Fiona Thorson started dealing with a variety of apparently unrelated medical issues when she was in her mid-20s. For almost 15 years, she worked with allopathic and holistic doctors, eventually getting diagnosed with Lyme Disease and spending a year so debilitated she couldn’t work. She learned to trust herself more than the doctors who couldn’t cure her chronic illness and identified three root causes that were preventing her from getting better. Since she started working on those, she’s been getting stronger and launched a health and wellness business to help others like her find good health and vitality.

Guest Bio

On your podcast, Fiona Thorson will share a story that will resonate with listeners who have struggled with chronic illness. One thing we have in common is that we often go unheard or dismissed. People are often told they are not really sick or that they're sick but they have to just live with it, but I don't believe we do.

I have a passion – I believe that everyone has the innate ability to heal themselves, that there is power in the mind’s influence on the body. But there is a problem. The problem is that our modern world is full of toxins that go largely unaddressed and unacknowledged, which result in damage to one’s health and well-being, and supportive therapies and practices are less effective.

For more than 15 years with chronic illness, I tried numerous allopathic and holistic therapies, as well as mind-body techniques. While I got some temporary relief, my health was still failing. That is, until I identified the root causes of my illness, namely environmental toxins, such as heavy metal toxicity, nanoparticle poisoning & electromagnetic sensitivity.

That’s why I now teach others how to detox from those toxins so that once this obstacle to cure is overcome, the mind-body connection can more easily be restored, and other health practices will have improved results. From this may come less pain, more energy and stamina, better memory, and more time to do things in life that bring joy.

Insidious Onset

Fiona Thorson started having health problems in her mid 20s. Her first diagnosis was hyperthyroid, something she had to learn about because she didn’t even know what a thyroid was at the time. What she was feeling was consistent with hyperthyroid symptoms - feeling cold, peeling fingernails, tired, constipated - so she started on Synthroid and felt grateful her doctor had ordered the blood test. 

A couple years later, she started having panic attacks and then recurrent bacterial vaginosis and bladder infections. Doctors prescribed antibiotics for each occurrence so she took them. Then, while she was teaching English in the Middle East, she knew something was wrong so she went to the doctor, who removed her appendix.  By the time she was 28 she was having major bladder issues, getting up to pee six or seven times a night. Changing her diet reduced that to only two times each night.  She started doing Kundalini yoga for both physical and mental fitness. 

For the next five years, Fiona still had stomach pain and  migraines, which were worsening. She was losing energy and strength despite swimming, walking, bike riding and doing yoga. She lived on a hill and would ride her bike around town to do her errands, but riding - and even walking - up that hill was getting harder and harder so she sold her bike and started taking the bus instead. 

Her doctors didn’t know what was going on. She was tested for diabetes twice, diabetes insipidus three times, celiac disease - they were all negative. She had an ovarian cyst and fibroids on her uterus, so her periods were excruciating. 

It got so bad she started to believe her doctors, who were telling her that she was just stressed out and needed a vacation. She started thinking “maybe I’m making it all up. Maybe it’s all in my head.”  She started working with different spiritual modalities and meditation, but none of them got down to the root causes of what was going on. 

For nine years, Fiona was, on the one hand, fit and taking good care of herself, and on the other, quite ill. 

In 2013, Fiona was in Korea teaching English when she came upon the “Oriental Medical Clinic of Korea,” and thought she’d give it a try. Her four week program included moxibustion, which is a traditional Eastern medicine therapy that consists of burning dried mugwort on particular points on the body. The practitioner was using the treatment on her abdomen along with acupuncture. Fiona had a “die off” reaction but felt fantastic after about a month. She was clear-headed; she had good energy. This confirmed for her that it wasn’t in her head and there was something going on with her. 

The following year, when she was 35, Fiona returned to Canada and thought she would use what she had learned with her local doctors but got nowhere. Finally, a naturopathic doctor said that her symptoms sounded a lot like Lyme disease. She did the IGenX test for Lyme, which is usually more reliable , and it came back with flying colors. Now, she had a diagnosis and somewhere to start from - and at least a partial explanation of the decade of bizarre and somewhat vague medical issues she experienced. 

