Finally! I Saw Hope on the Horizon in My Decade-Long Health Struggle

How I found answers to heal myself after over a decade of chronic disease - when I least expected it

Breakthroughs were on the horizon!—photo by author

💡 In my first Substack post, I shared how I found answers to my health issues from unexpected sources. Today, the story continues…

I was finally healing. After more than a decade of searching for answers to my problems, I found them! But this was only the beginning. Little did I know what was yet to come…

Many breakthroughs were on the horizon, but also many unpleasant surprises. One thing was clear: I still had a lot to learn about my body and how to heal it.

From weekly to monthly migraines

The results so far had been amazing! I went from having a migraine attack every week to only once per month. But the question remained: Why did I still have migraines?

It was quite clear my severe headaches were linked to my menstrual cycle. They always came a week before my period started—a typical symptom of PMS (premenstrual syndrome).

It is said nearly 50% of women of reproductive age worldwide experience PMS

So we were aware of the what. The why, however, remained a mystery to us. I was exercising daily, eating a healthy whole-food diet, and sleeping better than I ever had in my life. Why was I still having migraines?

One night everything fell apart

In Spring 2023, we were about to hop on a bus to Portugal at 7 am. But that night everything changed. I woke up at 5 am with excruciating pain in my abdomen. I thought I was having a miscarriage.

At the local clinic, we received news that turned our whole life upside down:

I had fibroids.

For a moment we felt like everything had fallen apart. But after the initial shock, we realized we finally found the missing piece of the puzzle. The fibroids were disrupting my hormonal balance, causing fatigue, and keeping me from reaching a healthy body weight.

The diagnosis freed us from all the doubts and gave us direction. At the hospital, they also treated me for anemia. I must have been anemic for years because the iron IV treatment gave me more energy than I had ever felt before.

We went to the beach that day. I was running through the water like a little girl—the newfound energy surging through my body.

The day I felt more alive than I ever had before—photo by author

Help from a chemist in an Irish pub…

But the hormonal imbalance was taking its toll on my body. The fibroids in my womb kept me from recovering from the anemia. Something had to change, but what?

We still didn’t know the underlying why.

Until one night we went to an Irish pub. That’s where everything changed—in a place we least expected. At an English meetup, we were looking for friends—and we succeeded—but we found much more than that. We found our why.

One of our new friends was a chemist writing a book on iodine and its link to female reproductive health—he told us over a glass of Guinness. I had been quiet until then. I always am in a group of strangers. But when I heard “iodine” I forgot I was naturally shy.

“I have a tumor in my uterus!”

I yelled across the pub tables to the chemist sitting on the other end.

“I have to find out more about this!”

He yelled back as he took his chair and sat down beside us.

“Iodine. It’s all iodine.”

The chemist sat with pen and paper in the Irish pub, ready to note down my answers to his questions. I continued listing my symptoms (I had quite a few). To each symptom, he answered, “Iodine. That’s because you need iodine.”

“I know I sound like a broken record, but many if not most problems can be linked to an iodine deficiency.”

I was skeptical. As I’ve shared, I’ve tried countless methods for over a decade to fix my health. I was tired of trying more. “But don’t worry,” he told me, “I will send you two books so you can research for yourself.”

So he did. Over the next weeks, I found myself reading The Iodine Crisis by Lynne Farrow and Iodine: Why You Need It, Why You Can’t Live Without It by Dr. Brownstein. Lynne Farrow’s book left me in tears. It was like reading about my life.

All the symptoms she listed, I had too. She no longer has them thanks to iodine. Dr. Brownstein’s patients were reporting the same success stories.

Now, a year later, my success story can be added to the list. Iodine changed my life. I cannot wait to share how in my future health letters!

Looking forward to sharing more next week! In the meantime, I can’t wait to connect in our health community. Let’s heal together! 💛

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I wrote about this life-changing experience in another story on Medium some months ago (the link is freely accessible to anyone interested in reading more).