Six weeks to Health!

 Happy Halloween! We've officially been here for six weeks! Some days I can't believe we've been doing this for six whole weeks and other days, it feels like we've been here forever. In the six weeks since the move, my health has changed drastically. I'll explain. 

I have IIH, or pseudo-tumor cerebri. Basically, my spinal cord makes too much spinal fluid which then pools inside my head around my brain, causing my eyes to bulge, my head to feel like I have some sort of constant brain freeze type headache that is debilitating. There is no cure and the only medicine you can take for it has the worst side effects that most people can't tolerate. I can tolerate it, but it makes me extremely sick and have some of the worst pain that it almost isn't worth it. Stress increases my heart rate, therefore, making the spinal fluid pressure build up worse. 

Since moving, I haven't had one flare up of that. I haven't had one fluid headache yet, nor have I had to take that medication. And that's rare. Usually, I get it about once a month, lasting about two-three days, making it where I am almost bedridden for at least a day, but not once since moving. 

I also have gastroparesis. For those that don't know what that is; it's where your stomach is paralyzed, therefore your food just sits in your stomach so much longer than it should, sometimes to the point of rot. My flareups with GP consist of severe vomiting, not being able to eat for days on end, or other gastro issues that I don't want to dive into. I would almost stay in a flare of some sort. Stress was also a key factor, matching with what I would eat. I've only had one mini flare since moving here, and I think it had more to do what I ate, than anything else, as it only lasted about twenty-four hours. With my gastroparesis, I could write a list of everything wrong with my entire digestive tract, but to shorten it, my esophagus spasms so frequently that I choke on food, and my bowels and intestines are slightly paralyzed, so food has always been an issue, causing severe distress when trying to eat. But so far, in six weeks, only one mini flare. 

I have lupus as well and that causes joint pain, dislocations, subluxations, and overall fatigue among other things. It makes me feel overall like crap. However, since moving here, I've only one one day where my hip was trying to dislocate, and I could attribute that to walking most of the day on very unlevel ground. Before we moved, my joints trying to slide out of my place was an all the time thing, causing me anxiety and pain on a weekly or sometimes daily basis. 

Between those and my more minor issues, when you add my anxiety and all the things causing me stress, I stayed sick. My immune system was garbage. I had strep throat so constantly that they wanted to remove my tonsils as an adult because my body couldn't keep up. Every time the kids were around someone that even had a cold, I would get sick. When I carried the kids to the doctor, even for a well visit, I would get sick. 

I haven't been sick since I've been here, except when my throat got blisters from the acid from my GP flare, and I'm used to that. Not being sick in six weeks is huge for me. Especially being out in the woods around trees and grass. We even got a cat, which I used to be highly allergic to and I haven't had a single problem. So, I say all that to say this... Sometimes changing your environment can heal your health, more than any medication can. I was on so many medications trying to heal my body, when the real issue was stress. I haven't stopped my anxiety or seizure medicines. But I have been able to take less medications for things that I used to take a lot of just to get through the day. (Allergy, OTC pain meds, stomach meds, acid reducers, things like that.) 

So next time you think you're depressed, sick, or anything like that... Try to change your surroundings, or even the people around you. Maybe the stress is so much that your body can't handle it and it's responding the only way it knows how!