Laura's Healing Journey
Up until my 25th birthday I led a charmed existence. Growing up, I had four wild, amazing brothers and a mother and father who would do anything for me. We played together, laughed together and swam and skied on the same teams. As a competitive skater and dancer, I also enjoyed time alone traveling with my mother. I studied English literature at UBC and then did a Master's Degree at Lancaster University in England where I met a wonderful Swedish man in the MBA program. We had a fairy tale wedding in 1995 in the Botanical Gardens in Uppsala. Opportunities, joy and pleasure abounded; I had never encountered an insolvable problem; I never really realized how lucky I was.
During the months following my wedding everything changed. I developed pain on the right side of my body. A short time later my right arm and right leg were basically unusable. Both had turned a cyanotic blue color and were slightly swollen. My fine motor skills were so poor that holding a pen or using a fork and knife were painful, exhausting activities. Chairs felt like torture chambers and I could no longer do anything I loved to do.
In 1997 I was diagnosed with severe mercury poisoning. Judging from the quantity and type of mercury the toxicologist felt sure the poisoning was a result of eating mercury contaminated fish. I felt both relieved and alarmed by the diagnosis. Relieved because the specialists were finally in agreement about the cause of my unusual symptoms. Alarmed because the toxicologist said the treatment would take a very long time and could actually worsen my condition.
The level of mercury in my body was 820 μg/u creatinine. Just to give you an idea of how much this is, most people can tolerate mercury levels between 0 to 3 μg/u creatinine without symptoms of toxicity.
Although mercury was considered to be the cause, I was also diagnosed with RSD or complex regional pain syndrome. It is my belief that toxicity is a relatively unknown though major factor in many otherwise unexplainable syndromes.
Chelation therapy initially caused the mercury to move around in my body and at first my symptoms grew worse from the treatment. I tried everything - and I mean everything - to try to get better. I traveled to Florida, Holland, and South Africa to consult different neurologists and toxicologists. I practiced Qigong regularly, tried every diet under the sun and consulted naturopaths, herbalists, and mind/body practitioners. Needless to say, I spent a fortune.
Almost all of these treatments had something to offer. IV chelation therapy brought my mercury levels lower and I started to feel better instead of worse after treatments. My balance improved somewhat through the practice of qigong, and I no longer had difficulty walking. I learned how to eat foods that soothed the pain and took supplements to improve my circulation.
Notwithstanding these efforts, my arms remained a problem for me. My right arm in particular was still blue and swollen. It still shook when I tried to use it, and I had the constant sensation that a steel wire was wrapped tightly from my fingers to my armpit. Worse still, after five years of fairly successful chelation therapy my mercury levels plateaued at 140μg/u creatinine. I needed to find a more effective way to treat my illness or accept a life of pain and disability.
By chance, I came across some information that put me on a new track. In ancient Rome men working in mercury mines in the Sierra Morena often became sick and were sent to a hospital where they were told to stretch vigorously. The purpose with this activity was to warm the body up and stretch the limbs and internal organs in order to get the mercury moving out of these areas. Many men were said to quickly improve. Their tremors abated and some could even return to work.
The idea of systematic stretching led to yoga. Admittedly, I began my healing journey skeptical of energy fields and the like. However, at this point, I had already been practicing qigong for five years and my skepticism diminished drastically as a result of some profound healing experiences I had had while practicing Qigong exercises. These simple exercises had temporarily improved the circulation to the right side of my body, restored my balance and provided passing pain relief.
This opened my mind to the possibility that yoga would also help with my detoxification and give me similar though longer-lasting benefits since the postures are held longer. This turned out to be correct and after practicing for several weeks I noticed a degree of pain relief that would have been impossible to achieve through Qigong or painkillers. At first I wondered if the pain relief was a mere coincidence, but each time I practiced the horrible burning pain in my hand subsided. With each session the steel wire sensation seemed to release its grip a little more, the swelling decreased and my hand turned a bright red color for several hours afterward.
As time went on, the effect of the yoga lasted longer and longer until one day the pain on the right side of my body was completely gone! After 10 years of the terrible constricting steel wire sensation, it was truly a blessed relief! The doctors had warned me that my nerves might have been permanently damaged by the mercury and that I should never expect to recover completely. By simply relaxing my nervous system and increasing the flow of blood and oxygen to key areas the yoga had facilitated what felt like a miraculous healing process.
The only lingering pain was in my lower back. Next to what I had been through this pain was nothing, but I longed to be completely pain-free. I tried a variety of different types of yoga said to be therapeutic for the lower back without good results and I knew I would have to look elsewhere for a solution. After some research I realized my pain was more than likely caused by weak core muscles and decided to embark on a study of pilates, a method used to strengthen muscles in the abdomen, pelvic floor and lower back. After just a few sessions, I could feel that Pilates would work for me. The dull ache disappeared after a few weeks and the new strength in my core made it possible for me to stretch deeper and enjoy my yoga more than ever.
Pain-free and empowered by these successes I wanted to share my insight and help others gain an understanding of their own miraculous healing powers. I chose to take a comprehensive yoga teacher training course at the Moksana yoga studio. The course included physiology, anatomy, teaching methodology and history, focused on safety and taught a variety of styles. There was also freedom to explore my own style of teaching and since the combination of Hatha yoga and Pilates had been so powerful for me, these disciplines were my area of focus. Since then I have come up with a variety of sequences that combine the best of yoga and Pilates for detoxification, stress relief and as powerful medicine against back pain.
The fairy tale existence of the first 25 years of my life will always hold wonderful memories, but without the hard times that followed I would never have appreciated how lucky I am. The suffering of those years taught me to never take physical comfort for granted. The practice of yoga taught me to never give up on the body's ability to heal. A recent visit to the doctor revealed that my mercury level is now down to 14 μg/u creatinine. Although I am not completely rid of the mercury, my love of life has been returned to me through my Yogilates practice.
Whether your goal is pain relief, preventative medicine or enhanced athletic performance, yogilates can help you obtain it. I look forward to meeting you in class.
~ Laura
