STORIES CHANGE US
Hearing the story of someone’s healing journey can change the way we heal ourselves. If I told you to drink some lemon water to heal vaginal discharge, you would probably drink a few glasses a day. But if I told you Christie’s story (which we will get into shortly) and how she healed her vaginal discharge (one of her many symptoms) in just ONE DAY by drinking lemon water every two hours, you would put a two hour alarm on your phone and build a lemonade stand in your kitchen. Testimonials like Christie’s have the ability to gently convince us of the power in Anthony William protocols without shoving it down our throats. They build our belief so we have the strength to try and heal again.
I see the Pinterest meme all the time, “Let food be thy medicine” but I don’t think mainstream society really believes it. I don’t think our culture believes that food can alleviate VERY painful conditions and actually heal you. It can. I experienced it and here is another story illustrating how fruits, vegetables and herbs are indeed the most powerful PAIN relieving medicine.
THIS IS GONNA BE LONG
Just a warning, this is gonna be a long post. I feel like those of us who have completed the bulk of their healing have committed a disservice to those who are still deep in the trenches. We tend to shorten our stories to fit within social media parameters. We have instagramed our battles. I have learned that to really teach others how to find and follow a protocol that results in REAL pain relief takes detailed dissection of those healing journeys who won their war against pain.
For some who are struggling to heal it’s very discouraging to read those short success stories on social media. “I drank celery juice, lost 20 pounds and cured my fibromyalgia!” I’m joking here but you get my point. I’m genuinely happy for those people who heal so quickly and easily. Honestly though, I have found that most health battles are a bit more complex for most women battling vulvodynia and these stories can be very discouraging at times. So in this post, I’m not going to shorten the story of Christie’s battle and my thoughts. For most women, I have found that it takes longer than they would like to reach the finish line and there’s a lot of ups and downs mentally and physically. But don’t lose hope, in my experience and in Christie’s experience the pain really did stop and our lives began again.
I’ve coached for years and not one protocol I have recommended to other women within the Anthony William paradigm has been the same. Yes, there are staples (celery juice, heavy metal detox, juicing, filtered water, removing the NO foods, zinc, etc) but every woman’s body is slightly different and needs a slightly different focus in specific healing foods. At times, finding the right protocol feels like being lost in a labyrinth but as I talk to more women who have healed from vaginal pain, we all seem to have learned the same lessons.
CHRISTIE’S STORY
Christie’s pain started in 2017. Prior to this she would get bouts of thrush. This time she was treated for bacterial vaginosis. Her doctor prescribed her antibiotics but it didn’t go away. This was the beginning of her many rounds with antibiotics and products like monistat. She went to 3 more doctors to get different opinions. They recommended no tight clothing. They said it would eventually go away. It didn’t.
Her vagina was in pain and dry. It would burn, tingle, swell and she would have discharge. The only relief she would experience was during menstruation when all her symptoms would vanish then return once again and last till her next period. They would peak during ovulation. This went on for a year. She tried probiotics and inserting garlic.
She lives in the outback in Australia and it took 12 hours (round trip) to reach the nearest gynecologist. (Side note: kangaroos really do jump through her yard and emus like to run down her streets in packs! I was tempted to ask her about Crocodile Dundee but I figured I would sound ridiculous.) The gynecologist ran lots of tests, including blood work. According to their tests, everything looked fine. She painfully drove to him three times and on the third round she found my blog.
Christie said she read it about 20 times. She read the Success Stories (post 10) over and over again. She was convinced if other women healed, so could she. She joined the Vulva Warrior group on Facebook. She bought the Anthony William’s Medical Medium book. Two days later she found out she was pregnant. (Bam… plot twist!)
At that point, she reached out to me. During our conversation, I helped her connect the dots of her medical history. She was sick a lot as a child. She had to get her tonsils removed when she was little, she was on a lot of antibiotics, she had to get her adnods done about five times. She would get ear infections. She had mercury fillings. Just these few things point to EBV and strep in her system. Along with heavy metals. All a brutal combination and very common in V land.
So, just FYI, I’m not a doctor or a practitioner or a properly trained coach. Yes, I know Medical Medium stuff pretty well, I healed myself and now I help women start their healing journey. But I’m more like those people who stand on street corners dancing like a crazy person while holding a large sign advertising nearby new homes. I can just see myself dancing on the corner holding a large sign of a vagina and yelling at women in passing cars “Does your vagina burn? If so, turn right, turn right, don’t go left or straight, those things don’t work! My vagina burned, I turned right and healed. Go this way!” I would also be chucking celery and papaya at people’s cars. I swear this shit really does work.
Back to Christie… She has an incredibly supportive partner but she still felt a bit isolated from others around her. A tortured vagina isolates you brilliantly in a busy world. You have to pretend that you’re not living in agony most of the day and just keep going. She sent my blog to her mother who had a hard time understanding her pain. Her mother called her back in tears. She just didn’t fully understand the extent of Christie’s pain and battle until that point.
