I Disagree

by Patrick Flynn

  Health is a very emotional topic, and understandably so. It’s extremely personal and can have consequences that can literally destroy lives; be it financially, emotionally, physically, or a combination of all three. People can become extremely defensive about health decisions, and rely heavily on emotions. Having come this far in your understanding, however, let me ask you a question: do you think the traditional medical way of thinking has been bringing us closer to health? Emotional as it may be, looking at the statistics, there is no question: the fire department is excellent, but we are sorely lacking in carpenters. Our emergency care is second to none, but if we are increasingly dying from long-term, chronic conditions, something is still wrong. We are not healthy.

  Taking the conventional path is easy. If you don’t count the frustration, heartache, and hit-and-miss results, you will find it a comforting path. You will be like the vast majority of the herd, and people are very comfortable with being in the herd. Everyone going one way, traveling together with little resistance along the clearly marked path. Here’s the problem though – where’s the herd going? Are they taking you where you really want to go? Now that you’ve made it to the end of this book, I hope you realize just how important those questions are.

  This is where the story changes, for the better!

  In the picture above, there’s a sheep thinking differently. He has his head raised high, and clearly has ideas that differ from the herd. While the other sheep are being blindly led, that single sheep is changing his story. This is how I picture life. So many people are blindly following a path, in the pursuit of health. The path is a series of misinformation, bad habits, poor health advice, and however well-intended, the intent doesn’t matter because the actual results are disastrous. It’s a bleak picture, but that’s what makes this exciting – the story isn’t over.

  In the picture above, I think you know which sheep I identify with – the one thinking differently! I hope by now I have provided enough evidence and provoked enough thought that you are thinking differently too. Unlike the image though, there is more than just one who is bold. There are many of us. Actually, there are hundreds of thousands of us – across the country, and across the globe, all thinking differently and taking a stand. Realizing there’s more to be done, realizing there are different, better answers, and getting incredible results as we go. This is where the story changes, for the better! Not just my story, your story. Your story is so important! Not just to you, but to everyone around you. Your story reaches your loved ones and community, and has the power to change lives. This is where we impact not only our generation, but generations to come. Now, more than ever, it’s time to take a stand, think differently, and say I disagree!

  Nicole’s Story

  So many things are clear when looking back. Hindsight is definitely 20/20. Since puberty, I have struggled with my periods. In high school they were regular in terms of time, but they were also painful leading to missed school. I also struggled with anemia so severe I was seeing specialists, and having colonoscopies to find the source of low iron levels. These specialists never found the cause of the anemia and why I would frequently pass out. I now understand my periods were way too heavy and I was losing too much blood.

  My mom approved the use of birth control to help steady my period. I did find some relief for the couple of years that I was on it. I left for college and started planning a wedding. I knew that my periods were inconsistent. I wanted to have a more regular life and let my body adjust, find a normal rhythm. I knew this would take some time so 6 months before my husband and I got married, I went off birth control.

  After stopping the birth control, I went months without getting a period. I was a virgin at the time, but I was convinced I had somehow gotten pregnant. When it did come it was incredibly painful and it would then be months before having another one.

  I finally went to see a Nurse Practitioner about the issues. She did some further testing and I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). Because I had such irregular periods, they told me it would likely be very difficult for me to conceive. This news was devastating. I found out a few months before I was supposed to get married. I had the conversation with my fiancé. I knew he had always wanted to have children.

  “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to have kids. Are you sure you still want to marry me even if this is something I can’t give you?” I asked him. He was surprised but said whatever it takes, we’ll figure this out together. When I was younger and had gone on mission trips, one thing they asked us during team building exercises was our biggest fear. My biggest fear was always that I wouldn’t be able to have kids. When we were going through pre-marital counseling, I said I didn’t want kids. I think it was a defense mechanism. I believed that if I didn’t want children, it wouldn’t be painful to find out that I couldn’t. Through that pre-marital counseling, I realized that I really did want kids. The reality that I might be unable to have children felt like a nightmare.

  We started our marriage in this stage of not knowing what our future family would look like. During that first year of marriage while dealing with the diagnosis of PCOS, I gained 70 pounds. When we had been married two years, I was still in college, so we weren’t actively trying to have a baby. Because I knew that the possibility existed that it would be difficult for me to conceive, we decided we weren’t going to prevent any pregnancy with birth control. We decided that if it happens, it happens. A baby would be God’s gift to us. Reality was, all these people around me were getting pregnant that didn’t want to get pregnant. I was having a hard time processing our situation. We were married. We had a good home for welcoming babies. Why wasn’t this happening for us? I went into a depression thinking parenthood was never going to happen for us. One night I was just lying in bed and I started praying. “God, I do feel like I’m going to have a baby someday, but could you give me a dream or a sign or something to get my mind in the right mindset if adoption is my future? Please bring me some sort of clarity. I’m afraid of the unknown.” That night I dreamed I was in a dark room with my eyes closed, rubbing my belly and feeling that distinct kick of a baby growing in the womb. I felt in my dream that someone had said, “His name is Simon.” I woke up wondering what it meant. Simon is very specific and a name I wouldn’t normally have picked for a baby. However, God has named a lot of people throughout history. I looked up the meaning of the name Simon; He has heard. I was stunned. The next month I found out I was pregnant with my son. Of course, we named him Simon!

