If you’ve ever done yoga or drank mint or dandelion herbal tea, then you have tried Eastern medicine ways of healthy living, even if you weren’t aware of it. Often called “alternative medicine,” Eastern medicine techniques have been around for thousands of years, long before Western medicine was even thought of. Because of this, it’s surprising to me why more people do not apply Eastern medicine techniques to their healthy lifestyle routine. I think a lot of it has to do with misinformation about such ways of living as well as not knowing about how to apply it to daily life.
In this blog series, I will teach the basics of what Eastern medicine is all about from diet to gentle exercise to herbs and healing modalities. I will share with you my personal story with health challenges and how adding Eastern medicine techniques to my Western medicine-based health routine ultimately put me on the road to becoming my healthiest self in body and mind.
My Health Journey
Disordered eating
Where to begin? The roots of my most recent health journey start way back when I was 22 years old living in New York City for the first time while attending graduate school for biology. I was overwhelmed going from an undergraduate school in Maryland with 15 people per class to NYU with about 150 people in my biochemistry class with stadium seating.
It was a cutthroat environment in my program with every student vying to get into the top tier medical school of their choice. This pressure enveloped me in body and mind, and I gradually fell into a deep depression and developed an eating disorder.
Recovery from my eating disorder was slow in the subsequent years of graduate school and led me to joining hip hop dance classes twice a week and a running club three times a week or so. It was hard to let go and just eat what my body needed without burning everything off as soon as possible. This need for balance led me down the road to becoming a dietitian.
I became a dietitian at the age of 30 and had my first job at a medical weight loss clinic. This job, which made the dietitian team promote restrictive meal plans, against our better knowledge, involved our bosses watching us from their office on cameras that were in our offices and patient counseling rooms.
The pressure I felt from this job triggered old disordered eating behaviors and got me caught up in daily B12 injections and restricting my own diet. In stressful moments, I would escape to my car and binge on donuts purchased from the nearby bakery in the shopping center parking lot near the weight loss center. The dietitian layoff of 2012, as I refer to it, was the best thing that ever happened to my health.
From this point forward, I thought that my health would be on an upward swing. I started running again, adding marathon after marathon to my fitness routine, and was able to maintain a healthy weight for many years. That was until 2016.
Digestive disorders
Me and my husband had moved to Oregon for his new job. Then a year later, without notice, the company went bankrupt, and he lost his job. I was working as a bariatric dietitian full-time. My income was too much for government benefits, but barely enough for us to get by with the unemployment insurance we would be receiving for 26 weeks. It took nine months for my husband to find a new job, and during this time, my body started giving out, literally. I could barely climb the stairs without becoming winded.
Long story short, I was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome and severe vitamin D deficiency. A year later, not long after moving to Colorado for my husband’s new job, I was diagnosed with a multinodular thyroid goiter. By February 2019, a CT scan of my chest to check for the cause of my shortness of breath found a benign liver mass and a pancreas mass. This started a three-year battle to figure out the cause and type of tumor, during which I experienced small intestinal bacterial overgrowth that was diagnosed and treated by the Mayo Clinic in early 2021.
Added pain and suffering
Eight months later in October of 2021, I got in a serious car accident, of no fault of mine, that herniated multiple discs in my lower back and neck. I went through multiple procedures and steroid injections over several years to manage the excruciating pain.
It was during this three-year period that I was finally approved for pancreas surgery in August of 2022. I received a distal pancreatectomy, in which one-third of my pancreas was removed along with an accessory spleen and a friable mass, on August 24, 2022, the day before my 42nd birthday. It was the best birthday present I ever got.
The first month of post-surgery recovery, however, included a pancreatic fistula, or leak of juices from my pancreas into my abdomen. I had to wear a surgical drain in my abdomen that caused 12/10 nerve pain that could not be numbed. I’m allergic to prescription pain medicines, so ibuprofen was my only reprieve and didn’t touch the pain at all. I was also started on Creon, a prescription strength pancreatic enzyme blend to help me better digest fats and to replace enzymes lost after my surgery. This condition, which I apparently had prior to surgery as well was called pancreatic enzyme insufficiency.
The second month after was surgery was better, and I lost 15 lbs., which was a feat for me since the time from 2017 to 2022, I had gained around 50 pounds from my internal health issues that went untreated. I gained half of that lost weight back in the year after surgery but maintained the rest.