After the first call with me she created a daily routine that I talk about in this blog. She took out the NO foods completely. She started reading ingredients and finding the most purest things in the stores. She kept her food simple and repeated it. She bought a Berkey (water filtration system) and drank clean water, see post 14. Before this she was in too much pain to move and her job required her to sit in the car for hours which was agony. Now, she started to notice little changes in her body but she said that her pain really didn’t go down.
During the second call, I helped her focus on the foods that TARGETED her pain type.Let me say that again so you remember it. Anthony William recommends specific foods and herbs that target specific symptoms and pain. We used his information to TARGET her protocol. After this call, she said she just POUNDED these foods. In her words, she just ate “a shit load of food.” Instead of eating ¼ watermelon she was eating one small watermelon a day. She added lots radishes, onions, green salad for lunch. That’s when the pain started to go down. She would stick to the same things and smash certain things for 5 days to two weeks. Let me say this again, so you remember it. She would stick to the same things that targeted her pain and POUNDED these things for 5 days to two weeks. She called it “smashing food the right way” which is totally true and I love this statement.
When I first started coaching, I didn’t have a full understanding of HOW I healed cause I just did things Anthony William recommended in a certain way, it worked and I moved on. Over the years I’ve realized that I’m a bit intuitive about my personal health and I’ve been gifted a few moments of angelic clarity (see post 5). Once I found Anthony William’s roadmap to healing, I was able to piece it together with his info. Now as I coach women, I understand that certain lessons that I learned while healing are the same ones others found to be true as well. In Christie’s case, it was POUNDING the foods that TARGETED her ailments really did alleviate her pain.
At the peak of her protocol this is what she was doing daily:
- Lemon water and honey
- Celery juice
- Celery, cucumber and cilantro juice
- Half watermelon or any melon
- Heavy metal detox smoothie (2 days on, 1 day rest. She found too many days in a row cause heavy detox. For all those wondering, yes, Anthony William does recommend the Heavy Metal Detox while pregnant. I drank it while I was pregnant as well. Spirulin and Barley Juice Grass actually make great prenatals)
- Green salad and sweet potato (spinach was in this everyday) homemade dressing of lemon, oil and raw honey
- Dates 6-8 a day
- Sweet potato as a snack
- Piles of potatoes for dinner
- Banana, berries and raw honey
- Second green juice before bed - a couple of times a week I would have a small amount of meat at night
- Please note that she wasn't taking herbs or other supplements because she was pregnant. If you aren't pregnant, please incorporate herbs/supplements but do it slowly to reduce the risk of detox pain especially if you are working with tinctures.
Christie said that having multiple symptoms mostly all at once stopped (burning, stinging, discharge, discomfort, tingling). It took a couple of months to fully heal. Then she would just have one for a bit, then relief. Then random unprovoked symptoms tingling here and there. Random discharge which she healed by drinking lemon water every two hours for a day. When she finally reached her pain free zone, she relaxed and the NO foods started to sneak back into her diet. Don’t judge! Pregnancy cravings are legit! She was due in six weeks and she found that her pain returned. She said that every time she stressed out about it, she would tighten up and the pain would worsen. She called me again.
BEWARE OF THE TIPPING POINT
In this conversation, I explained to her that she had reached the tipping point of her healing. Her body was strong enough to keep the pain at bay but she had not “crossed the finish line” yet. This is another important lesson I learned. Once the pain goes, this is a pivotal point in your healing. Honestly for me, it was the hardest point. It means your body is strong enough to keep the pain back but not yet healed. I personally found this point incredibly difficult because I couldn’t use the pain as a motivator to eat healthy anymore. It had to come from my own conviction and discipline. Eek!
I recommended that she leaned on her determination to experience a healthy birth for herself and her son to start the process again. Zoning in on your ultimate motivator is key here. She was due in six weeks. Years prior she had been a professional Netball player. (I had to google this sport as well, see the picture below. I’m still very impressed by her!) I recommended that she pull from that level of discipline that I’m sure she fostered while playing professional sports. I was a runner at university and in my mind, this was her last 100 meters of the race. It was time to sprint.
*How awesome does Netball look!HEALING WHILE PREGNANT
Healing vaginal pain while pregnant is a bit different. According to Anthony William, you can only use a few herbs and even then, only one cup a day (lemon balm, nettle leaf, etc.) One cup a day of these teas won’t do a thing, I’m speaking from experience here. This means that you are focused on using foods as medicine. Also, during pregnancy 80% of your immunity goes to protecting your baby leaving you only 20%. So it’s a bit harder to heal because you only have 20% of your immunity reserves to keep the rest of your body healthy. At the same time though, when you’re trying to ensure the safety of your baby (and you believe this information is true) you could move fucking mountains with your discipline which in pregnancy land is equivalent to putting down the cheese stick at a party, cause remember, you still have the extreme pregancy cravings. It can be a very overwhelming time.
