We all have a unique path that has lead us to a place of autoimmune disease. Our life choices, as well as, events that are out of our control contribute to our body’s state of dis-ease or state of wellness. Our bodies are ultimately trying to survive or ideally thrive in the world we are asking it to live in. My body very clearly didn’t like how I was asking it to live and I didn’t know it until a defining moment in time. I’m sure there were some symptoms and clues along the way but they didn’t speak loud enough for me to listen to them until WHAM! It felt like one day I was fine and the next day I had no idea who had taken over my mind and body! It was August 2015 and I was on a trip to Canada with my mom and sister-in-law and we were enjoying a fun dinner when out of nowhere my chest and throat started to tighten, my heart started to race and I had an overwhelming feeling of panic that sent me to the ER thinking I was having a heart attack. I spent a terrifying night in the ER experiencing a racing heart and thoughts of doom only to be released the next day with a bottle of Xanex and a “good luck”. Less than 10  hours later I was back in my second ER in Canada with the feeling of an elephant sitting on my chest and my throat being squeezed by a boa constrictor. I was sure I was dying and I was beyond scared. What was going on? I had a great life back home. I was a proud mom of three fabulous very busy and active kids. I was the CEO of the house; I worked out hard and ran long distance races. My husband and I owned and ran a busy physical therapy practice (no stress there!)  and I was a successful physical therapist with a full and busy schedule. I was a doer and prided myself on getting things done. I never stopped to really rest and rejuvenate. I put other people’s needs first and mine second…….. isn’t that what you do when you are a care giver, healer, wife and super mom?! I am a pleaser (still working on that one but getting better)! It was that moment in Canada, on vacation no less, my body decided it had had enough and things needed to change! I’ll never forget the doctor from the second ER sitting next to me (before they released me with more small green pills) telling me the good news was, I wasn’t dying and my heart was just fine but, the bad news was I was suffering from multiple panic attacks and “once the genie is out of it’s lamp she’s hard to put back in”. I didn’t realize what that exactly meant at the time but as the months persisted with multiple more panic attacks and trips to doctors and stress tests and feelings of going absolutely crazy that I understood the analogy. Every day was a struggle as I battled severe anxiety, debilitating chest pains and heart palpitations and the nights were even worse as I started to get scared to go to bed because the panic attacks would set in. I felt like I was going to die so many times. I was searching for anything that would help and I found functional medicine.