Fiona never got the classic “bullseye” rash associated with a tick bite but she did occasionally have ticks on her as a child. 

Armed with her diagnosis, Fiona started down the path that many Lyme disease sufferers are familiar with - one that includes bizarre, outside the mainstream, and sometimes icky treatments. 

In 2014 she experienced a major crash and had to stop working for a while. She did some aggressive treatment with a naturopath and was able to go back to work the following year, though she still experienced ups and downs. 

Nanos

Lyme warriors often share resources in support groups. That’s where Fiona encountered Tony Pantellaresco and his videos for DIY anti-nano devices. 

Nanoparticles can be both incidental and engineered. Incidental nanoparticles include particles from dust storms, volcanic eruptions, forest fires, and ocean water evaporation. Engineered nanoparticles are made for use in cosmetics or pharmaceuticals. They can also be found from cigarette smoke and building demolition.

In 2017, Fiona started using the anti-nano bucket and started to feel better. 

Tony Pantellaresco’s research found that what was thought of as Lyme or Morgellons Disease was actually a reaction to nanoparticles in the body. The device he developed is a bucket with magnets and copper wire. When it’s plugged in, it provides pulsed electromagnetic frequency that vibrates the nanoparticles and, essentially, ‘deprograms’ them and allows them to exit the body. 

As an example, titanium dioxide is often used as a delivery method for many pharmaceutical drugs. It’s programmed to go to a certain part of the body and deliver medication.  The question that Tony Pantellaresco asked was, what happens with the nano delivery system when the drug has been delivered? For some people, the particles wander around and wreak havoc. The anti-nano bucket is like taking a magnet to your credit card and deprogramming it. Now the nanoparticles are inert. 

She also identified two additional root causes: electromagnetic frequencies and heavy metals. 

Turning 40

Fiona got laid off from her job around her 40th birthday, but that meant she qualified for a business program put on by the Canadian government. She had already started a couple blogs over the years and had recently started her current blog. She started listening to podcasts, researching Lyme disease and doing additional research on Tony Pantellaresco’s nanotechnology ideas. She used the business program to help her formally launch the blog, monetize it and start to teach. The program helped her transition from teaching English into the health and wellness industry. 

Continuing with the anti-nano treatments, Fiona started feeling better, stronger. Her pain diminished. And she was excited about becoming an entrepreneur and moving into the health and wellness space. 

In her 30s, Fiona listened to her doctors and followed their suggestions; she respected their authority. She believed in the system. But after so long with not enough improvement, she grew to trust herself a lot more and the doctors a lot less. Plus, the more she delved into her research on the toxicity of nanoparticles, the more she had to start looking outside the box. That led her to rely on herself a lot more.

Sponsor

The Forty Drinks Podcast is produced and presented by Savoir Faire Marketing/Communications

Find Fiona Online

Fiona on Instagram: https://www.instagam.com/fionaforhealth

Fiona’s website: www.fionaforhealth.com

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Stephanie: Hi, Fiona. Thanks so much for joining me today.

Fiona: Thanks for having me, Stephanie.

Stephanie: It's so nice to meet you. Will you tell me a little bit about yourself?

Fiona: Sure. Uh, Hmm. Where do I start?

Stephanie: When you were younger and still in school, you said you started having health problems, what did those look like?

Fiona: It's funny. Actually, I didn't even realize that I was having symptoms. I went to my doctor. Um, I don't know why I went, but, um, she did a blood test, just kind of a routine blood test, and she had checked my thyroid levels. I'd never even heard of a thyroid before 'cause I was really not in tune with my body much at that time. She called me back and said, "Your thyroid TSH, your thyroid hormone levels, are really high, which means your thyroid levels are actually low. Like it's low acting, so it's, hypothyroid." So she said, "You gotta take this medication." I said, "Okay, how long do I have to take that for?" She said, "Oh, people usually take it for life." And, and dead stop. I was, I thought, "What, okay, can you explain, explain some more?" There wasn't much explanation. So she just gave me the prescription. I went and filled it and I read through the, the sheet of the drug and it explained some of the symptoms. And I went, "Holy Cow, I have those!" Um, I was cold all the time, my fingernails were peeling, my hair looked really drab, I was tired. I had constipation, my periods were all messed up even though I was on the pill. That usually regulates you. I was having memory problems and, uh, so I checked off a whole bunch of these symptoms and I went, "Okay, good thing I went for that blood test." And I took the medication, Synthroid, and I thought I was fine. And I pretty much was. I mean, it's, it's not a bad drug, it kind of evens you out. But as I came to learn later, it doesn't address the whole thyroid panel.