Nine months after pancreas surgery, in March of 2023, sudden gallbladder attacks that felt like I was dying, came on suddenly and reoccurred five times in the course of a week. I went to urgent care after the first attack, they sent me to the closest ER, and they encouraged me to see my primary care doctor ASAP. Within a month, on May 3, 2023, I had my gallbladder removed.
Me and my husband had started trying for a baby the year before, after I recovered from my pancreas surgery, with no success. The gallbladder situation put this on hold. After recovery from this surgery, my endocrinologist, who had me on metformin to help prevent diabetes after my pancreas surgery, highly encouraged us to see a fertility doctor because we were “running out of time” to have a baby naturally.
To save time, I will just tell you that we had IVF coverage from my husband’s work health insurance. We went through two cycles unsuccessfully. After the first one, I developed a DVT, or blood clot, in my leg due to the fertility meds triggering a newly diagnosed issue of Factor V Leiden, the latter of which makes my blood thicker than normal. I was put on blood thinners for three months to help dissolve the clot and would be at higher risks for clots in the future.
The whole process was emotionally and physically draining. After a six-month hiatus, during which I boosted my health routine, we tried a third cycle. Another unsuccessful cycle. One day before this cycle started, the company my husband worked for had a lay-off, and we only had our health insurance for another four weeks.
I had to cut acupuncture out of my routine, my anxiety heightened, and I was having trouble sleeping. My diet went downhill fast, especially since we had limited funds for healthy foods. The skills I had as a dietitian trying to help people eat healthy on a budget were being greatly tested. I found a community acupuncture center to help me start acupuncture once a week for just $20 per one-hour session, and I was gifted cash from my parents for Christmas to put towards other self-care stuff. I’ll talk more about my journey dealing with staying healthy during times of financial insecurity in a later blog post.
So, how does Eastern medicine fit into all of this?
I tried small doses of Eastern medicine remedies throughout my health journey from the start. In grad school, I would take discounted yoga classes provided through the school. While living in Oregon, I went to several different acupuncture clinics and tried out Chinese herbal medicines and teas. Also, a naturopath I went to at that time after my digestive diagnosis of IBS, had me on a modified low-allergen Ayurvedic style diet.
After my car accident, I went to acupuncture once again to help manage my back and neck pain in between steroid injections, and also to help manage my digestive symptoms.
I didn’t start a deep dive into Chinese medicine until after my second unsuccessful IVF cycle. Literally the morning after I was told my embryos were severely genetically impaired and unviable for transfer, I went hard core into my healthy lifestyle routine. I started running outside the next morning, tracking my food, made an appointment with an acupuncturist, and ordered fertility vitamins. I soon started on Chinese medicine herbs for digestion and fertility, and started eating a Chinese warming diet recommended by my acupuncturist. More on this diet in the next blog post in this series.
Although my third cycle of IVF was unsuccessful, I did manage to lose 18 pounds during this time and pretty much resolved my digestive issues. My back and neck pain also seemed to disappear. I felt great. Then, the stress of new financial struggles and long-held familial stress internally erupted into a series of severe anxiety attacks that shook me to the core. I was losing sleep, triggered over small things like the mention of people’s names who hurt me emotionally, and felt heavy. My digestive symptoms returned with a vengeance, and I felt out of control of my mind and body.
I had to try something new. That something new I decided to try was Reiki. Let’s just say it was life changing. I will talk more about this in a later blog post in this series.
What can you expect in the Eastern medicine blog series?
This Eastern medicine blog series will teach you the basics of what Eastern medicine is all about and how I fit it into my daily routine to help elevate the health of my body and mind. I will first talk about the Eastern medicine dietary methods that show long-term health benefits.
The next post will then talk about Eastern medicine herbs and natural medicine that can help support digestive health, among other things.
Then, I will discuss ways to add gentle exercise to improve flexibility, strength, and cognitive health.
Finally, I will talk about other healing modalities like acupuncture, reflexology, and Reiki, that show promising results to help improve mental and physical health.
I hope you will stay tuned for all the posts in this series so you can learn how a combination of Western and Eastern medicine practices can help you find your healthiest self today.
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