Endo-Warrior Story | Krithika
Krithika is one heck of an amazing woman who I was honored to work with last year. She came to me at the end of her rope after a professional excision surgery from a top endo surgeon, yet still suffering from so many symptoms. Although the pain was gone and her energy heightened, her GI issues were still in full swing, her immune system still compromised, and bloating beyond her worst nightmare continued. As a professional model the bloat directly affected her career, and thus affected her psychologically as well, as even consuming water upon waking would start the dreaded belly bulge.
Krithika and I worked together for about 8 months, and in that time she was able to see results on symptoms that she didn’t even connect with endo. Pretty cool stuff :)
This is her story, and her story alone, but I hope it helps those of you out there who feel a little hopeless see that there can indeed be light at the end of the tunnel.
My Story | Krithika
One day I was an energetic girl playing by the pool with my best friend who had just gotten her period. She told me how it made her feel grown up, in a good way, and said that she sensed my time coming in the near future. Ironically, I got my period that next month, however I didn’t seem to change for the better like my friend embodied. In my case, my periods were the most painful thing I’ve physically experienced (to this day) and a huge cloud of fatigue came over me….and it stayed through the month, every month. It became a part of me.
The Long Road to Diagnosis
With each cycle, I felt excruciating lower back pain that shot down my legs, stomach/abdominal pains, dizziness, abnormal stool, and full body weakness. I’d spend the first couple of hours/days of each period either curled up or laying down with my legs raised above me to ease the lower back pain. Years later I was diagnosed with scoliosis as being the reason for all of this, and everyone seemed to think I was just intolerant of regular period pains. I got through most of school in the nurse's office those days because my absences couldn’t be excused in the name of scoliosis.
8 years later, the pain was so unbearable that I’d faint, so I was put on oral contraceptives for the menstrual pain. Little did I know that the disease was silently spreading through my body while the medication was masking the pain.
Then suddenly, in 2017, some bizarre endo-related symptoms appeared like clockwork. I got my first UTI out of the blue, and although I was treated the same UTI-like symptoms kept coming back along with discomfort, pain and even bleeding each time. I was treated almost twice a month with antibiotics, and the symptoms only kept worsening, especially the pain and bleeding. My urine stream changed and began shifting to the left.
Soon after when I got my next period, my menstrual cup kept sliding out of my body. I went to my school doctor and was told that my uterus had shifted towards the left. When I got my period in August, same problem, plus a new issue: left side pelvic pain. Sometimes it hurt to the point where I couldn’t open a door without feeling like I’d tear open.
3 months later and my period arrived with the worst of all: a variety of intense stomach and abdominal pains, abnormal stool, bleeding, and severe bloating. After this point, I was dealing with all of the above every single day until at least December 2018. I also had many other symptoms such as brain fog and extreme mind/body weakness and dizziness on and off for months at a time.
Prescription drugs were thrown at me, and I was asked to stay on some despite no progress. I was even prescribed antidepressants to “cure” the stomach spasms. I was put on SO many antibiotics even when tested negative, so it’s no surprise to me that my body is still recovering from that trauma. Although I was so involved with medical doctors, I often refused their prescriptions when not absolutely necessary because I was aware of the dangers and was interested in a more holistic/natural approach to my health.
So in September 2017, after my digestive symptoms hit, I started seeing specialist doctors….I ended up going to a total of 23 doctors in my life before I was finally diagnosed with endometriosis and offered an appropriate solution. Tests and scanning revealed that my uterus and bladder wall were enlarged and my abdomen was inflamed, while it turns out my previous “diagnosis” of IBS was falsely diagnosed. A few doctors speculated that I may have endometriosis, but they all proved to be unaware of the disease in all of its manifestations, and they weren’t able to offer an effective treatment - I was proposed ablation surgery, hormone manipulation, “do nothing and wait for things to improve”, and other ineffective treatments that sadly remain the standard of endometriosis care.
Until learning about excision surgery, the gold standard of treatment, I decided to try healing myself holistically. I began seeing an acupuncturist who gave me a lot of insight into treating my symptoms at the root with diet, supplements, and acupuncture. I felt a very slight improvement, and this path felt right for me, so I decided to dive into holistic healing. Over the next year I experimented with a lot of acupuncture, herbs, diets, supplements, etc. while also continuously going to doctors in search of a real diagnosis and solution. I found the low FODMAP diet and acupuncture to help a little, but nothing else seemed to really make a difference to my rapidly degrading health.
As a fashion model I was facing a lot of physical demands and life was becoming unmanageable...And the severe chronic bloating wasn’t making things any easier. I’d wake up with a completely flat stomach and after consuming any food or liquids, my lower abdomen and pelvis were expanding up to 6 inches every day.
As my follow-up appointment with my urogynecologist, who wanted to put me on a six month antibiotic UTI preventative, was approaching, I cancelled my appointment and researched “bowel endometriosis”. I stumbled upon a video by Dr. Ken Sinervo explaining about endometriosis and this was the first time that I came to the conclusion that I must have the disease, and there was someone/something out there to treat the complex disease. I joined Nancy’s Nook endometriosis education on Facebook (which I highly recommend for anyone who is considering endo surgery), and learned everything about excision. This eventually led me to my endo excision specialist who (informally) diagnosed me through ultrasound and an MRI that was previously noted “no endometriosis detected” by radiologists and multiple endo specialists. He could also see that my uterus was being pulled to the left from adhesions, which explained the left side pain and urine stream. In December 2018, I went in for surgery and and my doctor found and excised endo from my ovaries, uterus, bladder, bowels, abdominal wall, etc.
