While I can’t remember the precise date, it was May 2014 when my body decided it couldn’t take any more. Over the past months, I had been struggling to wake to the alarm at 5 AM, but off to the CrossFit gym I went. Keep going, push harder…isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? We did the typical warm up and buildup to the workout of the day, and as I moved through the intense part of it, I felt my body giving me signals. As I continued, I felt my hamstring starting to sting. In the heat of an entire gym ripping through sets and motivating each other, I stopped. I couldn’t lift the barbell again. It was the first time I had ever quit in the middle of a workout; I felt pitiful…and ultimately exhausted.
I was nearing the end of my internship (first year of residency), which meant long hours, disrupted sleep, high stress and the “push-forward-at-all-costs” mentality. In hindsight, there were many signs that my health was going downhill. Starting with my hair thinning dramatically as a 20-year-old, to my testosterone being below 200 at 25 and having a bowel movement every three days, to not falling asleep easily.
Why was all of this occurring? My historic nutrition patterns were partly to blame; I remember the days of “a honey bun a day keeps Tony at bay” (10 seconds in the microwave for the right amount of melted icing!). Another part of the body deterioration was the years of marathon and triathlon training, which was an amazing experiment with the body, but likely a cause for hormonal imbalance. On a similar note, I believe the stress of medical school, residency, and my total lifestyle contributed to my collapse. On top of those stressors, the place I was living had excess amounts of mold in the ventilation system and basement. My nutrition did steadily improve over the years as I played with many trends including the low calorie, low fat and the paleo type approach.
Life continued though, regardless of how I was feeling. At that point, I put working out on hold. I cleaned up my diet as much as I could and started incorporating adaptogens (cortisol modulators) into my health regimen. Also, I really made sleep a higher priority. I started by purchasing Uvex blue-blocking glasses. These are great if you’re using any electronic devices or have lights on past sunset; they help block the blue light so you can release melatonin from the pineal gland. The other light at the end of the tunnel was that as the second year of residency started, I would no longer have 24 hour or night shifts.
Fast-forward a year later…no monumental change to my body globally. I was still functioning, able to fall asleep more easily and I did get back into being active, but frustration was definitely setting in, so I decided to stop playing my own doctor and seek professional assistance. At that point, labs revealed that I had a hypoactive thyroid, testosterone was dreadfully low, and I was officially a prediabetic (a1c=5.7% – this one really pissed me off as I felt my nutrition was on point). I started on treatment for my thyroid, but as a 29-year-old I had no desire to get on testosterone replacement, which was the only tool offered. The thyroid medication had minimal impact on both labs and symptoms, although I did lose a modest amount of weight. However, as I continued the medication, I noticed daily headaches that I had never experienced before (they stopped after holding the medication).
I finished residency in Columbus and then continued a one-year fellowship in Athens, Ohio focusing on Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine and Osteopathic Manipulation. There’s a much longer story for this decision, but ultimately, I determined that the chronic disease care management I would be practicing as a family physician was not going to provide a sustainable career. During my year in Athens, my body did start to recover. Thoughts on this include working in a much less stressful environment, having a commute of 5 minutes, improved sleep, not living in the moldy condo, and living in a small town with less electromagnetic fields/toxins/etc. I still wasn’t waking up with vigor and there was still a lot of progress to be made, but I had a spark of hope!
I came back to Cincinnati to start my “career”; I wasn’t able to find a passion filled job, but there was at least an opportunity to start down that path. I was exposed to Dr. Huber and his integrative practice, so I started spending time in his office learning about what he did. As most of us do, I fell back into the rut…waking up early to work out, so I could get to work by 7am (fortunately this wasn’t every day). As the months continued, I started to experience the struggle bus of a morning and fatigue throughout the day. I again began playing doctor and tinkering with my newfound education on supplements but found nothing was really making a dramatic difference.
Again, signs that my body was having some issues arose including more loss of hair, a twenty-pound weight gain and a surprising amount of anger on my highway commute (road-rage, anyone?). While work wasn’t something I could necessarily change, I began implementing changes that I could control from a lifestyle standpoint. First, I started mouth taping. I was a chronic mouth breather as I slept (likely deviated septum related) and always woke with a dry mouth…taping essentially solved that. I felt more rested upon waking, but still didn’t have the zip in my step. I focused more on healthy fats, eating more whole foods and even dabbling in some foraging. Energy improved, but nothing that was sustaining or what I thought a 33-year-old should have. I started working with a purpose coach, to help me uncover why God placed me here at this time in this place. A lot of great stuff came from this, but I was having difficulty putting pieces together. I also started incorporating sauna therapy into my weekly routine, which again gave me a boost, but no lasting effect. During that time, I spent more time in prayer and contemplation, which brought some additional support to my purpose journey. There were other unique strategies I employed, but no game changers.
As 2020 was nearing, I was ready for a drastic change…To be continued.
Elemental Health 