Fiona: At that time, I didn't know much about antibiotics either. And so I went to doctors, they said, "Oh, take these antibiotics." I said, "Okay, well that, that will fix me." And I did that off and on for about four months and I had abdominal pain and they did the little push test on your belly to see if it was your appendix. I guess you push in and then when they pull their fingers out, if there's pain that can indicate appendicitis, and I never had that, so they're like, "Oh, okay, just take these pills." After four months of that, I was actually overseases, I went to visit my mother and then go for a job over there. And, I just felt something wrong was like, "No, this doesn't feel right." And she said, "Why don't we take you to the hospital and get you checked out?" This was in, in the Middle East.

Stephanie: mm that's

Fiona: 28

Fiona: And over the course of 2009 to 12, I lived in an area where it was kind of on a hill and I had a bike, so I didn't have to go far to go, you know, just around town to get what I needed on my bike, but it got harder and harder to ride my bike and to even walk up that hill. Eventually I just didn't wanna do it anymore, it just hurt so much. So I sold my bike and started taking the bus, like the two minute ride up hill 'cause I just couldn't do it. Then, like I said, I went to my doctor and other doctors and I was tested for diabetes twice. Negative. Diabetes insipidus three times, all negative. Tested for celiac disease, that was negative. Uh, I don't even know what else now.

Stephanie: Right. now it's coming up on 2014, you're 35, you've been interestingly, both fit and taking great care of yourself and ill.

Fiona: Mm-hmm

Fiona: Well, actually, I'll just step back a year, in 2013 I went to Korea to teach English there. While I was there I had it in my head still that there's nothing wrong with me, I'm just making it up. And I saw a clinic called Oriental Medical Clinic of Korea with whatever the town was. And I thought, "Okay, I'll just give this a try. I don't know if it's gonna work. I'll try it.". So I went in and, um, I did a four week program. At first I took the herbs and they didn't do anything for me. So the doctor said, "Come back and we'll do moxibustion." I don't know if you know what that is, but it's

Stephanie: I don't

Fiona: Except then I went to see a naturopath again, a new one, two new ones. And one of them said, "Your symptoms sound a lot like my Lyme patients, why don't you get tested?" So I did the test for Lyme disease. In Canada, there's the the public medical one, which is maybe in the States, too, it's really not reliable. So I paid the whatever it was $400, I think, for the IGeneX test. And that came back positive, like with flying colors. So, that, for me, I went, "Okay. Now I have something to work with. It's Lyme disease."

Stephanie: So before we go any further, do you have any idea where you would've contracted Lyme disease or how long you've had it or is this, do you think a contributor to those 10 years of sort of vague or bizarre medical issues?

Fiona: Oh, for sure. I think it contributed to all or many of them. The main way to contract Lyme um, is through ticks, as you probably know. Some doctors will say that it's sexually transmitted, some say it is also transmitted through mosquitoes, that kind of thing. So, I mean, it could have been anything. I didn't have any indicator at any time. I didn't have that classic bullseye rash. I had ticks on me way back in the past when I was a kid, but I mean, they were just there for a minute and then pull 'em out. But, no, I, I don't know if there was one of those that gave it to me.

Stephanie: So you got diagnosed with Lyme and tell me a little bit about how that started to go.

Fiona: Let's see. I wasn't tested for the co-infections at first. I did that a few years later. Uh, but clinically one of my naturopaths said, it sounds like you have Bartonella, which was one of the coinfections, which then later on a third test, I did a few years after that did confirm that I had Bartonella. So I guess before I had the diagnosis. I was already doing a few naturopathic IVs with one of the naturopaths I was doing peroxide IVs. Cause they said, "Well, it looks like some kind of bacterial thing. So you wanna try peroxide?" I said, "Sure.". It kind of helped it a little bit, but not much. Got the diagnosis, and then I moved to a new town and this other naturopath that I was seeing previous, he put me on a really vigorous program. So I started doing, um, what's called major auto hemotherapy. So it's ozone put into the blood. They take the blood out of your arm into a bag, pump the ozone into the bag and then put the back in your body.

