**Please note, this blog post is not to be used as medical advice. Always consult with a Doctor for medications and a Nutritional Practitioner for dietary changes.
This blog post was written by my husband Stefan about his health journey.
Going back into your past to revisit a time of suffering isn’t the most pleasant thing to do. It was a challenging time that I am happy to forget about, but I recognize my story can help someone else who is going through something similar.
In my late teens, I partied heavily and was addicted to that lifestyle, but after having several grand mal seizures I was forced to quit drinking and dramatically change my life. During this time, a neurologist diagnosed me with epilepsy. I was prescribed divalproex sodium, and my license was suspended for a year. I was discouraged and angry with the way the events in my life were playing out. I felt as if life had cheated me.
A short while after, I was invited to a mixed martial arts class. Releasing my frustration in a healthy manner sounded like a good idea, so I went. Throughout my early 20’s, I became passionate about martial arts. For the next 5-6 years, I practiced Jujitsu and Muay Thai kickboxing regularly.Â
Muay Thai is a high adrenaline sport that can be quite taxing on the body. After years of practice, I wanted to test myself, so I began competing in amateur Muay Thai fights.
Before competing, I hired a sports nutritionist to learn how to reach peak performance, while maintaining a lean body to compete in a specific weight class. I learned a little bit about nutrition and switched to a gluten and dairy-free diet. One factor I didn’t learn about was the importance of eating a wide range of different foods to ensure my body was receiving a variety of nutrients. As a bachelor who spent all of his time at the gym, I essentially ate chicken breast, rice and frozen veggies for 2 to 3 years straight.
I was training Muay Thai approximately two hours a night, four days a week. When I wasn’t training, I would jog 6-10km to improve my cardio. Although I loved training, my body was under a lot of stress – physically and mentally. As you can imagine, there is also a mental side to competing in front of large crowds. No one wants to be on the receiving end of a knock out video.
Leading up to my first fight, I trained very hard, but no amount of preparation removed the fear of the unknown. To say I was nervous was an understatement. But I managed to get myself into the ring to fight. The bell rang and everything was a blur from thereon. From a combination of nerves and not pacing myself properly, I completely ran out of gas after the first round. During the second and third rounds, my body went into survival mode producing enough adrenaline just to survive. By the grace of God, I scored a knock out with only a short amount of time left in the third round.
In hindsight, I should’ve taken some time off to rest, but the rush of winning was enticing. I foolishly dove right back into training full-time, working my body harder and harder each time. The overtraining went on for a few years.
Although I always had asthma since childhood, I found I needed my inhalers more often while training to open my lungs. For many years I had struggled with sinusitis, and because my nose was always plugged with blood from sparring I had to use a prescription nasal spray to breathe (2-3x/day). For several years, I consistently took corticosteroid nose spray for sinus infections and steroid inhalers for asthma. At the time, I did not realize that using corticosteroids regularly was impacting my health negatively. I began to experience a suppressed HPA axis (hypothalamic pituitary adrenal).
I started noticing a decrease in my energy and my cardio was declining. After training, it would take me quite a while to recover and I constantly felt like I was battling the flu. I wasn’t competing well and it felt like I was fighting out of an old man’s body. I finally decided to take a break from fighting until I figured out what was going on with my health.
Over the next couple of years, I went to countless doctor’s appointments. I was referred to several specialists and had various tests done. One-by-one they told me they didn’t know what was wrong with me, “Maybe it’s just anxiety.” or “Maybe it was in my head.”
Competitive athletes become very in tune with their bodies. When your performance begins to drastically decrease in every area, it’s obvious that something is off. I was extremely frustrated that I wasn’t getting any answers and I knew it wasn’t in my head. This began my journey with holistic nutrition and alternative medicine.
My physical health journey also led to my spiritual health journey. At the time I very little interest in learning about God. My Grandma taught me how to pray when I was little but that was all I had for a spiritual upbringing. It wasn’t until I was in this humbled state that I started diligently praying and asking for help. I said, “Lord if You will direct my steps in the path of healing, and bring the right women into my life, I will change my life.”
Shortly after that, I met my future wife Jayde. She was also struggling with her health and was seeking answers. Three months after we met, she became passionate about health and decided to go back to school to study Holistic Nutrition. We both began to learn how to heal our bodies naturally. Jayde was passionate about cooking and I was passionate about eating, it was love at first sight.
When I met Jayde’s parents, they shared about their relationship with Jesus and invited me to church. Initially, I declined, but over the next couple of weeks my health was only getting worse, and I kept being reminded about the promise I had made to God. I eventually joined her family at church and heard a thorough explanation of the gospel message. Although I was seeking physical healing, from that point on God began working on healing my heart, which lead me to repent and surrender my life to Christ.
