Updated on Oct. 14, 2021
My story has come to a happy ending, and I believe more brighter days are coming my way. I locked this website two years ago to focus on my recovery. Last year I had a moment that I thought I should offer my service, but eventually I decided to take more time for myself… until now I feel I am more ready and I sincerely hope that my story will be many people’s inspiration… And though it is hard, I am also enlightened to the fact that I should offer my service for free …
Update on April 9, 2020
Looking back my darkest days, I am now celebrating every waking moment. Today, under the threat of the coronavirus, I want to share how I fought my way back to life given the odds against me. I hope, if you are still searching in a dark tunnel, that my story will inspire you, give you hope, and help you have more and more brighter days coming your way!
【My story was originally written in 2019】
My symptoms at its worst:
Suicidal depression
Severe anxiety
Severe Indigestion/No bowel movements at all
Uncontrollable suicidal thoughts
Severe candida
Anorexia – weight dropped to less than 110 lbs, now back to 140 lbs (5’7″)
Burning headaches, heart palpitations,
Extreme mood swings
Extreme hormonal imbalance
Most severe insomnia, no able to sleep for days, or only two hours with drugs
Addicted to Klonopin for many years
Other prescriptions drugs and supplements (closed to $1000/m)
In short: I had no love, no life, no hope for life, and no doctor was willing to treat me at the end (mid 2019). I tried the most expensive route: Sanoviv, the only hospital that I once trusted to my bone abandoned me by telling me to take psychiatric drugs; another doctor that I once respected to my heart eventually loaded me up with psychiatric drugs, I had to get off the drugs the toughest way all on my own when those drugs were about to kill me. I also lost all my friends, I suspected no one would believe that I would once again recover. Today, I can only humbly say: it was God’s grace that I found my way back!
[ as of today, I only take a lower dosage Nature Thyroid 🙂 No other supplements or drugs! ]
A Journey far and long
Jun Thompson
In the past four years, many times I prayed to God to take me back, for I really couldn’t hang on anymore… But God has a better plan for me, so I am here to tell you my story.
I don’t know where to begin to tell you what I have been through. I think you will understand more details if I start 9 years ago when I began to get really sick. I will tell you how I traced the root cause of my illness, and how I fought to get my life back. I focus on the details of every single treatment I tried after 2014. But If I wanted to do so, I could go back to as early as 1991 when I had my first episode of depression, or 1983 when I had a concussion in middle school at age 14. If you are patient enough, I will tell you that I had TB at age 3 and for that I was given a lot of antibiotics at a young age. But in a general sense, I just want to make you feel reassured that even if you were injured a long time ago, regardless of it being a physical injury or emotional injury, or even it was a Childhood event, that you do have a chance to recover. Our healing ability was given by God. Along with many other people, I am living proof.
Please read my story.
Part one
Got sick suddenly during my pregnancy 2005, and then I started to get sick again in 2011-2012
It was not until many years later, in 2017, that I realized that an old home could be moldy and that the mold could affect one’s brain. I moved into a 140-year-old beautiful Victorian house in 2002 after I got married. Because we traveled, I did not really live there full time until late 2004. In Spring 2005 I got pregnant, and I had the most difficult pregnancy one could imagine. Within 2 weeks I started to lose all sleep, and I was unable to eat or to have bowl movements. My mind froze because I did not know what to do about it. I had been expecting to have children for many years, but the reality I faced now was nothing short of tragic. My OBGYN doctor was concerned, and she referred me to see a psychiatrist. I have to mention that I had a previous experience with psychiatric medication. Antidepressants almost killed me in 2001. After I quit antidepressants in 2002, I swore to God that if I wanted to live like a normal person, I should never touch psychiatric medication again. The psychiatrist I went to see also did not want me to take any medications because of my pregnancy, so he suggested electric shock treatment. My goodness. I don’t know how it can possibly help someone who was in my situation. After one treatment I lost my short-term memory. For example, by the afternoon I had forgotten everything that had happened that morning. I worried I would forget who I was if I had more treatments. So, I quit after two treatments. Being pregnant and depressed, I had no clue how I could survive, and I did not believe I could carry the babies to full term. But yes, I did have twins!
A few weeks later I was in L.A. because my husband had a job to complete there. Just in a few days, I was running here and there like I was nuts. From moment to moment I was thinking about giving up the pregnancy, but eventually I decided that I would either survive with the babies, or I would die with them. When I went to L.A., I had been given the prescription drug called “Trazodone” to help me to sleep. One night I felt like God was telling me: ”You have three lives in your hands, and you must quit the drug if all of you want to survive.” So I quit the drug abruptly, and I went a few nights without sleep. One afternoon I wandered into a Chinese herbal store in L.A. It must have been God’s arrangement, because there I met an herbalist who happened to be a retired professor from one of the prestigious universities in China. He was kind enough to try his best to help me. After testing my pulse and checking my tongue, he selected some herbs and divided them into about 6 packs. I am Chinese so I knew how to carry through. With the herbs I flew back home. Just a few days later, I felt my soul coming back. At that point I knew my babies were going to be safe.
After my twins were born, life was peaceful for a few years. In 2009 I got a cold and soon after I got the flu. Perhaps it was swine flu? I was sick for at least two months, and I passed the flu to my family members. Even after recovering, I began to feel fatigue. Driving my kids to events had become a chore. I did not quite realize what was wrong until I was told by my OBGYN that I had developed a large fibroid and that I needed surgery to remove it. I thought: Well, I would be fine after I had the surgery. After all I was already over 40! Little did I know that event would have become the beginning of my tragic years to come.
After the myomectomy in December 2010 I lost even more of my energy. My difficulty sleeping became worse. I had to occasionally take some sleeping aid, a “so-called” herbal remedy from China. Later I realized that the pills were in fact mixed with pharmaceutical drugs. Anyway, at the end of 2011 my sleep and my mood became more unstable. As usual, I tried all kinds of Chinese herbs, and acupuncture of different styles. I had different herbal recipes from different herbalists locally and from China. To me at that time, alternative or natural treatment was nothing but Chinese herbs. I had no concepts of using other natural means of treatment for illness. Growing up in China and having family members who practiced Chinese Medicine, I am to these days a very faithful believer in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). But the different herbal remedies I took did not help my sleep nor did they alleviate my depression. I just kept deteriorating. Out of desperation, I searched online and found a Canadian company called truehope. They made all kinds of claims about healing the brain with vitamins/aminos/minerals and other supplements. I read a story of a teenage girl Kassidi 1 who suffered from bipolar illness for three years but totally recovered after using these supplements. In fact, Kassidi had used the first generation of truehope supplements. I made contact to Kassidi who was already a mother and had recovered by then. She had become a business women promoting the supplements she used for 13 years, and she marketed the supplements as “quietminds“. She convinced me that her supplements would cure me, so without much hesitatation, I bought her products instead of the truehope’s, thinking they should be the same. OMG. Within days I had the most horrible diarrhea I had ever had! But they told me that it took time to adjust, and it would be just short-term. Without any knowledge regarding different forms of Vitamin B, and having no idea that I was sensitive to many substances, I blindly followed their direction. My assumption was that if it worked for someone else, it would for me too. When my gut totally lost its function, my then Chinese herbalist Dr. Ge urged me to stop those supplements, or it would be fatal. I stopped taking them but wondered why it worked wonders for some people but not me. However, even though I got hurt, that event got me interested in supplements, and I decided that I should find the right doctor who understood my condition and who gave me the right advice. My next trial was with Dr. William Walsh. I would have tried to have approached Dr. Abram Hoffer if he had still been alive. My husband called Dr. William Walsh, and he directed us to go to Mensah Medical Institute in Chicago to see his two students: Dr. Mensah, and Dr. Bowman.
After drawing some blood, we went to their office for an appointment with the two doctors. By analyzing my blood test results, they seemed to be able to explain why I was depressed and had high anxiety, as well as insomnia. Apart from the Chinese herbalists who followed the theory of Ying and Yang in TCM, no doctor ever attempted to tell me the root cause of my problems. But I was more interested to know how they would treat me so I could regain my ordinary life. I was so happy the first time to know from a western doctor that my condition was not permanent, and that I could eventually recover. It was also the first time a western doctor did not attempt to label me and put me into some category. They analyzed my condition according to my blood test results, and I was told I had a condition called “undermethylation“. It seemed to me that was related to my genes. They prescribed me mixtures of natural supplements to correct my situation. I started faithfully taking those supplements from a compounding company as they directed, and it cost about $200/mo. Not bad at all if it worked! I started to improve steadily with their protocol, and I was so happy, and I called to thank them. With my new-found energy, I planned to start a day care center in our old Victorian Home. Within 3 months, I got all the certifications for the day care business. One day during these preparations, my mother’s family physician told me that she needed some medical procedure. All of a sudden, I was filled with panic. I could tell I was collapsing. Depression, anxiety, and insomnia grouped together (like the best of friends) attacked me overnight. I desperately called the two doctors, but even though they tried pretty hard, eventually they were unable to give me further advice except to prescribe Ativan, one of many types of benzodiazepines (benzo). I had to take one of these pills when I was unable to sleep. My poor Mom was smart enough to encourage me not to take any psychiatric drugs because she had witnessed the hell I had experienced in 2001-2002, and she was the one who pulled me out of my antidepressant nightmare back then. She would stay up all night to take care of me, but in the end, I was the one who had to show strength to give up on those pills.
