The Perfect Health Project

Hi! If you are new to this place, welcome! If you have been following me through my other blogs (240baon, bitsandtreats and recipebox), thank you for taking the time to check this new project of mine.

I'm starting this project because I want to achieve perfect health. That simple.

Perfect health for me is being disease-free, pain-free, being able to serve God, being able to take care of myself, my family and friends; being able to serve other people and touch other people's lives; being able to exercise, play, have fun with my loved ones; being able to work and do the things that I want to do without limits. This is my idea of a perfect health.

My story

I was a very sickly child. I was always absent from school days to weeks at a time. When I entered high school, it became worse. I was enrolled in a Science school and the pressure and work load was just too much for my body. I was diagnosed with costochondritis. Simply put, my sternum was inflamed from carrying such a heavy load daily and from so much stress. It took years before it went away. I've seen different doctors and none of them could really tell me what was going on. They just said costochondritis and gave me pain medication. I was in and out of the hospital and ER. One ER visit was memorable because they sent me a psych doctor and this doctor asked if I was thinking of killing myself. Man! Why would I go almost every week to the ER if I wanted to die? I was 14 then. 

So, aside from the pain killers, they also gave me some antidepressants. At that time, I didn't feel like I was depressed but they said if I felt stressed to take one. And so I did, from time to time. 

Fast forward to my early 20's. The costo pain was still bothering me. And the added pressure of my mom losing her job didn't help either. She's a single mom and you may or may not know how hard that is. 

One day, I was diagnosed with bronchitis because my bosses smoked cigarettes inside our air conditioned facility. Yes, they were that uncaring. I only stayed in the office a few hours a day as it was a part time job but for someone who never smoked, it took a toll on me. 

I called up Makati Med's hotline and asked for a referral. I prayed to God to give me the best doctor and at the back of my mind, hoping that this doctor could also figure out what's been bothering me for 7 or 8  years now. I called up 3 numbers and only one was available that day so I went. 

I am so blessed because God gave me a rheumatologist/internist. I told him my story, we did some tests and lo and behold - my diagnosis was polymyositis. It's an autoimmune disease that attacks the muscles resulting to pain and weakness. I also had fibromyalgia which always accompanied this disease. 

On the same day I got the diagnosis, my mom was in the same hospital, confined, for she had a heart attack about 2 nights before. So, you could just imagine how hard this was for me. I kept my condition a secret from her for many years because I wanted her to feel better. Only a few friends, family and my then boyfriend (now husband) knew what was going on.

I was given lots of steroids, pain medication and antidepressants to help me sleep. Then the point came when my doctor wanted to give me chemo meds. That's where I drew the line. It was enough that I had a moon face and was carrying all these excess water from the steroid and don't forget, the effects of all these meds on my digestive system. I didn't want to put more "poison" inside my body. I told him what if I go on leave from work (I had 3 jobs that time), eat healthy, exercise, change my lifestyle and rest. Would he give me a month? He agreed and so I did all these things and more. I continued to research and that's where I came across article after article of the body healing itself. 

I've had an active teen life because after I was diagnosed with costo, I turned my attention to sports, namely figure skating and martial arts. My body became stronger because of these. I also started working out daily, doing as far as a thousand crunches every day aside from weights. I was strong and healthy but when I started working, everything went back as they were from a few years before. 

I knew at this point that I needed to go back to that lifestyle. I started doing pilates, yoga and tai chi. I was sleeping 8 hours a day and getting 2-4 hour naps to let my body heal. I was eating good. I did this for a month and after my one month was up, I went to see my doctor and I had some remarkable progress! My meds were tapered down significantly so that I will not get withdrawal syndrome, which I still did, by the way. Getting weaned away from autoimmune meds is really hard, like getting weaned from bad drugs. I had chills, nausea, vomiting, lack of sleep, etc. My way to purge these out of my body was exercise. 

After a few months, my doctor said I was in remission. Thank you, Father.

Then I was given a miracle after several years - a baby boy which many of my doctors say is close to impossible. God is good and He is a miracle worker.

Present

I am a stay-at-home mom at present. With all the demands of motherhood, I forgot about my health again. Don't get me wrong. I still exercise and eat as much good food as I can but my body is not used to this kind of lifestyle. I need to be at that level again many years ago. 

Six weeks ago, I started experiencing sensitivity on my last molar on my right jaw. I went to see our dentist. (I see my dentist regularly, by the way). She put some filling on the tooth in front of it because it had some abrasions on the side because I brushed my teeth too hard all my life until one dentist told me to stop doing that. She thought maybe this was causing it. Then observe for 2 weeks. 

After 2 weeks, sensitivity was still there so we did a panoramic x-ray and it revealed a cyst caused by my wisdom tooth. They both needed to be extracted but the tooth is too close to the jaw nerve and trauma to it can lead to numbness which they don't know how long will last. I also don't like the fact that my dentist said it like this, "Ma'am may cyst po kayo. Kailangan natin ibiopsy para malaman kung benign o malignant." (You have a cyst and we need to biopsy it to know if it is benign or malignant.) Of course I got scared! All the time she was explaining things to me I felt like she was explaining it from a book or a recording. There was no feeling, not even a positive word. She also said that she had to consult their senior surgeon as she doesn't know what to do. I was alone when I got the x-ray. I left my husband and son at the toy shop. I couldn't eat properly that day until the following day. When my sister heard what happened, she immediately said, let's go to our old dentist who happens to be an excellent dental surgeon and is the director of one of the major public hospitals in the Philippines. 

So we saw her last Monday and she ordered a CT-Scan. The results are out and I will see her again this Thursday night. I will keep you posted on this. 

This dentist, by the way, is a good one not just with her dental skills but with her people skills as well. She didn't even mention the word, "cyst". She said "lining". She was happy and that made me at ease. She asked how I was, because the last time I saw her (for an impacted wisdom tooth extraction) was when I was still single and now I'm married with child. The checkup was light and happy. When we left, I felt more peace and I was able to eat dinner normally again. 

The change

I am a firm believer that the good Lord designed the human body to heal itself, even without the intervention of medicines. I have experienced it before with PM and I know with God's help, I can do it again. I've been doing a lot of research and learned a lot of things and that's what I will be doing starting today. 

If you are sick, trying to get healthy or just want to stay healthy, I invite you to join me in this journey. In this blog, I will write the changes that I am making to my lifestyle - my exercises, my activities, food that I eat, etc. 

The journey to perfect health doesn't start and stop with the physical. It also involves some emotional and spiritual changes which I will also undergo. 

So, if you are ready and willing, let's do this!