Dawn Mathews Shares Amazing Results - Dr. Berg's Healthy Keto

Surviving all Odds By Dawn Mathews August 13, 2017 In my early 20's, the beginning... I started having early symptoms of endometriosis in my early 20's. Started having heavier periods, along with more pain. At first, I thought this is what every woman went through... the severity of it anyways. After dealing with it for the first year or so I finally went to the doctor as it just didn't seem like it should be "normal" to experience such blood loss and severe pain; the kind of pain that kept you in bed and lethargic all the time. That is when they realized that I had endometriosis, after doing several tests. For some of you that don't know what endometriosis is, it is this: "Endometriosis is a disorder in which the tissue that forms the lining of your uterus grows outside of your uterine cavity. " So, since I was young enough they wanted to put me on birth control to help those hormones out, and hoping the endometriosis would start clearing up. Well Birth control does not set well with me, tried several different brands over time as I hated the symptoms of each one. Eventually I gave up on birth control after a year and a half, and the doctors gave me another option. My symptoms got bad enough, the severity of the pain worsening, that the doctors decided to do my first surgery of many to come, to clear out scar tissue that would be built by the disorder. It was done by laparoscopy procedure and was nice and quick, got to go home the same day and heal for a few days. Nice and smooth sailing. Thought I would be able to put it all behind me and move forward with my life. Boy was I wrong. A month of marriage, surprise, and heartache- So as time went by after my first surgery, life was moving along. I, just like anyone, had lots of ups and downs. I noticed I started gaining more weight but wasn't sure why. I kept telling the doctors to check my thyroid. The thyroid showed fine on the charts but they never did a full-length test (that I had come to find out much later) So I blew that off thinking, "OK so not my thyroid, maybe it was my diet?" Went to a dietician, they told me that my diet actually was pretty decent but to lay off sugars. So, I did that, made sure I was eating "healthier meal", etc... My weight still climbed even though I had been exercising. More time passes, gaining weight, and dealing with pelvic pain again. After keeping up on pelvic exams the docs state that I have PCOS. (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) I also had scar tissue building, more endometriosis showed up as well. One of the best events of my life happened in July 2006. Getting married to my wonderful husband. We were ready to start our lives. In August of that year I had scheduled to have another laparoscopic procedure done to clean up more endo. Went through all the pre-surgery stuff, was ready to have a surgery, and then the phone call came. That day I will never forget. I remember the smallest details. I remember I had not felt well, was dealing with weird pains but took it to the PCOS and endo causing my pain, and thought " I can’t wait for the surgery". The phone rings.... "This is so and so and the doctor's office, I just wanted to let you know that unfortunately we cannot do your surgery after looking through your pre-op blood work". She paused, "You are pregnant" My heart raced, hands were shaky, and I had to sit down, and blurted out... "Oh my God, are you serious?" She says, "Congratulations! It appears you may be about 4 to 6 weeks along. Now we just need to make a prenatal appointment for you. Lets get you scheduled." I made the schedule, got off the phone, and my husband was in the other room. I just kept saying, "oh my God," over and over. I was shocked but was starting to let other feelings in. All the emotions you get when you find out your pregnant. "I am pregnant!" I told the husband. So as most new young couples we just sat there, in shock, scared and also excited. we did that for a couple hours, and then decided to go to the store and get items for a celebratory meal. So how ironic is this... The events leading to me finding out I was pregnant, to the first symptom of the bad event, within a few short hours. We head to the store, I wasn't feeling well, pull into the parking lot, and BAM! I got hit with the most horrific pain in my pelvic area. It was the most excruciating pain, enough that when I got out of the car, I almost hit the pavement immediately. It wouldn't stop. I had to wait in the car while the husband went in hurriedly to get the stuff that we needed. By the time we got home the pain subsided and I was ok. So, a few days go by, a week to be exact. I was feeling rough on and off, but nothing to major with pain symptoms. It was a morning that the husband had to get up early and go to work. I had the day off, but got up with him, had my morning coffee, kissed him goodbye, and started to relax. An hour