Fiona: And, uh, did you do that too? I see you nodding.

Stephanie: I did try ozone at one point. It was, it was a different application. It was much less pleasant than, what you're talking about.

Fiona: Well, I did, another kind of ozone and that was for my gut. And that was the, the rectal ozone. Yeah. It kind of sucks, but, it was kind of helpful. So I had the, the ozone.

Stephanie: Before we go any further, let's just tell people that, when we say things like this, really, I'm gonna speak for myself and you can tell me if, you feel similar. You know, when you've been ill for a while and you can't find a way out of that, and there's no easy path and the things that you try keep not working. You do things. I did something you said a little while ago, you changed your diet. I changed my diet. I am on, have been on for many years, a ridiculous regimen of supplementation on a daily basis. When you're doing all these things and not making the kind of progress you should be, or you feel like you're earning based on your effort, you will try anything. And so, you know, when somebody says to you, you know, let's try some ozone. Okay. How do we do that? Well, rectally..

Stephanie: Right. And who's gonna do that. And how does this happen? Yeah, but

Stephanie: you try it because if it has a chance of working, then frankly, you'll do it. So I know that's why I tried it and it, it did not make a difference for me so, we stopped that treatment.

Fiona: Well, it's good that you brought that up because you know, when we talk about these kind of things, like with serious health issues, we kind of have to open it up and start really talking about our bodily functions and the stuff that comes out.

Stephanie: Hmm.

Fiona: Places in the body that people are uncomfortable talking about. Like, I talk about stuff that comes out of my vagina to, to strangers sometimes because I think they need to know. So there's a little warning for your listeners right now, you know, but it's something that happens with everybody. Right. You know, you have to deal with those things and I agree, um, you get to a point where you're almost desperate and you'll try it. I hadn't done an enema on myself before all of this. And then I looked at wikiHow and went and bought the stuff I needed and, and started doing it. and I did a colonics as well. That's another thing I started to do once I got diagnosed with Lyme. That was life changing.

Stephanie: I did those too. I did not find them life changing. I did them regularly for, I don't know, six months or a year. And again, that just was not making enough of a dent or a boost. And they were also far away. took a significant drive to get there. you know, at some point, you've tried something you've given it time to work and it hasn't worked and it's a cost and it's a drive and it's an investment of both time and money. And you just say, all right, onto the next thing.

Fiona: Never thought that this was gonna happen at that time of my life.

Stephanie: right?

Fiona: Yeah, so I had a few more ups and downs and I learned of a resource from someone in one of the Lyme support groups. He said, "Here's my list of favorite resources for, you know, herbs and medicines," and stuff like that and one of them was this guy named Tony Pantellaresco and his videos. So I started watching his videos. He teaches you how to make herbs and medicines and electronic gadgets to help with your health. I would say that was probably the door really opened, you know, when it came to looking at what information is out there, what I've been missing this whole time. And getting closer to the root causes of what was wrong with me.

Stephanie: Yeah. So tell me a little bit more about the machine you called it an anti nano machine.

Fiona: So Tony's research is all in nano biotechnology. He had discovered that what he thought was Lyme disease or Morgellons, what he was dealing with, was actually most likely nanotechnology little fibers. I dunno if you've heard of Morgellons, but people have like these little strings and fibers and stuff that come outta their skin. Well, that's what he was having and a number of people who he'd been helping. he discovered a way to to knock it out.

Fiona: It's a little bit far out there for most people to understand because it is bizarre. It's really weird. So this device is just a plain bucket, which You use a as a foot bath. It's made with sticking some magnets around the outside and then some copper wire, like speaker wire all around it. So it's like this giant coil with some magnets inside and you plug it in and it gives you kind of like a pulse similar to PEMF, P-E-M-F pulsed electromagnetic frequency, or I think that's what it stands for. It's kind, it's not exactly, but it's quite close. That would be the closest commercial thing to it. And the idea is that if you have these nanoparticles inside your body, they're vibrating because they're programmed to do something they're programmed in there.

