So, here, at last, is my new year update for you. I do this every year as a kind of recap of what happened last year and what’s coming this year. Half the time, I don’t even know until I write this! I think on paper as one of my old bosses said to me, and she was right.
You can see last years’ update here, if you wish. Meantime, why does my new year picture contain satsumas?? Because I can eat them now. Oh yes. More on my lessening sensitivity – at last! – below.
First, let’s review the clinic year…
Clinic Update
Blogging and social media
Last year, I continued my usual blog post writing and automated social media posting to save myself time but to ensure those of you who follow me on Facebook and Twitter got the posts. I wrote 54,000 words in 96 posts! Views were down a bit from 43K last year to 37.5K this year, which is a bit of a shame but not bad since I opened up clinic to patients fully again so had much less time.
I have a total of just over 8,000 followers – quality rather than quantity as I regularly cull anyone who’s not opened a post for 3 months. I want people to read what I write! It’s small fry to some, but I’m proud of my little Purehealth family!
I do sometimes wonder if the blog and social media writing is a big waste of my time and I should stop. I don’t get paid for my time – and it takes a LOT. I could be spending my time on patient work, couldn’t I? It’s a conundrum. But I do so enjoy it and ‘talking with you’ and then I go and get emails saying things like:
I continue to be amazed how the depth and breath of your newsletters
and the wonderful information that you share. Are your days 36 hours in the UK?!! From J, a naturopathic US doc
Love reading monthly newsletters. Keeps me informed. I’ve been on thyroxin for over 10 years and never questioned it. Now I know what questions to ask.
So I carry on!
Patient work
Talking of time, I am so pleased to have been able to take full patient cases on again. This year, I increased the email support to include the ever-popular As Mickis, Test Reports and Case Reviews. I split the Test Reports up to make it more affordable for people who only had one or two simpler results. I added Progress Reviews for people who wished to continue to work as a patient with me after their Case Review and 60 Minute Support for people who like to be able to email me with questions and get support at any time. Most recently, I also added a MedsCheck for people who want me to check any meds contraindications – of which I find many! All of those are very successful.
I have over 50 active patients currently, so there is a lot of juggling going on!
As you know, I am a generalist by nature as I get so interested in everything and, let’s face it, not everything fits in a nice easily-labelled box. After 30 years in natural medicine in one way or another, I now attract the complex cases which take a lot of working out, support and reassurance for patients. Frankly, it’s hard work. But I enjoy it! And people seem to be getting benefit, so all good:
…feel like I am finally finding what is at the root of my various symptoms, I cannot thank you
enough.
Have to say your advice around the trauma work has been an absolute game changer for me. Can’t believe what a difference it’s made, am so grateful you spotted that.
Thanks very much for the recent test results and for having the instincts and insights to point me in the right direction.
I am starting to wonder how to streamline things again so I don’t get overwhelmed. Sadly, I lost my virtual assistant, Christine Ann, who had been helping me mainly with the TGF (TrulyGlutenFree for newbies) work as she needed to concentrate on her own needs a bit more. I know that feeling! I’ve been working on improving systems, hence setting the patient system up on Healthpath Pro and producing my reports via Practice Better where I have uploaded a ton of little snippets of advice, supplements, recipes etc so I can easily choose what I want to include in your reports without rewriting it every time! I now need to streamline my supplement choices as there are so many! I am in the middle of analysing the best ones for each type of case and writing advisory snippets of how best to take them etc – again so I don’t have to rethink and rewrite every time.
Lab test service
Test-wise, the new Test Pages where you can order direct or via the shop seem to be working well, although I do still spend a lot of time pointing people to things so I need to make that even better somehow. I don’t really like not having all tests come through me (not that I’m a control freak!), but needs must for now or I’d have no time to do anything else. Maybe I should just run the test service; that would be a fulltime job in itself!
Despite the fact that most tests are ordered direct now, I still dealt with over 700 orders on the shop this year – 420 of which were test orders! Almost 250 of the rest were Support requests and the rest were book and factsheet downloads.
I listed some new labs for you and am currently working on adding the Biolab replacement, Viva Labs (yay!) and a new phlebotomy service so watch this space!
I have been thinking whether it might be good to get another assistant to help with tests and the patient admin work. Not many people of my experience and busyness do everything themselves lol! P was going to help me but he’s not got the knowledge (or will!) really; he’s busy with his own voiceover work. I did have an assistant before, as some of you know, but that turned out to be more trouble than it was worth and has sadly made me very wary of getting another one, despite the fact that initially it really helped!
Generalist or specialist?
I do wonder if I should specialise to make my life easier – male menopause or preconceptual care are favourites. I can’t convince my subconscious I have either of those and, as we know – if you’ve been following me for any time – my subconscious is very suggestible, so I’m careful what I concentrate my mind on – what goes together, wires together and all that!
Why those subjects? Well, it’s not as mad as it sounds.
