solving the puzzle

Today I taught myself how to write computer code so that I could make my website do something awesome. I'm pretty proud of it since I have zero coding experience so I would love it if you would go check it out and tell me what you think!

It took a fair amount of time, research, and trial and error, but I was determined to figure it out. That is basically how I operate. I love to solve a problem, I'm always up for learning something new, and I don't give up easily. I have just the right amount of faith, curiosity, patience, and stubbornness to keep trying long after others have thrown up their hands.

I originally was drawn to physical therapy because I love a good puzzle. I was always absurdly good at those logic games (you know the ones - Sally can't sit next to Tony and Tony has to sit next to Lilah. Who does Sally sit next to?) because I can see the big picture and because I pay attention to relationships. This is why patients who have gone to other providers and haven't resolved their symptoms come to me.

How many of you have had symptoms that last for a long time that no one can explain, and going to doctors only leads you down dead ends?

This is true for most of my patients, and it was especially true for Ali. Ali had mysterious symptoms for a whole year. They got tested for Lyme and it was negative, so their doctor pretty much shrugged her shoulders and prescribed a muscle relaxant. Ali took the pills for a while, but they didn't really help. As time passed, they started to feel more and more sick. Ali was tired all the time, and rest didn't seem to help. They had no appetite or energy and started to feel depressed and anxious. They got shooting pains down their arm and started to lose their ability to grasp things with their hand. Some days their pain was so bad they couldn't get out of bed, but their doctor kept telling them there wasn't anything wrong. Ali started to feel like the pain was in their head, and started to feel blamed by their providers for not making progress. Even the PT they were seeing gave up, which is how Ali found their way to me.

Here is the good news: Ali is now doing great! It took some unraveling, but we figured out the root cause of Ali's symptoms. Together we did some deep nervous system healing, reset their digestive fire, and slowly started to build up their tolerance to movement so they could get back to doing the things they love. Sometimes we hit roadblocks, but we never gave up because we understood that healing isn't linear.

Ali's story is unfortunately not unique. The reason I started studying Ayurveda was because my PT patients weren't just coming to me with injuries, they were also feeling depleted, having digestive issues and mystery symptoms, managing a ton of stress, and going to doctors without getting any answers.

Fortunately, the more complex the problem, often the simpler the solution. What unlocked Ali's healing was when they started to listen to their symptoms and treat them as clues to the puzzle instead of trying to ignore them or push them away. By learning to recognize the relationships between their symptoms, they built up an intuitive understanding of how to heal themselves.

There isn't any one-size-fits-all approach to healing. We are all different and we all need different things. What is common amongst us is that we know our bodies and we should be encouraged to trust our body wisdom. If you are seeing a provider and they aren't helping you, find someone who will take the time to listen and who will stay curious. If a test comes back negative and you still feel crummy, that should be an invitation to keep investigating and shouldn't be the end of the road. You deserve to work with someone who will help you figure it out, and who treats your symptoms as important communications from your wise body.

If you resonated with this story, reach out and share a bit about your experiences and what kind of support you wish you had from your providers. You can also head to my website to check out the cool thing I coded, and read a little more about what I do. I reorganized my whole site this weekend, so it is new and improved. I'd love to hear what you think!

With much love and gratitude,

Rachel