By about July 2012, I was very desperate again and began to see no further hope with the two doctors Mensah and Bowman. I went back to the truehope website, and I read their success stories over and over again. Meanwhile, on my own I began to study how to use targeted nutrients to re-balance the brain, aiming to heal mental illness. I became convinced that I just had some nutritional deficiency and getting more vitamins/aminos/minerals would force my body to absorb the missing nutrients. So even though I failed with Kassidy’s quietmind, which was essentially the same as turehope in its core, I could not resist the temptation to try Truehope itself. I talked to truehope’s representative carefully before I used their supplements, and they convinced me that their version of these products was superior, and it was nothing to compare to Quietmind. I tried truehope for the first month, and I did not have a bad reaction like I had with quietmind, and I did start to feel better. At the same time, I wanted to go beyond truehope’s stories on their website. I needed to talk with an independent person who had been healed with nutrient therapy to prove that some aspects of what might be called mental illness was a result of nutrient deficiency. Day and night I obsessively read online, and eventually I found a gentleman named Allen Darman2, who claimed he had cured himself of bipolar illness by using nutritional supplements only, and he promoted his supplement formula as Willie’s baggie. He showed off healing his son Willie from ADD and Bipolar, an illness Willie suffered from a very young age. Following his supplement protocol, his son Willie had become an “A” student in high school, as well as an athlete at the same time. I was very impressed with Allen Darman’s knowledge of supplements and how the brain and gut work together. That was the first time that I learned about the gut-brain connection. But when I tried Willie’s baggie, right away I had a terrible reaction. I did not know what had failed me as his protocol consisted too many pills, and he advised people to take them all at once. I decided it may not be wise to be my own doctor and that I should have followed Truehope. However, Truehope did not help me to fall asleep easily, and without sleep my brain failed. So I decided to follow Allen Darmen’s advice to take L-tryptophan with the aim of getting a good night’s sleep. L-tryptophan did helped me to fall asleep much easier, and since Allen Darmen said it over and over in his articles and in his YouTube videos that L-tryptophan was safe to use, even at a much higher dose than the one recommended by FDA, I had no worry about L-tryptophan’s potential problems at all! Combined with truehope and l-tryptophan I was able to sleep and appeared to be normal. Life was good until October 2012, and all of a sudden, I noticed that I had ringing in my head. I felt scared for a while, but since no solution was found I had to come to the conclusion that I needed to live with it.
But by December 2012, I started to feel that my gut was malfunctioning. I saw undigested foods in my stool, and I even saw red circles appearing on my tongue. Having natural bowel movement became more and more difficult. The last thing was that the truehope supplements failed to work anymore. It was only stressing my digestion.
During 2011-2012, because I was so determined not to use pharmaceuticals, I aimed to try everything natural. I started in to see a psychologist who was an expert in neurofeedback, but it did not seem to help. Through QEGG brain mapping, they told me that I had suffered a severe brain injury (TBI). I never thought that I had any physical brain damage up till that moment, but I could recall that I started to have insomnia at age 15 shortly after I had a concussion at age 14. And all my high school years I had to battle with insomnia, and my grades went dramatically down. I learned online that advanced neurofeedback would help with this condition, so we drove to Chicago to see some well-known experts in that field. Their price was much more expensive, and I felt little different. I decided to quit neurofeedback because it did not work anyway.
2013 – 7 months of living in hell
In January 2013, I began to get really sick after catching a cold from my 7-year-old daughter. I started to cough, and my lungs hurt. I worried very much that I had pneumonia and would end up having to use antibiotics. I had enough lessons from using antibiotics at a younger age, so with full-force I would try to avoid it. Again, I was unable to sleep at all even though I took very high doses of L-tryptophan. But by this time my head also hurt, and my heart raced day and night. As usual, I first tried Chinese herbs, but they had no effect. Then I tried over the counter sleep aids, but they had almost no effect. Then I went to see my family physician and was prescribed Ambien. Ambien gave me headaches, and when I complained about that, I was given Xanax. I knew Xanax was highly addictive, but I had no other alternatives at that moment. Like millions of people who regret it later, I swallowed the first benzodiazepine pill. Since online reports said it was bad, I tried to take as little as possible. However, within two months I was increasing the dosage to almost 1 mg and at the same time, my brain started to swell. In March 2013, I was unable to breath during my sleep. Severe depression and anxiety during my waking hours made my days too miserable to endure. While I swore to God so many times that I could not go on, or I would never go to see a psychiatrist again, I had to give up when what I faced was death. I needed to breath as a human being! In order to calm my heated nerves, my husband drove me wandering from towns to towns in the car, and I was remain mentally confused sitting in the passenger seat. Life did not mean anything to me anymore, and if only I had no kids … all kinds of crazy thoughts rushed into my mind. What held me together was that I kept telling myself that I was a mother, and I had two wonderful kids who I wanted to see as they grew up.
In the middle of trying to find the right psychiatrist, I consulted an nutritionist named Cynthia in Chicago who was an expert in DNA expression and how it affects our health. I did my genetic analysis at 23andme.com. Cynthia interpreted the result and she chose supplements based on my genes. But it helped me very little. I also read a lot from Dr. Ben Lynch’s website, and the other related websites about DNA expression. Without much direct help, I tried to do as much as I could in terms of choosing the right form of supplements. I was so frustrated about the inconsistency of DNA diagnosis and the contradictions among them. My condition just kept deteriorating no matter what form of Vitamin B I took. The DNA theory did not work for me. I had no clue as to why it worked for many people like Cynthia, but not for me. It was an extremely frustrating situation. I felt that no one could understand my body but God. I wanted to meet someone like Jesus who could heal me in a single glance.
In April, I talked to a psychiatrist named Dr. Donald Randon in Chicago who claimed that he would treat his patients with natural means. I paid to consult him several times without being reimbursed by our insurance company. I followed his advice to do blood tests, including one that was called “Nutreval” from Genova Diagnostics. The result came back with many “markers” that I had no clue how to interpret. Dr. Randon told me that I had bugs in my gut, and my brain was inflamed because of that. This was the first time a psychiatrist told me that the root cause of my problem was related to infection, and that I was not crazy. So now I had a new hope, that Dr. Randon would help to kill the bugs, and that I could claim my life back. He prescribed for me a strong antibiotic called “flagyl“, and he said I needed to take this drug for 15 days. I was very reluctant, but I followed his direction. However, after just 9 days taking that antibiotics, my gut was such a mess that I thought I needed to get some nutritional IV treatments. I could not digest, and I could not absorb anything nutritious. At that moment I also realized that I had lost a lot of weight and a lot of muscle all over my body. My weight went from 140 lbs to no more than 110 lbs. At the same time my anxiety level was sky high. Up until then I still used L-tryptophan in high dosage, as I could not find any other replacement that can put me to sleep. However, L-tryptophan could only help me to fall asleep: it did not help me maintain any sleep at all! I would wake up before mid-night and not be able to go back to sleep for the rest of the night.