Fiona: I'll just give you a little, like explanation on nanoparticles and how you get them. There's one nanoparticle substance called, titanium dioxide, which is often used in pharmaceutical drugs as a delivery method. So the example I like to use is the migraine medication that I use, when I have to use it, just once in a while, it's called rizatriptan. Tony has this show and he gave a challenge to everybody. He said, "Call up your pharmacy and ask them this question: "Do any of the drugs I have on file at your pharmacy have a nano delivery system and see what they say." So I did that and they told me for two or three of them, they said, yes. And one of them, they said, "We can't tell you." I said, "Why not?" They said, "The pharmaceutical company won't release that information." So I said, "Okay, that's interesting."

Fiona: Titanium dioxide is in my thyroid medication and what they do is they take this titanium dioxide. It's programmed to go to a certain part of the body and deliver the medication. And they do this in cancer treatment and stuff as well. It's just a faster way of getting the drug to where it needs to go. But what isn't talked about much is where do those program nanoparticles go after the drug has been delivered? And what Tony and another guy have come across, um, when discovering this is that actually it may actually be still in the body and forming these little threads and things. And so with this bucket, with the electromagnetic pulse, it actually kind of shuts those off kind of like taking a magnet to your credit card and you wipe out the program, now your credit card is just a piece of plastic. So when you use this bucket, you pulse your body, any of those particles that could be in your body causing havoc are now, you know, basically inert.

Fiona: So I thought, wow, there really is something to this. So that was the one root cause I got to the other two were electromagnetic frequencies. As I was learning about it, I realized I was probably sensitive to them, cell phone towers and such. And then the other was heavy metals. brief jump ahead to 2018. I think it was 18, 19. I was still having some major headaches and I got tested again for Lyme and Bartonella and they were negative. Actually the whole panel of Lyme was negative, but my heavy metals was sky high. So my doctor, naturopath team I was lucky to find two guys who were working in the same clinic. And, uh, they got me on a chelation program to, to detox the heavy metals. Nowadays, I do my own self chelation with some, salts and stuff. And I keep using those devices that, I've learned from Tony. And I just get stronger and stronger all the time.

Stephanie: and it happened again, somebody from the lab called her and said, "You have a very sick patient on your hands." I couldn't believe that they were that high. My mercury levels were off the charts. A normal person, might have looked at the lead and been like, wow, I've got lead poisoning, but for me it was like a non-issue because the mercury was so ridiculous. So, I did probably a year and a half chelation as well to try to get those levels down. And sadly, I no longer eat sushi. I no longer eat sword fish. I no longer eat tuna fish. So it's sad, but you know, I can't imagine how else it happened. And I think what we've learned is my detox pathways are not that strong. And, it was probably just food. I love sushi, so we were eating sushi at least weekly. We were eating swordfish, at least weekly I'd make a tuna fish sandwich, you know, occasionally to regularly. So there was a lot of mercury sources that I was eating and then not detoxing well. So, yeah, I've tried to pretty much take those all off of the, off the balance sheet. so that we're just not adding any more.

Fiona: And you may have also gotten the heavy metals, like from your environment and not really known about it. Like I, as a kid, I lived in oil and gas country in Alberta. And, I have a bunch of family who are still in that area and, or have been in that area a long time, and they have a lot of health issues, too. Just chatting with them, we kind of wonder, like, maybe there's some kind of stuff in the environment. We just didn't even know about it.

Stephanie: For sure it could be in your water. It could be in your soil. It could be in your air. Absolutely. And it's, it's interesting 'cause you talk about these things or I talk about these things and

Stephanie: of the people in my life, maybe 80% of them kind of roll their eyes when I'm talking about some of this stuff, because they're just, I'll use the word normal. Right. They're just normal and their bodies aren't reacting to the environment the way mine is. Plus in my part of the world in New England, Lyme disease is a dime a dozen. Plenty of people have it or had it, or, you know, worked through it or, um, not everybody gets the chronic version like I have. And so, so there's a lot of skepticism, not only from me of the, "Is it in my head?" but also from other people of, "Is she making it up? Is she looking for, um,

Fiona: attention

Stephanie: attention?" Yeah. There's a big portion of people who just don't get it. There's a smaller portion of people let's call it, you know, 18 or 19% who at least are open to these, silly ideas, and to the fact that not everybody's bodies run the same way, and then there's one or 2% of people who I can really talk to 'cause they get it and they get their own bodies, may not even be Lyme, but you know, have issues that they're dealing with, or people who are super in tune with their bodies.

