My Own Health Journey
How did this happen?
I went to Costa Rica to celebrate my birthday…
I like to travel in a more authentic way…
Far away from typical tourist sites…
So, I stayed on a river, in a hut, next to an indigenous tribe…
The only way to get there was through river rafting…It was remote.
The trip was amazing and I came back to the states.
Two weeks later…
I noticed a small bump on my face above my lip on the right side.
It looked strange but I thought… maybe it’s acne, maybe it’s an allergic reaction, maybe it’s a bug bite.
It started to get larger but it wasn’t like anything I had ever seen before.
I took a step back and asked myself “what could this be?”
I created a differential diagnosis for myself of all the possible types of lesions.
Then, it dawned on me that I must include skin lesions in Costa Rica since I was there just two weeks ago. I narrowed it down to 3 possible diagnosis based on the clinical appearance and none of them were good.
After another week and a half…
the lesion was getting worse and I knew I needed to get a confirmed diagnosis through biopsy.
Here’s how I got stuck in the system….
I needed to get a biopsy, I couldn’t do this myself, especially in this location, I needed a dermatologist.
But, I had insurance that required a referral before I could see a dermatologist.
I scheduled an appointment with a GP. By the time I got to see the GP, I was 90% convinced I had leishmaniasis…
As a physician, I knew what was needed and prepared for the appointment. I printed out the CDC clinical symptoms and how to prepare a biopsy to send into the CDC for diagnosis. He agreed with my diagnosis and gave me the referral for the dermatologist.
But, the first available appointment with the dermatologist was a week and a half away and I had to drive two hours!
The lesion on my face was growing and I was 100% convinced it was leishmaniasis…
What is leishmaniasis?
It’s a microscopic intracellular parasite that’s transmitted through a bit of a sand fly (which is 4 times smaller than a mosquito). In simple terms, It then enters your cells and eats them.
The “only” way the conventional medicine model has to treat this parasitic infection is to obtain medication from the CDC. No hospital or facility in the USA can dispense the medication, ONLY the CDC.
The only way to discover the exact species of the leishmaniasis parasite is through the CDC. Discovering the exact species is critical to the treatment protocol because different species respond differently to different medication.
Only 62 people in the United States have been diagnosed with this parasite since 1985 (outside of the military). Very few, if any doctors have or ever will see a case in their entire career.
I went to the dermatologist; she didn’t know what to do. I gave her the print outs of the CDC clinical symptoms and how to prepare a biopsy to send into the CDC for diagnosis. After explaining my travels and symptoms, the dermatologist agreed with my diagnosis. She then consulted with the infectious disease team, they agreed with my diagnosis, but they also didn’t know how to proceed…They told me to schedule another appointment in a week after they had a meeting…
If I was right in my diagnosis….
I didn’t have time to wait around with a flesh eating parasite on my face that could easily disfigure me and go into my throat, in my blood, and kill me!
As I was waiting for the doctors to figure out how to proceed and work with the CDC to perform the biopsy…
I treated myself.
I knew that the doctors had never seen a case like mine and that they would be reading up on it too. I also knew that they didn’t have the same motivation or time to study it like I would.
I knew that this illness was on my path for a reason…and a test for me.
I read every study on leishmaniasis treatments and created a cocktail for myself of natural & pharmaceutical anti-parasitic medications, nutraceuticals, a compounded topical parasitic ointment, herbs, and light therapy to do my best to prevent the lesion from getting larger as I was waiting.
I also went deep within myself…
I thought about how I could have attracted this into my life in an energetic way.
Did I need to set healthier boundaries in my life?
How did I get infiltrated?
I thought about what this be teaching me…
Did I have an attachment to my image?
Did I need to release my attachment to my face and how other perceive me on a physical level?
A week later…
They performed a punch biopsy on my face to send to the lab. Any trauma to the lesion caused the parasite to grow faster!
Another week later…
The biopsy confirmed leishmaniasis, but the doctors did not send a sample to the CDC. They had to do another punch biopsy on my face. The trauma to the lesion caused it to grow even faster!
By this time, over a month has gone by with no treatment. The doctors have only accelerated the growth of the parasite that was literally eating my face and offered me NOTHING to treat it.
For 3 more weeks…
I continued a comprehensive protocol that I created that was holding the lesion back, but I still needed something more. I couldn’t wait for the CDC anymore and didn’t trust that they would provide the biopsy results in a timely manner.
I took it upon myself to gain more information about this parasite. I created geographic maps of infections all around Costa Rica and studied where each infection was. I compared it to my own travels and concluded the specific species of leishmaniasis that I had contracted. I concluded that is was the most aggressive species, the Braziliensis complex.
Then I left the country…
and went to Europe to create my own treatment program.
Today, I have a circular atrophic scar on my above my upper lip and it reminds me that…
I must always hold my own power and listen to myself.
That my face and my appearance do not define who I am.
My journey is short and I must live each day to the fullest.
…and that this health journey gave me an even deeper level of understanding and empathy for my own patients who are desperately searching for their own solutions.