after he left I had that excruciating pain again. I took some pain reliever, and tried to move forward. The pain was getting worse! I could barely move by afternoon. I took several warm showers to help with the pain. Nothing worked. I was getting worse and worse. The husband comes home around 2 p.m., looks at me and says, "OH my God what is wrong?" I guess I was white as a ghost. He called my doctor first thing, the doctor says, "she might be miscarrying" We rush to the hospital, I can barely move, had to be helped into the ER waiting area. get checked in, and wait, and wait some more. At this time, I am bleeding, feel so light headed, I couldn't wait much longer when the nurse finally got us. They give me a morphine drip, didn't help. They did a pelvic exam, knowing I was pregnant. The nurse took one feel and said, "We have to get you into surgery stat!" When she examined me, that made me rise up off the examination table like the exorcist movie (according to my husband later, as he is rubbing his crushed hand that I held during the exam) They prep me for emergency surgery. That was the scariest feeling, all these doctors rushing around me. I am finally under, they do the surgery and I wake up a couple hours later. The doctor tells me, "you had a tubal pregnancy, you were internally bleeding. If we hadn't gotten to you when we did, its possible you would not have made it through the night" They had to remove my left fallopian tube as it was completely damaged by the fetal member that was supposed to be my baby. The following two weeks I had PTSD so bad, nightmares, and felt so defeated. I did start feeling better thought physically but not mentally. I thought to myself, "that was the worst pain I ever experienced emotionally and physically" "time to move on, and heal" I thought the worst was behind me, again. And so it goes on.... So, after the first major crazy event dealing with my issues, Doctor recommended that we try to get pregnant and that could help with endo. We tried and failed multiple times. It just wasn't in the cards for us I guess. After a while, dealing with another laparoscopic procedure to clean up the mess, I continued to have severe issues every month, more pain, sicker feeling, etc... After lots of discussing I decided that I wanted a hysterectomy. Kept the ovaries but took out everything else. Doctor agreed that it could help with all my symptoms I had been dealing with for the past several years. I had my hysterectomy, done with the Davinci method...I got worked on by a robot! (well of course doctors were there, it wasn't the T1000 series, ha-ha) it was intimidating to see that thing when being wheeled into the surgery area. Glad to say that surgery went very well, was back to work in no time and felt great! Time passes on, still having trouble losing weight, hormones were out of whack, and low and behold, pain crept up again. I felt like I couldn't catch a break. Gained more weight hormones even crazier, pain more intense, and the doctors did some more scans and find that my ovaries are littered with cysts. They put me on medication to try to shut the ovaries down enough to control the cysts. Those didn't work. It was getting to the point that pain affected my life style. During this time, my primary doc found that I did have hypothyroidism when they did the full-blown tests, so they got me started on the meds for that. I started feeling a bit better with other areas of the body, but still just couldn't get past the female problems. I discussed with my husband and the doctors for several weeks before making the final decision to have my ovaries removed. I realized I would enter menopause, but I was willing to deal with that if it meant that I could get rid of the cysts that started ruining my life the past few years. So, the decision was made- get the oophorectomy done- the last major surgery to get rid of my internal female anatomy. No more ovaries, no more cysts, no more pain, right? Three years of Hell.... So right before I get my oophorectomy done, just a few days till surgery to be exact, I remember having such a vivid dream. In the dream, I was in the operating room, floating above my body, looking down at myself and the doctors were scrambling, panicked sounding, yelling things out to each other. I could hear lots of machine beeps, heart monitor going crazy, etc... The doctors start saying something about my condition, and my vision blurred and then, I woke up. After that dream, I was nervous. The husband told me, "it’s just a dream, you are nervous, things will be ok" I tried to agree and just put the dream behind me. Surgery Day: I was still nervous when heading down to the hospital, but tried to assure myself things will be fine. Get prepped and talked to my family that came to support me. The doc came in, wheeled me off and off to surgery I went. The Doc said, "should be about 45 minutes roughly" So I go under, and my family waits. Roughly three hours