MY STORY – INTERFERON TREATMENT TORPEDOED MY LIFE
In 2007, my life was torpedoed by Interferon treatment for Hep C. It was like chemo times 50. Interferon changed my life in ways that no one ever anticipated, especially me. And I would never be the same.
My name is Lisa Gladstone. I was a serial entrepreneur and lifelong fitness buff. For over 25 years, I ran 6 miles a day and worked out at the gym. At 5’8″ I weighed in at a strong and solid 150 pounds.
After 8 months on Interferon treatment, I was reduced to 118 pounds, and frail. I couldn’t raise my hands up to shampoo my hair. I crawled up the stairs on my hands and knees, sitting at the top to catch my breath.
The Inflammation Trigger
48 weeks of standard Interferon treatment had cured my Hep C, but triggered a cascade of painful inflammatory responses and autoimmune conditions that never stopped.
My New Reality – The Symptoms and Side Effects
For the next 12 years, I endured an unending combination of unpredictable, progressive, and debilitating symptoms, including piercing pain in my shoulders, neck, spine, sacrum, hips, abdomen, groin, joints, and muscles; open lesions on my skin – from head to toe; head-splitting migraines; debilitating fatigue; insomnia, chest ‘attacks’; uncontrollable nausea and vomiting; brain fog; vision problems; neuropathy; internal cysts; diarrhea; constipation; sleep apnea; tinnitus; edema; spontaneous bruising; depression; suicidal thoughts; and on and on.
I was a shell of my former self. I felt hopelessly trapped in my own body. I could never quite accept that this was the new me.
It was my worst nightmare. But I wasn’t dreaming.
The Western Medical System
Through the pain, fog and bone weary fatigue, I relentlessly researched the medical literature online. I sought help from 40+ western medical physicians. I scheduled appointment after appointment after appointment for diagnostic testing, both in my home city and at the prestigious Mayo Clinic for a week in 2010.
Doctors prescribed 43 different pharmaceutical drugs to combat symptoms and side effects, including: Prednisone for inflammation (11 years) which caused muscle atrophy and cataracts in both eyes; Fentanyl patch for pain (5 years) resulting in opioid addiction; and powerful biologic drugs to combat the inflammation, but it still didn’t stop.
My Journal Excerpts – 2011
I wrote the following – word for word – about my suicidal thoughts on Saturday morning, November 5th:
“So far, the physicians have mostly been stymied, and feel that my case is unique – with no known precedent in medical literature.
“My will finally broke. I had been muscling through each day, mostly in survival mode. Although not insincere, I’ve been wearing a mask in public – not feeling even remotely like myself for years.
“I hit rock bottom. I had no energy left to get out of bed, much less do the hours of body work it took each morning to command my body to function. My lights were dim.
“I couldn’t stop sobbing, and the pills in the next room seemed like a solution to the hopelessness I felt over my chronic and excruciating pain, and the weariness that seemed to overcome me.
“The third time that I thought about going online to find out how many pills would be lethal, I knew that I was in trouble and needed help. It was then that I chose to call close friends to tell them my truth at the moment.
“(My dear friend) Will offered to assemble and spearhead a group to come over and brainstorm how to help, and how to support my husband, who has been caregiving for well over 5 years.”
One Bright Shining Hope
As a sort of last ditch effort in 2013, I applied to the Undiagnosed Disease Program (UDP) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The program helps patients with rare diseases by convening some of the brightest medical minds in US conventional western medicine to research and collaborate on differential diagnoses, followed by treatment with their oversight.
My dream program.
So with the assistance of my Primary Care Physician, but still brain fogged with very few productive hours each day, I documented my medical case, submitted the lengthy application along with my PCP’s letter. Then I waited an eternity for their reply.
Finally, tearing open the envelope, my application… had been denied.
No help from the best and brightest. No treatment. I was crushed.
Life Goes On – Fatigued and In Pain
Year after year, the cause of my disability went unidentified and untreated. My health continued to decline. I lived in constant pain.
Those were long, miserable years. I lost so much… the career I had worked so hard for decades to build, my financial security, most of my friends, and my quality of life.
During 2016, 2017 and 2018, my shoulders, neck, hips and spine were unbearably painful, often extending all the way to each finger and toe.
By September 2018, I could not sit up long enough to drive. I was bed-bound and literally overcome by the pain and exhaustion.
But I was luckier than most others in my predicament. My husband stayed by my side, driving me to appointments, to every ER visit, even when it was after midnight and he had client meetings first thing in the morning.
2018 to the Rescue
Then a full 11 years in, I met my Functional Medicine doctor (a former surgeon) in September.
In the first 4 months under his care, the Functional Medicine treatments rejuvenated my body and my mind.
He had identified the ‘root cause’ and administered a proven new protocol of holistic, natural treatments.
By July 2019, I had recovered with enough energy to pack up my family’s home, two offices, two thousand boxes of Amazon inventory – and drive 2000 miles, relocating everything from Nashville Tennessee to San Diego California.
THERE IS HOPE
Patients come to Functional Doctors after they have been traumatized and heartbroken, sometimes for decades, and often after multiple rounds of debilitating chemo and radiation.
Functional doctors see the most difficult cases, after their conventional physicians admit what patients have suspected for a long time:
“I can’t help you” and “There’s nothing more we can do.”
How did I recover – in just ten months – from a debilitating disease that I’d battled for 12 years?
All-Natural Methods
The all-natural methods that my Functional Medicine Doctor and I chose are not widely recognized or approved by the U.S. Western Medical System, including the American Medical Association (AMA) and the Food & Drug Administration (FDA).
He’s an expert at thoroughly assessing my physical and biological needs, and administered a combination of oxygen, nutrition, and stem cell therapies.
Every day in the US, Functional Medicine physicians risk losing their license to practice medicine simply because they use one or more of these natural methods to save lives.
My Functional Medicine Doctor
My Functional Medicine Doctor is a courageous pioneer – and he’s saving lives.
His deep understanding of how the human body works to heal and his alternative healing methods worked for me. And they work for the vast majority of chronic diseases in the body. Because in combination, these natural methods empower the body to heal imbalances, afflictions, invaders, toxins, poisons, diseases, and illnesses.
How? By giving the body exactly what it needs to clear toxins and empower it to do the miraculous healing job it was inherently designed to do.
Using some of the methods discussed in this site, I got my life back. And I’m grateful beyond words.
Who Else Needs Help – and Hope?
If you know someone who is suffering and needs help, pass this link along to them. Even if they aren’t ready to see this now, you just never know when that time will come.
I urge you to make it easy for your loved ones to consider new healing choices, on their timeline. I wish someone had told me about these choices years before I finally discovered them.
