HOLISTICALLYGABBY

My Story

“It’s most likely just stress, you’ll be fine”. These are the words that were said to me in 2019 when I went to the doctors experiencing unbearable anxiety and UTI’s almost every month. It was not the first time I had been dismissed by medical professionals and it always left me feeling dismissed and crazy.

“My first experiences with this was back in 2014 when I had cystic acne that had seemed to appear out of nowhere. It slowly began to cover my face, neck and back. I became so ashamed of it I remember avoiding going in public for about a year, during which I saw multiple professionals from medical doctors to dermatologist and more. Not ONE person tried to understand the root cause, but rather wanted to throw harmful medications, creams, and pills in order to clear it up.

At this point I took healing to my own hands. It was clear to me that something must be off balance on the inside that was causing my skin to react like this. I studied on my own for months, reading multiple books on how to reset my gut. In just a couple of months almost all of my acne had cleared up and I was feeling better than ever.

Fast forward to 2019 where I found myself again turning to professionals as I was experiencing heightened anxiety, persistent UTI’s, and a general “off” feeling. I felt as though I was back in 2014, once again feeling dismissed. I could not understand why nobody was taking the time to figure out the root cause of my symptoms.

After months of being brushed aside I woke up one morning to stroke-like symptoms of delayed and altered speech, extreme vertigo, and feeling as though any minute I would faint. I went straight to my doctors who ran blood tests immediately. Even so, they kept repeating that “it was probably just extreme stress” as I was planning my wedding at the time. They told me to go home and rest and they would call me if anything was wrong. Two hours later they said they think the blood tests must be wrong because my TSH (thyroid levels) were so outrageous it must be a mistake. I knew that it wasn’t. They were at 200, with a normal range being between 0.5 and 3.0. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s autoimmune disease and burn out from all the stress my body had been under after going undiagnosed for so long.

It took 8+ months for me to start to feel myself again. Not only did my thyroid hormones need to stabilize, but my body had been in such distress that it was completely burnt out which left me unable to walk most days. I had extreme vertigo, brain fog, and more that made it hard to function each day.I again began to dive deep into studying and slowly began to heal.

I finally decided to take my passion for health and the knowledge I have gained over the years to turn to a new career path of becoming a holistic nutritionist from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, allowing me to help other women feel heard and take back their health.