About Me and My Journey

Hi! My name is Margaret Aust. I began this blog to help other people like me. This blog is about general health/wellness and healthy recipes.

To tell you a little about myself and my journey, I began having some health issues around 2015. I began having headaches every day, body aches and soreness, brain fog, chronic fatigue, blood pressure dropping too low, heart palpitations, chest pains, heart racing, muscle twitches. They ran blood work, MRIs, CT scans, lumbar puncture, and so much more. I was eventually diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). Once I began seeing a doctor for POTS we tried many different medications to help with my symptoms, but to our dismay none seemed to help. At one point I was taking 12 different medications a day and I was only 17 years old.

I eventually gave up hope that my quality of life would get any better. I accepted that I would live with chronic pain and chronic headaches. Most days I would end up on the couch with the lights off and an ice pack on my head to help ease the pain. My good days were bad at best and my bad days were miserable. I forgot what it felt like to feel “normal” or “good.” I somehow made it through high school and nursing school in college. I never dreamed I would be able to work a 12 hour shift in the hospital, but God gave me strength to do what He called me to do.

In May 2021 I began having stomach pain. There were several people I knew of that had been seeing someone who practiced functional medicine, and they had great results in their health. She suggested that we test for IgG food allergies, do a stool test, and a leaky gut test. When the results for my food allergies came back, we were all astonished. I had 118 food allergies. The stool test showed I had an imbalance of gut microbiota and the leaky gut test showed I had severe leaky gut.

Leaky gut causes an inflammatory response in your body which causes many different issues such as: pain, brain fog, fatigue, skin rashes or irritation, acne, heart palpitations, chest pain, stomach pain, fainting, headaches, bloating/gas, constipation, anxiety, depressions, acid reflux, diarrhea, nausea, joint aches, mood changes, hyperactivity, IBS.

With 118 food allergies, the question to ask is ‘what food can you eat?’ The following list is the foods I could eat: yellow squash, zucchini squash, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, turnip root, rutabaga, radish, colored bell pepper, jalapeno, okra, parsnips, cassava root, chickpea, lentil, plantains, bananas, strawberries, grapes, apples, maple syrup, olive oil/olives, palm shortening, paprika, red pepper flakes, cayenne, cinnamon, pork, salmon, tilapia, shrimp, scallops, rabbit. Once I stopped eating the foods that I was allergic to, I began to feel so much better. My headaches went away, my body pain went away, brain fog began clearing up, chronic fatigue began to resolve, stomach pain lessened.

I am 11 months into my journey in May 2022, and I am still a long way from being fully “better” but I am much better than I was.