About

At one point I realized that my state of health is deteriorating at the “speed of light”, from fatigue, brain fog, frequent strep throat and sinus infections to different skin rashes, eczema, severe allergies and chronic pelvic pain disorders: PCOS, interstitial cystitis and dysmenorrhea. I was taking painkillers every month, several days in row.

In general I wasn’t feeling like my normal self, I was having energy and mood fluctuations, always exhausted, bloated, constipated and gassy. I wasn’t pregnant and I haven’t gained weight, but had a big swollen belly. So basically I was experiencing a hormonal imbalance (hypothyroid symptoms) and little did I know that all these symptoms are connected: gut issues and messed up hormones often go hand in hand.

Until I got to the bottom of my health problems I had multiple appointments at the doctor’s office. I carefully listened and complied with their prescriptions: birth control pills for 2 years, several rounds of antibiotics and other over the counter medications including antihistamines.

I was sick and tired of spending 20 minutes or less with different doctors only to be treated with a “everything is fine” look and leave with another prescription. They only seemed concerned with my symptoms, instead of looking at my entire body, which is an incredibly complex ecosystem.

I don’t blame them, I guess that’s how they are being trained by the pharmaceutical industry. They talk about making everything a “manageable” disease not about curing it. Only the open minded doctors are curious enough to dig up the real cause of a patients disease.

I felt helpless and miserable. I knew something is going on a deeper level. That’s when a lost my trust in western conventional medicine. I realized I had to search for other options. I came to the conclusion that no one else knows more about my health and symptoms than I do.

Then I remembered all those natural remedies my mother used when I was growing up. She used to say that natural alternatives are far superior than the synthetic copies and she often kept my brother and me on a “package free” diet. All foods were made at home from scratch.

So I started studying my body, how it reacts to different foods, stimulants and stressors (past and present). I also got really curious in my health and began to research my condition and related symptoms. Finding out that 70-80 percent of the immune system was in the gut, made me realize the food is the first thing I have to change.

Frankly, trying to decide which diet is the best, was so overwhelming. I tried so many: Low FODMAPS, AIP, Paleo, Whole 30, Vegan, Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Candida Diet to name a few. Later I realized that the connecting thread behind these diverse diets is that they all remove various reactive, inflammatory foods – they’re all elimination diets. And they all, work temporarily as they do not address the root cause – an unhealthy gut flora (microbiome) which is essential for an immune system to function properly.

I didn’t notice significant improvements in my symptoms until I took my experiment to the next level: eating only high quality (organic) whole real foods while eliminating the foods I was sensitive to. This led me to compile a functional list of foods essential for healing chronic illnesses no matter what they are.

Unfortunately sometimes only following a diet is not enough, taking care of an underlying infection, stress, environmental toxins is essential too, so that’s what I addressed next. Figuring out how to balance my diet with physical and emotional health plus supplementing when necessary, was a long slow process.

The information I needed was scattered all over the place, but with time I managed to sharpen my critical thinking skills. The more information I came across over the years, the easier was for me to separate facts from opinions and to identify biases in different information (including scientific articles, books, videos, reviews, statistics). And when something seemed convincing enough I would experiment on myself.

With the help of a few blood, genetic and other kinds of tests you can understand the missing puzzle and eventually come up with a personal tailored routine towards healing. Bit by bit I got rid of most of my allergies, skin issues, dysmenorrhea and all other pains while slowly recovering my immune system.

Withal I learned is that a personal experience beats any science with regard to your health. Science can only say what works for a given set of people according to their physiology, genetics and unique conditions, but we are all so different.

What I also learned is that multiple things need to go wrong in the body and it takes years until a chronic disease is fully developed. Almost all the root causes of all disease can be traced to problems in the digestive, hormone, immune and/or detoxification systems.

I’m not saying western medicine is useless it is great for broken bones, stitches and serious accidents, a stroke or heart attack, but when it comes to chronic disease it has to do a lot of catching up.

What Made Me Start This Blog?

I’m passionate about finding answers to the how and why of health, wellness, and life in general. Curiosity and search for a better health and life made me see the world we live in through different eyes. Knowing how difficult and overwhelming it can be to navigate the wide web of information on the internet, I know it’s really important to provide realistic information to the general public.

I used to work inside the food industry and I became frustrated by how little I knew about contemporary food production and how people are deceived in what they are getting as “natural” food in the grocery stores. No wonder the percentage of people suffering from chronic diseases and the reported food allergies is on the rise.

Seeing people filling their carts at the store with highly artificial foods, ordering online pre-made meals and feeding their kids with the same junk food is making me cringe, even infant formulas and baby food contain some of the toxic additives who are four times more sensitive than adults. I fell in the “trap” as everybody else and had to manage the consequences for years.

Especially after giving birth 5 years ago I had to deal with symptoms intensification of my prior problems. In short – my immune system collapsed again (had to be on IV antibiotics because of group B strep during labour). My hormones were out of whack again, a lot of pain and postpartum inflammation and a unfolding gut dysbiosis.

And with so many food intolerances it was quite a challenge to have a satisfying, nutritious meal while breastfeeding. Whenever I had a histamine spike my baby was manifesting eczema flare ups and irritability. Now that I had to cope with my daughters health issues as well, my stress levels and anxiety were really high, to say the least. And seeing this tiny life struggling is probably the force that kept me going and getting out of this mess.

There is always a way to recover by being aware of the situation and seeking for the right treatment. A holistic approach to life, equilibrium of the mind, body, and the environment is essential if you want results.

This is the reason I wanted to share some ideas, tips and experiences that might help you improve your life’s quality especially if you are going through similar situations. If we get down to the root cause and the true source of these symptoms then we can really begin to tackle the problem and recover.

My motto in life is: be grateful for having challenges, because they make us wake up and shake the habits, reorder things and learn something from the experience.

Behind The Scenes

There is a lot of work to running a blog, most of which I didn’t know about when I first started. And since I was a novice in the tech world I had to learn from zero how to register a domain, setup hosting, edit/design web pages, how to install and configure blog software.

Next I learned how to work with video editing software (Adobe Premiere Pro) for YouTube and photo software (Adobe Photoshop), you can clearly see that in my first creations. The more I learned the more equipment was necessary: a good camera, computer and photography lighting.

Besides technical work I had to learn to optimize the website for search (keyword research too), figure out a distributing system (schedule posts), build an audience, create a subscription mechanism, share other people’s relevant content, respond to comments, and finally plan for future content. 

Honestly, I got totally discouraged so many times, it seemed like the universe is conspiring against me (probably because I’m a perfectionist :)) …but I did some more research, months passed by and my skills were improving… I changed my domain name and I redid all my photos again and really started to enjoy creating.

The further events led me to publish my own 284 page recipe book in 2020, a self learning experience which I’ll never forget! Apart from that, I even launched a new website in 2021 – ThrivingNest – with healthy recipes for babies and kids.

BTW, I’m not doing any sponsored content, everything I post including links to products is what I actually used and liked. This blog is the heart of what I do and I spend a lot of time editing, conceptualizing, writing, promoting  (24-36 hours for a post – especially if I have some video and photo editing) so I prefer to be all 100% authentic.  

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