At the time, I did not realize that finding the root cause of my health issues could take some time. I wanted to feel better right away. I was used to the quick-fix approach of taking a pill to alleviate my symptoms. Along with feeling like I had the flu and brain fog, I was constantly fighting colds and my immune system was weak.
As Jayde continued her journey to study nutrition, we realized my symptoms sounded very similar to adrenal fatigue, medically known as the HPA axis dysregulation. We began focusing on healing the adrenal glands with nutrition and a supplement protocol. I also began working with an M.D that specialized in Functional Medicine. Through the DUTCH Hormone Test, he confirmed our suspicion about my adrenal glands not functioning properly. My adrenaline was running on full-blast for too long and my body just couldn’t handle it anymore. As a result, my body was no longer producing enough stress balancing hormones. Anything physically exerting would put me on the couch for a couple of days feeling very sick and run down.
Jayde became my holistic nurse during this time. She would cook nutritious meals for me and made sure I stayed on top of taking my supplements for healing.
I would like to tell you that things got better immediately but they didn’t. For the better part of a year, I would wake up in the middle of the night and would not be able to fall back asleep. Anytime my stress hormones were out of whack, I wasn’t able to sleep well. The lack of sleep caused added stress to my body which often put me in an adrenal crash. It was a vicious tormenting cycle that took many days to get back into a normal sleep rhythm.
While researching some of the potential causes of HPA axis dysregulation, I learned that the epilepsy prescription I was on was quite toxic, and had a long list of potential side effects. Although there was no way to tell for sure, this prescription could have been a contributing factor to my health decline, and I hadn’t had a seizure in ten years. After prayerfully and carefully considering the potential risks and benefits of going off the medication, I decided it was worth the risk. Over the next year and a half, I slowly weaned off the medication while experiencing terrible withdrawal. The day after I took my last pill I woke up with a constant high pitch ringing in my ears. I was sent to a hearing specialist to have some testing done and was diagnosed with hearing loss. I’ve had a constant high pitch ring in my ears ever since. My doctor confirmed that this was a rare side effect of the epilepsy medication.
During this withdrawal period, my body was not capable of handling any type of stress. I was not able to do anything physically exerting at all, I had to hire people to cut the grass and shovel the snow. I had to take a lot of sick days off of work and missed several important family events.
The positive side of this journey was that it revealed what kind of person Jayde was. God made it very clear to me that Jayde was the one I was supposed to marry. With the current condition of my health, I was nervous about the life we would have, but Jayde told me she was in for the long haul. We began planning for our wedding. The closer we got to the wedding date, the worse my health seemed to get. In all honesty, we were both fearful of the future.
On the day of our wedding, I was in very rough shape. To top it off, there was a 90% chance of thundershowers for our outdoor ceremony. By the grace of God, the rain held off. We made it through the ceremony and just after the pictures were finished it rained for about 15-20 minutes and then held off.
Later in the evening, our photographer asked if we wanted to have a few more photos done. He snapped some photos and said, “Wow, look up at the sky. There is your silver lining!”
We both knew this was our life promise. No matter what the forecast looked like, God would carry us through the storm. The very last thing on the wedding agenda was to cut the cake. The moment the knife entered the cake, the thunder rumbled, the clouds opened, and it poured rain.
For the next couple of years after our wedding, I remained consistent with my clean-eating regime, having a strict evening routine to get sleep, and being consistent with my healing supplements. I began noticing that my adrenal crashes were happening less frequently. Gradually, I started to add in light physical tasks back into my life but was very cautious to not overdo it.
After being stuck in what seemed like a hopeless pit for many years, I was shocked to realize I was starting to get better. Right around the same time, Jayde revealed to me she was pregnant. For several different reasons, this was a pivotal moment for me. From around that point on, my health started improving at a very steady rate. By the grace of God, my health was completely restored just in time for the birth of our son, Elijah. I had fully received my strength back just in time to take care of him. This was the Bible promise I held onto during my healing journey.
Isaiah 40:31
But those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.
Shortly after our wedding, I had a follow-up with a neurologist to have some testing done. He advised me going off of the medication was the right decision, and I was falsely diagnosed with epilepsy in my 20s.
Today, I no longer need inhalers as I do not have asthma anymore. I can breathe great and I no longer struggle with sinus problems or allergies. I have the energy to cut my lawn and shovel the driveway, and I no longer have sleep issues.
I am very grateful to have reclaimed my health, and I will never take my health for granted again. I hope my story inspires you to not give up hope. Healing naturally takes time but it can happen. It has now been two years since I have had an adrenal crash and I now have the energy to keep up with my one-year-old little boy!
If you are ready to reclaim your health, contact Jayde or learn more by clicking here.
