This Happened to ME!

by Glen Depke, Traditional Naturopath I wanted to reach out to all of our followers so share something that happened to me recently that may be eye opening to you. Sometimes I feel so blessed to endure a challenge personally so I can share this with the masses and today’s share will blow you away. And yes, I will include pictures. I had two incidents in the last three weeks that will make you look at joint pain differently. About 3 weeks ago, on what seemed to be a normal Monday, I came into the office at 7:30am as I normally would and on my lunch break I went to work with my personal trainer as I do on every Monday. Nothing was really different or odd in my workout and I did not feel as if anything I was doing pushed to hard or created any pain response at all. I simply enjoyed the benefits of a normal workout. A few hours after my workout I started to notice a slight pain in the lower joint on the big toe on my right foot. I really did not think much of this and just moved on with my day. As the day continued though, the pain was getting more and more intense. So intense to the point that by the time I got home that night, about 7:00pm, I could not put any pressure on my right toe. I basically had to put all my weight on the right heel when walking. As I laid in bed that night with my foot up on a pillow, because now the toe was also inflamed, my wife tried to be very delicate in putting some essential oils on my big toe. Just that slight touch almost sent me through the roof with pain. Yikes! When I woke up the next morning, the big toe was even more inflamed and the pain was almost unbearable! As an avid golfer and tennis player, I was starting to have thoughts of how many months it would take before I could golf again and tennis was completely out of the question. Heck, waling was out of the question at this point. I was wracking my brain wondering what this was.

• Did I hurt myself during my workout?
• The liver meridian runs through this area of the toe, so was this also tied into my liver?
• Did my big toe somehow become dislocated?
• If this was an injury, how could I not be aware of this?

Nothing improved on Tuesday so on Wednesday I went into the office to have one of the other practitioners muscle test my big toe and what was found was shocking to me. I had a Bartonella infection in toe! All this inflammation and pain was tied into this infection. Who would have thought, right!? I addressed the infection right away of course and thankfully the inflammation and pain subsided very quickly, to the point that I was actually able to golf on that Friday. Just a few days earlier I was wondering if I would be able to golf in the next few months. The next few weeks after this incident I had a time period where I was burning the candle and both ends and in the middle. Just too much to do with too little of time and I had really run my body down in that time frame. This was bad timing for me! There was likely a bit of Bartonella that I was still dealing with and low and behold, it came up and bit me again. This time I was sitting in a 9 hour workshop and noticed a little discomfort in my medial right knee. Again, I did not think much of this, after all I was sitting in a chair for almost 9 hours daily for three days in a row, crossing my legs and simply thought this discomfort was tied into sitting for so long and crossing my legs. By the time I got home that night, I had a noticeable limp and that next morning at 4:00am I woke up in excruciating pain and throbbing of my right knee. This not only woke me up but also kept me up.

That day I was barely able to walk. The pain was simply so intense and the knee was already very inflamed! This time though, I had a good idea what was going on, it had to be that damned Bartonella again and sure enough, it was. That plus another infection referred to as a Micoplasma. Once I addressed this I started to regain my ability to walk correctly and the pain and inflammation had begun to subside. This is not completely gone as I write this, but I am well on my way to recovery. This time though, I am going to stay on top of this and not push too hard by burning the candle at both ends and in the middle. It is now time to allow my body to heal this once and for all! Here is the main reason to share this with you. Think of what you would go though if this happened to the average person and I’ll use the current knee issue as an example. Most people that have an inflamed knee and knee pain would go to their doctor. That doctor would likely recommend that you see an orthopedic specialist and most likely an MRI would be recommended. As a 52 year old sports enthusiast, it is likely that some soft tissue damage would be found in an MRI, eventually leading to a surgery. But since the soft tissue was not the issue, I would not have escaped the pain. So what would have been next? This is when a pain medication would have been recommended and this still would not have addressed the infection, understanding that the infection would have been at the cause of the pain. So it would have simply been a more powerful pain medication and round and round we go. If me sharing this experience helps even one person escape an unnecessary surgery and years of pain medication, with a lack of success, I will be very happy. After all, one persons problem can be another persons gift! Let this be your gift… If you have any comments or questions regarding this article please post this on our Facebook page or on our Twitter page for us to address personally. Contact Depke Wellness directly here.