Dr. Randon did not interpret any of the technical terms or explain what these markers meant in my blood test results. I ended up researching every technical term on my own to try to understand what the heck was going on in my body. What did those markers mean? It was not until that point that I found that I had highly elevated quinolinic acid, a metabolite from L-tryptophan, which is very toxic to the CNS (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/tryptophan-metabolism) . I had no clue why L-tryptophan did not metabolize in the good way. The good way was to convert it into a calming amino acid called serotonin. It was the serotonin that I wanted, not the toxic metabolites! I had not understood, and this was the first time I learned that the same substance can be metabolized by different path ways depending on your own body’s circumstances. I felt beat down. How could I figure out how my body reacts to every substance I introduced to my body? Why was I so different from other human beings? Why had God failed me again! At that moment not only did I have severe burning headaches, my scalp was also inflamed. My Mom touched my scalp and told me my head had grown “too fat”. I felt so cheated. How could I have trusted someone on the internet and gotten myself into big trouble? But still WHY it did work for someone but not for me? I did not have the answer until 2017 when Dr. Marvin Sponaugle told me that for someone with a comprised / toxic leaky gut, L-tryptophan would metabolite into a toxic pathway. What a lesson! But anyway, I quit taking L-tryptophan right away after reading the report, and I knew my brain was swelling. I felt my brain was full of cotton and hurt tremendously. At that point I totally gave up and decided to try psychiatric drugs, I thought I would have to kill myself if I did not use some drug to kill the fire in me. I agreed to take an atypical anti-psychotic drug called “Zyprexa” even though I fully acknowledged its side effects. However, soon I started to have 48 hours cycling, that is one day I felt only depressed, but the next day I felt totally psychotic. My circadian clock had totally gone out of sync with human nature. I was very scared! My friend YingQi was so kind that she proposed to stay with me at night, and she prayed for me during that time! Miracles did not appear. So now, given my troubled experiments with different psychiatrists, I thought the only safe way to try psychiatric drugs was to stay at the hospital. I begged my husband to take me to the mental department at provena hospital in champaign. After many heated arguments, my husband eventually took me to the hospital, and I was admitted. The first night they gave me 1 mg of Ativan, a benzo drug I hated. With no other choice I slept with the drug in a pretty nice big room on my own. The next day I had energy to be curious about what an American Mental Hospital was like. It was not bad at all – very friendly nurses and workers, nice and clean rooms, and all our clothes were washed by the nurses. The only difference was that the hospital was seriously locked and family members could only visit at some hours. I learnt that some of the patients were in fact being sent there by force and they could not leave without permission. I had many opportunities to socialize with other patients, even though I was not in the right mood. My curiosity took over, and I tried my best to be friendly. Some of the woman patients apparently came from poor families, and a few of them turned their back on me as they perceived that I was not one of them. A lot of these people had serious problems with their families and they did not have any visitors. But still some were very friendly to me and they were open about their problems. However, soon I felt disgusted as most men said things about their past were very depressing and sad. For example, one man who was diagnosed with schizophrenia told me that his mother sexually harassed him from a very young age until he was 16 at which point he left home. He was so messed up that I did not believe a few pills could straight him out. Soon I felt sick to put up with the low class language that they liked to use, and I was too tired to talk to anyone. The doctor only came once a day, and without much conversation, he gave people drugs. This doctor happened to be the same one who prescribed me the first antidepressant in 1998. I told him that and he looked at me without any sympathy and asked: “This time do you want to try an atypical anti-psychotic drug?” I answered: “No. I did all the research, and the research indicated those drugs would damage the brain to the extent that the brain cannot recover.” He glanced at me again as if he was saying: “What made you come here then?” I did not want to offend him, and I had to continue: ” I have horrible adverse reactions to any drugs, especially psychiatric drugs. Antidepressants make me feel crazy, and I learned online that antidepressants would trigger bipolar problems. So please don’t give me antidepressants.” He looked at me again impatiently:” OK, I will let you try a mood stabilizer.” At that moment I wanted to yell at him: “You shouldn’t have prescribed me antidepressants in 1998 without telling me the consequences!” In reality, I had to try to smile at him and accepted whatever he gave me. The next day, a nurse came back telling me the mood stabilizer they gave me caused my white blood cell level to drop to a dangerous level. So they changed to another mood stabilizer called “Lamictal“. Blood test showed nothing wrong, so they decided that was the right drug for me. Having done all the research on the internet about every psychiatric drug could be offered, I did not believe any psychiatric drug would be effective or safe to take. But since Lamictal was able to calm me down so I could fall to sleep, I accepted it. I stayed at the hospital for another three days, and each day my Mom insisted that she would cook home meals for me so I did not have to eat at the hospital. Frankly, the hospital food was not bad if I had been well and had no food intolerance. The woman who appeared to be jealous of me having all the family support would say something like: “Big deal, she thinks she is on a vacation.” I asked myself: “Why do I have to stay here? I don’t think I can get any better than this! “ Since I was a volunteer patient, I was free to go anytime. I left the hospital three days later with Lamictal. But this drug made me so fatigued that I lost my ability to drive. I felt numb, and I described myself as “a human without soul”. After much online research on my own, I decided to take benzodiazepines because at least it would give me more hours of sleep. In order to get the drug, I pretended to be fine but needed some help just to go to sleep. I asked my family physician to prescribe Klonopin – a benzo drug that was most effective at first but was the hardest to quit. By then I already knew the nature of benzo drugs, but it seemed to me that it was the only choice if I did not want to die.
I had to take 2.5mg Klonopin to calm me down, and that was the end of May 2013. Just a week or two weeks after I started 2.5 mg Klonopin, I found myself having uncontrollable anxiety attacks and even violently broke a glass in front of my husband. By that time I had exhausted him with my extreme aggressive and sometimes violent behavior. He suggested we should get a divorce. I had a more violent reaction to his suggestion. That evening a friend of mine, Ben, called me from Boston asking if I could join his business. I had to tell him what I was going through. He said he knew an acupuncturist in L.A. who successfully treated a mother of his friend with acupuncture for severe depression. He gave me Dr. Li’s phone number. I ran to my husband and said:” I know this man, he is a former gold meｄal winning Chinese martial artist, and he has practiced Tai Chi for many years. I think he is going to heal me. I must go to L.A.” My husband, a Caucasian who did not knew much about Chinese medicine, argued that I had tried many sessions of acupuncture from an well trained acupuncturist in town. But having no alternative, he agreed to take me to L.A. to give it a try. Within one week, our family was flying to L.A. My 7-year-old twins were excited to go to California to visit our new house in San Diego which was temporarily a rental. At that moment I was so tired of the miserable long winters in Central Illinois that I looked forward to having some beautiful California sunshine. Besides, I had admired Dr. Li for a while and now I was more than excited to meet with him in person.
Yes, my life was indeed saved during that trip. Dr. Li was such an experienced acupuncturist that he put my system back into balance in just a few days. I dropped Klonopin from 2 mg to 1 mg within the first few days. My anxiety went down, and I was able to sleep for 5 hours without any threatening and aching heart palpitations in the morning. In between the treatments we also had a wonderful vacation time. At that point, my conclusion was: my condition must be related to the long and cold winter in Illinois. I may have seasonal depression. If I moved to San Diego, I may recover and move on with my life.
My husband had planned to retire in 2010. That was why we bought a house in San Diego. Seeing me improving drastically, my husband decided that we should move to San Diego as soon as possible. Back to Illinois, I quickly packed things up and looked forward to the move. I prayed to God that I would not collapse before the move and that we did not have to endure another long winter in Illinois. My prayer was answered in a good way: we arrived safety in San Diego in mid-January 2014! Looking at the blue sky of southern California, I believed that sunshine would be on my face every day.
Part Two
2014-2016: Fatal Collapse Began
I really enjoyed San Diego. Every morning I walked to school with my 8-year-old twins and my mother, and my mother was happy too. I felt happy and enjoyed my life, and I was very glad that we made the choice of leaving Illinois. I did hot yoga, hiking, and I also went swimming with my kids in our community center pretty often. As a family, we went to beaches whenever the weather looked beautiful. My Klonopin was further reduced to almost 0, and with another two weeks of Dr. Li’s treatment in L.A., I was drug free! I started to plan to volunteer at the elementary school that my kids attended. I planned my kids’ activities like most mothers did, and I started to teach my kids Chinese language. Things looked so bright, then my Mom, who had been taking care of me and the kids for all these years, wanted to go back to China. I thought it was the time, but I wanted to take her a trip to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon as a show of appreciation for her hard work. I had a very close emotional connection with my mother, and I wished she could stay. But I understood that it was time for her to go home, a place she felt she belonged. So, I planned a trip over the Thanksgiving holiday, and we all had a good time in both Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. I would never have imagined that this trip would become the start of years of unbearable suffering, to the extent that many times I believed Hell would have been a better place to go.
I collapsed after Christmas 2014 with severe headaches. At first I was not panic, because now I could easily go to see Dr. Li in L.A. Dr. Li was kind enough to gave me treatment on the New Year’s Day 2015. But this time I was not as lucky. For another two months straight, we drove back and forth to L.A. to see Dr. Li intensively. I had no luck. I was grateful that once Dr. Li even came to our house to treat me. When driving to L.A. become a chore for my husband, and when physically I was no longer able to sustain, I tried a few acupuncturists in San Diego. They all did their best, especially Dr. Yao , who went so far as to have me to go to church and have people pray for me. I was very thankful, but I still suffered as if I had no treatment at all. After an intensive internet research, I firmly believed I was suffering from Candida, and my white and enlarged tongue was the evidence. I had long knew that San Diego Dr. Humiston prided himself as “candida doctor” who healed candida with herbs. As a physician, Dr. Humiston had suffered from Candida himself, and he figured out that pharmaceuticals were not the answer. He was eventually cured by an herbal formula from a world famous herbalist the late Hanna Kroeger. At that point, I placed me whole faith in him. I purchased his Candida Kits, and I also religiously followed his dietary instructions. Dr. Huminston also had something called “neurorestore”, an IV treatment with some Vitamin B3 co-factor called NAD, for helping patients quit psychiatric drugs, street drugs, as well as alcohol. When I asked him about quitting Klonopin, Dr. Huminston said Klonopin was the hardest to quit, but he could help people become totally free from Klonopin using his Neurorestore protocol. At that point I realized that my severe suicidal thoughts had something to do with taking Klonopoin. I knew if I did not quit that drug, the consequence would be unimaginable. So, I started to take his Candida herbs with the thought that I would be cured of candida, and then I would be treated with the neurorestore IV. Within one month, my mental clarity came back, and my appetite was normalized, and even more surprisingly, I was quitting Klonopin by myself. Dr. Huminston’s herbal remedy had three steps. However when I was advancing to the last step, I sled backwards. Dr. Huminston advised me to go back to the first step for a few days. So I was in that kind of Yo-yo situation back and forth for more than one month. I began to realize that I could expect no more progress. Finally, in the fourth month of his treatment, I was actually getting worse and worse, and eventually I was worse than when I started. When Dr. Huminston said the next step was to use the pharmaceutical drug called “fluconazole”, I could not understand why he did not just tell me that he could not handle my case. Instead, he told me to try the very drug that got him so sick and forced him to look into alternative options for his own case. I lost faith in him to treat my Candida. Also, at Dr. Huminston’s clinic, I saw two patients who were suffering very much trying to quit Klonopin with his “Neurorestore”/NAD IV treatment. I lost my hope to quit Klonopin with Dr. Huminston. I maintained a friendship with one of these two patients, a lady who I will call Amy (not her real name) for more than a year. She recovered by following a very difficult path, and after she was well, she could not face looking back to her nightmare and decided to drop her contact with me. I fully understood and respected her decision. I will talk about her in later session.