I woke up feeling brand new, clean-slated, and better than I had gone in or felt in any moment in the previous years. I was truly and pain free, clear-minded, and energetic again, similar to when I was at the pool 12 years earlier. In a feeling of euphoria I decided on the spot to make major changes so that I would never have to go through this again. I went on what I considered an anti-inflammatory diet and cut out all gluten, dairy, meat, unnatural sugars, processed/refined carbs, etc. I felt absolutely great for a period of time, but that feeling didn’t last long.
Life goes on … sort of
I was heartbroken 5 days later when my stomach had deflated from surgery and I realized that I was still severely bloating from every little thing I consumed. My stool was also still abnormal. And although I was generally pain-free, my left pelvis and abdomen hurt almost immediately when I consumed certain foods or stressed. I had this thought that the surgery would wipe clean everything, and I’d be totally back to normal… and while yes the endo was gone, many symptoms remained.
Devastated doesn’t even begin to describe how awful I felt.
Yet, somehow I still had resolve left to conquer this, and with a broken heart I began researching again. This is when I came across an article about endo belly on Heal Endo. Instantly, I knew I found what I had been searching for the whole time, but so, so much more. Everything Katie had written on her website seemed to resonate with me. All the answers...they were right there the whole time! I was so beyond blessed to begin working with her in March 2019. We began by assessing my GI map test (and all previous tests) and came up with a diet and supplement protocol.
Healing Begins Anew
Within weeks of certain diet and lifestyle shifts I actually began feeling improvements, and eventually after many months of dedicated work (because a lot of this stuff isn’t easy, you have to commit) I was elated to see so many of my problems completely resolved. Although I thought I was a health freak before, I realized what I was doing was a “throw everything at the wall and see what would stick” approach, whereas Katie taught me how to approach health in all the right ways specifically for my unique body and lifestyle. It wasn’t until then that I knew what it meant to be truly in tune with my body and have control over it. I began to be able to truly feel if foods and supplements, and even my thoughts and behaviors, were healing or hurting me, but mostly healing because I learned how to identify and remove triggers with the AIP and low FODMAP diets.
Although I can literally, still after surgery, feel my left pelvis and abdomen hurt, I now know it’s only when I have trigger foods, stress, or move in incorrect ways, which is a gift to know how to avoid unnecessary pain! I’m glad I have a couple of “warning spots” to keep me on the right track so I can literally listen to my body when she tells me not to eat or stress about certain things. And do you know what one of my trigger foods were? Black pepper. Talk about weird. Luckily, sticking to the AIP diet and cutting black pepper out of my life, even the tiniest trace, for enough time allowed my body to build tolerance to it - and now I’m black peppering everything :)
Massage, posture and movement has also really helped combat this triggered pain (which I believe may be leftover endo or adhesions), along with mental and spiritual healing.
The bloat was of course one of my biggest hurdles professionally. We tried a lot in the diet realm but nothing seemed to budge the bulge. It became apparent to us that this was a mechaniancial issue and Katie pushed me to get diagnosed with pelvic floor dysfunction and treating it with hypopressive breathing. This completely changed the game for me. My stomach could bulge out several inches after one meal/drink, and as soon as I fix my posture and breathe correctly into my ribs properly (rather than into my belly) - as hypopressive breathing has retaught me - my stomach is back to flat within seconds. For any of you women out there who has endo belly bloat that doesn’t budge with food changes, I can’t recommend this type of focus enough!! From doing hypopressives a few minutes a day, over time, the body and brain coordinate and rewire to re-tighten the facia and reverse the bloat/dysfunction, and plus they can give you solid abs.
Krithika standing strong for all women with endo in Vogue Italia
I truly had no idea this was possible, to mechanically eliminate that 6 inch bloat with just breathing. It’s one of many problems I had going into this that I had no clue how to address, but thankfully Katie is a compassionate genius and helped me get diagnosed and treated for many of my concerns - I would have had no idea about my PCOS, mineral deficiencies and toxicities, random food intolerances, pelvic floor dysfunction, just to name a few. I say this to help inspire you to not give up! A lot of people have told me to stop searching for answers as if I’m a hypochondriac (a common standard in women’s health that results in chronic mass-suffering), but I’m blessed to have maintained determination and for having extraordinary people like Katie who advocated for me until I got through the clouds. Don’t let anyone tell you you’re at the end of the line and they can’t help you. If there’s a will, there’s a way, so find the will and keep searching for answers.
I do believe because I never gave up, that at the beginning of 2020 I finally feel totally in control of my health. I’ve healed so much this year that even blood tests have shown miraculous improvements within months. I will be honest, I still believe I have long way to go, yet I stillI resolved issues that were believed by some doctors to be life-long. I feel like I have shed so many bodies in the past year and have morphed into someone I almost thought I could never be in this lifetime. I can run, for miles, without feeling tired. I can laugh without hurting. I feel like I can do anything...And it feels empowering to know what it takes to keep feeling this way. I still have certain health issues, but that’s okay because health is a journey, not a destination, and I’m thankful to be where I’m at along this ride. It’ll only get better with more knowledge and practice.
I think it takes a lot to achieve optimal health when struggling with a disease, especially with one like endometriosis where the disease can manifest in soooo many ways yet is still widely misunderstood. But by implementing the right methods for oneself and having hope, anything is possible. Keep going, warrior :)
Love this story and want to connect with Krithika? You can find her on Instagram at @endometriosisexpialidocious