My healing journey was definitely not a downward slope… the experience was more like a roller coaster built on a downward slope. Yes, pain decreased but then it increased, then it spiked, then it went down again. If someone watched me heal, it would have seemed all over the place.
My flares would emotionally floor me because when something went wrong it would take me a while to figure out what happened and how to address it. I would read MM info and create a hypothesis and a protocol. I would try that protocol for a bit. Then usually my first try didn't work so I would dive back into MM information and create another hypothesis/protocol. I kept trying different elements, looking for breadcrumbs of insight.
Sometimes it just took more time and I needed to have patience. Other times it worked after increasing supplementation, removing something toxic from my home environment, trying different protocols or focusing on specific recommendations within one protocol.
Yes, there were definitely moments of tears but when the light bulb went on and I figured out how to relieve my pain, the experience deepened my knowledge of my body, the history of my health and the environment around me. These breadcrumbs of experience gave me a deeper control of my health, a deeper understanding of my life and solidified my choice for healing this way. Here are my troubleshooting recommendations.
1. Start writing a food journal. Why? It helps you face reality about what you are ACTUALLY eating every day. It helps you to STOP LYING TO YOURSELF about your diet. It also helps you recognize pain patterns and reactions to food.
Long Story: Turns out I lied to myself… a lot. I honestly had no idea. MM insists that we remove the NO foods from our diet so we can heal and stay out of trouble. After healing the majority of pain, my family and I moved from California to Ireland. We live in this adorable village where I can literally walk to 3 gourmet pizza shops, 3 fancy bakeries and 2 ice cream stores in the matter of minutes. Sigh. I don’t live in pain anymore but I need to stay healthy for myself and my family. It’s also hard being a good mom if you’re cranky or tired ;) I started a food journal during a cleanse, then continued the habit afterwards and quickly realized that I was cheating more than I realized outside a cleanse. I was cheating on a pastry of some sort every day and I honestly have no idea when this habit started. In my mind, I thought I was cheating “here and there” but when I took the time to write it down it made me face REALITY. I was cheating a lot. To make matters worse, danishes aren’t just made of gluten but eggs and dairy as well. They are an “all in one” cheat food! Sigh. I had no idea how bad it was till my food journal. (Side note: I curbed this habit by starting to bake MM goodies at home and making sure I ALWAYS had one on me when I left the house)
2. Hire an MM coach. If you can’t get your pain to budge, then hire an MM coach who spends all day helping people heal. Honestly, they just have more experience than you do because they do this everyday all day long. It’s their job to troubleshoot people’s health. It’s worth the cost to save you time.
Long Story: I still have never hired an MM coach before. When I began my MM journey I either didn’t know about these coaches and/or I didn’t have the budget to hire one. I wish I had, it would have saved me TONS of time and energy. There are no professional MM educational programs so most of the best MM coaches are self taught. Their experience comes from helping people heal, all day long and usually their healing journey began by healing themselves first.
When I began, I became obsessed and listened to his radio shows, books, interviews, etc. I probably listened 3-4 hours a day for years and years. I’ve learned a lot and was able to become the healer that my body needed but that took time. The other women who help lead our Facebook group have worked extensively with MM coaches to heal. Yes, please educate yourself on all things MM but if you want to shorten your healing process, hire a coach.
Note: the coaches we list on post 7 probably don’t know we recommend them. They made our list because they have personally helped someone in our community. We are not affiliated with them.
3. Start a cleanse. We like the cleanses from MM’s book Cleans to Heal.
Long Story: Years after I healed vaginal burning, I got food poisoning. Then two weeks later I started to experience a horrible vulva itch. I literally went through my own blog but I couldn’t get the itch/pain to stay down. Ugh. So I kept doing the itch protocol but also embarked on my first Simplified Cleanse from Cleanse to Heal book. The itch calmed down within days after starting the cleanse. Why? Cleanses remove the fat from the body allowing toxins to exit and things to heal more easily. The cleanses amplify the healing qualities of everything you digest because you have removed the fat from your diet. So if you think you are targeting your ailment correctly then try a Simplified Cleanse as well. I talk a lot about targeting and personalizing a protocol on post 16. Your protocol might be perfect but you might need more oxygen in your blood and less fat holding you back.