I was deteriorating through August, but the final hit came one day after I ate beef stake at a fancy golf course restaurant not far from home. That night I had the most burning headache I had ever had. I had no idea what caused it, even though I had some knowledge of food intolerance. I found it hard to imagine that a good quality beef stake would have hurt me so much. When I look back now, I believe it could have been ingredients of the beef gravy that may have contained toxic additives. Given that my blood brain barrier was comprised due to leaky gut, the toxins could have gone all the way up to my brain. I have stopped eating in restaurants since then.
The crash after that meal was the first time I was really in trouble and wanted to die. I paced aimlessly in our neighborhood for hours, to the extent that I worried that our neighbors would notice that I was mentally ill. I did not know what else to do or to whom I could turn. In my confusing time, I talked to a friend in L.A. and asked for her advice. She suggested me to see Dr. Zhang, a Chinese herbalist who specialized in treating diabetes. I knew that diabetes was a systematic illness, and it was hard to treat. In western medicine, diabetes is considered un-treatable, and the only way is to manage it throughout the rest of one’s life. If Dr. Zhang could cure diabetes, then she had to know how to treat my condition. In other words, I believed she could treat the whole body and put it back to equilibrium, called homeostasis. I called Dr. Zhang right away, and she was so kind and told me that she could heal me. Her confidence was like a light in my total darkness. Two days later I was at her office in L.A. She told me that the root cause of my problem was in my spleen, and it also led to my blood being very stuck. I told her that my hormones were way too out of balance, and she explained everything was connected together and her herbs would improve the function of my spleen and detox my liver. So I got many packs of herbs, including some for making tea, some for doing enemas, and some ready-to-take powders. I called her every morning as my OCD was so severe, I needed to get some reassurance. Even through today I am thankful she has been so supportive, patient, and understanding of my psychology. After two weeks of intensive herbal treatments, I started to function again. I was so happy, and once again I thought I had found out the root cause of my problems and my conditions would be under control once and for all by using Chinese herbs. I was so enthusiastic that I developed a website for her in both English and Chinese, and I wanted to promote her Chinese herbal treatments to the world. Being treated by the Chinese herbs, my appetite was increasingly getting better, and my digestion was also being normalized. I was happy to see my weight increase in a healthy way. With the holiday approaching, I was excited that I would have a wonderful time with my kids. Even though I knew I should be on a gluten-free diet, I thought the Chinese herbs would have already healed my gut entirely and what was more, a gluten-free diet was not in the TCM concept. So I did a lot of delicious baking from Thanksgiving all the way to the end of the New Year 2016. I started to feel some digestive stress, and I quit all the gluten right away. However, in mid-January 2016, my kids once again gave me a cold. Within days, I totally collapsed! Dr. Zhang right away gave me new herbal recipes, but this time my system tricked me again. The herbs that Dr. Zhang sent to me were close to useless. At that critical point, for the first time I wanted to get rid of my increasingly enlarged fibroid, but in the years since 2011 I was convinced that I needed to find a natural way to deal with the fibroid. One year after the myomectomy in 2010, my fibroid had come back. Now every month I bled like crazy and the cramps could really have killed me. I was so anemic that my lips lost all the color. Once again, I turned to Google, and I also bought a few books from Amazon to read. By this time I firmly believed that I was severely toxic, and for some reason my body had lost its ability to detoxify itself. I tried to detox at home by following a very strict diet: gluten-free, sugar-free, no additives, all home-made food from scratch. I ended up eating very simple food: rice, organic chicken, and a few Chinese vegetables or salad greens. My Mom made sure that I had organic chicken broth daily. But I could not function. Every day I laid in bed hoping God would hear my prayers. I had to take Klonopin in increasing doses, and that gave me more anxiety attacks. By early March 2016, I read a book about how to detoxify the body. It also talked about a few detox institutes. My eye was on “Hippocrates Health Institute” in Florida. “Food is your medicine” – this ancient concept sounded so beautiful to me, especially when I could not tolerate almost all pharmaceuticals, even herbs. So I called and talked to their representatives and tried to make arrangements to fly there. My husband would have to stay behind because of our kids, and it would be dangerous for me to go by myself. I wanted so bad to fly to Florida, but I could barely walk and was confused and anxious. Also, I suspected I had other severe un-diagnosed conditions, and I may need medical IVs. Hippocrates Health Institute did not have that capacity. In the same book, I learned about a medical detox facility in Mexico called “Sanoviv”. They offered medical detox as well as traditional medical services. What appealed to me was that they claimed to be able to diagnose any “hard to diagnosed” condition. So I called Sanoviv right away and described my condition in an honest way. They had a doctor talk to me, and he told me they would accept me as soon as possible. I felt hope right away. However, where could I find that much money right away? Seeing me struggling so much, and losing so much weight, and a lot of blood, my Mother cried. After some serious discussion, we decided to ask for help from my cousins in China. It was a blessing that two days later enough money was sent into my bank account. I was so grateful to my cousins’ support, even they did not know the extent of my troubles.
Sanoviv’s experience was phenomenal – the breath striking beautiful natural scenery at the shore of the Pacific Ocean and a totally organic environment. Within four to five days, even before I had any meaningful treatment, by eating in their dining room and by bathing in their filtered ocean water pool, my spirit came back. Their diagnoses was that I had a fibroid as big as a five-month-old baby, and that needed to be removed as soon as possible. They told me that my dental crowns made in China needed to be replaced with crowns without metal, and the teeth with root canals needed to be pulled. The dentist did not explain to me why I needed to do all of this expensive dental work, she just told me to do some research online. Also, my primary Sanoviv doctor, Dr. Mesa, said something like “your leaky gut caused a leaky brain”, a concept I already had, but here he confirmed I had severe leaky gut, and that it affected my brain. I knew about my fibroid being the biggest issue, but I did not know too much about how dental crowns with metal would affect one’s health, nor did I know that teeth with root canals could cause a problem. After all, we did not have money to do the recommended dental work. I believed the Sanviv’s supplement protocol would heal my leaky gut. So I had to just focus on getting my fibroid removed. For years I knew I had bad reactions to anesthesia, especially general anesthesia. In addition, antibiotics would also affect me to the extreme. I talked to Dr. Mesa in Sanoviv regarding my concerns about having surgery. Dr. Mesa offered me to have the surgery done at Sanoviv with their excellent surgeon and sophisticated post-surgery detox program. Also Dr. Mesa reassured me that they would only do local anesthesia and the surgery would be minimally invasive. I was thrilled until I heard that it cost about $40k. However, I really couldn’t afford to be bed-ridden again. I knew I would get totally knocked down after the surgery if I did it the traditional way in the U.S. Giving my new experience with Sanoviv, I firmly believed that Sanoviv knew what to do to protect me and guaranteed my recovery. Sanoviv was my only hope. But when I gathered enough courage to ask my cousins for help, I did not get any answer. I knew I had reached my limit. So after 14 days of detox at Sanoviv, I left thinking about how I could get enough money to come back to get my surgery done. When I left Sanoviv, I was in good shape, and I had a good appetite. It was my last expectation that I would collapse within one week after going home. The evening when I got back to San Diego, immediately I felt something wrong in the air, and my heart sunk. I wished I could have stayed in Sanoviv forever, even if I was just their cleaning lady! But the worst was yet to come. I continued to deteriorate as if I had never been treated or detoxed at Sanoviv. So within one month, my husband took me back to Sanoviv as an outpatient, and we stayed at a rental apartment adjacent to Sanoviv for a few days. I went to Sanoviv for their vitamin IVs as I was convinced that they would be able to pull me out again. But no, I did not feel any better. Since we could not afford for me to be an inpatient again, we left disappointed. Upon returning home, it was already early May, and I had to figure out what I could do to save my life! Not only did I need to function, I needed to get my surgery done as soon as possible so that my monthly bleeding would stop. I was sure that having surgery in the U.S. without nutritional support and detoxification would kill me or at least I would have years to suffer. I needed to find money so I could return to Sanoviv. It was my life and I couldn’t take a chance. I also imagined that once the fibroid was gone, the inflammation in my body would all disappear, and then I could be well like nothing had happened before. So many online stories inspired me to get the surgery done as soon as possible. One day when I was trying to figure out my options, Sherly, a friend who I had met in Illinois happened to call me. After hearing my story, she encouraged me to get public donations. Being desperate, and having no other alternatives, I published my case on gofunme.com. I later regretted doing that. First of all, $40k was too much to ask; second, you can only get money from your friends who really know you. Once your case is online, I felt so “naked” and that was not a good feeling at all. To let my privacy go was very hard to take, and at the same time, I worried that people may not believe me. Of course, in the end I was really grateful for every $$ my friends donated, and to these days I want to thank everyone! After I had $10K, I closed the account as I believe it reached the optimal, but it was still far away from $40K. So I needed to forget about going back to Sanoviv. I had to find an alternative path in the U.S. To this day, I wish I could have convinced my husband to try to borrow money so that I could have done the surgery in Sanoviv, maybe the dental work as well. If that had happened, I might have eliminated my years of suffering following my surgery and many wrong medical decisions that followed.