Fiona: Mm-hmm

Stephanie: It's interesting that some of your family could live in that area and be fine. Some of them could live in that area and have health conditions that they just attribute to age or any other number of toss off excuses without realizing that, if they dug deeper, they might get to something either a little stickier or more nefarious or more difficult to deal with.

Fiona: Mm-hmm and I think that some of that, uh, view or attitude to, "Oh, it's just aging." It's just, "Don't listen to your body" basically. Just brushing it off. And, some of that, I believe, maybe I'm jaded at this point now with the healthcare industry, I think it comes from the healthcare industry sometimes. I'm not talking about every, not doctor or nurse, 'cause I've known many doctors and nurses who are great people, including my mother but the system itself doesn't teach people how to care for their bodies or pay attention to their bodies.

Stephanie: older.

Fiona: I said "I'm 34!" She goes, "You look fine, you're fine." I was so shocked, like I just walked outta there speechless and it didn't hit me until I got to the parking lot, how angry it got me angry and, um, that was the last straw of my faith in the system. When it comes to chronic illness anyway. I think that a lot of people listen to the doctors, I mean, that's what we were taught, the doctor knows best and blah, blah, blah. There's some kind of authority that we put into the medical system and doctors and nurses and they do have a lot of responsibility, no doubt. But I think that a lot of people have been trained to just ignore what's going on with themselves. So then you get, like you described, people just kind of thinking, "Oh, she's making it up" or "she's crazy" or needs to see a psychiatrist."

Stephanie: Yeah, and certainly with the Lyme disease, and this is one that you run into a lot, "you look fine,"

Fiona: Yes, exactly.

Stephanie: "You look perfectly healthy." You could be sitting at a barbecue with somebody and laughing and enjoying yourself and they have no idea that in an hour, you're gonna crash completely and not be able to hold your head up because you look fine.

Fiona: Yeah. I don't know about you I used to get so stressed out, my social life just went down the toilet. There was nothing left after a while. If there was a plan, like somebody said, "Oh, let's do this." I need a week to plan that so I can organize what I'm doing, my shopping, if I'm still working, and my naps I have to plan my naps. And then like you said, you go out and you do something and it's a struggle just to stay upright and look somebody in the eye and have that conversation before you go home and just go, oh, you know, load up in painkillers. That's what life used to be like for me.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. And I've been always fortunate that pain was not one of my main complaints. For me, it's always been been fatigue and brain fog and just sort of really, really limited energy.

Fiona: Mm-hmm

Stephanie: But yeah, not only planning, a day trip up to see my in-laws up in Maine is, "Okay, how many meals do I have to pack? Where are we gonna be? Am I gonna be able to do this? Am I gonna be able to sit? I can't stand all day. It's, silly. Well, it, it seems silly. It seems silly even in my own brain, so I know that healthy people look at me and they just don't get it. As a matter of fact, coming up this weekend, I'm supposed to do an event with my younger brother, something I've wanted to do for decades with him, and we've got the opportunity to do it, and as it's coming up, I'm realizing, well, not only is it gonna be 90 degrees, I'm gonna be out in the sun. I'm supposed to be there by like seven or 8:00 AM. And mornings are very difficult for me, and I'm supposed to stay till five and I'm also supposed to volunteer for some of the management during the day. Now all of a sudden it's, just a couple days away, I'm not even sure I can make it.

Fiona: mm-hmm

Stephanie: A couple of months ago, I went and had a visit with a girlfriend of mine who I hadn't seen in a long time. It was lovely to see her. We decided to drive to someplace that was between the two of us, 35, 40 minutes for her, and about 50 minutes for me. So I drove down, we got a pedicure, so we sat and talked for an hour and a half. We walked next door, we had lunch, we sat for another hour. There's a big mall nearby, we went over there and I made one lap around the mall. Before I even got back into my car, I was ready to just fall over and sleep for days, but I had to drive almost an hour home. So, the thought of putting all of that with a full day's worth of activities, I was like, oh no. So it's, stress inducing and then there adds the stress and stress isn't good for it.

