Living with CIRS

Why I Started This Blog

For as long as I can remember, my health has been a puzzle I couldn't quite solve.

As a kid, I dealt with severe eczema, asthma, food sensitivities including a nut allergy, along with regular headaches and migraines in my teens.

Looking back, I had a good upbringing but I was also a bit of an anxious child and a chronic overthinker.

My childhood was often a trip to the GP clinic, each one ending with another round of antibiotics, painkillers, or steroid cream. It was all I knew, so I didn't question it.

That changed in my mid-twenties. I had a realisation that hit me hard. Almost everything I'd been prescribed up to that point was designed to manage symptoms, not address what was actually causing them. Nobody was asking why. Why the eczema? Why the migraines? Why did certain foods wreck me while other people ate them without any issues at all?

That was the start of a shift in how I approached my health. I stopped waiting for answers from the traditional health system and started looking for them myself. I started experimenting with my diet and paying closer attention to what products I was using on my body. In some cases the results were immediate. Symptoms I'd lived with for years either disappeared or reduced enough that I could actually enjoy life without constantly managing flare-ups.

The physical side was starting to improve, but my mental health had other plans. In my late twenties, I was diagnosed with OCD. It was the first time I'd ever really struggled mentally and it knocked me sideways. It's something I still manage today at 37, after years of regular therapy. At the time I treated it as something entirely separate from my physical health. Years later, I'd come to see things very differently.

Then Everything Changed

In 2020, with my SEO agency business ticking along nicely, I made the decision to leave the UK and go full-time digital nomad. Then Covid hit. I was fortunate enough to be living in Bali at the time, but in February 2021 I caught it.

That was the beginning of a serious decline in my overall health. A whole host of new symptoms appeared, things I'd never dealt with before and an immune system that felt even more fragile than before. I did all the tests. Everything came back "normal."

My UK doctor labelled it as long Covid, suggesting I'd get better with time and there was really no treatment for me. For a while, I accepted that explanation because nothing else made sense.

But something didn't sit right. Things didn't get better. If anything they got progressively worse. I kept digging, kept seeing different practitioners, both conventional and holistic. What followed was years of specialist appointments, blood tests, alternative treatments and a small fortune spent trying to find answers that never quite came.

Eventually I started working with a health practitioner who had spent over twenty years navigating his own health battles. That shared experience made all the difference. He was the one who finally identified what was actually going on.

Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome, CIRS for short.

Put simply, my body couldn't detox from biotoxins (such as indoor molds, insect bites, infections etc) the way most people's can. The Covid infection didn't cause it in isolation, but I believe it was the tipping point that overwhelmed a system that was already vulnerable. Suddenly, a lot of my lifelong health issues started to make more sense through that lens.

What This Blog Is

This blog is me documenting my journey. The things I've tried, what's helped, what hasn't and the lessons I've picked up along the way. I write about CIRS specifically, but also about health more broadly, because recovery has taught me that everything is connected. Environment, nutrition, nervous system regulation, mindset, mental health, lifestyle. It all plays a part.

I share what's worked for me. That includes supplements, environmental changes, protocols, travel strategies and the daily habits that keep me moving forward.

What This Blog Isn't

Just to be clear...I'm not a doctor or a practitioner. I have no medical qualifications and nothing on this site should be taken as medical advice.

I'm just someone who's been through it, is still going through it and wants to be honest about the process and document my journey.

If something I share resonates with you or points you in the right direction, then that's what matters to me.

But always do your own research and work with a qualified practitioner who understands your situation.

Your health is your responsibility.

This is just one person's experience.