4. Assume you ALSO have strep in the lower intestine.
Long Story: MM argues that women who have chronic UTIs, bladder infections, yeast infections, bacterial vaginosis, PID probably ALSO have strep in the lower intestine. (Cleanse to Heal book) I have a hypothesis that many vaginal issues are actually CAUSED by strep in the lower intestine that just kept going south. For example, if you have chronic UTI’s targeting strep in the urethra probably isn’t going to be sufficient. You will also need to target strep in the lower intestine (hello aloe vera). If you don’t know about targeting see post 16. I experienced this personally and talk about healing my gut which relieved my vaginal pain on post 9.
5. Our environment is extremely toxic and you need to examine all the toxins in your control. The biggest environment is the one inside your home. Be skeptical of everything around you.
Long Story: I find that this one is hard to face cause it’s painful to realize how toxic our world has become. Years before MM I realized that if I drank more than 2 cups of tap water, my urethra would start burning. I didn’t understand why till MM information. I have a hypothesis that water is foundational for those of us healing vaginas/urethras because they are detox pathways. Meaning, vaginas/urethras/butt holes are the main pathways our body uses to expel virus corpses/toxins. Unfortunately for us, these are the main areas our body we are aiming to heal and if we’re not careful, detox can flare things on the way out. I figured out pretty quickly that water quality impacts us more than others who are trying to heal other body parts. See post 14 for more about the importance of water quality while healing.
It’s unfortunately not just about water. Air quality. Once when I was pregnant (years after I healed vaginal burning) my vagina started flaring out of nowhere. Long story short… a week prior there was smoke in the air from local forest fires making the air extremely toxic (usually California air quality is around 2-5 but during the fires the air quality in my area was 250! Eek!) I explain this flare, my process and how I healed it on post 9.
Another time I kept getting a vulva rash and I was eating really well. I couldn’t figure it out. Another MM coach posted a story about the toxicity of cooking pans. So I bought a whole new set. The rash calmed down within 5 days after changing my pans but the itch took a few more weeks to heal with a lot of melon and consistency. My son also had a rash on his hands for about a year. I couldn’t figure it out even with heavy metal detox smoothie. His rash also disappeared by the end of the first week after cooking with the new pans. So frightening.
In summary, all the soap in my house is fragrant free. I make all our home cleaning products with soap and vinegar. We only cook with clean pans and we only drink water from our Berkey. We don’t wear perfume, etc.
6. Increase your supplementation.
Long Story: Years ago after I posted my blog, women started to contact me asking for help. At that point I did not know about the MM coaches we know about now. So I would talk to them and do my best. Many of the women I coached are still active in our Facebook group actually. I helped some amazing women and their healing journeys mean the world to me. I’m a good coach but not the best. I would talk to a few women per week. The coaches I list on post 7 help people every day, all day long. They honestly just have more experience. One woman I attempted to help couldn’t get her nerve pain down. Her diet was perfect and far better than my diet had ever been. She was doing everything right. I was stumped. She tried a few more coaches and the third coach recommended increasing her supplements to a much higher level. It worked. It worked so well I will be writing an entire post on her story. If you want to increase your supplements make sure to do it slowly to decrease detox reactions. You can easily find higher dosage amounts stated in the Cleanse to Heal book. If you want to go higher, then I would recommend booking an appointment with an MM coach, see post 7.
7. Ask for your angel assistance. No really! Learn to follow the breadcrumbs. Nothing is a coincidence.
Long Story: MM talks a lot about angels. Just google it. In my personal experience God and my angels were by my side during this entire process. I talk about this in depth on post 20. According to MM, when working with angels, they have a hard time hearing our requests because our minds are so busy. So just whisper under your breath their name and your request for help. The problem is that they can’t intervene unless you give them permission. So just be honest with them. Tell them how you are feeling. Give them permission to intervene, they love you and they desperately want to help. They really helped me while I healed.