Fiona: Yeah,

Stephanie: It's it's, it's a challenge, but enough about this.

Stephanie: So in your story, we've gotten you till about your late thirties. I wanna hear about turning 40.

Fiona: I actually, I did reflexology training as well. So the health and wellness and the blogging has been like a side thing for quite a while. Yeah, that was a turning point for me, to take being an entrepreneur a bit more seriously. It kind of put me in a new level. I still wasn't really making any money on it, but I was really into it because I was discovering things and I was learning and I was getting better by using this anti-nano process. When I mean getting better, I don't mean just like feeling kind of better, like I did with the naturopathic treatments, but I was actually feeling like my body regenerating.

Fiona: Do you remember the like the good sore? Maybe at one time you used to go to the gym and you get that good sore in the muscles? I stopped having that good soreness and it was just pain. And after doing this device for like a year, maybe less than that, six months for sure, it takes some time. I had to move, I was moving house and I was thinking, "Oh my God, I gonna be in so much pain after this." And I was in some pain after it, but I also had that good sore and I went, "Wow. Okay. Now I'm really onto something!" 'Cause my periods were getting better, I was feeling stronger. I could lift things again. I wasn't in pain just from carrying groceries. So yeah, that was the transition from 39 to 40.

Stephanie: Yeah, no, that's great. I mean, it sounds like your thirties were a transition from the medical establishment, the medical industry, to finding your own answers. I feel like the medical industry is great, first of all, in acute situations, right? If you break your arm or get in a car crash

Fiona: Need to be cut open for something.

Stephanie: Right. But once it becomes more complex, I agree with you. I don't find the standard medical community to be thoughtful enough.

Fiona: Mm-hmm

Stephanie: Or the way it's built, have the time to be investigative enough

Fiona: yeah,

Stephanie: to find the answers to complex issues. You really transitioned throughout your thirties from listening to doctors, using them, respecting their authority, to finding the things that were working for you and really trusting yourself a lot more.

Fiona: Totally. Yeah. Like I very much believed in the system and listened to everything. I had some skepticism of some things, of course. I'm always curious, but the more I delved into technology and health, various different studies on the toxicity of nano particles, for example, and how the different healthcare applications. The studies that are there, they're not in mainstream, you have to really go looking for them, and I started looking outside the box. That made me really start to rely on myself rather than looking for help elsewhere.

Fiona: I still love going to massage or chiropractic, I still use those. Um, and osteopathy is really nice, too. I do use those as kind of maintenance things, but I had to go to them to be pain free and that costs a lot of money, takes time. And I think mentally you kind of, you kind of become dependent on it and I read something uh, Howard Zinn, one of his books. He mentions the illness mentality. And I can't remember the details, but it's something like you kind of mentally kind of step into this identity as a sick person. And I, I was like, "No, no, no, no, I, I don't wanna do that. I am, I am doing that." I was, to some degree. And then it seemed like the topic of conversation when I was really sick was "How's how's your health? How are you doing? You doing okay, how are you doing it better?" After a while I was tired of that I don't wanna talk about my health anymore. I'm getting better and I wanna get better. So I just changed my approach to it. Thankfully I was getting better, so I could change my approach. I know that if you're really, really sick and in pain, I'd like to say it's enough to just change your mindset. But I honestly, I think it takes a bit more than that. It takes more than that. And I, I think I, for me, I found the tools. I figured the three root causes that helped me to get out of Lyme disease and, and or if it's even Lyme disease. I mean, like this nanoparticle thing seems to make more sense to me now, um, chronic illness anyway.

Stephanie: mm.

Fiona: Uh, I kind of lost my train of thought there

Stephanie: If that's okay. I can just sum up and say, uh, Lyme disease is the most expensive hobby that I've ever had.

Fiona: Yeah. Yes, it totally is.

