My story
In my experience, most people come to Pilates because they’re in some sort of pain, can’t move well and feel like their physical freedom is in jeopardy. This is true for me as well. At age 38, in March of 2020, alongside the world shutting down for the unprecedented event that was Covid-19, I began to experience unexplainable stiffness in my hands and feet.
Because nothing was normal in the world, I was able to effectively ignore it for a couple of months as it got worse and worse. Worse to the point where my normal morning consisted of soaking my feet in Epsom salt for 45 minutes as I drank my coffee and waiting till noon for my hands to work. I was completely preoccupied with other dramas in my life, so I wasn’t listening to my body screaming for me to take care of it. I was wrapped up in resisting letting go of a very toxic relationship, resisting facing a global shutdown alone, and lying to myself that my day-to-day habits were “not that bad.” Looking back, they weren’t “that bad” in comparison to others... but what good does comparing myself to others do if I’m in pain and they’re not? Or... they’re on prescription drugs, something I wasn’t willing to do.
It took for someone absolutely dear to me to ask me a very direct question before I began seeking answers to why I had unexplainable and worsening pain:
“If you had a 5-year-old child and they were complaining about their hands and feet hurting, how long would you wait until you took them to the doctor?”
This question immediately stunned and activated me. At that point I did not have health insurance, so that was where I started. Somehow I knew this was going to be a puzzle and I DESERVED to spend money on figuring it out... The scarcity mindset was real and it had been causing me to neglect my own needs for my entire life.
Finally insured, I found a naturopathic nurse practitioner to get started on testing. We tested everything. I came back positive for a few things, including Lyme disease... For a few months, I felt relieved that I had a diagnosis and could begin a plan, but that quickly fell way to the idea that there may be something more going on. It was June then and I had consulted a functional medicine practitioner for acupuncture (a recommended treatment for Lyme-associated pain). During my second appointment, I asked him “If you were my primary doctor, would you settle for Lyme as a diagnosis for my symptoms?” With ZERO hesitation he replied “NO!” I was a bit surprised, but open to any tests he wanted to run. We began with urine testing and based on those results moved on to a stool test. I will never forget the look on his face when he walked into the room to go over my results... with eyebrows up to his hair line he said “NO WONDER YOU FEEL LIKE SHIT!” Any doctor that talks to me like that is my people. I even felt a jolt of...excitement? Isn’t that weird? I suppose I was excited to have more of a plan to heal.... cuz man...I was in so much pain...all the time...not sleeping well...and getting worried about my future... Little did I know it was the beginning of a full-on lifestyle overhaul.
The diagnosis was that my gut was, in a word, f*cked. Or as they refer to it in medical jargon, dysbiotic. The opposite of symbiotic... fun times. Another, more commonly used term for it is leaky gut. A condition when the lining of one’s gut wall becomes permeable and the contents that are intended to be eliminated, ahem... leak into your blood...causing an autoimmune war in the body. In my case, it was waged in my hands and feet. *(fun fact, the body will “send” a war like this to the extremities as a way to protect the vital organs and brain from poisoning, cool huh?) Not to be dramatic, but in serious cases it’s called sepsis and can be fatal. I was not in danger of death, but damn if it didn’t feel like it at times. I would not have even been getting out of bed if it weren’t for the horses that I had inherited when my mom died. They still needing feeding everyday. Twice
After that realization I was never in as much pain as I had been for those three days, but I was living at an 8 out of 10 on the pain scale for the following year...at least. The damage that had been done structurally as a result of months of inactivity, severe systemic inflammation, and muscle loss was NO JOKE. As soon as I began eating anti-inflammatory foods 30 pounds of inflammation melted away to reveal the bony 127-pound 5”10’ frame of a very sick Dre. I was in less pain and less fear, but I shuttered at the body I looked at in the mirror. It reminded me of my mother’s body when she was in her final months battling cancer. Skin sagging, shoulder bones visible, miserable... I knew I had to do something, but I didn’t know what, YET.
Then, one day in January of 21’ I was shuffling down a sidewalk, yea... shuffling...I had been reduced to a shuffle because I had almost no movement available in my ankle joints. I’m not exaggerating when I say I looked like an 89-year-old woman, at 39 years old... It was bananas. Anyway... on my shuffle I passed a Pilates studio. I paused, and watched...the women were laying down on Reformers, gently moving, in a way that looked safe. I was getting a message from my Higher Power that told me “Do this for yourself, you can do this!”
Remember earlier when I was talking about scarcity mentality? Here is a time when it came up again. I could not bear weight in my upper extremities, so no yoga, I couldn’t move faster that a shuffle, so no running or hiking, I couldn’t grip anything, so no weight training... I was out of options and in desperate need of a way to build back a healthy body. Regardless of the fact I felt Pilates might be out of my budget, bit the bullet and called the studio to set up an intro class appointment. I was nervous, but luck would have it that the instructor also suffered from a connective tissue disorder. She could relate to my fragility and reassured me that Pilates would help, not hurt. That was such a relief.
The worst of it was October 2020. Gripping my toothbrush, turning car keys, opening doors with knobs, twisting jar lids, etc...was not happening. I could not fully bend or straighten my elbows, or knees, and if I bumped my hands on anything it felt as though they’d shatter. I nicknamed myself “Glass Hands”. I woke up one day in so much pain my appetite was shot. I had to take a fistful of supplements so I forced them down with a smoothie. That routine lasted for three days. However, on the third day, I woke up in less pain than I had been in for months. The lightbulb lit up. My diet was really playing a factor in my pain. I had eaten chili the night before I had this three day ordeal. I had no idea, but apparently, beans are very hard to digest. I immediately started an elimination diet based on GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome). After a few weeks of improvement, I began drawing from the Plant Paradox, Whole 30, and Keto approaches until I kinda figured out what I could, and more importantly, could not eat.
I signed up for once a week initially and after two months I saw the value in Pilates so much that I went straight to an unlimited package and began going 3-4 times a week. I stuck to level one classes, modified to my ability, which often times meant moving with no resistance at all. I needed to get strong enough to lift my own arms and legs before I could add any weight. It was wild to be that frail and weak, but man, had I developed a lion’s heart.
As the months passed and I began to see muscle creep back onto my frame, I felt so much hope. I looked forward to class each day. I coordinated my grip socks with my outfits, kept track of how many classes I had completed, and started thinking about Pilates in a different light. It was becoming part of my life, my routine, and a part of ME. By this time it was 2022, I had turned 40, and the thought of making Pilates a permanent part of my life was frequent.
All it took was an email announcing a teacher training in my area and I was on my way. I grabbed onto the training process, immersed myself in the exercises, and competed my training in less than a year.
As I write this, I am teaching professionally and delightfully sharing the gifts of Pilates with my community.
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