Male menopause (or andropause) is almost completely ignored. I know female menopause has too but there is even less for men and I come across it a lot. Many men who have lost ‘potency’ if you like, feel flat, demotivated, losing muscle mass, libido, feel more angry and irritable, anxious, develop belly fat and man boobs, just no longer feel like themselves. Yes, we women recognise this too! But who’s looking after the men? I see it as helping women too as it helps get their partners and happier lives back! Men seem to respond well, too, to my direct, sciencey delivery style in-clinic and I like working with them.
Preconceptual care? Simply because if I could do something to prevent later-life illness, autoimmunity etc, I should. It all starts even before the baby is in the womb. The research is incontrovertible. What we do to our bodies pre-conception and from that point onwards can have a huge impact on the later-life health of our offspring. Anyway, in terms of preventative healthcare – always my main aim – you couldn’t do any better than start there, you know.
You see, there I go again: a generalist. I am interested in both and loads more besides – I already ‘specialise’ in gluten illness, fatigue, food sensitivity and trauma-triggered illness. Ha!
Training and writing
On that point, I didn’t manage to do much on my Kharrazian Advanced Practitioner courses this year – I have about 7 to do! I started the Chronic Fatigue one recently and dive in and out of others regularly looking for up to date research etc. Instead, I spent a lot of my time trying to find solutions still for multiple/total food intolerance and MCAS (mast cell activation syndrome) especially, since I was diagnosed with it a couple of years ago and realised there were very few practitioners people could go to for good advice. Every time I think I’ve sussed it and am ready to release my new MCAS Plan, I find something I’ve missed so it’s taking a lot longer than I thought! Par for the course for such a complex disease.
I did release the new MCAS Factsheet in the A-Z and updated loads on the others constantly through the year. Do check them out if you are looking for advice on any health matter. There are, in fact, 146 pages of advice on this website!
This year, I also started a new Practitioner newsletter too, Clinic Notes, as I really felt it was time to start sharing my knowledge more for newer and less confident practitioners and I kept being asked for help by other practitioners. Also, to be honest, I wanted to be a bit less lonely in clinical practice and to open myself up a bit more to my peers. The aim was really to develop other practitioners’ skills and therefore get more patients well. It was really well received but because I charged for it (a very minimal amount to cover the delivery costs), I wasn’t allowed to promote it on practitioner forums so it didn’t get enough followers to make it worth giving up valuable clinic time for, sadly, Shame as I really enjoyed writing it. My forte is definitely information-sharing! Instead, I now offer mentoring for practitioners if asked.
Personal Update
Phew. Loads in clinic stuff, then, and much more I’ve forgotten or not mentioned! However, the BIG news this year is in my own health and personal life!
My MCAS (mast cell activation syndrome)
Cutting a long story short, I explained last year, that I got diagnosed with MCAS (something at last) after I referred myself privately to an MCAS doctor. I felt I needed more help than I could give myself anymore. Mostly, though, I was scared by the prospect of going into hospital for Covid and being given stuff that would make me worse. I needed something on my notes about my hypersensitivity!
I had a much broader diet and felt relatively well as long as I stuck to my ‘core’ diet but I still couldn’t tolerate any of my own supplements or recommendations to ‘break’ into my body and stop the cycle of hypersensitivity and pain. Frankly, I was fed up. This has been going on all my life but badly for 14 years! I reasoned that, if I could get some meds in to calm my system down, I could then get some supplements in to start doing some repair work and gradually be able to come off the meds. A viable option I often suggest to patients. Needs must and I am a believer in dovetailing mainstream and functional medicine – whatever works best for the patient.
So, it took me MONTHS to get any meds in at all, starting with a tiny bit on my tongue until I could get a whole dose in, then working up from there. I think it took about 8 months to get to a reasonable dose of the first med, and we were aiming for frequent doses of 3 different meds! It is not an easy process when you are hypersensitive to everything.
Anyway, eventually this year, I managed to get 4 per day of an antihistamine injection solution (I couldn’t tolerate normal stuff) and 12 per day of sodium cromoglicate vials to lower mast cell activity. I was taking something every hour or so, which is not easy. I tried the third med – an H2 antihistamine – and got burning mouth syndrome for 2 months! Not pleasant. Essentially, I didn’t feel they were doing me much good; I had all the same symptoms, maybe a bit less migraine at the start, but no change at all to my sensitivity levels, my jaw was back hurting again, so was the fibromyalgia pain. I also felt they were suppressing my immune system too much as I had Covid (or something like it) 5 times and developed skin infections. I blasted them at full dosage for over a month to see if it would help and, if not, I was going to tell the consultant that I was going to stop them. I was quite depressed about it, to be honest, yet another intervention not worked enough or for long enough – the classic MCAS picture.
Moving house
In the meantime, we had finished doing up our flat in Warwickshire and had sold it – twice. It fell through on exchange day the first time! So, a tad stressed, we rented a tiny cottage in Polperro in Cornwall, re-sold it and waiting nearly 6 months for it to go through! We almost killed each other in the process, living and working in such close proximity 24 hours a day!
