three years ago around when i was 26 years old i decided to go on a solo trip to denmark for
my birthday and i got this upper respiratory infection that um a week later it turned to
this weird tingling in my throat that at first is just annoying but it felt like basically a bunch
of sand was stuck and moving around in my throat and my ears and it was just kind of a pain so um i
went to the doctors after the initial respiratory infection a few weeks later and by june 2019 um
speaking and all the nerve pain in my throat it started to become so excruciating that i remember
being on vacation and i was like i can't even talk to people anymore without pain sorry and
i was limiting all my plans with friends i started just text messaging to communicate
and it that got really scary so that started a journey of just visiting um starting in june 2019
about 45 doctors as of three years ago the past three years and about 10 of the first doctors in
2019 and between that period into the fall and they agreed that they think i had
what was called glossopharyngeal neuropathy and vagal neuropathy which if they sound foreign to
you too it sounded really foreign to me and that was just a scary diagnosis because they
tell you that it's very rare in that it affects one in a million people because mine seemed to be
atypical um according to western medicine so not caused by a compression in the brain but because
my chronic pain was 24 7 and it was all throughout my throat and not just localized
to one side that's considered atypical so you don't want to be one in a million or atypical
and they also about 10 of those top doctors in the beginning they would reference it and call
it the suicide disease which was really scary and something that you don't want to hear and i think
before then i'd been so happy and like never never had depression in my life and when something like
that just hits you all of a sudden like whack out it's like okay universe um but i became really um
for the first four months to suicidally depressed and i just i'd never felt that emotion in my life
and i had to quit my job because reading hurt and i was um just every day i would say to my
parents if this doesn't go away within a year like please just let me die and i'd be sobbing on the
couch and it was a long that that four months and then i started seeing other doctors and
i ended up getting about four throat surgeries um ketamine infusions which is the the date rape
drug known as initially but used to treat pain and that doctor was really empathetic but um it didn't
take away my pain and none of the prescribed like 30 different medications not one of them changed
anything or in my mood honestly i felt better off of medication so um yeah after all of those
throat surgeries and clinical trials i was enrolled in with all these new technologies
none of that worked so anyway i started to um feel pretty hopeless and discouraged and
i had met a friend who he had the most similar symptoms to mine
nerve pain throughout the throat hadn't been speaking for four years and
he found dr joe's work and then kind of similar work and he hadn't been speaking or walking as i
said even because his head spread where his mind spread to my face his was his entire body but he
also had been to all those visits that didn't help and started doing the work himself and he um he's
100 healed and we became really good friends so that was um we were talking when i was still in
that process of getting all the surgeries so i was still stuck in that kind of fight or flight mode
that dr joe talks about and um i kept thinking well this is really inspiring and i kept going
back to it but also thinking well you know maybe for him this was just a miracle or something he
got lucky and um it was mine some other cause and that can't happen for me um so that was exactly
a year ago or so and then about exactly two months ago um so really recent january i i don't know why
but i had two of my worst pain days ever and i was just at home again with my parents feeling kind of
hopeless after all the failed clinical trials sobbing and feeling really down on myself so my
dad just they said do you want to try the ketamine tablets you're prescribed like a year ago that
i just hadn't really taken because none of the medications i don't really like they don't seem
to help and but i was desperate so i took those and um while high on the ketamine and i've never
done drugs in my life just alcohol and never even smoked weed before i got sick or smoked at all
dr joe's name ended up popping in my head i don't know why and it sounds like wacky
or but it happened and i said let me just check this dr joe guy out again and i read his story
a little bit and then i started listening to um his audio book you are the placebo and i finished
that with him i think it was like a night or two i was so kind of excited or more more hopeful um
and then i read breaking the habit listen to breaking the habit of being yourself reading the
books you start to see the science and how that really can happen and so i did that and i'd never
meditated in my life before this i listened to his instructions on it and after reading the books and
listening to that over and over i started doing um the space meditation and the placebo and um i
thought wow if i were to describe this to friends they'd think i was going crazy or to prescribe new
medications but um just having experiences when you're saying uh you know you're you're in space
and feel the emotions you'd feel when you're in a situation that would make you feel that way
yeah i was feeling extreme gratitude and joy just pure joy that um i if not the past three years i
definitely had not been feeling that emotion at all and i i think i hide it pretty well because
invisible illness is hard to friends would say you talk the same and you look the same but um but i
hadn't inside been feeling the same at all so and it was definitely joy and i would be sobbing and
just crying with joy for the first time instead of with despair and sadness so that was really really
cool like i said i've only been doing this work for two months and i signed up for cancun because
i said okay even though i'm doing this every day on my own i i'm a person who's always liked
structure so i gotta go in person and go to the events and i was feeling so much joy and gratitude
and really getting into the meditations and um one of them a woman in the audience um started
laughing you know kind of where you can't help it and so then i joined everyone else subconsciously
and i started bursting out laughing and um just what was really cool about that moment that was um
surprising was that that was the first time in three years that i was able to laugh without any
nerve pain throughout my throat and i started that walk where it was uh we learned the new
breathing technique initial technique is just hard for me because when my breath will get up
to my throat is where it gets completely caught since i haven't been able to breathe in this area
and it's where i feel a thousand like tiny knives the nerve pain stabbing me throughout what seems
like every throat tissue so um anyway um so i was like oh this all this meditation is great the one
thing i'd like to it would be cool if the breath like i i could just breathe without pain because
that is not a good way to live um and so i started the the walk and he said just keep thinking about
yourself as your future self and and walking as that and um i didn't mean to get emotional
and then uh i was just thinking about how it would feel not pitching how it would happen or anything
but um if i was completely cured and i was able to make that phone call to my parents and to tell
them that and like walking along a beach um and just watching everyone else doing the walk and
feeling so much love for them and everything around me that that was a really good emotion
and then i got to the end where you do the breath once again that we had learned yesterday i started
moving it up and all the air and um it was that was the first time um also in three years that
i was able to um take a deep breath in through my throat which i thought i was like maybe i'm just
i tried to not get too into my analytical mind and but i a few times i kept doing it and i was
able to do that without pain too for the first time in three years and um so yeah i was doing
it multiple times and just um sobbing with joy because he says to lie down on the ground and
i was crying and i was actually again just kind of subconsciously
laughing out of joy and crying at the same time yeah it's not to say that you know my symptoms
have disappeared i want to be clear about that or that i don't still have negative emotions even as
much as i know we're supposed to keep living as our future selves which i plan to do the work
every day and just just keep doing it um so i don't want to say you know it was miraculously
which would be that'd be cool too but um it's just two really amazing baby steps but not one
out of 45 doctor's visits that has happened or had had those experiences and looking back i also now
see how all of that kind of ramped up my fear and stress and increases your pain when you're getting
107 degree heated needles in your neck and now um i'm here at this place where everyone's
just happy that other people are healing and positive and the science is so mind-blowing so
it's just been a really amazing experience and i'm really excited to keep going