  After Simon was born, I was still very overweight. My doctor prescribed Metformin, a prescription often given to people who have PCOS. It helps insulin resistance, a common concern with PCOS. It gave me digestive upset. I never knew when I would have diarrhea and it was awful. After a month, I stopped taking the Metformin and decided I was going to have to live with the situation and deal with it. I felt like at this time, God was whispering to me, “get your body back to healthy and the second one will come.” I tried everything. Exercising. Drinking meal replacement shakes. Eating healthy. I was doing all I knew to do. You know the standard to get your body healthy—diet and exercise. I lost 20 pounds on my own, but it was difficult.

  While all of this was happening, I was struggling with an auto-immune condition that no one could identify. I had eczema all over my body. After I had Simon, the eczema got worse. One night, I cried myself to sleep. My body was on fire. My husband was draping wet towels all over me. It was the only thing that offered even a bit of soothing relief. We started considering moving to Florida because tanning seemed to help with the Vitamin D. I had all these things I was trying to piece together, and I just couldn’t. When I was 23, I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. I was in my junior year of nursing school and I could not write notes because it hurt my joints so badly. I got myself an iPad and laptop to do everything I could digitally. Holding a pencil was way too much.

  I was overweight. I had this terrible bleeding eczema all over my body. I ha
d tried everything. I had used steroids. I tried Chinese medicine. I tried silver. If I thought it would help eczema, I bought it. I spent thousands of dollars. Some remedies might help for a short time, but if I ever went a day without it, the symptoms would creep right back. I was exercising and eating healthy, but not losing the weight. I found a detox program online. I decided since I’d heard a lot of people lose a lot of weight on detox, I bought it.

  The program was a 21-day detox, where you take some supplements and they tell you what to eat every single day. At the end of the detox, the end of the 3 weeks, I was finally seeing some relief for the first time in my life from the eczema. It was almost gone. It was interesting because I wasn’t doing anything topically. I didn’t realize it, I was just working on my gut and my insides. Two weeks later I had a period for the first time in months. Two weeks after that I conceived my daughter. During pregnancy your immune system is suppressed so things tend to go better for those with auto-immune challenges. After I had my daughter, I was thinking “ok, there is something to this detox thing.”

  As a nurse working in labor and delivery, I was used to the medical mindset and pharmacology practices. I was stuck with the mindset of taking a drug for a condition. I didn’t like the drugs they gave me; often they made me feel worse. I couldn’t find anything else that would work. I thought I was stuck.

  I remembered the eczema had gone away with the detox. I was starting to connect the dots. However, I felt like I couldn’t be living in a state of detox all the time. I went to a conference. The man who had created the detox was there. I asked him about the idea of living in a state of detox. He told me it was possible. There are ways to support your body through supplementation to keep the inflammation at bay. Inflammation. There was another dot. I did another detox and felt fantastic. This was the only time I’d lose weight quickly and the eczema would go away. I was doing research and found there was a connection between eczema and gut health. There’s something to this gut health thing. I was determined to get healthy.

  I’ve always been transparent about my journey on Facebook. One day, someone reached out to me and told me about this gut protocol and invited me to do it with them. It was a thousand-dollar program plus the supplements. I was desperate. While I was doing this gut healing program, someone else reached out to me and asked if I’d ever heard of Dr. Patrick and The Wellness Way. I was in the middle of the program. I had spent over $1000 on this gut thing; I was going to stick with it. They were relentless “he really makes the connections when he talks about your gut health, he talks about how it affects your hormones, inflammation, everything.” All I could think was it’s all connected! It’s not just gut = eczema, it’s gut = hormones and eczema and I have all these things going on. Maybe it all originates in my gut!