Anyway, I have to go back to May 2015 to continue my story. I was convinced that my body needed detoxification, and I could not do it all on my own. I read William Anthony’s book “Medical Medium” and once again I put my faith in a raw food diet. I grew spouts of all kinds as well as wheat grass at home. I even tried a grain free diet for the first time. As a Chinese, not to eat rice at all is something unimaginable, and my mother was puzzled. Thanks to her support I have been able to experiment in so many ways in my attempt to regain my life. But the raw diet result was not at all helpful, but perhaps I did not do it exactly right on my own. Once again, I decided to go to another health institute to do it “properly”. This time given the financial constraints and travel restrictions, I ended up at Optimal Health Institute (OHI) in San Diego. I first signed up for one week, and I did not live there. Since I had a wonderful experience with Sanoviv, I was not impressed with OHI. But undoubtedly, after one week of intense detoxing plus a pure raw food diet, and daily wheat grass cleansing, I started to feel better. So I stayed for the second week. There I met Dr. Sandy, who is a nutritionist who helps people with all kinds of chronic illnesses. She was there with her patients, and her patients told me how cool she was. She said she would take on my case, but I needed to deal with my fibroid first. She told me her personal story and suggested that I see Dr. Nezhat who treated her, and who proudly claimed to be the best World-renowned Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgeon. He also specializes in treating endometriosis. At the same time, I also met a young man named Chad who had suffered from Lyme disease for 20 years. He was getting significantly better then, and he told me he suspected I had Lyme. I said I had Lyme tests done twice and both were negative. Chad also told me how antibiotics ruined his life, and that I agreed with totally! That was the first time I suspected I had Lyme, and I understood that Lyme was hard to diagnose. After returning home I continued my raw food diet as well as growing wheat grass. I contacted Dr. Nezhat in San Jose, and surgery was arranged for July 14, 2016. Meanwhile, I followed Sandy’s protocol of supplements trying to sustain myself. On July 12, my husband and I flew to San Jose to see Dr. Nezhat. Before I made the decision to go to San Jose, I had already visited quite a few top OBYGN surgeons in San Diego, and all of them believed that I needed to get the fibroid out with an open surgery as it was too big to come out with a small incision. But I believed that Dr. Nezhat could do it safely in the minimally invasive way as he promised. Only God and I knew that I was not able to sustain an open surgery. Finally, at Dr. Nezhat‘s office I talked to Dr. Nezhat and his assistants, and their level of expertise reassured me. I told them that on the day of surgery I was starting to have my period, and they acknowledged that and confirmed that I could still have the surgery. For several years it had been on the second or third day of my period that I would bleed like crazy, but I did not emphasis that fact as I had all the faith in their profession expertise, thinking they could deal with every difficult situation. Yes, I was right, but a two-hour surgery turned out to be five hours long. And Dr. Nezhat yelled at my husband by telling him that “I was lucky that God was on my side”. He said the surgical tissue he used to stop my bleeding cost him $20k. I could not comprehend much of what that meant at that moment, I just celebrated that I was still alive. But after the surgery my nightmare of not being able to recover become true: lowest of low energy, mentally confused, severe insomnia, also, I was not able to have any bowl movements. Laying in the bed of a two-star hotel room in San Jose, I felt I might have rather died. Given my severe food intolerance, my husband did not know what to do. Also I was too weak to fly home. I guessed God always left a window opened even in the extreme darkness.
It would have been more of a tragic situation if my dear friend Erica was not there to help. Erica was my high school friend who worked in San Jose. For a million years I am thankful that she was there to help me out! Erica and her husband were so kind that they cooked Cantonese fish soup with daikon. Not only it was delicious, but the soup finally helped me to have bowl movements. That was a traditional remedy for Chinese people after surgery, and my sister told me that recipe worked like a charm for her. Now I finally had some energy, but I was mentally unstable, and I also had a bladder infection due to the catheter insertion. I called Dr. Nezhat in a panic voice, and he checked me in to the Sanford hospital. At the hospital I refused to use antibiotics and they did not provide any other help to relieve my miseries. So I decided to leave. Erica continued to support me, and after another miserable night, when I finally fell asleep with Klonopin for a few hours, I told my husband at 2:00 AM that we must leave right away before I lost more energy. My husband made some urgent arrangement with the airline, and a few hours later, we flew back to San Diego.
Back in San Diego, I had to deal with the worst nightmare: extreme fatigue, mentally confusion, bladder infection, etc etc. Once again, I had to turn to Chinese medicine, and thanks to Dr. Zhang, my bladder infection was finally gone, but the herbs did not help my other issues. I became so suicidal that I started to count each minute in each day. I blamed my suicidal thoughts on the Klonopin I took, and online I read so many tragic stories. I remembered Amy, the lady I met at Dr. Huminston’s office. Amy was accidentally prescribed Klonopin two years earlier, and she got into deep troubles and the psychiatrist eventually prescribed her a cocktail of drugs, 5 drugs in total. Amy told me that she did not understand why she would become so ill as she was perfectly healthy before taking Klonopin. She almost attempted to kill herself at the Coronado Bridge. I called her and asked her what to do. She said if she had the money, she would go to Alternative to Medicine Center (ATMC) at Sedona, AZ. I had my eyes on ATMC already, but besides the money they asked for, I was not convinced that I could really quit Klonopin there. However, suffering every single minute, and without any other hope, I had to call ATMC no matter what. They told me their success rate for quitting all kinds of drugs was about 75%. I thought 75% was a great number as only God knew how difficult it was to either quit that drug or to live with that drug. But where to find the money? God did not fail me this time and two checks from some people who knew me 30 years ago arrived.
So, I called ATMC telling them I was on my way to the center. Very interestingly, before I left for ATMC, Amy told me she was recovering after 9 electric shock treatments! I was not able to believe what she told me, as my previous experience with this kind of treatment was so negative. I congratulated her, but I was convinced I wouldn’t go that route again no matter what. I can’t have her update as she decided to move on without looking back to her days of darkness.
I flew to Phoenix AZ on my own with minimum baggage. It was a real struggle to pack and get to the plane, but I finally met Sue (not her real name) who picked me up at the airport. Sue drove me all the way from Phoenix to ATMC at Sedona, and it was a long drive. She was friendly and sweet. Sue told me that she previously worked at some other addiction center before she joined ATMC, but only at ATMC she saw the results of quitting drugs and the patients could really remain sober. Up to that point I only knew a few other people who got addicted to Klonopin by following a doctor’s advice. I had few ideas of how people suffered from other drugs. Now Amy told me that while Klonopin was tough to quit, there were many other hard-core drugs that people struggled with legally or illegally. I knew only those who had the kindest hearts would choose to help drug addicts and treat them with love and respect. I admired her immediately.
Upon arriving ATMC, I started to regret the decision I had made because the environment was not at all of what I expected. This was another example of being spoiled by Sanoviv. But the staff seemed to be very compassionate and friendly. I had already made effort to come here, so I couldn’t just quit without a backup plan. I tried to settle into my room, and I started the program. I must say that the stuff at ATMC had tried their best, and I saw quite a few young people who were addicted to either street drugs or psychiatric drugs who came clean. But I did not respond to their treatment at all, and to this day I don’t think their ND knew what she was doing. I think they tried to follow Dr. Abram Hoffer‘s theory, but they failed to identify that leaky gut was my core issue, and had little idea as how to treat leaky gut. Also, having intense sauna as their core treatment was not smart for someone in my poor physical condition. I started to air my complaints, but the more complaints I made, the more supplements the ND gave me, and the more inflamed my gut became. I admit that staff at ATMC were very compassionate, and had great intentions, and I truly appreciated their dedication. However, after three weeks of treatment, instead of getting rid of Konopin, I felt that I needed even more. The ND sold me some CBD oil, that was the first time I tried CBD oil. It did not seem to work. Because I got more mentally unstable, I started to misbehave. After I got a few warnings, I heard a voice in my brain: “Go home”. But what could I do if I just went home? I had no clue. During this time, my husband drove 7 hours from San Diego to Sedona to see me. I was literally going crazy. After 21 days, I thought enough was enough. I decided to go home, and even if I had to die, I would choose to die at home. ATMC wanted me to stay for 8 weeks (their original plan), but I insisted to go home. After another 7 hours, I was back home, and back at ground zero. What should I do next?
Without a backup plan, I still had to do something to survive. In order to ease some of my anxiety, I called Dr. Li in L.A. to get some acupuncture. It was another failed attempt. After about 10 days, I came back home from L.A. But during that time, I researched obsessively with my cell phone for a place to detox Klonopin. I knew this drug was killing me, as it did for many others already. Through my research, Dr. Sponaugle from Sponaugle Wellness Institute (SWI) in Tamper, FL seemed to know it all, and his protocol appeared to be promising. By now I had to worry about whether I had Lyme, or maybe exposure to mold as I learned so much from the Sponaugle website. But where would I find so much money? They would charge $3000/wk plus supplements and other services. In addition, I would have to pay for accommodation. I must mention that during all my troubled time, I have a dear friend who has really stood by me. She talked to me on my extremely lonely and depressing nights at Sedona for endless hours. Again with her help, somehow we scraped the money together. So off I went to Tampa, FL with my family in November 2016. When I was planning for the trip to Tampa, I pretty much decided this would be my last battle to win my life back, and I must win!
Part Three
2017-2018: Fighting for life over death
After reviewing hundreds of testimonials at the SWI site, I was convinced that SWI was the place that I could get totally recovered. At ATMC I encountered drug addicts and felt their pain and heard their stories. I became more convinced that the current system for helping people quit drugs was not only ineffective, it was harmful. But at SWI what I saw was out of my wildest imagination. At the same time I also learned a great deal.
