Me!

I have been a hair stylist for 15 years. This is a love and passion of mine. Being able to make someone feel beautiful and let them have some time for themselves is everything! Self care and self love mean a lot to me, it’s something I constantly struggle with and find myself working on. I am by nature a people pleaser who tries to accommodate at all cost, I find myself in these rabbit holes where I have overcommitted myself and forget to take care of number one, Me! last year I dislocated a rib while I was working, I never knew the intense pain that something like that could cause and the long road I had ahead of me to try and figure out what was going on with my body. When this first happened it was worse than childbirth, YES, worse! Every breath was painful, I couldn’t get a deep breath, and I couldn’t sleep! This began the downfall of the next YEAR! Prior to this happening I was in pretty good shape, teaching barre fitness classes 1-2 times a week and doing hair full time. I got strep throat 5 times from Jan to 4th of July of last year, while visiting my friend in Washington State. I drug myself to a clinic where I was diagnosed for the last time with strep in 2019! That ARNP will forever be an angel to me! She finally put me on antibiotics that killed the infection completely and I haven’t had it since. Praise the Lord! I was at the dr almost weekly prior to this point trying to explain that I dislocated my rib, I’m in so much pain I can’t sleep, I keep getting sick because I can’t sleep, and I’m miserable!! Something is wrong with me! I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression at that point. Already being on anxiety medication from years prior (another story I will share later) they put me on another antidepressant I was hesitant to take, but did anyway. Within two weeks, I had left my purse on an airplane, left my wallet in a bathroom on vacation, and left my cell phone on another plane. This IS NOT ME! I don’t lose anything, I usually have my shit together. My husband said, something is going on with you, you have lost more in two weeks than you have in the 15 years I have known you. So needless to say I came off that drug, that I never thought I needed in the first place. I am beyond thankful for my many friends and clients who listened to me and told me every story and person they knew with anything that resembled my symptoms. I dug and dug for answers knowing that I wasn’t depressed, knowing that I wasn’t crazy! However, beginning to feel both of those things after many months were passing by. I was in constant emails with my drs asking for specific bloodwork and then having it done weekly. Seeing physical therapists multiple times a week, multiple massages a week, cryotherapy, eating clean, taking different vitamins, changing exercise, stretching, stopping exercise to give my body rest, cutting back at work, hiring an assistant to do all my shampooing and blow drying for me, you name it I was trying it! Nothing really seemed to help, I mean a little, but barely. I had a few clients that recommended I get tested for MTHFR. It is a genetic mutation that actually a lot of people have. It just presents differently in each of us. Me, being a hairdresser and being around chemicals, toxins, metals, etc all day everyday, I’m sure didn’t help this situation at all. I tested positive to this mutation, after falsely being diagnosed with Lymes disease as well, the list continues of the “things I had.” Once figuring out that my body doesn’t turn folic acid into methylfolate naturally answered so many questions for me. This explained why I was sooo SICK during my pregnancy because I was taking tons of folic acid my body couldn’t process. I started losing my hair about 5 months into my pregnancy in handfuls, thankfully I started with a lot of hair, but man was I freaking out! It never came back either! As a hairdresser I have always been able to hide it for the most part, but it has been a REAL struggle for me! After being diagnosed and having the most amazing rheumatologist on the planet (who I also waited 6 months to see during this process of fighting!) she helped me figure out which vitamins I should take, how much methylfolate my body needed, and is still continuing to help me with my diet and exercise plan. This journey has been really rough and I have good days and bad ones too, but I won’t let the fibromyalgia caused by this and the arthritic pain that I deal with daily get me down. I will never be a powerlifter, I will never be able to binge on sugary foods at parties, I will never be able to not take these expensive vitamins daily, but you can focus on ALL the things you can’t do or you can focus on ALL THE THINGS YOU CAN DO! I can still be an amazing wife, mother, hair stylist, and friend. I can tell my story to others and encourage them to know when something is wrong, sometimes you have to FIGHT, I can find new fun recipes to eat clean and stay healthy and share them with you, I can work out for small bursts of time and I can still have COFFEE! I love my life and I will always try to feel a little better today than yesterday. My strongest message from this is pay attention to your body, no one else can do that for you! If it needs rest, rest! Be your own advocate and love yourself inside and out! It’s the inside that really counts take care of it!