No one understands a diagnosis better than someone who has lived it, day in and day out, for years.
In my mid-30s, after a near-fatal car accident with a severe head injury, I fell into a near coma for almost six months. I became bound to a wheelchair for over a year and lived severely debilitated for years, believing my fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue diagnoses. Medical professionals consistently dismissed my other telling symptoms. The hurtful comments from the numerous specialists I saw included “it’s all in your head,” “seek counseling,” and “aren’t you being a little dramatic, overly sensitive.” At the time, I was a highly-trained, respected neurological healthcare professional with training in India, London, and the United States.

Brian, my only child, began experiencing symptoms post DTaP at 18 months and was diagnosed on the autism spectrum when he was 22-months old. Heavy heartedly, I initially accepted his diagnosis. However, I began to notice many little things that were totally atypical of autism. Having never studied autism in depth in medical school, I trusted my professional peers’ expertise at the time.

One morning he woke up with violent motor and vocal tics. My little boy was terrified. He could not walk, with excruciating pain in his pelvic bone marrow, and he was even unable to turn in bed. His lungs, his eyes, his brain, his kidneys, his skin, and his gut all became compromised. He was in a wheelchair for over two years. I believed I would lose my son. It was a very traumatic period for our family. It motivated me to discover the root cause of his medical issues.

My research finally led me to accurate diagnoses. All these years, we’d suffered from Lyme disease, coinfections, and chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS). Conventional medicine helped us through the critical lifesaving phase of the illnesses. However, a compromised gut demanded a natural plant-based approach. For both of us, The BioNexus Approach was born. We were finally able to recover from illness and regain our lives. Clinical herbalism, integrative functional medicine, and learning to heal our mental, emotional, and spiritual selves brought us to full lives.

Brian went from being on the spectrum to being on the honor roll. Teasing out and treating the myriad of underlying causes was the game-changer. He’s won science and math awards and been accepted to prestigious Ivy League high school summer programs. He is currently at college with a presidential scholarship and pursuing a medical degree. He wants to become an immunologist. Not in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine a spectrum diagnosis followed by years in a wheelchair could lead to this kind of a future for my child, and I’m very grateful indeed.

When I say we listen, I genuinely mean it. Every detail of your experiences is crucial to understanding how your disease progressed, aids in designing a customized treatment plan, and your ultimate prognosis. A mother’s intuition and a person’s gut instinct are very important indicators in my practice.

I wish you the very best of health and wellness.

– Jodie A. Dashore, PhD