Life has been full of a lot of BIG THINGS lately and that is why you haven’t read a blog post from me in a while.
It’s not the way I wanted it to be - I wanted to continue to provide great fitness related content for you and be a source of motivation and support. But I've been stretched thin and wasn't able to step up to provide that here.
This was me taking care of me.
So now that things seem somewhat more normal, I wanted to catch up and give you the lowdown on what has happened in my world in the past months and the resulting medical diagnosis after MULTIPLE tests and visits with my family doctor and naturopathic doctor.
The medical diagnosis was very confusing for me and it's one of the reasons I haven't talked about openly with my community or on social media. I am the type of person that wants to know WHY some thing is happening, I want to know what the root cause is. For months, I didn't have answers and I didn't want other people giving unsolicited advice.
If you’ve ever worked with me in one-on-one or a group capacity, you’ll probably understand that I don’t give up until we've found out why you have pain, weakness or an imbalance. Until we know WHY, we don’t know how to work towards improving the issue and feel the best we can while coping with it.
So grab a coffee, sit down, get comfy and I’ll take you back to the beginning of November 2022 when this all started...
I went for the first physical since before my second pregnancy. I had a laundry list of things to discuss with my doctor, but at the top of the list was extremely painful periods. I’m talking pain and cramping that stopped me in my tracks and had me gripping my kitchen counter to manage the pain. This was coupled with extremely low mood in the days leading up to my period to the point where I was sipping back into bouts of depression. I was irritable, tired, uninterested in things I normally like doing (including workouts) and overall just really unhappy.
My family doctor - who is amazingly thorough BTW and I am very grateful for - ordered extensive bloodwork and a pelvic ultrasound to check for anything internal like endometriosis, cysts, PCOS or any other pelvic conditions that might have shown up on an ultrasound. Around this time I also started working with a naturopath who specializes in pelvic health - Dr. Kate Hadfield.
Everything on my ultrasound came back normal. There was nothing to explain the discomfort I was having during my periods. But when my blood work came back, some thing got flagged. My liver enzymes were elevated and my doctor wanted to re-test to dig a little deeper. We retested all of my liver enzymes two months later and they were still elevated. The next step was an abdominal ultrasound to look at my liver, gallbladder, kidneys and pancreas.
The ultrasound results were SHOCKING!
It showed that I had mild Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD). This was alarming to me because NAFLD is generally a condition related to lifestyle choices that include inactivity, high saturated fat and/or high sugar diet. It just didn’t make sense in my situation as a person who has been very active all my life (heck I help people be active for a living) and who eats a "healthy" diet the majority of the time.
I felt like all of the "health" lifestyle choices that I've made were for nothing.
I was scared to eat anything. Everything I read related to what to eat to manage NAFLD was basically what I was already eating OR the "healthy" foods like bananas and carrots were just going to keep harming my liver.
It just didn’t add up.
When this result came back, my doctor requested more bloodwork including a specific test for Celiac Disease because in some cases unexplained elevated liver enzymes can be a symptom. At the end of April, I had the bloodwork done and the marker for Celiac Disease was through the roof.
I was honestly relieved - I had an answer.
This was something that I would be able to manage. Am I going to miss eating gluten? Yes, absolutely. Am I willing to stop eating it to heal my body and FEEL better? 100%.
I have a endoscopy scheduled soon to biopsy my small intestine and 100% confirm the Celiac diagnosis. I honestly hope that it comes back positive and I have a final concrete answer for why I’ve been having some of the symptoms that I’ve been having.
I think that it’s important to note that when things feel off in out bodies, when we feel deep down like something's not quite right, we need to continue to ask WHY and advocate for ourselves. Keep digging until we find the root cause of the problem. For me, being diagnosed with NAFLD wasn’t enough because nothing explained WHY it was happening. We kept asking "why is a physically active individual who eats diet low in saturated fat, low in added sugar and who is not considered obese getting this diagnosis?"
Both my doctor and my naturopath understood there was a link between Celiac Disease and elevated liver enzymes and they were both right. I'm so grateful for a team of practitioners who keeps asking the questions.
So, the moral of the story is DON'T SETTLE for a bandaid that only masks the symptom.
Find out WHY you have the symptoms in the first place. If you don’t have a team of practitioners that will ask the questions, YOU need to ask the questions because YOUR health matters.