I've been purposely silent for the past few months. Mainly because my past blog posts have painted a rather bleak outlook on a progressively worsening condition affecting my ability to live a normal life. I had decided that one of two things would eventually happen:

My condition would deteriorate to the point that I'd no longer be able to put up a coherent blog post, or I'd finally be able to turn things around and at last will be able to write about having a newfound lease on life. 

I am most fortunate and pleased to say that I'm writing this blog post because I've managed to achieve the latter of that statement.

On January 14th of this year, I visited a functional specialist. It was the first time I had seen a doctor since having my appendix removed after it burst at the beginning of last year. It had become incredibly tiring having a plethora of what many practitioners considered symptoms of potentially debilitating syndromes and diseases only for them to find nothing. I no longer found seeing doctors to be a prudent use of my time and money, and I received no peace of mind from those visits. The change of heart of seeking medical attention while trying something much less conventional proved to have a far more fruitful outcome.

Functional specialists differ from traditional medical practitioners by observing how the body operates as a whole in order to find the potential causes for chronic diseases. After going through my medical history and observing the different reported symptoms I've dealt with, it became immediately clear to him that I had developed a severe form of dysautonomia. Dysautonomia can refer to a variety of different disorders that are related to the nervous system that deal with the autonomic processes within the body. These are the processes that the body can normally regulate on its own, but when there are issues with the central nervous system, the organs connected through it can no longer communicate to the brain.

As you can imagine, everything is connected via your central nervous system, and everything is managed and communicated to/from the brain. Things such as breathing, having to use the restroom, food digestion, temperature control, and much much more. It can be difficult to diagnose by traditional medical practitioners who are fixated and taught to observe structural integrity as opposed to functional integrity.

Since January 14th, after learning about dysautonomia and how to manage it, I've seen my condition improve considerably. While I'm still very far from an ideal stage of recovery, I am absolutely recovering and am far ahead from where I was pre-treatment/lifestyle changes.

I'll be updating again soon if this trend continues. Hope you're all taking care of yourselves and treating your bodies with the respect it deserves!