If you are new to this whole angel idea... don't expect lightening bolts. I have found most of the time it's slight nudges that most people would ignore. Sometimes, yes, they can kick you in the ass to get things going but most of the time, it's a whisper, a nudge, a quick inspiration or thought, very small moments... the trick is to be looking for these things as well. Your prayer can be very emotional using lots of imagery or very simple and sincere. Both are equally strong because it's not your emotional fervor that moves angels, it's just your permission.
Here's a few stories. It's about to get a little weird. Once I was super tired all the time. I had tried the neurological protocol, the chronic fatigue protocol, the anemic protocol and nothing could move my fatigue. I'm praying all the time now, it's just kinda the way I live. In the morning, I remembered a dream. In my dream I saw the letters "ENCEPH..." but I couldn't remember the rest of the word. So I looked it up in the Life Changing Foods book (I highly recommend having this on your phone). MM talks about encephalitis in the turmeric chapter. It means brain inflammation and turmeric is ideal. So I started drinking turmeric shots (OJ blended with fresh turmeric then strained) and the brain fog and fatigue lifted that day. Wild.
Sometimes it's simple. When we moved to Ireland I couldn't find wild blueberries. I called around to a bunch of places. For weeks, I called a number I found on google many times and no one answered. I prayed to Angel of Provision (she usually helps hungry people get food). This time they answered. By the next day, I had an extremely large box wild blueberries on my doorstop for a fraction of the cost. The guy was "just driving through my area." Wild. He ended up delivering me wild blueberries once a month for a year. It was amazing.
When working with the powers above I found that nothing is a coincidence. I had to learn to follow the breadcrumbs. For example, I don't consider it a coincidence that my favorite place in all of Ireland is a forest and this forest is absolutely covered in nettle leaf. It was a HUGE part of healing my vagina and when I started to forage it in Ireland it become a pivotal piece to heal my acne and anemia.
8. Your pain might be detox. TARGET the detox pain. Let me explain.
Long Story: This one is hard. So when you start killing viruses the process creates virus corpses and within these corpses the remnants of the virus can flare things while your body escorts them out. (Thyroid Book) Muneeza published a short video about this as well where she mentions how you can tell the difference. Basically, detox is short lived. That being said I once had a detox headache that lasted 3 days (original cleanse from the Medical Medium book). How did I know it was detox? I had the headache during a cleanse and after I finished the cleanse the headache disappeared. For years prior to this cleanse, I would get a sinus headache once every few weeks and this went on for years. It was the worst. After the detox headache the sinus headaches stopped coming back. Wild.
We actually suggest the cleanses in the Cleanse to Heal book because we find that these cleanses produce less detox reactions (in our experience). We find that women healing vaginal conditions are more likely to experience detox reactions more than other healing groups in MM. Why? My guess is that vaginas/urethras/butt holes are the main pathways our body uses to expel virus corpses/toxins. Unfortunately for us, these are ALSO the main areas our body needs to heal and if we’re not careful, things can flare us on the way out.
As of 2022, I’ve done about 7 cleanses from Cleanse to Heal. Once I couldn’t get my pain down and embarked on a Simplified Cleanse. The itching/burning was gone by day 3. Another time I started a cleanse pain free and flared (vulva burning/rawness) on day 7 which is the day when things start to get flushed out of your body. This flare only lasted a few hours cause I used MM recommendations to calm it down.
IMPORTANT POINT: Now, just because you think something is detox that DOESN'T mean you do nothing. Quite the contrary actually. TARGET your detox symptoms, make sure you are drinking lots of fluids and lower your fat intake so things can be flushed out quickly. I think a detox reaction indicates that your body is having a difficult time flushing things out properly. So… if you have burning, look up burning on post 3. If it’s itchy, look up itch. If it’s rawness, look up rawness. Then make a little list and incorporate that list into your routine for a week or a few days till things calm down. That’s what I did when my detox flared during the cleanse and I calmed it down in a few hours. This is the reason I like the Simplified Cleanse because it’s really flexible and you have a lot of wiggle room to personalize the cleanse for your pain type. See post 16 for more information.