Stephanie: I would love to be taking all of this money and buying lavish trips with my husband, uh, instead of supplements and body work and naturopaths and other crazy treatments. I'm with you on that and I've done a lot of the similar path you have, which was, starting with the medical community, knocking door to door on different folks to try to help figure out what was wrong with me, getting a lot of non-answers and non help, and then going down the naturopath, route, which I've been on for many years now. And certainly here in the States, naturopaths aren't covered by insurance. So that's all out of pocket and,

Fiona: Yep, Canada, too.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. And then finding the right one, who's got the right expertise and who's, all of us who are sick with chronic Lyme or autoimmune disease, you know, even if we've got the same mix of things. It's gonna hit us differently and our bodies are gonna respond differently. So, the naturopath my friend had great experience with may not help me at all because my version may be different.

Fiona: Yeah,

Stephanie: Or my path to health may be different. So, it is a serious learning lesson. You learn to let go, you learn to, not stress, you learn to not thrash against it and just do your best and find your best way through.

Fiona: I also learned to kind of almost face death. There was a time where I was like, okay, I'm gonna have another nap today. And I, sometimes I thought I may not wake up this time.

Stephanie: Mmm.

Fiona: Somebody said to me, oh, that must have been scary. I said, actually it wasn't. It was a very introspective time, there's nothing else you can do except be with yourself when that happens, and it made me realize this sounds like it sounds like a silly statement, but how personal dying must be. It's you, you are going you're on your way out. Everybody else is staying, you know?

Stephanie: Interesting.

Fiona: And then you let start to let go. You start to let go of things and your mind changes

Stephanie: Yeah, right, right. You have to let go of things because you just can't. I've also, found the whole pathway, you know, pretty lonely because as you change your habits. So for instance, changing my eating habits pretty dramatically and not drinking almost at all, takes away a lot of the social outlets that you normally do, right. When somebody said, "Hey, let's get together." It's either, you know, lunch, dinner, brunch, drinks, something like that. And, and so it, it becomes very isolating and, and very lonely. and of course there are always people who are, you know, who are great and who understand and who stick around. And, but there are also lots of people who don't get it and sort of leave you behind because you're no fun anymore.

Fiona: And yeah, I just have to let that go too. Right?

Stephanie: You do. Maybe someday I'll be fun again.

Fiona: You seem like a pretty fun gal.

Stephanie: Aw. Thank you. thank you.

Stephanie: So now you are 43 and you've got this great blog. Tell me about what you're doing with your blog.

Fiona: Well right now, um, let's see, I've got a few different sections. One is called Lyme, Nano and Frequencies. So I talk a little bit about Lyme disease. Obviously the nanoparticle element that comes into it and heavy metals and, uh, similarities and electromagnetic frequencies. So those are the three root causes that I found, and so I focus on those. I have a section on, emotions and health. So there's a few entries that talk about kind of the mindset change and different things I've observed over the years. And then there's a couple little kind of miscellaneous articles here and there.

Fiona: Um, I'm also, gonna be doing a webinar just to explain to people a little bit more about those three root causes. If they wanna sign up, there's a button there for webinar, uh, and they'll learn about the coaching program that I'm offering as well. So it's kind of a double whammy, they can get some information on how they can address their health and learn about the coaching.

Fiona: There's also a document that they can download as well for free. That kind of just runs through some of the stuff we talked about, you know, the journey I've been through and how I've gotten better and a whole bunch of links that they can follow to make their own devices, um, you know, kind of get onto the path that I got onto to get better.

Stephanie: Great. Well, I'm gonna have to check out this bucket and see myself. If that, if that makes a difference for me, 'cause it sounds like that's probably one of the less expensive ways to

Fiona: Totally

Stephanie: to work on your health, work on removing again, taking one more stick off the pile.

Fiona: It is, it's a lot cheaper. I mean, it, it can be a little daunting when you're making your own devices at first, 'cause sometimes it's not easy to find all the stuff, but once you've got it, you got the skill and you've got the device. You're done. And then you just keep on using it.

Stephanie: Nice, great. Excellent. Well, Fiona, I so appreciate you joining me today and sharing your story. Your health journey has been a long and winding road. I'm so glad to hear that you are feeling better.

Fiona: It's been a pleasure.