About a month ago my sweet little Vivie brought home from school what I thought was just a little runny nose cold. No fever or any symptoms other than heavy nasal congestion so I treated her with steam showers, oregano oil and eucalyptus oil massages, orange/ginger/turmeric/holy basil/pepper elixir and constant nasal suctions. She was fine after 2 days and I even kept her home from school just to make sure she went a full day with no runny nose. About a day later my throat swelled up and I had the same congestion as Vivie. No fever but I couldn’t swallow or breath and had a horrible pressure headache. I just assumed I had a cold and by the time the symptoms were piling up it was Vivie’s spring break so I put on my mom panties, just kidding I don’t wear panties but anyways, I would just wake up before her to steam and just went about giving her an amazing spring break, just continually putting aside symptoms like a headache, my jaw starting to hurt and my chest and back having what felt like a knot running from front to back. Now mind you I have 3 neurological disorders from getting hit by a car as well as arthritis, stenosis and bulging discs in my cervical spine so my neck, arm and shoulder are regularly having mobility issues and pain so I just thought I had a persistent cold that spread to my chest and the rest were my issues flaring up until I woke up with facial and left arm paralysis. It felt as though I was having a stroke. My left cheek was raised and my left eye wanted to stay closed with a sharp numbness below my eye that radiated towards my ear and up my face. I have loss of hearing in my left ear and had trouble lifting or controlling my left arm. None of this stopped me or made me skip a beat with taking care of my daughter because I am so use to managing with physical issues that I just worked these new issues into it because not even paralysis can weaken me or make me complain or need help, it’s just another obstacle and I’m a professional hurdler.
Unfortunately due to the wacky world we live in I wouldn’t go to urgent care with a young child if I didn’t have to and when I called my doctors office because of a c-19 vax clinic and my sore throat they couldn’t get me an appointment for 10 days and it would be a video call.
I went to my physical therapist who gave me cupping treatments, exercises for the paralysis and I did research and determined I probably had Bells Palsy. I decided to treat myself with a steroid prednisone and within an hour I felt some of my symptoms dissipate. The pain was so bad in my jaw that I went to my dentist and had X-rays done of my teeth to make sure I didn’t have an oral infection or cancer. I had blood work done to check my blood counts while I waited to see my doctor which I’m still waiting for results due to C-19. I only took the prednisone for 2 days because my therapist was like we don’t self medicate, she’s right but so was I about the treatment and those two days I believe stopped more damage from happening but when I finally had my video call doctor appointment the doctor said I needed to come in immediately so she could examine my face.
What we determined was that most likely what Vivienne gave me was a viral infection and because of my trauma and damage to my nervous system, this triggered the Bells Palsy. The doctor gave me a prescription for a steroid and anti viral medication. I decided that I would keep doing my natural remedies Zinc, Vitiman B6, exercises, massages and physical therapy and just keep the meds just in case. Well wouldn’t you know I would have another episode the next day with an onset of extreme symptoms and I had to acknowledge I needed the prescriptions. I took the treatment and within 3 days I am feeling 1000% better and now that some of the symptoms are gone I am realizing how lucky I am to have western medicine to work with my holistic natural remedies. This is the beauty of East meets West. I can’t believe how many symptoms I had that I just overlooked and didn’t take serious. Knowing when to say when and seek medical attention is very important with being holistic because there truly is nothing I can take except for a prescription medicine for a viral infection while there is truly no prescription medicine that fixes nerve damage that doesn’t cause a remapping and degeneration of your entire nervous system. It’s ying and yang with common sense, research and education being key.
Doing my research on this I have found that once again our medical industry falls victim to its patients and while we have an abundance of research being done to help obese people to overcome the diseases caused by their own habits there isn’t as much research being done for nervous system issues. The majority of the people who caused the C 19 hospitalization numbers were obese people (87%) and these are the same people that I had to wait 10 days before I could see my doctor because they’re higher risk and needed a vax clinic. Makes me sad that because some people aren’t willing to be honest and healthy in their habits that people who have natural diseases have to suffer.
Through all of this I have learned how important the work I’m doing to create boundaries with my toxic family is so important to reducing my stress, how it’s ok to tell my daughter mommy needs to rest and that being private about what I’m going through helped me to be more functional and aggressive with making exact decisions with my health. The people who i let into my world helped me navigate without added stress. It wasn’t until I told my toxic family what happened that the stress started but boy am I thankful that for the 4 weeks I dealt with the situation that my support network of people really helped me. Having someone who had this reach out and talk to me while the rest of my support network just checked in on me with zero opinions but just support was exactly what I needed. This is why we need to continually work on our boundaries, having healthy relationships and working on total optimum health with balance.
I am on the mend and I have definitely learned a valuable lesson about advocating for my health, the positive of having a therapist to talk things out with and how being selfless can sometimes backfire on you and leave you in a worse place than you would have been if you just took a moment for self care. I am feeling so relieved and so motivated to make sure I continue down this path of growth using an East meets west mindset to live in the best physical and mental health I can. And I look forward to the day where I can purposely flirt and wink at people and it’s not just my Bells Palsy flaring up! 😉😉