As a physician, Dr. Sponaugle has his story to tell. He did do a lot of research and has accomplished a lot. Giving years of experiments, the SWI dealt with those sickest people, and they used a much more advanced protocol. I had the most positive experience at the beginning: within one week, not only I was free of Klonopin but my energy was increasingly improved. I considered Dr. Sponagle to be someone next to God, and even when a young female patient, only a girl, died within my first few weeks of my treatment, my faith in Dr. Sponagle’s protocol was not shaken. In late January 2017, I talked to Dr. Sponagle and told him that I could make connections with some health authorities in China to promote his protocol over there. I truly appreciated that Dr. Sponaugle had made an effort to understand how harmful of our environment has become these days, and how we should protect ourselves using detox procedures. I finally understood why I got increasingly sick after I moved into a Victorian House in central Illinois. It was mold that had infected me. I also learned that all old homes have this kind of issue, but not everyone would get affected or infected enough to show symptoms. In addition, Dr. Sponaugle treated all other kinds of micro-toxins like Benzene and other industrial toxins, etc. I thought China needed someone like him given their severe environmental pollution. I proposed to translate some of his work. I told Dr. Sponaugle I was ready to go home and thanked him for giving me my life back. However, instead Dr. Sponaugle suggested that I should stay for a more aggressive treatment so my body would be free of pathogens, and I wouldn’t get sick again. Having dealt with relapses for so many times, of course I hoped to have a once and for all solution. I decided to stay behind for another few weeks. This turned out to have been almost the most horrible decision I have made in my life: not only did it cost us another $100k, it almost killed me! The treatment protocol was one week of Vit-C IV, one week of H2O2 IV, and 3 weeks of antibiotics. I still question myself today how I could have agreed to use antibiotics after I had avoided them at all costs for many, many years? There is only one explanation: I believed in Dr. Sponagle so much that I lost my usual judgement. Also, during that time I had several conflicts with my roommate, and I was under huge stress. The end result was that I went totally crazy after the three-week course of antibiotics. I stayed for another few weeks for detox IVs, but my system had become so very weak! I had originally planned to have a two-month treatment at SWI, but now it was getting to be 5 months. I decided I must leave. I was bankrupting my family. So I left SWI mid-April 2017
During my stay at SWI, I kept a weekly blog in English, and I also kept a very detailed daily log in Chinese. I have a very clear picture of what treatment I had every day for the entire 5 month period. I learned a lot from Dr. Sponaugle, and I would have thanked him forever if I could have avoided the suffering that came at the end!
Upon returning home, I had to do a colonic every day because the antibiotics had ruined my gut to the extent that having natural bowl movements was impossible. I had to do coffee enemas after clolonics to keep the toxins at bay. I would have never spent a dime for Dr. Sponaugle had I known the final outcome after a 5-month treatment and after spending a fortune. I was barely getting by at home for one month when suddenly in late May, I had a big relapse. I did not want to go back to SWI, but I was convinced that the first Sponaugle treatment without antibiotics at SWI saved me my life. I knew that some former SWI patients went to another health institute called Life Style Health Institute in Naples, FL for similar treatments, but without antibiotics. I learned online and figured out the relationship between these two institutes. I called and talked to their representative Jack, who is the father of a young man named Wyatt who in effect ran that place. I knew that Wyatt’s protocol derived from Dr. Sponaugle’s and that there were tensions between these two health institutes, but I did not care about their business. What interested me was that Wyatt totally went against the use of antibiotics. They told me they were very experienced in helping people quit all kinds of drugs, and Klonopin was one of the main ones, and they also specialized in micro-toxin detoxification. It sounded good as I knew my system was way too vulnerable. This time the treatment had to be 100% natural. I needed to get rid of Klonopin and detox from micro-toxins! Our family could not afford to delay as I deteriorated day by day. It was already summer vacation time, and my 11-year-old twins were about to be on summer vacation. Once again, our family went to Florida. This time we landed in Miami, and we drove to Napels in a rental car.
Well, I did not have good luck at Life Style Health Institute like the early weeks I was in SWI. I saw other people very happy who were doing well, but I was just as miserable as ever. Apparently, Wyatt and Dr. Dean (his partner) got tired of me after my daily complaints of no progress. After two weeks, I decided to go back to SWI because I was also tired of their secretive attitude. Patients were not told what was in the IVs, and they claimed that it was their secret. How could we as patients be so powerless and be victims of the business competition with Dr. Sponaugle? They were keeping their IVs secret for that reason. I left Naples and returned to SWI with my family in a hurry after two weeks of IV treatments at Life Style Health Institute.
It is my general comment that medical professionals should in the first-place focus on helping their patients and put their financial gain and competition second. Also, Doctors should admit when their protocol has failed. They should not try to extend the patients’ treatment or even accuse them of doing something wrong.
Back at SWI, we had trouble finding a place to stay. After a few days of confusion, we moved into a rental apartment belonging to SWI. I must admit that Dr. Sponaugle did try his best to help me, but this time I was just getting worse and worse. Dr. Sponaugle was very puzzled as to why nothing was working. I was under huge stress this time, and my digestion went worse after taking prescription medication that was supposed to help. Seeing me suffering so much, Dr. Sponaugle started to load me with several psychiatric drugs in addiition to Klonopin: Seroquel, Vyvanse, Lyrica. Now I fully recognized that I was out of Dr. Sponaugle’s hands, but I had to stay on hoping for some miracle because I had no alternative. As I got increasingly depressed and suicidal, I shared my feelings with a fellow patient, but somehow the information leaked out. I got a warning call that if I did not shut up, I would be “Baker Lawed”. Yes, I was very suicidal, and my husband guarded the door to make sure I would not run out. It was getting close to August, and my kids’ school was going to start soon. I decided to leave SWI no matter what. Dr. Sponaugle offered me to stay for another two weeks on his account, but I saw that he had done his best, and I just had to move on.
On the plane flying back home, I expected to die in an accident, but wanted to avoid hurting my family. At that moment, I fully understood why people chose to kill themselves, because their physical body did not allow them to exist in this realm! But I must live, I must correct myself so I can be fully alive in this realm, this dimension!
- I apparently lost most of my mind after I came back to San Diego. I was unable to eat, sleep, and I could not think. But at all costs I quit all the psychiatric drugs, all but Klonopin. I needed to sleep at the minimum.
What to do next? Do I have anything else that might save me my life and that I haven’t tried yet? When my kids were born in 2005, we were convinced that umbilical cord blood had a potential of saving lives. We froze their cord blood, and now I had to do some research on stem cells.
I called a few clinics both in the U.S. and Mexico, and they all made very positive claims as to how stem cells could heal the brain. But I was not convinced at all, and the price was way too high to experiment with a procedure that had no convincing results. One day I found a story online told by a lady named Kelly Kitchens 【deased 2020-more to investgate】. Kelly had very good experience with stem cell treatment at a clinic called “Stemaid”, and she shared her experience in quite some detail online. So I contacted Kelly, and she highly recommended me to do stem cell treatments. For the next step I called Stemaid, and I talked to a lady named Marina, who turns out to be the daughter of Dr. Hanly, the owner of Stemaid. Marina told me that she suffered from Lyme disease for a few years, and no other treatment helped but stem cells therapy. She had recovered for a few years already. I needed that piece of good news! New hope raised me from my total darkness. I told my husband that I needed to go to Las Cabos to get stem cell treatments so I could recover.
My family finally agreed to support me, and that removed the last barrier stopping me from going to Stemaid in Las Carbos, Mexico. At that point, I was not able to even pack my own luggage, as my heart was racing and it felt like it was jumping from my chest 24/7. My pulse was as high as 120/min. I had also become very thirsty. It seemed like I could not absorb water no matter how many glasses I drank a day. Someone advised me to drink Alkaline water, but it didn’t help. Desperately I turned to Chinese herbs again, and this time Dr. Yao gave me a Chinese herbal recipe and it resolved my thirst problem in just 2 days. My mother prepared my luggage for me, and my husband planned all other details, so I did not have to do much else.
The day that we flew to Las Cabos, Mexico was Sept. 24, 2017, our 15-year anniversary. When I arrived at Dr. Hanly’s office, I was horribly sick: I had a cold that I was not able to recover from in addition to my usual problems; I was very skinny; I lost a lot of muscle and looked much older.
In just a few days after I started stem cell treatment, I was like a new person. I kept a diary for a. the days I was with Stemaid. You can read more detail from my blogs.
Given my miraculous recovery I really believed that Stem Cells were the fundamental treatment for a total recovery, and I wish the whole world knew about it. I published my diary, together with my husband’s notes online, and I received many inquiries. I highly recommended people try stem cells if all other options failed. I returned home after 5 weeks of stem cell treatments, and I had my life totally back. I prepared a Thanksgiving dinner, and participated Church events. Everything went great. “Life is Beautiful!” I wanted to yell out from my heart! However, after Christmas, my headaches returned, and I realized another crisis was approaching.
Dr. Hanly offered me stem cells treatment in Tjuana as we could drive there from San Diego for the day. I thanked her for her kindness, but I did not pick myself up even after a few weeks treatment. I turned to use Chinese moxibustion. Moxibustion has a lot of healing benefits and it has been used in China, Japan, and Korea for as long as historical records have been kept. I had more faith in Moxibustion than most other Chinese people because I had family members who have administered Moxibustion treatments for many years. I had already read books on this very topic. In order to get the most benefit from the treatment, I even shaved my head because it was my head that hurt the most. However, this time moxibustion did nothing for me and I had to deal with my crazy hair. Once again, I did not know what to do. I had transitioned from headaches to full anxiety within a short period of time. I went back to Los Cabos for more stem cell treatment right after New Years Day 2018, hoping Dr. Hanly could remake the miracle one more time. I stayed in Los Cabos for another 18 days, but little progress was made. As usual, I never stopped researching newer ways of fighting my way back. In early December 2017 when I was getting somewhat unstable, I noticed several forerl SWI patients from Canada who were previously very sick, and all of a sudden they appeared to be very well and shared their stories. This time they talked about how energy work healed them within a short period of time.
