me with. I was back to researching to find things I could do to help myself. I just worsened. By now I was having allergic reactions to everything (temperature, chemicals, smells, stress, foods, exercise, tap water: both drinking and on my skin). I was breathless, had oxygen de-saturation, high and low blood pressure, POTS, poor balance, lack of coordination and fainting, worse sleep than ever, widespread pain, fluid retention, abdominal pain and swelling which lead to gastritis, skin inflammation and dermographia (skin writing: where touching or rubbing the skin causes red marks) and worsening hidradenitis suppurativia (HS) (a skin condition that causes abscesses and scarring).  

A second Covid infection exacerbated my symptoms and my immune system was over-reactive. My mood was very low and I found it hard to concentrate, yet I carried on as best I could - and I love my work. I took on a personal trainer but this was too much for my system.  

The Doctors confirmed my allergies and sent me on my way with high-dose antihistamines . . . but they couldn’t help me any more. I was back to researching to find things I could do to help myself.

In December 2023 I got an appointment after being on a waiting list with an amazing forward-thinking private Doctor who gave me a multi-pronged holistic treatment plan and advised that I take six months off work. I was also supported by my equally amazing functional nutritionists. I didn’t stop work as advised as I thought I could manage. I was wrong and the universe gave me a huge kick up the backside sending me from fight and flight straight into freeze 10 days later. I could not even have a conversation, look at lights or listen to music and wasn’t well enough to see family over Christmas. Everyone including my GP could see it coming but me: I had got used to hiding how I was feeling - I faked being well!  

I could no longer work or do anything else, even simple things around the house, I was at rock bottom and the only way was up . . . and so my healing began. I started with calming my nervous system through breath practice, yoga nidra, and sleeping a lot throughout the day. I started more antihistamines, compounded with mast cell stabilisers and medication, detoxed histamine and upped my supplement dose with a range that I could tolerate to support my system. 

I started meditation and Brain Retraining through the Gupta programme, and took advantage of talking therapy. I started to improve slowly and followed an approach of listening to my body’s messages, to do my best and leave the rest. The needle really started to move as I introduced movement and exercise whilst keeping within my window of tolerance by strength training. I started not living in fear, and accepted where I was and how I was feeling. The more I went outside to sync my circadian rhythm, grounded myself, blocked blue light at night and hydrated with filtered structured water, the better I felt.   

It’s a shame we have to go private and many don’t have that option especially if unwell and not able to work. I was lucky to be able to work with some fantastic specialists, including Dr Manjul Medhi at the Tina Peers clinic who offered a multi-pronged approach (clinical and alternative), and Dorian Soanes and Nicola Hodges who both supported me through the SRF programme at Summit Health. I also did a lot of research and courses with Doctors I found online.    

I consider myself so fortunate that Emma Young, a Holistic Nutritional Therapist, is my amazing forward-thinking, knowledgeable friend. Between us we came to the conclusion that I had, ‘shouty mast cells’, and an over-reactive immune system which led to multi-system involvement. Emma believes that many people with chronic autoimmune conditions are actually dehydrated at a cellular level.  

I am now more in sync with my intuition as I can think straight. I am grateful to my body for giving me messages so I can look for the underlying root cause. I realise I was affected by stress, and experienced trauma and illness. I understand that my body was only responding to signals it was receiving.  

Thirteen months since I went into freeze, I was back at work and trying to keep a healthy home-work life balance. I am not 100 per cent yet but I am well on the way to recovery by using a multi-pronged approach from resources I have in my toolbox . . . and I am so much better than I have been for decades. I have now stopped all antihistamines and mast cell stabilisers and take key supplements along with a rainbow of foods.  

I want others to know that here is hope too, I believe, through starting with the foundations, hydrating at a cellular level, and syncing your body with natural circadian rhythms in the way it’s designed for. I now realise that without the foundations and if I continue to live in fear, no pill, supplement or low-histamine food will help . . . and that loop continues!  

We are all individual and one size doesn’t fit all as we are at varying stages with our health or ill health.  

The foundation to my own personal healing has been setting my circadian rhythm and living more ‘quantum-ly’ through quantum biology at a cellular level. And calming my nervous system helps.     

My toolbox of support resources includes light, water, magnetism (day, night, hydration and grounding). Start with the right signals: employ light and dark to set clocks so all your bodily functions happen in the right order at the right time. We are like water batteries powered by solar energy. Our other most important free resource is our breath, and it is important to smile! 

Proper digestion (mealtime hygiene) means building stomach acid by not drinking at mealtimes, pausing before the start of a meal to breathe, slowing eating, and taking a short walk afterwards. Good food and well-sourced supplements were also important for me, such as binders to detox excess histamine, tailored movement exercises, tapping solution (Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)), and being aware of joyful things.     

The other realisation I learned is to do what I can that’s supportive and leave the rest.  

Sometimes if you are doing too many things, it reinforces that message that ‘I am not safe yet so I won’t let go,’ and the fear continues in a loop bringing more and more symptoms.    

Also, I have benefited from learning to let go and embrace the new. We get used to being in this state with symptoms, it becomes familiar; we don’t like it but it’s what we know . . . and we can sometimes become that illness. In reality, if we let go we are so much more. (It took me a long time to realise that.)    

I found that, for me, it was also important to block blue/green light at night from tablets, phones and devices; our lifestyle these days is blue-light toxic. I was constantly on my device researching, and this didn’t allow my body’s circadian rhythm the chance to sync. This then disrupted my sleep so I couldn’t rest, digest and fully repair my cells. I found I really benefited from a balance of light during the day and darkness at night.    

I still have some symptoms (messages from my body) that crop up due to triggers, but I can now calm my system quite quickly. I no longer think ‘Oh no, here we go again!’ We can’t avoid triggers as these stressors are around us 24/7, but we can do our best to navigate these, utilise resources that support us and live life without fear. In the latest installment of my health journey, I am now completely medication-free and have been for about five weeks. I had a Covid test recently as I had a flu-type thing that was going around, I got a few extra reactions but they were short-lived, it seemed my body was remembering how it used to over-react and then realised it didn’t have to! I recovered relatively quickly and have had no adverse reactions since.  

I hope my story may help others to find a way back to living life to the full. 
 

I am now more in sync with my intuition as I can think straight. I am grateful to my body for giving me messages so I can look for the underlying root cause.