Hello and welcome to Experimental Wellness! My name is Seth Peters and much like many of you I have spent my fair share of time plugging symptoms into WebMD only to learn about my imminent doom caused by some horrific disease… In fact, from 2013 – 2015 I lived in fear of my own body without any meaningful diagnosis from the numerous medical professionals I was seeing at the time.
In January of 2013 I started my first corporate job and was under constant stress. Each day was more intense than the last and as a result of my own personality and my inability to handle or cope with stress, my body began to fight back. My first symptoms emerged as simple acid reflux, no stranger to the average American, but in a few months it led to severe stomach pain, digestive issues, and inflammation of my liver. It was only through my company’s health insurance program (which required routine blood work) that I discovered my liver function was impaired and my blood test results were nearly 10 times outside of the normal range. When the nurse read the results to me I was floored, I remember playing it off at first because she thought only a drug addicted alcoholic marathon runner would have blood levels like this.
After the consultation with the nurse, the panic began to set in. I immediately met with a gastroenterologist who had no idea what was going on. I had an endoscopy, CT scan, X rays, and further bloodwork, but nothing was found. I was losing my mind, and I was told it was all in my head by my friends and family… and on paper they were right, nothing definitive had ever been found (except for dysbiosis through comprehensive stool testing). But I was reaching a critical mass and my body was trying to warn me. During an out of town work trip, alone in my hotel room, I broke out in hives all over my body. I went out to my car and was talking on the phone with my girlfriend (now wife) and just broke down. I was rarely one for intense emotions, but I lost it in my car crying… I just couldn’t take it anymore. Despite more and more digestive changes and odd symptoms I kept searching for answers and holding on to hope.
The most positive part of 2013 was my wedding and honey moon (which weren’t stressful at all, right?). The only downside to the beautiful honeymoon was the fact that I accidentally drank a soda fountain drink WITH ICE at the Punta Cana airport and contracted Giardia which did not make things any better. Don’t drink the water they said… BIG mistake. I had to travel for work the very next day we returned from our honeymoon and I was sprinting to the bathroom every few hours with plenty of bleeding to spare for the entire week. BUT, I did get to marry my high school sweet heart and see a bit of the world in the process.
Fast forward several months and I was seeing 3 different specialists all at the same time. I enlisted the help of a well known local Naturopathic clinic for digestive help, a Holistic Integrative Medicine physician for the mystery symptoms, and a new Gastroenterologist. Due to the digestive oddities/pain and acid reflux I stopped eating nearly everything and only consumed baked or boiled chicken breast for quite some time. Using this approach I was fighting off some symptoms but lost about 30 pounds in the process, leaving me a frail 25 year old man.
Over the course of the next year my symptoms grew worse. I developed hand tremors, heart palpitations, frequent headaches, and finally consistent intestinal bleeding. My GI doctor at the time suggested a colonoscopy and finally part of my condition had a name… Ulcerative Colitis. Ulcerative Colitis is an autoimmune condition where your body attacks its own cells in the wall of the colon which causes chronic inflammation , ulcers, and bleeding. Due to the rampant inflammation and constant bleeding my hormones went haywire, I became borderline anemic, and my body felt like it was failing me. I remember avoiding trips to the grocery store because I would get so winded walking down the isles that I was afraid we wouldn’t make it back to the car. Family members would approach me and feel my bones poking through my shirt, constantly reminding me that I needed to eat. Due to my frequent bathroom trips I couldn’t sleep. I was waking up two to three times a night to go the the restroom. I was constantly in a sleep deficit and eating 500 calories a day. I was living in hell and reminded of it every second of my life.
However, a break in the storm finally came. Functional medicine slowly brought me back to life with herbs, supplements, select antibiotics, and a clean diet, but I still felt odd and without knowledge of a true root cause.
The integrative medicine doctors that I was seeing suggested some additional testing to see if we could uncover what was causing the underlying inflammation from my Autoimmune condition. Some time (and a lot of money later) we discovered chronic Lyme Disease, two co-infections, and intestinal parasites.
Ever since then I have been battling to control my autoimmune condition and Lyme symptoms while trying to cleanse my body of these infections, parasites, and bacteria. I started this blog to share my personal journey and help others who feel hopeless and lost due to illness. My goal is to provide first hand experiences with alternative medicine and educate others so that they have more options besides high risk prescription medications with dangerous side effects. I will provide personal experiences and investigative journalism on various alternative methods for treating mystery illnesses, autoimmunity, Lyme disease, parasites, and much more. Above all, its important to know that I am not a medical doctor and that my findings and writings should not be taken as medical advice, but rather are to provide readers with my own personal experiences and ideas for alternative therapies. Please consult a qualified physician before you take any action or attempt some of the methods I will be writing about on this site.
