Welcome, friend! A little about me: My name is Brooke Garrett, I’ve been a nurse for about five years. I have a wellness certificate through The Wellness Way, and am currently pursuing a certificate in colon hydrotherapy. I’ve always been fascinated with the body, always needing to know the “why” behind every structure and function. It’s why I pursued nursing. I wanted to learn everything I could about this miraculous creation, but also to apply it in a way that would add value to the lives of others.

In nursing school we learned a lot about disease, several types of conditions, symptoms of those conditions and drugs that could treat those symptoms. I quickly realized that we were putting bandaids on symptoms and offering zero solutions. We weren’t doing the work of understanding the “why” behind the patients illness. We gave a quick short term fix and sent them on their way— and most often, those did more harm than good in the long term. During my short time in the conventional medical realm, I got to experience a lot of things that made me question the integrity of the American healthcare system. I began questioning everything we have been conditioned to believe and I discovered many things that eventually led to me leaving the nursing field. I started to study foundational medicine and root causes to chronic illness often missed by mainstream practitioners. But it wasn’t until a traumatic experience in my own health that I realized the devastating and REAL effects of a root cause illness that I had been carrying around with me for most of my life. Here’s the story that changed my life forever:

From the age of 17 I began having mystery symptoms that no one could give me answers on. The most common and most debilitating of them was chronic inflammation in my hip joints to the point where I would go days without being able to walk until the inflammation subsided. I went to several doctors and had imaging done to which my diagnoses became “fluid in the joint”. But that was just a symptom caused by an underlying issue that was not being addressed. I knew there had to be a reason and I needed to know why. That’s when my journey of researching and understanding my own body began.

Fast forward to 2021. I had been experiencing lots of anxiety and inflammatory systems that seemed to be getting worse and worse over the course of about 6 months. At this point I had already been deep into my studies on mold, Lyme, parasites and other environmental illnesses and felt very strongly that I was dealing with mold given the sleuthing I did through my personal health history and exposure from my childhood. 

In July of 2021 I was on vacation when my symptoms began peaking which led to a flare up in my hips leaving me laid up most of the vacation. In desperation I went to nearest UC and got a prednisone injection (systemic). The nurse in me knew better than to do that but the desperation to be pain free and enjoy my vacation was louder. Immediately following that steroid injection, I experienced what I refer to as hell on earth. Insomnia, panic attacks back to back, extreme fight or flight, cyclical thinking—the mind circus. Just pure torment. The following weeks brought a deep depression that I thought I’d never recover from. I was completely non functional, I couldn’t take care of myself or my kids. The only way I could describe it was that someone else was driving and I was locked in the trunk. The only time I felt at peace in my mind was when I was asleep and each day was like a nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from.

I was truly unaware of the amount of toxins circulating through my body, my immune system was struggling just to keep up. The steroid was the straw that broke the camels back, the gasoline on an already blazing fire. My adrenals and immune system were tanked, and my brain was on fire for months as a result of the toxins that penetrated my blood brain barrier. During this time I experienced many “fires” I had to put out. Ear infections and Tinnitus (ringing in the ears) caused by toxicity and a severely compromised immune system. I had to get on an SSRI (antidepressant) for a short time to be able to function well enough to be a mother to my children. 

Once I gained some stability back, it was time to search for my “root cause.” The first test I did was the mycotoxin profile which came back positive for Ochratoxin A and a lot of it. I knew I had a long road of rebuilding ahead of me. I got lots of testing done and with that I began to support and nourish my body with herbs and other supplemental support, lower the inflammation in my body, and slowly detox from the mold which I am still to this day recovering from. I got off my medication in a little under two weeks after only being on it for 4 months, praise God. If it wasn’t for my relationship with Jesus Christ, I’m not sure I would’ve lived through it.

I got to experience first hand the intimate relationship between the body and the brain. How the physiological affects the psychological and vice versa. I don’t believe that any mental health condition is organic meaning we were just born messed up. No system in the body ever works alone, when one system is affected, they’re all affected. Our bodies are smart, they were created to adapt and survive. There are always root causes involved in dysfunction, and the symptoms we experience are the clues our bodies are sending us, signalling that something is wrong. It’s my passion to help educate people on how the body was designed to function, to dig deep and find answers to the “mystery symptoms” that are robbing you of joy and peace and help to restore to you life and life more abundantly.

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