For example, my chest is another weak point of my health. (My lungs didn't work when I was born and I was on a breathing machine for the first 10 days of my life. Honestly, I think everyone was a little shocked that I survived... I still hear the stories from my family. I've also had bronchitis at least 5 times and COVID probably 2 times). When my health was strong I found that watermelon juice and sometimes lemon water would make my chest tight and painful. For most people, this would probably scare them which is totally understandable. By this point in my healing I knew that these drinks were either healing my lungs deeply or my sensitive lungs were reacting to the virus remnants within the corpses that the healing drink just created. So I just looked up "chest" on my phone in the Life Changing Foods book. MM recommends a bunch of things of chest tightness which is a neurological condition. I chose honey and fresh minced garlic. This concoction removed the pain and the tightness within about 5 minutes. This concoction continued to do so when I experienced this detox pain going forward. So while I was healing the deeper levels in my chest I would drink my watermelon juice then immediately ingest my honey/garlic concoction (see post 18). If I did this, I wouldn't experience any chest pain/tightness at all.
I also found that I started having a short flare (vulva heat) after drinking the heavy metal detox smoothie during the cleanse. MM suggests eating an apple afterwards because the pectin in the apples help to absorb the dislodged toxins from the smoothie and help escort them out of your body. I tried that and it worked perfectly. I always suggest eating an apple or applesauce after the HMDS now. This is one time you DON’T want to juice the apple because you actually need the pectin in the fruit which isn’t in apple juice.
9. Hit it with something on your protocol list every few hours if you are in active pain/ailment.
Long Story: Years after I healed most of my vaginal issues I started to get shocks in my brain. I used to get them once every 6 months since I was little and I started getting one every few hours. The condition is called occipital neuralgia. Every hit would just make me crumble to the ground. It would scare the shit out of my poor husband every time. It’s shingles inflaming the nerves but I didn’t know this at the time. (MM recently published a neurological podcast where he mentions this condition) I remember really craving licorice root tea at the time and I figured out pretty quickly that if I had licorice root tea the shocks would stop. So I started drinking licorice root tea every two hours and I did this for two weeks. The shocks just disappeared. Wild.
During the first week I noticed if I missed drinking a glass of licorice root tea every two hours, I would immediately get shocked. So that’s how I came up with the two hour rule. Be consistent about hitting it with something on your list every few hours, if you are in active pain. The second lesson is to follow your body’s leaning towards specific fruits/veggies/herbs.
Note: MM recommends zinc every 3 hours. If I could do it again, I would do zinc every few hours (while awake) till the flare calmed down then continue with zinc a few times a day for the rest of my life.
10. Follow your body intuition’s leanings toward fruits/veggies/herbs. Aversions to specific fruits/veggies communicate a message as well.
Long Story: I talk about this extensively in the “Intuition” section on post 16. Basically, I have found that your current favorite fruits and vegetables are more than whimsical preferences. Your body is sending you messages asking for specific food so she can heal specific ailments. Please jump over to post 16… I have a lot to say about this. I also have a great section on aversions to specific foods and my hypothesis about what that means.
11. Keep educating yourself.
Long Story: MM repeats this over and over again. Half the battle is just knowing the truth about what’s been happening in your body. This is so so true! The best way to heal is to become the healer you have been searching for all these years. I know that sounds daunting but please don’t be overwhelmed. You don’t have to specialize in ALL medical issues but you do need to specialize in YOUR medical issues and YOUR body. This game requires you to create healing protocols for yourself or at least know how to FIND the protocols you need (see post 3). This means you need to know this information and how to navigate through it. Side note: I’m a mother of young children. I barely have time to take a shower. How did I become a complete MM nerd? I listened to MM on podcasts, radio shows, all his books on audio, etc for years and years. 99% of the MM information I know I learned while washing dishes, walking my dog, folding laundry, etc. Don’t underestimate learning something new every day… it all adds up over the years.
12. Your protocol should be REALLY specific.
Long Story: I wrote an entire post about targeting on post 16. I have a lot to say about this. Prioritize your pain. Focus on two maybe three ailments to heal. If you have burning, focus on burning. If itching, focus on itching. Remember if you think your ailment is caused by strep that means you should be focusing on EBV as well because EBV creates the slime in the body that strep likes to live in. You should also be focusing on healing SIBO (strep in the lower intestine). See number 4 above for a longer explanation.