I was not an outsider to energy healing. In fact I had been a very faithful believer in energy healing since age 16, when I learned Transcendental Meditation(TM) originally developed by an Indian guru Maharishi. For years I had been looking for an energy healer to heal my body, and hopefully to be my spiritual teacher. I faithfully practiced some Chinese Qigong from 2001-2014. Also, when I was getting good results with stem cell treatment the first time, I wanted to try Annie Hopper’s neuro retraining program. But I did not receive the program on DVDs until a much later time as it could not be delivered in Mexico. When I finally received it, I was unsuccessful because my headaches were too severe, and my concentration was minimal. Neuro-retraining, in my understanding, is a form of spiritual alignment to elevate one’s spirituality, then the physical aspect of the person improves, too. So I would consider it similar to a type of energy healing. However, it did not help me much after all.
At that point I decided to return to Stemaid in Las Cabos in Jan 2018 and to approach the Canadian lady who used energy work to heal former SWI patients. The minute I learned about someone who had the power to heal, I became overly excited. My OCD struck me hard, and as time went by, it became uncontrollable. I had hoped that the amazing Canadian energy healer would read my mind and would help me as soon as possible. I was stuck in Las Cabos, the stem cell treatments did not show any effect, and I started to obsessively hope that I could learn more from that Canadian energy healer. My hope was that not only my body could be healed, I also hoped to be able to discover my spiritual path. Eventually the Canadian healer got disgusted with me, and with that my heart sunk. I did not understand the reason, but when she finally gave me an online treatment, my body shook like crazy. She apparently got mad at me, and then refused to give me more help. I decided to find an alternate energy healer in the U.S. However, I did not have much luck and kept spending more and more money. I am not going to get into more details of the many energy healers that I had tried, but I must say that to try energy healers is a pretty tricky business. I want to continue my story that in April 2019, that my health continued to deteriorate, and my husband could not figure out why Stem Cells helped me once, but not that second time. Given no alternative, we flew back to Las Cabos the last time. It turned out to be another failure after more than $15,000 was spent. At that moment, I was totally devastated! I had no money, and I had no option as what I should try next. But defiantly, I kept trying to look for a miracle healing.
One day when I was obsessively looking into some kind of energy healing called “plant spirit medicine”, I found Josh Macin’s story online, and it was striking! I thought I could consult with him, but his fees were very high, and he seemed to be very busy already. So I contacted Connie Fox, a lady who had gone through hell and had initially helped Josh. After my initial consultation, Connie sent me her protocol, and she was honest about saying that the protocol was from Dr. Klinghardt, the #1 doctor who healed chronic illness in the west. After I got Connie’s protocol, to cross check it, I talked to Josh and got his advice too. At the same time, I talked to Alex – the gentleman behind “the superman diet“. Alex was so kind that he said he could give me his advice in exchange of my translation service to his website. I was so grateful to get some help here or there, because at this point, we were accumulating medical debt. I prayed to God not to fail me again!
With all the advice from Connie, Josh and Alex, I had created another miracle! Within one week, I was out of bed, and I started to enjoy the sunshine in Southern California! However, no one would have expected that another fall was on its way! I have no explanation why bad luck keeps going after me except perhaps I carry too much karma in my life. I was just one foot away from hell.
By now many people had already told me, including Connie, that dental crowns and root canals were very damaging to one’s health. With all the hope that I would reach total recovery, I decided to replace my existing crowns (that were infused with metal) with holistic non-metal crowns. I searched and searched, and given how expensive the U.S. dentist cost, I decided to see a holistic Mexican dentist. The nightmare started right away. In early July I was taking a supplement protocol mainly from Connie Fox, and those supplements and some other medication helped me a great deal. Little did I know earlier that my immune system was already being hit by dental issues. When my dental work was done at the end of July, I felt good. I had a wonderful August 2018. But when September came, I started to feel something was not quite right. My digestion and my sleep started to go back to the old pattern. I did not know why, and I consulted Connie Fox and Alex a few times to no avail. I did not know what to do, or what to think. I was hopeless and desperately lonely and scared! I was 100% confined to bed by October, and I felt like life was dying away, or at least my life was not worth living! I prayed that my kids could forgive me should something happen. One day I re-read Connie Fox’s protocol, and I decided to call the holistic dentist she recommended. Dr. Panahpour had his practice in the State of Washington, and when we called him and told him what had happened to me, he offered to see me in two days in his other office located in Santa Monica. I got a dental CT scan the same day that I went to Dr. Panahpour’s office in Santa Monica. I was shocked to learn from Panahpour himself that the Mexican Dentist had ruined many of my teeth, and according to the holistic dentistry protocol, no teeth with root canals teeth should remain in ones’ mouth. That meant I would have to have more than half of my teeth pulled. On our way home, I felt worse than dead. I thought this time I should just give up. It was simply too much to deal with. I was just a woman, and I did not believe an ordinary human could sustain a hit like this. I doubted that, given my vulnerabilities, and sensitivities, I should not even exist on this planet. I laid in bed for days after coming back from L.A. During that period of time, I dragged the half-dead me to see a few more holistic dentists in San Diego. Many “so called” holistic dentists were just puzzled as to what had happened to me. Dr. Vane pointed out that my most recent crash was largely caused by the Mexican dentist who used the wrong dental glue, which meant that my body had an immune reaction against it. This she proved by having me go to a lab to obtain a blood sample and then running a bio-compatibility test. Sure enough, the wrong dental cement had been used. I needed to replace all my dental crowns done by the Mexican dentist. That announcement shocked me, but I knew something was terribly wrong. I asked Dr. Vane: “Have you seen other patients who had so strong a reaction to the wrong dental glue? This is really killing me.” Dr. Vane said she had helped people who were in my situation. She also pointed out that the Mexican dentist not only used the wrong dental glue, but he had also pushed excessive amounts of glue into my gums. My gums were totally inflamed. So many wrong things had been done. Now what options did I have? I worried that my health could not sustain further dental treatment. Dr. Vane told me that pulling my teeth was not smart at all, as it would induce more issues. She suggested that I get more root canals. I reluctantly got two more root canals, and I started to investigate a second opinion. I had both Thanksgiving and Christmas in bed, unable to even able to properly celebrate with my kids. I did not know what was happening in the world, and I didn’t even care. My dosage of Klonopin was very low, but it affected me in a horrible way. I was waiting to see Dr. Vane to discuss what to do with my teeth after the New Year’s holiday.I
In all my desperate moments, I kept trying anything that might lift me up even by then I was very doubtful that I would once again stand on my own feet. With some financial help, I signed up for the BX protocol 【This turned out to be a scam】 It is similar to homeopathic therapy, and it is a form of energy healing that is supposedly to kill all the pathogens in ones’ body. I read many testimonials online. It seemed so encouraging but it kept failing me after many attempts!
Part Four
Never stop fighting, until I have my beautiful days back ......
I started to see the dentist Dr. Vane to get rid of my crowns and to clear out the glue my prior dentist had stuck in my gums. I was so terribly ill when at the first treatment she removed the crowns on my lower teeth and replaced them with temporary crowns. After the procedure, I had to stay in bed totally for three days. My body was hit so bad that I felt like I would never be able to recover. At that time, my urine turned to be bright orange red. I did not have any stool naturally, so I had to do home colonics in a very serious way. The only food I ate was sweet potatoes, a few pieces of organic chicken, and some salad greens. Because of the the colonic, I passed out virtually all undigested food: orange colored sweet potatoes, and green colored vegetables, etc. I lost a lot of muscle tissue and wrinkles appeared on my arms. I must have looked like a prisoner from a concentration camp. I had to wait for a few weeks to get the permanent crowns, and I did not complain about it as I had no strength to get more dental work done.
I counted myself a hard fighter because, even when I was most suicidal, I did not stop fighting or searching for ways to survive. However, when all my organs started to malfunction, and I was in effect mentally unstable, I decided it was time to go to a hospital. One day in late January 2019, I asked my husband to take me to the ER. I was too weak and tried to figure out things for myself anymore. I walked in to the ER, accompanied by my husband. The doctor in the ER room was kind and concerned. Right away he suspected that I had some kind of cancer. He ordered a CT scan, an ultra sound, and an X ray, as well as many blood tests. I stayed quietly imagining I that I might enjoy my stay at this hospital. It was pretty new. However, at the end of that day, after all the busy testing, I was given a clean bill of health, and the doctor congratulated me that I was cancer free. My husband and mother finally felt some relief, but I wished I had some answer. The doctor dismissed me as if I was just a normal person and had made all this up!
What to do next?