SHE DID IT!
Long story short, she did it! She was incredible. She got back on the healing train. Again she focused on eating an abundance of very specific foods. “A slice of watermelon isn’t going to cut it,” she said. She was eating a ½ to whole melon every day. Radishes in every meal. Potatoes and raw onion every two hours. Lots of dates. Lots of clean water. She kept telling herself that she was “eating to heal” and she made sure to eat every two hours.
She said that by the time she gave birth her pain levels were at 20% and manageable. The pain was no longer taking over. Before heading to the hospital she prepared her food and her juices. I warned her that I personally found it strange to give birth with the help of doctors and midwives after they failed me miserably during my vulvodynia years. I was pleasantly surprised at how competent they are at birth and babies. They didn’t have to refer me to another specialist in the middle of a contraction, they seemed to know what they were doing. It was amazing.
She had a similar experience. She gave birth to a beautiful healthy son who she fondly refers to as “Bubs.” She said birth was hard work but a different kind of pain. She said it takes away your thoughts but she felt “in the zone.” She had to be induced but she was still able to give birth vaginally. In my opinion, this is nothing short of a miracle!
It took her about 6 weeks to heal from birth pain. Then she felt a little UTI coming on so she took goldenseal and cats claw. Now that she wasn’t pregnant any longer she could use herbs to heal. She also increased her zinc. It was an easy fix. Now that Christie lives pain free, she said that the biggest mental change post-healing was the lack of fear accompanying an ailment. She now knows that she can handle and heal with food whatever comes her way. I feel the same way.
POST HEALING
Last time I spoke to Christie she was still feeling good but her son was a bit congested. So we talked about the foods/drinks she could prepare for him and foods/drinks she could feed herself to strengthen her breast milk to fight his strep. In our experience, vulvodynia was an exceptional cruel but very efficient teacher that taught us not only how to heal ourselves but how to heal our children as well.
In my personal life, vulvodynia was not my ultimate battle, it was my warm up. My son was extremely hypoglycemic. He would have these epic crazy ass tantrums and started passing out, plus other issues. I personally don’t regret having vulvodyia because that experience taught me how to heal myself and eventually I used it to heal him. So if I were able to go back and talk to my younger self while I was sitting alone in the bathtub screaming in pain, I would tell her to “hold one, just hold on” and just take one small step forward, every little step counts. Let go of those foods that have been hurting you, focus on the foods that love you and keep drinking your green drinks. Just take that step, even if it’s a small one.
DON’T UNDERESTIMATE BELIEF
Let’s not pretend that it’s just a physical battle, it’s a mental battle as well. If you are deep in the depths of fear, belief will be hard to reach and without belief it’s difficult to follow these protocols at the level it takes to reduce pain. I believe in these protocols deeply because I experienced healing at that level in my life. During my calls I found that the key to giving someone a “belief booster” is to tell them other women’s true healing stories. Stories that I have heard first hand from other women I have helped. This is important. It makes these women real and healing attainable. So when you feel yourself sinking down, read this testimony again, read mine, read the others. These are real stories, real women. Now, I consider them all my friends. These stories are here to give you belief and strength. Then hit your kitchen once again and just start “smashing food the right way” as Christie likes to say.
SPECIAL NOTE
If you are reading this and would like to “jump in” I would recommend reading the Cleanse to Heal book by Anthony William. It will explain why you are sick. It will explain why most of the world is sick in some way. I love the audio book. Going forward, I will be recommending the 369 Simplified Cleanse plus incorporating the foods that heal your specific pain type. If you don’t know how to find these foods and herbs you can look them up in post 3 or in the book titled Life Changing Foods by Anthony William. (I love having it on my phone for reference) You will also need to change your water source if you want it to work, see post 14. I’ll be writing a post about this shorty and updating a bunch of my previous posts incorporating the 369 Simplified Cleanse. Basically, I’ve learned that those of us who have healed went through a strict “cleanse” stage. For some of us, it took time to heal but for others it was a relatively short period. Now that Anthony William has written about cleanses in depth, I’m hoping we can use his cleanse protocols more efficiently to shorten women’s battles.
Fast or slow, little by little, just keep moving forward ladies!
PS - Christie also wanted me to mentioned that she also found Mind Body Prescription by John E. Sarno very helpful.
MY FAVORITE MM PREGNANT RESOURCES
(4) Facebook Live | Facebook (This show is awesome)
Healthy Pregnancy (medicalmedium.com)
Infertility, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy Complications (medicalmedium.com)
Foods & Supplements for Pregnancy - Radio Show Archive by Medical Medium (soundcloud.com)
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