later.... I wake up, instantly feeling sick, I could barely breathe, and in the worst pain. I remember the nurses were trying to wake me up and had a rough time of it for a few minutes, but they persisted. First thing I said to them .."I am going to get sick". They gave me nausea meds and were hovering around me making sure my stats were good. I didn't think much of it at the time as I was in so much misery. once I had been awake for a bit, they let my husband come in for a brief minute but wouldn't let anyone else in. I was still loopy, so I didn't quite understand the full extent of what was going on except I was in ICU and didn't understand why I couldn't see anyone other than my husband. After being taken out of the ICU and put into my own room, I started waking up more, and my mind was clearer, and of course still felt terrible. That is when I was told everything that had happened during surgery. Apparently, there was trouble with the anesthesia, lots of scar tissue was in the way, they cut a artery, had to fix that up immediately, lost a lot of blood. According to my family the doctor was haggard at the end of the surgery and even told them "I am never operating on her again" So I stayed in the hospital for a few days, I wasn't recovering as quickly as the doctors had thought. I was supposed to be home the same day of surgery if not the next morning. I dealt with horrific painful gas releases through my body, since I had been under for so long. I couldn't move well, the nurses wanted to get me up and moving but as soon as I sit up I would get sick feeling. Then they realized they needed to provide blood as I had lost so much during surgery. I was black and blue from hip to hip. I finally am released, come home, and still in pretty rough shape. I was so swollen that I actually had to have help using the restroom. The husband was amazing through the whole ordeal thankfully. I had what I and the doctor thought at the time was two UTI infections. Everything about the recovery of the surgery felt wrong. I never had issues with my other surgeries. I went through a couple weeks of pure torture it felt like, being sick, being in pain, not eating much, tummy wasn't going down, etc. Told the doctor that, showed him that my swelling in my abdomen wasn't going down after 3 some weeks, and I just wasn't feeling better. I attempt to go back to work around that point and had to go home within half hour of my first day back because I felt so sick. (even though the doctor said I was fine to go back) So after not much help from the doc, I tried to push through, live through each day, but still feeling sick and not sure why. The Doc's approach was "sometimes it takes certain people longer to heal" My stomach was still swelling, and it was to the point that I could barely move, and still wasn't feeling well. I finally made the decision to go to the ER since my doctor was not helping. Three years of hell, and a new beginning.... So, once I made it to the ER- they did and ultrasound to see why my stomach was so swollen. I was so scared since I had just had a surgery, I was afraid something major was about to happen, and sure enough it did. After waiting for what seemed like forever for my scans to come back, the doctor comes in and says in short. " your right ureter has been cut, and you have a lot of liquid in your abdomen." "we will have to do a surgery now and to fix this we will have to drain the urine out of your abdomen cavity, and place a catheter into your back and into your right kidney, that the fluid will not leak into your body until we can get your ureter repaired" I had a mental breakdown at that point, and felt like I couldn't take it anymore. Brief moment of "I just want to die". After having such a rough time with the oophorectomy, and now come to find out I have to have "minor" surgery to stop the fluid leaking into my body, I was so scared. So, I got the urine drained out of my stomach, they had to remove 4 liters of urine. Next, they rolled me over, and ran the catheter into my back and into my kidney. Had to wear the catheter bag attached to my back and that is super awkward and uncomfortable, and painful if the tube moves around. Once I was all fixed up temporarily I scheduled surgery for the ureter repair. I had to wait 6 weeks before I could get the ureter repair done. Surgery for the Ureter repair was done, went well. They had to do open surgery, cut me open from pubic area to belly button, and the only way to fix the ureter, was to move my bladder to my psoas muscle (lower hip/buttock muscle) so that it could reach my ureter. So, I had to wear a catheter for a few months more but at least it wasn't attached to my back anymore. After all said and done I finally felt like I could start healing. Almost a year later I start noticing sharp pain in my right side, pelvic area, enough so that I went to the ER. They couldn't find much wrong accept they found a mass. I explained that I