Living with Beauty/wellness: my acid reflux healing story
A few years ago, I wrote a post about my personal battle with debilitating acid reflux. And then, that post sat and sat in my drafts folder, because who wants to read about something as ugly as reflux on a site that is dedicated to Beauty!!?
But as you know, recently, I have been feeling pulled toward sharing more about my own mission to fully live with beauty in my life. And that includes sharing a huge part of my life that I am sharing a wee bit more on this blog: Wellness. Working toward wellness in our lives is truly a huge part of living with beauty. We all know that our health is important for living life to the fullest. And so, as we are able, we should care well for our bodies.
side note: {Having health to live a full life is not essential, though! Some of the people I admire MOST are those living life fully amidst their physical pain and suffering, and not waiting for it to go away before they find joy.}
Ultimately, I share this post for one sole reason: I hope my words bring hope and motivation to someone who has been suffering.
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Here is the post in entirety, as written a few years ago:
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A few months ago, I saw a twitter post from Layla. She was reaching out for natural ways to deal with reflux. I immediately DM’ed her with this:
And boy, do I have a story to share about this.
First, I gotta tell you, I am not a doctor. I do not claim to have medical knowledge. I am in no way trying to discredit doctors, who I respect immensely. I am only claiming my own personal story, and sharing with you what truly happened to me. I hope that it can help you in some way.
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In 2003, it was only weeks away from Opening Night. I was the female lead in the musical Guys and Dolls {Sarah Brown, for my fellow theatre nerds out there}, and I was so frustrated. For weeks, I had been suffering from a strange “cold,” and I just could not sing like I always did. I rested and rested, but never got well. Singing was my life. With two degrees, one in vocal performance and one in Opera Theatre Performance, I had dedicated years to my professional craft. I never had experienced such a strange illness that effected my voice so badly. I made doctor appointment after doctor appointment, and finally, one ENT told me it looked like I had acid reflux. From there, after several attempts at healing my voice, I went to one of the top voice doctors in the world.
It was one of the most devastating days in my life, when the callous doctor told me: “One of your vocal cords is paralyzed, and you will never sing the same again;” and then he breezed out of the room without an ounce of sympathy.
I never did sing the role of Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls. In fact, I never sang in a show again. Which was life altering, considering I had been in over 40 onstage performances, and I couldn’t remember a time when I was not “in a show.”
For the next 8 years, I suffered. After years of testing and bloodwork and MRI’s and even vocal surgery, and seeing many different doctors, they were never able to find a conclusive cause for my paralysis. One thing that was always a factor, though, was this pesky acid reflux. And the reflux caused me to suffer too. It was painful. And it just got worse and worse.
I can tell you that I have officially tried every single medicine that is available for acid reflux. None of them healed me. Some helped, but the help was quite temporary, and I would finally react to the meds by refluxing even worse; there was not a single thing I could eat. Even water caused reflux. I continually asked my doctors,”What about diet???” And every time, it was dismissed. They simply gave me the classic reflux diet list, to which I would reply, “Yes. I have been avoiding those, of course.”
By 2011, I was sick. Really sick. I was in constant pain… and who cared that I could not sing??? I couldn’t eat and I could barely talk.
The doctors just kept wanting to do the same things, over and over. They wanted me to take the same awful tests, and even suggested that I increase to 3 Nexium a day.
Then something happened: My insurance company denied a test, and I ran out of my last Nexium, and I just could not bear spending $400 more dollars on another bottle that did not work anyway. I begged the doctor: “I swear, this stuff is making me sicker! Isn’t there anything else we can do???”
Stomach surgery.
That is when I decided to quit all of my reflux meds. Cold turkey. I informed the nurse over the phone that I was choosing to go against the doctors recommendations and I was going to stop meds and ’go wacky’ on holistic diets {You are NOT supposed to quit medication without your doctor’s consultation, but I want to be honest about what I did. I am not encouraging you to do the same. With some medications, there can be very serious repercussions to quitting, so here is my CYA: check with your doctor}.
That was almost exactly one year ago {3 years ago at the time of this posting}. I am telling you: It took me EIGHT years of pain to get to the point of drastically changing my course. Because, if I could have taken an easy little pill and be well, I {just being honest} probably would have done just that!
Now, if you think this is the easy route, or the immediate answer, I can tell you that is not true. I wasted lots of time and energy and money on different holistic methods. I have tried over 4 different ‘kinds’ of holistic diets. And not only that, I have invested countless hours into researching, changing my habits, cooking, etc. BUT, I persevered. I listened to my body and did not give up.
For me, the answer WAS diet. And it changed everything, not just my reflux. I wish I could say “all I had to do was cut out brussel sprouts, and I was healed.” Ha! Hardly. No, instead, I no longer eat sugar, starches {no potatoes, no grain, no corn}, and mostly no dairy. I don’t eat soy or hardly anything that comes pre made or in a box. I do eat honey and fruit and any dairy where the lactose has been fully fermented {hard cheeses, specially-made yoghurt}. I follow a diet that helps people with digestion problems, called the SCD diet
This diet has been the first thing that has kept my voice pain-free for any length of time. In fact, since starting my diet experimentations of removing things like gluten, dairy, sugar, etc. in March of 2011, I have felt more relief than I ever felt from Proton Pump Inhibitor pills {Nexium, Prilosec and the like}. So, for over a year, diet alone has been healing me. And this was, in fact, the very thing that my doctors told me would do no use.
I have no idea if it would help you, but if you have health struggles, and you are at your wits end, maybe what I learned can be helpful to you too. I can tell you that doing the HARD WORK of taking these things out of my diet has totally changed my digestion, my happiness, and has helped me in all sorts of other unexpected areas, such as depression, PMS, energy.
As far as my singing voice: over time, my range has returned. And ever since I have been on my diet, I have had consistent relief to my vocal pain. I sang Handel at this year’s Easter service, and every note was a miracle to me. As you can imagine, every bit of effort it takes to follow this diet is worth it to me!
I follow my diet 90% of the time – because life happens sometimes. And, when I celebrate my birthday, you had better believe I am having some dark chocolate chunks and rhubarb pie!
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Back to the present: I want to give you an update. Three years later, I am still well. And now, hooray, I can cheat even more. I would say that I follow the diet about 80% of the time. And when I get naughty, and start to feel symptoms again, I simply get serious about my diet again, and I get better MUCH faster than with my initial search for reflux relief.
This experience has changed how I view medicine. My dream is that someday, instead of being so resistant to each others’ ideas, both traditional medical doctors and holistic medical doctors will work TOGETHER to help people, instead of working so hard to be right. I am so thankful that the very thing that has healed me is simply good foods, made by God. And that is why I go to Him and the fruits of His nature as my first resort when I need to get well or prevent sickness. I don’t believe this replaces traditional doctors, but instead, enhances them.
I hope this story helps you or someone you love.
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