  I was seeing some results from the gut protocol, but not like I wanted for how much I had paid. I called to set up an appointment with Dr. Patrick. I remember sitting in the waiting room thinking “Either these people are going to be a bunch of weirdos and totally out there or there’s going to be something to this. I’m about to find out. They took my x-rays and showed me the inflammation in my gut. They showed me the inflammation in my gut. Dots connected. I talked with Dr. Patrick and told him my story. I had brought in my giant tub of supplements that I was taking. His response, “there’s nothing wrong with these supplements but how do you know they are the ones you need?” All I could say was, “I don’t know, it’s just part of the protocol.” He showed me the problem with the protocol. It wasn’t individualized to each person. That’s why I wasn’t getting the results I was looking for. He started to help me shift my mind and think differently. I went to the Inflammation Talk the next day. Finally, it clicked. The Wellness Way Clinics offer Inflammation Talks every couple of weeks for new patients. This talk is the foundation and introduces new patients to their approach. Inflammation is the key to all sources of disease and dysfunction within the body. This is what I had been looking for. I had been researching for years trying to find answers and connect the dots between my gut, eczema, auto-immune conditions and PCOS. I finally found someone who could put those connections together!

  After the Inflammation Talk, I boldly approached Dr. Patrick. The only thing I could think was, “if there’s anything I am going to do, I have to work for this guy. I have to learn everything he knows.” I said, “I don’t know if you remember me. I was in as a new patient yesterday. I had mentioned that I am a nurse. Your Inflammation Talk opened my eyes. I finally get it. Women’s hormones and autoimmune conditions are my passion; it’s something I have struggled with. I really think this approach could apply to infertility for women across the country and I want to be an expert. Would you consider bringing me on board?” His response was quick, “Yes, come in for an interview.” I was totally blown away. “REALLY?” I’m not typically that bold, but there was something inside me. I knew I couldn’t leave without addressing it.

  I went in for the interview. The timing was perfect. The clinic in Green Bay, WI was looking for a nurse to help with the IV center. It was a great way to get trained and see what happens at The Wellness Way. My wellness journey began. I recognized the difference between The Wellness Way Approach and the traditional medical model. The allopathic medical model sees a list of symptoms and comes up with a diagnosis to treat. They don’t look at the whole picture. It didn’t resonate with me that I’d have to live a life constantly relying on medication or supplements like others suggested. I felt like I should be able to fix it. Medication or supplements should be part time. The Wellness Way looks at things differently and looks at people as individuals. I was properly tested; my thyroid, hormone and food allergy test. My food allergy test was eye opening. I discovered I had 42 food allergies. To this day, I have not had anyone come in to the Green Bay clinic with more than me. I started eliminating those immediately. It was very difficult, but necessary. I started taking a few supplements to help with my gut, my iron deficiency and to balance my hormones. Unlike a traditional PCOS patient, I had very low testosterone. A lot of the protocol used in the medical world wouldn’t have worked for me; I wouldn’t have known why if I hadn’t gotten my hormones tested as thoroughly. Within a month of following this new approach, I got my period for the first time in months. It was the first normal period in my life. From then on, I would get it every single month. The first week I lost 10 pounds. I was 80 pounds overweight at that time. Within my first two months I lost over 25 pounds and 80 pounds within the first 6 months. I was feeling like myself again. I had more vitality and energy. Within two months my eczema was completely gone. I was a walking testimony to The Wellness Way Approach!

  Everyone had told me I would have auto-immune conditions and take steroids the rest of my life. The Rheumatoid Arthritis, eczema, weight and PCOS were three different systems that were all broken. When I came to The Wellness Way I realized they were connected; they weren’t isolated instances. I started sharing my Wellness Way testimony with my friends and have become a great referral source. I soaked up everything I could about hormones and how to balance the body. When my husband and I decided we were ready, we conceived baby #3 the first time we tried. I believe this lifestyle is for everyone. You shouldn’t have to take supplements or medication for the rest of your life. Your body can be whole, well, and free of conditions as long as you know and avoid your triggers.

  My dreams and desires to reach as many people as I can are becoming a reality. At The Wellness Way, we don’t have specialties; everything within the body is connected. However, I have been able to build a practice around this one very special focus. It is so much fun to help women find the root cause of their issues, and then watch them feel so much better like I did. We’ve had people reach out from all over the world through the power of social media. Women from Switzerland, Argentina, Bhutan, Asia, England, have found answers.

  Every time I share The Wellness Way message, I tell my patients, “you are not broken.” A lot of times when women are not a
ble to conceive, it devastates them. It’s part of their womanhood; they feel like they are broken. Your body is responding to your environment, we just have to figure out why and fix it. You were created to have babies if that is what you want!

  You disagree too! Now what?

  Just because the book is done doesn’t mean this story is over. We are growing with multiple voices saying, “I disagree.” We are a movement. Share your #Idisagree story with us and make your voice heard! Connect with us on our social channels and website. Follow-up with a clinic near you to attend their events and sign up to get some insights as a patient. We have a lot to offer, and are excited to keep empowering you to think differently, and say I Disagree!