Back home, I prayed to God: Help me be totally alive or grant me death! Researching on line has been my obsession when I could not do anything else. I laid in bed wandering all over the online world. I still imagined that some kind of energy work could lift me up or some spiritual practice would make a total wonder in me. In early February, I talked to Angela, a quantum energy healer in Sedona, AZ. I knew she was not a born healer nor did she have a very big gift. By now I already learned how to judge who was a good healer and who was not. But since she did not judge me badly, and she told me I would be well in 4 months, I gave it a try. By that time, I was so afraid that every health practitioner or energy healer would turn me down, so whoever offered to help me, I surrendered. Very surprisingly, when my esteem was at its lowest, Angela told me that I was a starseed, something I never thought about even in my wildest imagination. Angela told me I was born to light up the earth and people would just be drawn to me. I said it was not true as I had lost all my friends. Angela said many of the people born as starseeds are also subject to persecution from the opposite forces, the dark forces, and would not put up with the planet earth being lit up. And Angela also told me she is a starseed, and that is why she quit her previous career to become an energy healer. She was going through a spiritual awakening. Because of Angela, I re-accessed my situation. Maybe indeed I had a mission, but I needed to get through my upheavals to be qualified to fulfill that mission. I did further research online, and I was very interested to find out that those “so called” starseed people most likely are the ones who easily get sick, or they are extremely sensitive to their environment. I seemed to fit in that category.
Angela’s energy work was too weak for me to feel anything. Quitting Angela without a backup plan was very difficult. But by this time it was the second half of February. Because Dr. Vane removed the crowns on my lower teeth, I gradually got a little bit better. I was worried that I needed some dental implants, so my online research led me to a very respected oral surgeon Dr. Amy Khajavi in Rosarito, Mexico. At least I thought she was the best dentist I could find at that time. A brief consultation with Dr. Amy turned out to be a two-hour session during which she removed all the old dental glue embedded in my upper gum. A few days later, my condition further improved, but I still had to lie in bed full time. It must be God’s call that I accidentally bumped into a beautiful Lyme recovery story written by Holly Slabbinck . Once again energy healing brightened my eyes. I made contact with Holly right away. She was kind and compassionate, and I had hope again. Within days, I was on the scalar light program that Holly recommended! I also tried another energy healer that Holly recommended. I was so desperate but my faith in energy healing got even stronger!
I determined to find the best energy healer. I quit Angela even though that meant losing my deposits! I was fighting for my survival, and I had no time to lose. I was sure I was already at death’s door. I totally avoided my kids worrying that I would lose control and yell at them. But once my limit was reached, I would still yell out from my throat, and from my bedroom. When I had the physical ability, I would run out of the house and wander around our neighborhood aimlessly. I knew in the back of my mind that my neighbors may have noticed that I was in trouble, but I was at the point that I didn’t even care. I was fully aware at that moment that I was like those homeless people who could not stay in a shelter. I understood that what the “so-called” homeless people needed was not a shelter, they needed to have their brain calmed and fixed. When I left home and lost control, my 13-year-old daughter would run after me to make sure that I didn’t get myself into trouble. My heart was melted over and over, and my daughter even went as far to defend my marriage. How could I disappoint her? But I had a hard time behaving. I told her: “I knew it is embracing, but I just can’t stop felling crazy. “ I knew I was in the category that I could not be understood by the world, but who could help me out? I remembered my friend Julia, a Canadian woman I met at SWI. She once said to me: “Jun, please do not argue with your husband. People like us would have become hopeless without the support of our spouse. We should count ourselves lucky if we can manage to have our marriage survive through these tragic moments.” My husband once commented: “life with you is like riding on a roller-coaster.” I replied: “It could have been like bungee jump if I did not try this hard. ” I am thankful for all his support, and I know our marriage was put under test for so many times. I just have to thank God that we are still supporting each other as a family.
I failed a few more energy healers before I talked to Daerick in Hawaii. Right away he could sense my problems down to the small details, and he said he could fix me. It was early March 2019, and I was sick and close to dead. One week after I signed up with scalar light, I started working with Daerick. For the first two weeks, I did not feel anything, and I had to stay in bed calculating my odds of surviving. After three weeks of scalar light therapy and two weeks of Daerick’s treatment, on March 20, my two friends, Hellen and Erica came to visit me, and I was able to hold a conversation with them. After they left, I felt something clicking in. That was on Wednesday, March 20. On Thursday I was able to leave my bedroom, and I wandered around the first floor of my house. On Friday, I felt the house looked too chaotic and I started to pick things up here and there. I felt my body waking up, and on Saturday, I was able to communicate with my kids. Sunday, I told my husband that I wanted to see the snow in the mountains. So off we went to a mountain at an elevation of about 5000 ft. We had a wonderful time. From that time on, my life was getting back onto the right track. I still have to see the dentist to get my old dental crowns all removed and replaced with new ones. The next week I went to see Dr. Vane to get the permanent crowns for my lower teeth, and she yelled out surprisingly: “Is that you?” Yes, my cheeks were glowing, and I was happy and peaceful. She asked me what happened. Since I had no time to tell her so much, I simply replied: “I took CBD oil I made at home.” Not that I wanted to hide any information. I have gone through so much, and my journey has been so long, and it is still extending…. Where do I start? Maybe I will show her this article once it is finished.
Now every day, I am doing things that I want to do, and I keep learning, and researching online. I look back at where I was, and I have to be proud of myself.
I had been well before, but I collapsed, and then each time I fought for a new solution and a new hope. I try to believe that it is God’s will to prepare me to help other people one day. I begged God so many times: “please! no more tests please! I have reached my limit…” I do believe ultimately I would come out even stronger!
Now I feel life is beautiful every day. If you are like me having suffered for a long time, I hope that I can help to raise your spirit. Ultimately you will meet with your “higher self” and become the real you that God intended to create. Let’s work on having our brighter days together!
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Special Thanks to my mother who not only brought me up, but time after time brought my life back; my husband who has been working very hard for all these years to fulfill his early promises. I know it has been very rough for both of us, but let’s celebrate being together. I am especially grateful for my kids, at their tender and needy years, they still turned out to be two fine young adults.
Thanks for my sisters Linda in London, and Hong in Guangzhou, China, and their husbands and children. Without your emotional and financial support, I would not have made it through to these days. Also, thanks for my cousins in China. You may not know the extent of my troubles, but twice you came up with money that I most desperately needed. Yes, it is hard to believe, but your kindness indeed helped me beyond what you can believe.
Also, thanks to a friend of mine. As I respect her privacy, I will not reveal her name at this point. But thank you so very much for talking to me endlessly on my most miserable days and nights. Your financial assistance enabled me to continue to find my path of recovery. I am most grateful to having heard you say ” I understand that if there were alternatives, you would not have asked.” No one enjoys being a beggar. Thanks from the bottom of my heart for your understanding and generosity. Even if you let me say something to you, I don’t know how to express my gratuities in words. You helped to save my life and to motivate me to continue to love and trust. I hope one day I will be able to deliver my light to someone who is in total darkness.
Thanks to Yingqi in Illinois. You looked after me like only a sister would. Thanks for Meina from Minnesota. Sorry that I was not able to meet with you when your family came all the way from Minneapolis. I am sure that our friendship will remain regardless our physical location and spiritual beliefs.
Thanks to those who prayed for me and chanted for me. I am a highly spiritual person, albeit not able to declare my absolute faith in any school of spirituality.
I also thank Shirley who encouraged me to launch a “Go fund me” campaign to raise money when I had no other alternative. That was the time I decided I should no longer keep everything in private, after years of life and death struggles on my own. I must be brave, and I must believe that I have become a much stronger person by fighting for my life. Of course I will never forget to thank the many people, who knew me or not, who helped me through the Go Fund Me campaign.
Very special thanks to Pastor Lam, Erica and Helen. You are the only people beyond my family who saw me struggling at the bottom, and your help really gave me light in my total darkness.
I truly believe that Life is a Journey. I pulled myself from total darkness. I share it with the world with the hope that after you read my stories, you may be inspired.
I am not a medical professional, and I don’t claim to be one. I wrote my story based on my own experiences. Please follow your doctor’s advice should any information I provided here or in any part of my websites, my consultation, or the extra information I share with you off line, are in conflict with any medical professional advice.
In God’s name, I wish we all have many brighter days the rest of our life!
Notes:
1: I can no longer find Kassidi’s webstie online. Her Youtube video is about 10 years old. I wonder how she is doing. I don’t believe vitamins alone can cure bipolar, as the real cause of bipolar is what caused vitamins deficiency in the first place. (April 2020)
2: I researched online lately, and I found Allen Darman has passed away. I was not able to find out what exactly caused his death, but through twitter, i noticed his depression hit him hard before his death. So I am more convinced that nutrients alone don’t cure bipolar or depression at its root. Allen Darman made his biggest mistake, I believe, in that he did not know while L-trytophan can help people to fall asleep, it produced toxic metabolites instead of calming serotonin when one’s gut is comprised. （April 2020)
Update on Oct. 15, 2021
Lately I finally have the courage to reopen my website after I password protected it for two years. I do feel that it is my mission to inspire people to find their own hope in life, should they be in the kind of total darkness I had experienced. This is especially on my mind since I found out about two people who once stood at the front line with me fighting for their lives: these two have already taken their lives in a brutal way … I am not a doctor or any sort of health professional, but if you are in search of a path to restore your health, or maybe even more, I would be open to share with you my story. I am still on my journey to health and to ultimate freedom, and for more brighter days to come.
How I eventually start my recovery journey, started from July 2019, would be another story. I need sometime to organize all my thoughts. My schedule is getting pretty busy these days, so it might take some time for me to publish it. However, this won’t stop me from offering my help and share with you what I have been doing. Send me questions at jun@morebrighterdays.com