had a oophorectomy, and they ask " are you sure you got both ovaries removed?" My mouth dropped open and said, "yes I am sure, I went through hell but I am sure" They sent me to my primary doc. The primary doc refers me to a Gynecologist, has me examined and, yep sure enough I had a surprise. Ovarian Remnant Syndrome So, what is an ovarian remnant syndrome? It is where during a surgery even the tiniest fraction of an ovary, if left, can come back. Well my right ovary (otherwise known as Bertha) had decided it was not done with me and grew back into a full function ovary. It is considered a tumor but still had ovarian function. I had it monitored, was put on hormone pills yet again, to try to shrink the remnant. I dealt with pain all over again throughout this time, as the remnant was forming cysts, and I was still getting endometriosis as well, along with dealing with lots of scar tissue from all the surgeries to date. By October of 2016, I became so sick, starting missing work, was in so much pain that even picking up a basket of laundry would drop me. I was so depressed, in a lot of pain and misery, and imagine this, gaining more and more weight! There was discussion of putting me on an injection called Lupron. I feared the side effects and said no. They offered to do surgery. First, they were going to schedule a laparoscopic surgery but realized that my anatomy had changed (the bladder moved) and that if my ureter gets cut again I will lose a kidney, so the laparotomy was out. There next option was the robot surgery, but found that could be risky. Last option was open surgery. They found with my condition that the open surgery could be dangerous, and the way my scans looked they are worried that my remnant might be wrapped around my repaired ureter. There was discussion of putting me on an injection called Lupron. I feared the side effects and said no. They offered to do surgery. First, they were going to schedule a laparoscopic surgery but realized that my anatomy had changed (the bladder moved) and that if my ureter gets cut again I will lose a kidney, so the laparotomy was out. There next option was the robot surgery, but found that could be risky. Last option was open surgery. They found with my condition that the open surgery could be dangerous, and the way my scans looked they are worried that my remnant might be wrapped around my repaired ureter. I finally after all these years had an epiphany, after my last doctor appointment with a specialist for a second opinion. I decided against surgery and injections and decided that I would start researching natural approaches. So after all that I have been through, unfortunately it took me years to realize that there might be other options on a natural side of healing. I have found better ways to take care of myself since, hardly experience pain and I feel so much better. So, there you have it...my tragedy story is revealed. Now it’s time to share what I have done so far that has helped me avoid surgeries and medications. It’s all about natural healing, no crazy supplements, medications, nothing. New Beginning, New look on life Once I decided I didn't want to deal with the doctors, and try my own natural approach, I researched for days. I officially started my homeopathic journey February 18th of this year. I was researching acupuncture, vitamins, essential oils, any natural element I could think of at the time I was researching. I decided to try what I called a "diabetic meal plan" at first which was low carb kind of diet but not super strict. Did that for a couple weeks and noticed I was already feeling better! Then I was introduced to "Ketogenic" diet, and I haven't looked back since. I haven't even tried doing acupuncture yet, (too expensive for me right now) I have not delved into a ton of research on essential oils or vitamins but plan too. I have just been focusing on eating. HAHA! My new way of eating has helped me to achieve the following in just a little over a few months and I am currently a year and 1 month into Keto now: Lower blood pressure hypothyroidism is almost non-existent my type II diabetes is no longer a factor, blood sugars are getting to that of a normal person now. I have lost 85 lbs. as of the date of this post I have energy I feel clear minded I actually can exercise and enjoy it for the first time in years! I actually am experiencing menopause symptoms - so yea this affect is not so fun but it is a good thing- this means that Bertha (my ovary remnant) is starting to shut down- which means less cysts and less pain all the scar tissue and pain I felt for years is going away!!! So I still have a lot of healing to go through. I imagine it will take my body a full year to really rejuvenate. But just to have these victories in such a short amount of time is amazing. So there you have it, you have read my worst and read my healing approach. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my story. Happy Healing?