Wins & WIPs: Two Things Can Be True
What I'm currently struggling with and how I'm navigating
I’ve been on Cloud 9 from my Biological Age results (I’m apparently 29.2 ICYMI!) and super proud of my Metabolomix test— but then there’s this.
For the past few weeks I have been battling some crazy sinus pressure and swelling that just keeps coming back with a vengeance. It started right before vacation and got worse toward the end of the week in Paris, and hasn’t calmed much since returning home.
I’ve been pulling out all the stops: a solid rotation of nasal sprays, drainage supplements, red light, antihistamine peptides (hello, KPV!) and yet still miserable.
So the search deepened. Three ENT appointments. Testing galore: from CT scan to hearing and eardrums to both blood and skin allergy tests.
At one of those appointments, a practitioner suggested we lance both eardrums and maybe consider putting tubes in my ears for relief. Umm— NO.
I’ll take a second opinion, thanks.
I’ve been blatantly reminded... It is not the doctor’s fault. I often hear clients super frustrated with their traditional doctors’ narrow approach— but I think it’s important to manage expectations. The old-school docs aren’t ill-intended, but realistically, they can only do so much. They are trained matching symptom to prescription. Yet when it happens to me, I get it, too. I walked out of those appointments feeling utterly defeated, wanting to shake someone, not even sure whom.
It is a strange experience as someone who does have quite a lot of things figured out. It is not only frustrating, it makes you feel like you are absolutely swimming around.
What I already ruled out, and how:
This is where the work I have done on myself actually saves me.
An average practitioner would take one look at this and blame mold. (I’ve heard this 1M times, and it was never right) Yes, I live in New Orleans. I have had known exposures, for sure. It is the obvious answer and it is the wrong one, because I have the genes to prove my body processes mold well, and my Metabolomix toxicity panel came back basically zero. That is not a hunch. That is data I can point at.
Histamine / MCAS was next, and every antihistamine in the book has done nothing for this. So the chemical branch does not explain it either.
Then there is MARCoNS, which I have written about here before. I decided not to chase a retest. After more research, the validity of an at-home swab may or may not be a worthy pursuit, because a real MARCoNS issue would be deeper into the tissues than a swab can reach. Testing the wrong depth gives you a clean result and a false sense of an answer.
So I started to suspect something structural. But across those ENT visits, sinus abnormalities and ear infections got ruled out one appointment at a time.
Is it 2026 or 1990?
Here is the part I am still laughing about. I took the same type of allergy (skin) test as a child and scored basically exactly the same.
Yes, I am having some significant allergies. That is nothing new. It has been true about me since I was a kid, sitting in a file the whole time, while I spent two weeks and a stack of appointments chasing it. Probably triggered when I moved back to Louisiana last Summer, when my sinuses really started going nuts (turns out it wasn’t just from the tears over burning my life down and starting over 💁🏼♀️)
The biggest difference between then and now is how I have learned to handle histamine levels on an ongoing basis. The answers were not missing when I was younger. It’s just that no one was looking at my genes.
Two things can be true at once.
The allergies are real, and yet there is also something else going on. Partly allergy-driven, and also somewhat travel-triggered from the changes in the flights and the changes in pressure. An international trip is particularly taxing on the body in multiple ways, not just the flight itself but the actual time change and everything that entails. While I was pretty impressed that I did not have any significant jet lag thanks to the tips I shared here before, what snowballed as soon as I got home was my sinuses.
The major connection here is with my sluggish lymphatic system and diagnosed lipidema. Having lived with lipedema for a significant part of my life, diagnosed for the past handful of years, and having gone through a major surgery as a result, some of this feels awfully familiar. It just does not typically affect me from the neck up.
So after ruling out something sinus-structural, I am connecting dots toward my lymphatics. As soon as the light bulbs went off and I knew what to work on, things started to shift.
What is more annoying than anything is coming back around to the same threads of my health. The ones that keep recurring, stay ambiguous, and are difficult to change through traditional medical avenues. Childhood allergies that scored the same at eight as they do now. The gut years. Lipedema. This sinus swelling. Ugh.
Times like this make you want to just give up on ever finding a solution.
But I am not the type of girl who ever just decides to deal with it.
Which is exactly why it is so important to look back on what you do know to be true. That happens to be my specialty when it comes to bio-individuality.
I often get asked by my newbie Gene Pool coaches whether they need to wait until they are “healed” before they start coaching other people. Consider this the answer.
Becoming your own Body Authority is always going to serve you well. I can confidently say I’m the most qualified to connect my own case, because I’ve spent time getting to know my own chemistry, my patterns, my literal DNA. There is so much power in that.
DNA is always the framework. Peptides are the icing on top of the DNA cake. That does not mean nothing will ever come up, even things that are complex. It means that when something does, you have a deeper understanding to filter in and out what is really going on, because you know your body’s chemistry that well.
The wins
This is Wins and WIPs, and there are real wins in here.
We are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Now that we have ruled out an actual ear infection or anything more serious, and started focusing on lymphatic drainage, things are moving in the right direction. Easy enough, and nothing new! Feels like self-care.
We survived allergy testing. Not the most fun, having 60+ pokes all over your back, all for not-so-new information 😜 But it’s behind me for (surely) the last time!
I knew better than to sign up for getting my eardrums lanced or worse, surgery for tubes…
And I got labs back yesterday that moved my ferritin from 30 to 80 (!!!) in the past six months. More on this to come! Still waiting on my hormone recheck, so stay tuned for those, too.
What is actually in the works
Here is where I am headed with all of this:
Homeopathy underway. Super fascinated by this— let me know if you want to hear all about it! Allergy drops are starting soon, to desensitize to my triggers over the coming months.
Continued lymphatic support through a lot of the holistic practices I have done for years. The most basic ones, which are usually the most effective:
Gentle movement
Self-massage
Vibration plate
Electrolyte balance
Herbal support and homeopathy
I am publicly committing to dusting off my pneumatic lymphatic pump!!
I am ramping up my workout routine and supporting that with a cycle of CJC + Ipamorelin. Excited to get back into the zone. I always feel so great on this and tone up super fast!
Good food, per my Body by Design®, which is the first place I go every single time. Any time anything feels remotely off, I go straight back to my DNA default settings. That has looked like a lot of home cooked meals and light eating this week. MUFAs works really well for my genes, as do cruciferous veggies, so I’ve had air-fryer salmon and veggies on repeat all week.
That is the thing about knowing your own data. When everything feels like it is swimming around, you have somewhere solid to stand, and basics that actually help you feel a difference.
Onward and Upward!
Love,
Lindsey Strong
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