My name is Kye, I am currently 27 years old from Indiana and Integrative Medicine saved my life. When you see yourself deteriorating before your own eyes due to unexplainable medical symptoms you are at a loss of what to do. At 14, I had been injured in a bizarre ulnar nerve accident. With that injury came a barrage of unexplainable symptoms that no Physician could understand or explain. I didn’t know then about integrative medicine and thought that only traditional medicine could help chronic symptoms.
My parents and I spent hours and hours using “Dr. Google”, consulting all of the area’s best experts, and making many trips to the emergency room all in an effort to explain why I had symptoms that caused uncontrollable shaking and palsy in my arms and legs, an accelerated heart rate, vomiting, headache, dramatic weight loss, a bloated stomach, severe rashes and cracked lips.
In a single year, I had 147 medical claims after the first year of my injury and unexplainable medical symptoms. The second year was just like the first. I was already at 95 medical claims and counting before my Pain Management Physician said to us….”Well, I have heard of this Doctor and that he is about Integrative Medicine. I don’t know him, but I think he would be worth a try as I have heard some good things about him helping people that can’t find answers”. I had been to Indianapolis, Michigan, several neurologists, countless emergency room visits, and every specialist that any of them could think of: what was one more?
When I first experienced Integrative Medicine my first thought was…this is going to be different. This Physician actually sat down and listened to an overview of what I had been experiencing. He looked at me and said, “Okay…Let’s start with your birth!” He was the first Physician to listen to me without a “you might be a faker” look in his eye. Not only that, but he actually went through each year of my life, listened, took notes, and was genuinely interested in ALL of the details and not a simple glossing over.
Turned out, my myriad of symptoms was from Celiac’s Disease: a diagnosis we had never heard. He proceeded to explain how the traumatic injury that my body had experienced could have likely heightened this problem in my system. It was a way of thinking that no other Doctor had mentioned: looking at the entire body and every symptom. It was not a solution easily fixed by “Modern Medicine.” Instead, it needed to be fixed with supplements and diet. And so, the day before Thanksgiving 2009 I went gluten free: got to love irony.
I have had some pauses along the way from accidental contamination which brought symptoms back (and confirmed in my mind he was right) but nothing like the two years of medical terror I had experienced. Integrative Medicine was able to take a girl that was diminishing before everyone’s eyes and turn me into someone that was on the road to recovery. Over the past 10 years, I have had zero medical claims on insurance due to my illness and I am on no medication. Once gluten was no longer in my diet all of my bizarre symptoms simply went away. I was a completely different person.
Prior to Integrative Medicine, Physicians wanted to: put me on anti-seizure medication, morphine, have me physiologically tested, put me on an anti-depressant, tell me they think I have some rare chronic disorder that they can’t identify, or just have me live with it. You do not have to just live with your symptoms!
I have found that there are two main differences between Integrative Medicine and Regular Medicine: medications and time. Yes, I was “diagnosed” in five minutes, but he then spent the next hour going through everything with me. The majority of specialists I had seen, only worked with me for 5 minutes and then a test, then to the pharmacy.
Traditional Medicine is about tests, the results, and the prescription that will help it. Medication doesn’t fix everything. It is needed, yes! However, some things require alternative avenues. All of the other Physician’s just wanted to get me out of their office. The singular Integrative Medical Physician, wanted to listen. It was the combination of taking the time to work with me on a solution that fit my body, and adjusting that solution as I aged, that made the experience valuable. I do not play with words. If I had stayed with Traditional Medicine, I would be a very different person: perhaps, not even here at all. I am thankful that I found Integrative Medicine and that it helped identify the root of my chronic symptoms. No road is the same for everyone, but I recommend giving it a try.
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