I have been trying to write this blog post for several weeks now. In some ways, that isn’t surprising. As I write this, it’s been nearly two years since my journey with chronic illness began after an unexpected bacterial infection. The experience has been overwhelming, confusing, frightening and, at times, deeply isolating. But I keep coming back to this story because I hope it reaches someone out there who is where I have been the past two years. I had no idea what was happening to my body. I didn’t know why I felt so terrible. I didn’t know who could help me. And perhaps most frightening of all, I didn’t know whether I would heal. If sharing my experience helps even one person feel less alone–or points them toward a path of healing sooner than I found mine–then writing this will have been worth it.
How It Started
In June 2024, I developed an unexpected bacterial infection. After two different antibiotics failed to resolve it, I underwent a minor procedure. According to my doctors, everything healed normally. The problem was that I didn’t feel normal. Even after the infection was gone, I continued experiencing persistent nausea, a strange internal “shakiness,” and a general feeling of being unwell. Those symptoms lingered day after day for the next 1 ½ years. I was prescribed another antibiotic, but then was told to stop taking it at the first of three ER visits I had that year. I was told that doing so should help me feel better. It didn’t.
Six months later, the infection returned. This time, it brought new symptoms with it: chronic fatigue and widespread pain that migrated throughout my body. The unpredictability of the pain and exhaustion left me scared that something much more serious might be wrong. This second infection meant another medical procedure in January 2025, which doctors once again told me that I was healing normally from. Yet I continued to feel unwell. Without an explanation for why this was, my fear grew. Were the infections responsible? The antibiotics? Was there an underlying illness nobody had found? No one seemed to know.
When Symptoms Multiply
Over the following months, the chronic fatigue, pain and nausea continued to come and go. Then I developed a symptom that frightened me even more: paresthesia—tingling sensations that felt like a low-level electrical current running throughout my body. Once again, doctors had no clear explanation.
As if that weren’t enough, I began experiencing digestive issues I had never struggled with before, including histamine intolerance, food sensitivities, and heartburn. Preparing meals became stressful because the list of foods I could tolerate kept shrinking.
By this point, every major system in my body had been affected. My immune system was overreactive. My hormones were out of balance. My digestive system was sensitive to foods I had eaten all my life. My nervous system was constantly on high alert. And the number of doctor’s appointments and medical bills I had was overwhelming. This illness consumed my life.
Finally, a Diagnosis: Central Sensitization Syndrome
About nine months into this journey, I finally received a diagnosis: Central Sensitization Syndrome (CSS). If you’ve never heard of it, you’re not alone. Central sensitization occurs when the central nervous system becomes overly reactive and hypersensitive. Pain signals become amplified. Sensations that normally wouldn’t cause discomfort can become distressing. Symptoms can persist long after an infection, injury, or other triggering event has resolved. Importantly, the symptoms are real. The pain is real. The fatigue is real. It is not “all in your head.” Receiving a diagnosis didn’t solve anything, but it finally gave me a framework for understanding what I was experiencing. My nervous system had been carrying a tremendous amount of chronic stress, not just since the first bacterial infection, but even prior to that. (More on the roots of chronic illness in an upcoming blog post.) It was essentially operating beyond its capacity to recover.
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
Healing has been anything but linear. Not receiving any meaningful healing protocols from my conventional doctors, I explored more holistic approaches such as acupuncture, Traditional Chinese Medicine, cranial sacral and massage therapy, chiropractic adjustments and NRT muscle testing. All of these helped support different aspects of my healing–but it has been a bumpy ride.
For nearly two years, I never knew how I would feel when I woke up each morning. Making plans became nearly impossible. I would feel pretty good for a week, only to feel sick again for the next two weeks. Every setback felt discouraging. There were moments when I wondered if I would ever feel ‘normal’ again. While I continued teaching a handful of private yoga sessions and my online class each week, I’d spend most afternoons recovering on the couch. I could enjoy an entire symptom-free week on the shores of Lake Michigan—only to watch symptoms return within days of coming home. Earlier this spring, after dealing with an extremely stressful situation for a couple months, I was hit with chronic fatigue for two weeks straight.
Nevertheless, I am healing.
Six Months of Real Progress: What’s Helping Me Heal
Two interventions have stood out as particularly helpful in my healing process over the past 6 months. The first has been healing my gut from the four different antibiotics I had been on through a targeted healing protocol. The second was beginning brain retraining and nervous system healing work. While the gut healing helped me finally get over the persistent nausea I had been feeling–and is slowly but surely helping with other symptoms–the nervous system work is helping me address the underlying dysregulation. Over the past six months, I’ve experienced noticeable changes: less nausea and pain, more energy, improved resilience, and longer stretches of feeling like myself again. After two years of living with fear and uncertainty, this progress feels extraordinary.
If You’re Living with Chronic Illness
Aside from living with the physical symptoms and the uncertainty, one of the hardest parts of this journey has been the lack of understanding. Many people would look at me over the past two years and say, “You seem fine.” What they couldn’t see was the effort it took simply to get through the day. Invisible illnesses can be incredibly lonely. That’s why I wanted to share this story. Conditions like Central Sensitization Syndrome, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, nervous system dysregulation, and other mind-body disorders are still poorly understood by much of the public. Yet they affect millions of people.
If you’re navigating your own chronic illness journey, I hope this post offers you a little comfort in knowing that you’re not alone. Your healing may not be straightforward. It may involve setbacks, uncertainty, and far more patience than you ever imagined possible. But it is possible.
If you’re in the Ann Arbor area and navigating chronic illness, I would love to support you. The nervous system healing work that has been such a transformative part of my own recovery has become an integral part of my private yoga offerings. I now regularly weave these practices into sessions with clients who are living with chronic illness, chronic stress, and significant life transitions. It is deeply meaningful to me to share tools that are helping my own healing process, and to create a space for greater nervous system regulation, resilience, and connection along the healing journey.
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