I originally wrote this for Patreon on April 22nd 2017. I no longer use Patreon and have replaced it with my website (here) but thought I would share some of my old blogs with you for FREE to show my appreciation for you visiting my website! <3

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*CONTENT WARNING: Health scare*

So for whatever reason I want to share my health journey over the past few years with you. I’ve never had health problems except for the occasional sickness or cold every so often, but then within the past 5 years I’ve had to see several specialists for new health issues I acquired.

It all started when I got a weird rash on my arms, torso, and legs that wouldn’t go away for several days and got worse when I was hot (outside, in a hot shower, etc). I went to a dermatologist who took a sample that he sent to a lab and had me use some creams until he got the results back. The results came back and showed that I had a positive ANA, which could indicate Lupus or something similar, so they referred me to a rheumatologist. The first rheumatologist I went to did some more labs (that were not conclusive of anything) and pretty much just told me to pay attention to my symptoms and call if anything changed. The rash had been long gone by then and I was feeling fine so I didn’t go back.

Fast forward to a year or two later, I had my annual physical and got a call about my lab results: my thyroid levels were all over the place and I was being referred to an endocrinologist. Oh, and I had protein in my urine so they referred me to a nephrologist as well. The nephrology visit was uneventful, he looked over my chart and labs and took some more labs and said I was pretty much fine but to just pay attention to symptoms and call back if anything changed. Familiar, huh? The endocrinologist visit gave me a few more answers. She diagnosed me with hyperthyroidism and had me start taking thyroid medication daily. My hair was falling out, I was tired all the time, my joints hurt, I had no motivation…. so she wanted me to see another rheumatologist. I scheduled an appointment with a different one than the one I had already seen. The new rheumatologist diagnosed me with an “unspecified connective tissue disorder” and put me on another daily medication. This medication was kinda scary because it could mess up my eyes so I had to ALSO see an ophthalmologist to make sure my sight wasn’t being affected by this new medicine.

Fast forward another 6 months to a year or so, I wasn’t feeling bad at all and I really don’t like having to take medication, especially something that could mess me up more than heal me, so I started talking to the rheumatologist to see if I could either decrease or stop taking the scary eye-messing-up medicine. He was fine with it after I told him I didn’t really feel any different on it anyway so he tapered me off. I also wanted to go off of my thyroid medication if possible so I talked to my endocrinologist who said it would depend on my labs.

Fast forward to about a year or year and a half ago, it was time for me to have my IUD replaced with a new one. The night before my appointment I saw an article online about reasons people’s hair falls out. This was the symptom that bothered me the most because my hair was already thin and it freaked me out that it was falling out so much so of course I clicked through to read the article. There were several reasons listed but the very last one jumped out at me the most: hormonal IUDs can cause your hair to fall out. My appointment to replace mine was THE NEXT DAY. I researched the IUD I currently had because it had been 3 years since I got it so I didn’t remember some of the details. It was a hormonal IUD, Skyla, the smaller version of Mirena which is for people who haven’t had children. I did more research to see if there were IUDs that are non-hormonal. There is! It’s called ParaGard and it’s made of copper. At my OBGYN appointment I had them replace my hormonal IUD with the non-hormonal ParaGard.

OH MY GOSH what a difference it made! After my body worked out all the hormones from Skyla ALL of my symptoms subsided. My hair stopped falling out, I had more energy, I didn’t hurt all the time… yay! And guess what? My thyroid labs started evening out and my endocrinologist lowered my medication dosage each time I did labwork until finally I was taken COMPLETELY off of medication and told to call her if I had any issues.

Such a simple thing that seems harmless can really wreck your body. My body does NOT like hormones and did NOT do well on a hormonal IUD. One “harmless” thing caused me to have to see a dermatologist, rheumatologist, nephrologist, and endocrinologist. That’s FOUR specialists who didn’t know that something so simple as an IUD caused all my problems.

I could go on a long rant about conventional/Western medicine but y’all probably don’t want to hear it. Haha.

I’ll share photos instead!

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These photos are from my time with Quinn Sanguine, a model from Boston who is traveling over the next several months all across the country before they move to Washington state. I had a great time hanging out and creating with them, and of course I had to incorporate some of my crystals in our photos!

All members have access to the complete 25 image film photoset by clicking here & the complete 21 image Instax photoset by clicking here.