In the end, due to solicitor inefficiency (not ours, who was brilliant) they gave us 4 days’ notice to find a rental so we ended up with the only nice, just about affordable thing we could get in Cornwall at such short notice – a ‘wing’ of a beautiful manor house near Bodmin. Stunning, but it has proved, as we feared, freezing cold in Winter, and very, very costly to run! We are moving out shortly lol, so more excitements to come soon – I’ll keep you posted! Be nice to be able to finally settle now we’ve had our fill of doing places up and selling them on. P will be bored!
Major sensitivity change!
However, during that hectic 4 day moving period, I just didn’t take my meds. They gradually petered out and then I just stopped as I realised I actually felt better off them. Go figure. But then a strange thing happened. Five days after I stopped, I suddenly felt able to eat again! I have no idea why, other than maybe it was a combination of the meds breaking the cycle and work I was doing with increasing my microbiome diversity, meditation, brain retraining again, apple healing recipe, the joy of returning to the sea and loads of other stuff, all coming together in a sort of crescendo. Either way, whatever happened, I am so grateful for it.
I am pretty much on a ‘normal’ grain and dairy free diet now. I’m eating most things, although there are clearly still some foods which inflame me and I am gradually working those out – tea, coconut and anything in plastic packaging so far. I still won’t touch anything grain-based and I still can’t tolerate supplements for some reason – the plastic containers?? It has now been almost 5 months. I daren’t say too much before; I didn’t want to jinx it, and the last time I managed to open up my diet only lasted 3 months!
How cool is that?! There is hope, peeps. If I can get there, so can you, as I am pretty much my most sensitive patient!
After a few months of totally gleeful eating and drinking – including a bacon (almond bread) sarnie for Christmas Eve brekkie, egg and chips for Christmas lunch and a lentil home-made curry and onion bhajis for New Year (!), plenty of fizz and chocolates, almond bread, tigernut flour muffins and brownies and such like (and the weight gain to go with it, oops!), I am now starting to settle (relax?) into a much more healing diet. Back to my smoothies, apple recipe (which I can now add cinnamon etc to), soups, more wild fish, but with the extra treats and variety thrown in. Tomatoes and eggs have been the real gamechanger. I am a bit addicted to lentil or pea pasta with pesto and passata! And spices and herbs: don’t get me started…Flavour. At last!
One aspect that may be playing into the changes to my diet and sensitivity levels is – the change itself. I am definitely entering menopause now and hormones are changing. Maybe my oestrogen (which promotes histamine release) has dropped sufficiently to help me? It’s not helping my mood, temperature or belly, though, but you cant have everything. If I’m less sensitive, I can work on that. I have already introduced more hormone-balancing foods such as flaxseed and soya.
I did stop my ginger tea that I was having several times a day. There is some research to suggest that it could be a cross-reactive food to gluten. Maybe that released some of the pressure on my system?
There was a sort of spiritual element to it too. Either my subconscious or the Universe, or God, whatever you believe, sort of ‘told’ me it was OK to begin eating again. I just felt it. I didn’t even need to question it; it just ‘was’ if you know what I mean. I had been meditating quite a bit so was open to listening to my inner self. Weird, but not questioning it. Acceptance is key!
Goodness only knows, to be honest. I’m just so glad to be less sensitive at last! Long may it continue.
It has meant I can at last tolerate dental treatment to start sorting my mouth out, which is a big relief. As I sit here, I have 17 stitches in my mouth – it is so inflamed, it bleeds out when they do some work so they have to stitch me up! But, no pain. Blessed relief after 10 years of it! I’ve a way to go with this over the next few months and then hopefully I can speak without lisping and do videos for you again!
The good news for you is that I feel well enough for the patient work. I’ll see how it goes but I’ve not had a migraine now for 3 months and may be able to open up to phone and face to face patients again if that continues (please God, Universe or whoever). Wouldn’t that be less lonely!? I am still inflamed – a new thing is pain in my joints down my left side and nodules on my fingers – it is definitely worse for some foods so I need to work on supporting my joints/connective tissue and lowering the overall systemic inflammation clearly still going on in my body. An oestrogen drop can lead to joint pain and aching, so it may well be one step forward, one step back, you know. Anyway, more for me to work out! Determined to get there as usual.
OK, so that’s the update for this year. Lots going on as per! Some decisions to make personally and professionally and I’ll keep you posted – IF I continue the blogging lol. Generally-speaking, I’m hoping this year will be more joyful and kind for all of us. If I can pass on some of my joyfulness and get you feeling much better too, I will!
What have you been up to? What are you planning or aiming for this year? Do share so we can encourage you! Meantime, wishing you a happy and healthy 2023. Let me know how I can help more, of course, and thank you for being a part of our Purehealth family. Here’s to a great year for all of us.
Much love, Micki x