Food is medicine. This is not a cliche statement. You wouldn’t give someone viagra to heal IBS. Same goes with food. Be specific about the foods/herbs you incorporate into your diet. In the Life Changing Foods book MM is VERY specific about what foods/herbs heal specific problems. For example, look at his recommendations for bladder conditions. He has different recommendations for bladder pain, spastic bladder, bladder infections, UTIs, urinary urgency, urinary frequency, urinary retention. Your protocol also needs to be specific. I tried to gather all MM recommendations for lady part problems on post 3 so you can find your specific recommendations.
Yes, you might test positive for BV which is strep. But the symptoms might be burning and itching and rawness. So your foundational protocol should be for BV but then your protocol should also include elements to heal burning vulva and itching vulva and rawness. Just look them up on post 3 for specific recommendations.
But even though you are designing a specific protocol for your ailment that still means you need to keep up with the MM basics (celery juice, clean water, heavy metal detox smoothie, no NO foods, etc) See post 20 for the basics.
Side note: A woman in our Facebook group mentioned to me that the best advice I gave her was to buy Life Changing Foods on her phone. Why? Cause the search function on your phone can pull up ALL instances where MM talks about bladder or lungs or whatever. It's search capability is just more powerful than a traditional book.
13. Design a protocol for yourself. If that doesn’t work, try another hypothesis/protocol. If that doesn't work try focus on different elements within one protocol. If that doesn’t work, try it again while doing a cleanse.
Long Story: This is basically how I healed myself. It was a process of learning MM information and resonating with certain conditions and ailments. Then I would try the protocol out for a few weeks. If I experienced a reduction in pain, great, I would increase my efforts. If I didn’t feel a decrease in pain, then I would pour through MM information and try another hypothesis. For years it would take me 2-4 attempts. As I learned the pattern of my reoccurring symptoms, I started to recognize them quicker. Although a few times this didn’t work at all and I had to embark on a cleanse WHILE targeting my symptoms (see number 3 above). That worked really nicely. That being said, unfortunately I found that some ailments heal much slower than others like severe nerve pain, teeth decay, weight gain. I find ailments in the slower category to be incredibly frustrating cause I just have to keep going and usually increase supplementation while eating super clean.
Another time after my second round with COVID my skin flared with horrible horrible acne. Sigh. It was also horribly flushed in weird places all over my face. One of my favorites concoctions is fresh turmeric juiced with orange juice blended with fresh aloe. This usually clears it up within a day or so. It didn't work. Spinach helps a lot too. Then I got a wave of extreme fatigue. (I have a history of anemia) I assumed that COVID was just flaring some of my underlining ailments. EBV consumes iron in the body (causing anemia) and EBV also creates a slime in the body that strep likes to live in, causing the acne. So I started on the anemia protocol and made sure to increase my zinc. Nettle leaf heals anemia and acne. I also forage for it in the forest near my house and any herbs that are foraged in the wild are more potent, per MM. My skin was drastically clearer within 24 hours. A few days later it was back to normal and my energy levels as well. So make sure you explore your options by focusing on different elements within one protocol that MM recommends because usually he recommends a lot of things for one ailment.
14. This is a game of trial and error. I didn't have a FULL PICTURE of my health till AFTER I figured out how to heal it. Let me explain.
Long Story: Conventional medicine begins with tests to get a diagnosis then follows conventional protocols to address the ailment. It is a bit tricky when using MM information to heal because you're not quite sure what's going on. Is it strep or shingles or strep/EBV or toxins/metals or blood toxicity or everything? In my experience, a really good start is the general MM basics (lemon water from clean source), celery juice, HMDS, no NO foods, low fat, zinc, B12, micro C, increase leafy greens, increased fruits/veggies, etc. These basics are the foundation of ANY MM protocol. And honestly, to reach this point takes time to transition.
