Hereditary Hemochromotosis Sufferer
As of writing, I’m a 49 year old white male who lives in New Jersey. I was born in England and according to my ancestry DNA, I am 96% east England and 4% Scandinavian. This is significant due to the condition that I am, and have apparently been suffering from for many years – hereditary hemochromatosis. This condition is most prevalent to people of northern European descent.
I have lived a pretty unhealthy lifestyle. Never work out, eat a lot of junk food but I don’t drink a lot and am not a smoker so at least I have that going for me. I figured though, it would be a good idea to see what issues I have and agreed to do a case study on myself.
I will preface by saying that although I do constantly feel tired and lethargic and not fit in the slightest. I am considered obese, I’m 5’8″ and average around 208lbs. I did have blood work done by my primary a couple of years ago and the results showed fatty liver and high cholesterol and my doc suggested some medication (I forget which as I never took it, I hate taking pills with a passion) as he considered me a risk for a potential heart attack within the next decade or so. So even then, I have known I have issues, but no exact diagnosis and really just a plan to manage symptoms rather than treat any particular cause.
So this is a chronology of my journey into finding out about my imbalances and my journey with Evolution to correcting as many as possible. In my opinion, it shows how functional medicine and traditional medicine can and should operate hand in hand forming a powerful alliance to helping any patient get to proper health and balance as well as preventing and treating actual conditions as opposed to symptoms only.
This will be long, but the aim is to help and encourage others who are facing challenges in their health and are considering functional medicine as an option. My journey has highlighted issues that I personally have (such as my displeasure of needles and taking pills) and how I overcame them to move towards a healthy way of being. These may be issues you find, or maybe you have other challenges to overcome, but the bottom line is to try and face these problems and overcome them however you can. No two people are the same and this is one of the greatest assets of functional medicine – it treats the patient as an individual and not as a clone as traditional medicine seems to.
Hang in there, take strength from your own journey, and above all, persevere and get to your destination of a happier and healthier lifestyle. This is the most important investment you will ever make.
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