Name:
Toni Jones
Location:
Boston, Massachusetts
Story:
I had first noticed the beginning of my "slide" into bad health about two and a half years ago. It was a mark on my forehead that looked like my skin had been burned. Then I started getting shocking period pains - some so bad that I landed up in hospital twice on a muscle relaxant. The two doctors I went to said I should try "a stronger pain killer". Then I developed a "form" of asthma - diagnosed as such by a lung specialist who couldn't tell me what the problem was but who gave me the steroid pump and inhaler all the same. "Just use them whenever you need to".
I then started putting on weight. This terrified me as I eat well and nutritionally correct (I make sure I eat lots of vegetables and lean proteins, don't eat bread and keep my fat to a minimum). I don't drink. I don't smoke. I excercise regularly. But no matter how carefully I ate, or excercised, it just kept getting worse and worse. Then the PMS symptoms that felt like they lasted all month - water retention, swollen breasts, teary outbursts. I felt like I was carrying a mountain inside me. I developed kidney infections and my stomach normally resembled a swollen ball under my skin. My hair was dry, my skin drawn and sallow. My menstrual cycle was all over the place as well... sometimes thirty days, sometimes 20, one time even 38. I went to two different doctors - both told me there was nothing wrong with me and said I should probably see a counsellor.
But I ignored them and after one particularly painful week when my period started, I decided to go to a specialist and get blood tests done. The results were staggering - it transpired that I was not producing any of the correct dosages of female hormones (my testosterone levels were "off the wall" according to the doctor). My calcium levels were drastically low, along with my iron and magnesium levels. I had been rendered temporarily infertile. The specialist was sympathetic to my resistance to being put on the pill - the only medical way to resolve this sort of problem apparently - and gave me three months to try and sort the problem out myself.
I went to a friend of mine who is a nutritionist and he advised a range of minerals available from the UK. I started taking a multi-vitamin every day, lots of calcium and magnesium, an extra dose of iron once a week and magnesium sulphate every night before I go to bed.... well... it's a year later and I've just had my last set of blood tests done. All my levels are normal - this is besides taking minerals that offer in some cases 600 X the suggested "correct" levels!!!! The doctor says I am in perfect health - even tho' I'm taking higher doses that those "recommended" my blood tests showed all minerals at normal levels - and I've never felt better. My fertility is back and my husband and I are planning a baby at the end of the year. I've lost twenty eight pounds - most of which came off in the first few months after I started taking the vitamins (the doctor had said most of it was water). My cycle is back to its old dependable twenty eight days. My hair's grown, my skin looks GREAT.
I don't know about other people but I NEED these vitamins (could it be that MY body doesn't metabolise certain vitamins properly - who knows? There's no way medical science which is broad in its scope could ever know about EACH individual). Even tho' I was eating healthily before, my diet could not meet whatever needs my body had. In total I went to see four different doctors prior to the blood work - one of whom was a specialist - all of them had lots of drugs but no answers. I found my answers on my own. The Government should leave us to make our own choices. Medical science does NOT know EVERYTHING!! (and I'm living proof of that) :)