After you conquer these basics or most of the basics, that's where you start to target your top ailments with specific MM recommendations. This is where the trial and error process begins. For example... if I had vaginal pain I would to first focus on the strep protocol for awhile (goldenseal, cat's claw, aloe, etc) while doing the MM basics. Did your main ailment decrease a little? If not try shingles (aloe, cat's claw, propolis, lysine, etc). Keep diving into MM info and try connecting the dots. Always remember... MM has specific recommendations for vaginal pain as well which is caused by inflamed nerves (see post 3). What's tricky is that most MM recommendations kill many different viruses and heal many issues.
This story might help... I first started MM healing before his books and Facebook groups. At the time he had a radio show and his website. He stated that 90% of women with PID is caused by strep. I had vulvodynia which was extreme vaginal burning. I did not have PID but I figured it was close. So I did the basics while focusing on strep (cat's claw, golden, nettle, etc). This healed 90% of the burning but I couldn't get all the way there. So I added lobelia (he doesn't recommend it anymore cause propolis is stronger) and within days it healed up the rest of the burning. I had VAGINAL SHINGLES! I had INFLAMED NERVES! I didn't not realize this till lobelia. Again... this process is a bit backwards.
I had to play with the protocols to figure out what worked, what didn't and why. Then I could piece together the history of my health. What's nice about this process is that if you pick the "wrong" protocol to heal an ailment, you're probably gonna heal another part of your body. Nothing you can do within MM protocols can harm you which is different than conventional drugs/prescriptions.
Here's a bunch of examples... If you eat too much papaya, it's fine. Your tummy will be really flat for awhile. Once I was healing my anemia and drank buckets of nettle leaf which also calmed down my vagina and cleared up my skin. Another time I was focusing licorice root to heal my adrenals and accidentally increased my libido (libido is controlled by adrenals). To this day, if my husband sees licorice root on the counter he gives me "the look." Haha! Sigh. My main goal for a few years was to heal my vagina. What happens when you heal a vagina? You most likely heal a uterus as well. We were taking precautions not to get pregnant but of course I got pregnant with our beautiful daughter who is now a wild toddler. Thankfully! I'm not joking... if you are working on healing your vagina and do not want to get pregnant, please take extra precautions.
15. Just keep going. I know this one sucks.
Long Story: This one is the absolute worst. Some ailments take time to heal. Some ailments take time to bring the pain down which means that you just have to keep showing up. Every day. It took a long time for you to get this sick so don’t be shocked that it will also take time to “turn the ship around.”
(TRIGGER WARNING: this includes the story of my miscarriage) I found MM when my son was around 1 1/2 or so. During my son's first year of life we both we get a horrible flu that would last 7 days every month... for an entire year. It was a nightmare. They were horrible. Once I found MM information I integrated a good amount of his protocols during that year but I definitely didn’t go in at 100%. The flus just stopped... abruptly. It was wild.
During this first year, I didn't even address my vagina cause honestly I just got used to living with a “hot” vagina and painful sex at different times during the month. A year later or so later, I got pregnant. During this pregnancy I was gestational diabetic even though I was eating really good compared to everyone around me. I was weak and sick. At 12 weeks I had a miscarriage and of course during the miscarriage the vulvodynia came back. FML. The uncontrolled burning began and I was just emotionally and physically floored. So I dove into his information and started to target the burning and the vaginal hotness.
Over the next two years I just spent time healing. I healed my vagina, urethra, shingles, face shingles, occipital neuralgia, etc. At this point we were happy with one child and we were taking precautions to NOT get pregnant. What happens when you spend two years healing your vagina? You guessed it, I got pregnant with my daughter. During her pregnancy I was not gestational diabetic and my numbers were always in the healthy range. I had a little bit of anemic which I healed in the matter of weeks using MM information. I flared once which I healed within a few weeks (see post 9). Her birth was in less than an hour and I wasn’t in pain for 6 months afterwards like I was after my son’s birth. My son who I had preMM had a heart murmur at birth and ended up being extremely hypoglycemic. My daughter has neither of those problems, thankfully.
Reflecting back I realized that I just needed more time to heal which was difficult cause my patience has never been my strong suit. I needed more time to "turn the ship around." I understand, it's a hard reality to face. But in my experience, my efforts were not wasted this time. I really did heal.
So heads down and tits up ladies! Just keep going.
Comments
Post a Comment