How working with naturopath Charmaine D healed my anxiety and supported my stress management.
I have been working with naturopath Charmaine D for three years now. Originally, I approached her to support me with my skin issues. Because of her thorough protocols and holistic approach, this led us to understanding more about my health overall and what unique factors played into how I was feeling day-to-day. We deep-dived into my history, my lifestyle, my diet, my previous medications and how I was coping mentally and emotionally on a regular basis. All of these became pieces to the puzzle that equalled my story and through this process, Charmaine was able to support me through many important periods of my life.
One of these being my high-functioning anxiety and predisposition to fall into stress-induced burnout. My whole life I have worked in a high capacity, often on overdrive to fulfill this internal need to achieve more, do more, be more. One of the propellers that was driving me was chronic anxiety. This anxiety was so familiar to me I almost didn’t recognise it as separate from myself. So a part of me as it was, I rarely spoke about it, even to Charmaine. As it didn’t seem like a health concern, rather just an aspect of my personality.
Due to the fact that Charmaine conducts her business in a way that focuses on life-long relationships, consistent and constant health support, and educating others on their own health journey, over a period of many consultations and facial treatments, where we were focusing on my skin health, Charmaine learnt about this rather debilitating aspect of my life. In a way that only she can, Charmaine was able to learn more from me by asking the right questions and piecing together the puzzle to better understand what was going on internally for me.
Through this process, Charmaine was able to see that most of my life I had been running on high levels of anxiety that were pushing me harder and faster through life, making it seem like I was functioning and coping well, but suffering deeply through it all. Because she so thoroughly knew about my overall unique health story, Charmaine already knew I was suffering from histamine intolerance, which was currently being focused on to support my skin issues. She then started to look at this histamine intolerance in a new light.
Many people suffering from histamine intolerance find that their histamines are starting in the gut. Many people suffering from anxiety, also find their anxiety is starting in the gut. This is all due to the gut-brain connection and the fact that the gut is the second most intelligent place in our body, bar the brain. Due to my high histamine levels in my gut, it was deduced by Charmaine that so too was my anxiety. Histamines and anxiety also have a strong connection, and it all made sense that they would be coming from the same place.
This was also evident when I ate certain high-histamine foods that I was intolerant to and my reaction to said foods. For example, any time I ate spinach, my anxiety increased ten fold over the next twenty four to forty eight hours. Although anxiety is seen as a mental illness affecting the brain, for many we are treating the wrong area of the body. By understanding the connection between your gut and brain, and histamines and anxiety, we could see we needed to support the break down of my over-abundance of histamines in the gut to try to reduce my anxiety. We did this through adding in Beef Kidney supplements as beef kidney is full of the DAO enzyme which is the enzyme that breaks down histamines. It is also rich in vitamines and minerals and a way to use food as medicine, which was a philosophy both Charmaine and I were interested in.
After only twenty four hours of using the supplements, I felt the most radical change in my whole body. It was as if the anxiety, the started in my gut and permeated every aspect of me, just melted away. I didn’t need any complex therapy, anti-anxiety medications of any life-altering habits, I just had to support my gut in processing the histamines that were causing me to feel as if the anxiety was a part of who I was.
This was so life-changing I am still caught in disbelief that I can now live a calm, balanced and level-headed life without falling into the pit of anxiety that completely ran my life. All of this was because Charmaine was able to understand all of me, over being there through so many months of support about another issue, and understand my specific and unique health needs.
Another aspect of my life that this helped was my stress management that would often lead me to an extreme period of burnout where I had to stop everything in my life in order to recover. Of course the reduction of anxiety played a roll, but so did Charmaine’s understanding of my proclivity to stress and run myself ragged. Charmaine prescribed me a herbal stress-management herb that I was to simply dropper into my water when I felt I needed it. One of these occasions was around the time of my wedding. Not only were we completely planning every aspect of it, but we were also selling our house and moving into a new one all at the same time. Although I was no longer feeling anxious, my stress levels were beginning to rise. Through the use of this herb, I was able to stay calm throughout this massive life events and enjoy them to their fullest, rather than powering through them at such speed I’d forget to stop and look around to appreciate how great I had it.
This support from Charmaine D was a byproduct of my time spent with her focusing on another health issue. I feel this is proof as to the importance of working long-term with her as a naturopath to support you throughout your life as your inevitable health issues come and go. Charmaine is in it for the long haul and sees you as a client, not a patient that she wants to ‘fix’ and send on their way. This is about life-long support and health, and there is no greater gift than that.