Brandy's MCAS Success Story With The Gupta Program

For me, kind of the major thing that happened was when I got my first, you know, my first COVID vaccine. I had a really intense reaction to that about four days afterwards and ended up in the emergency room. By the time I get there, everything's fine, right? I can't find anything wrong with me. So we just call it a fluke and go on. And then I get my second shot. And within about 30 minutes, I was having a similar reaction. And that seemed to kind of go away again. I couldn't find anything medically wrong. And about eight weeks later, I just had a full on. You know, just everything changed for me. Everything. And it took about 14 months to get diagnosed, but I was diagnosed with MAST cell activation syndrome. My worst day, I was reacting to water. You know, on my very, very worst day, I couldn't drink anything for 24 hours. I couldn't touch anything. I couldn't touch lotion, I couldn't put lip balm on. I couldn't drink. I couldn't do anything. And I was getting like a burning sensation in my actual head. It felt like I was having heartburn in my brain. My heart would go from 35 to 200 and it would bounce up and down. I developed again, neuropathy where that. That was an immediate, that kind of seemed to be a more like, you know, over time that developed over a number of weeks. But where I was having, you know, sharp pains in my fingers, I was having numbness and tingling in my toes. The worst day with that was probably the week two weeks before I got diagnosed. And one of my kids had a birthday, and so I was cooking, I was making a cake. We had family over, and by the end of the night, I couldn't even walk. You know, I couldn't even walk because I had such pain in my feet. And so, you know, again, kind of looking back, I was having a lot of neurological stuff that nobody could explain. You know, I was reacting to things. But they said it wasn't anaphylaxic, so it wasn't an allergy. The allergist couldn't help. I was having these crazy heart palpitations and this jumping up and down of my heart rate in really extreme ways. I have three little boys, and instead of getting out of the bed and having dinner, you know, they would have to come to the bed and we would play cards in the bed or watch a show in the bed. And it was like I couldn't even get out of the bed. It hurt so bad. My muscles hurt. Everything just hurt. And it Was this intense, weird, really weird, scary pain. I probably spent, I don't know, I felt like 20 hours of research the week of Thanksgiving, because I got diagnosed the week before Thanksgiving. And I just was researching everything I could find now that I had a name right now that I had, like, something to Google, something to search for. And that led me to couple of different practitioners who then one of them strongly, you know, recommended the Gupta program was really gradual. I think over a number of maybe three or four months. So if I start this late January, you know, by maybe mid, mid April, it was like, wow, wow. This is like a different life, you know, where I was, couldn't eat very many foods. I couldn't touch things. Like, I tried to do a homework project with one of my kids, and I couldn't touch Elmer's Glue. You know, I touched the glue and it. And it made me, like, instantly have this, you know, cascade of reaction. And, you know, I wasn't having those problems just a few months in. I used to react to touching. I couldn't touch raw meat without gloves on because even the wet meat would go into my skin and would cause a reaction. I can remember, you know, being in the kitchen and, like, cooking meat and thinking, I just cut up chicken, you know, and it didn't make me sick. It's like things other people don't have to think about, right? But for me, that was this major big deal, or I can wash the dishes and it's not causing any symptoms. You know, I don't. I don't have to have gloves on and just things you take for granted. And then all of a sudden, one day you're sick and it's so sad and it's so scary, and nobody can tell you what's happening, you know, and so for, like, you know, Ashok could say what was happening. It was like somebody who could say, this is what's happening and it's going to be okay. You know, you just stick with me, just believe it, and it's going to be okay. And I, you know, I held on to that and it's okay. You know, he was right. He's. I've never even met him. He was right. He knew me. Right? It was. And there's. I don't know, there's just so much hope in that. You know, there's so much hope in someone saying, I know it's happening and you'll be okay if you just trust me. I can craft with my kids. I mean, we were doing a, you know, Thanksgiving craft for kindergarten this weekend. And I was touching glue. I touched finger paint. You know, I was washing dishes and cutting up raw meat, and I went wild and had a piece of cake with actual sugar in it, you know, and the world didn't end. I feel better. I feel calmer. You know, I. I understand I don't have to do it, all right? I understand, like, when that achiever part of my personality starts dominating and I can just breathe and I can take a step back, I don't have. You know, I would say my symptoms are 90 to 95 gone. And I notice they'll creep back up because I'm pushing it, right? Because I'm not. I'm not doing the program. I either have kind of slacked off, and I'm not getting a meditation in when I need to, or I'm not doing the seven steps that morning, or I'm just, you know, not pacing, right? So he's given me all of these tools to think about. So when I feel a symptom come back on, when maybe I start getting tingling in a finger or I start having histamine reactions to food again, I know, okay, you know, take a step back. Do it. Do. Do what, you know, works, right? Just step back and do it. And so it's really helping, I think, to create like a, you know, a permanent. I feel like a lasting change in. In me, which then, of course, you know, one of his things, he says, you know, when we're. When we're. When we are more peaceful, we radiate that peace to people around us. And so, you know, I've. I have three kids and a husband, and the house is crazy. And so when I get real anxious, you know, it' not helping anybody. And so to be able to find that peace and kind of. I think of it as radiating peace to the house, right? To the kids, to my husband, to the moment, to the chaos. And so, you know, in summary, my symptoms are 90 to 95% gone. I know exactly what to do when they start to come back. And it works every time. You know, every time I was so sick, and now I'm not. And it's not even been a full 12 months. You know, last. Last Thanksgiving, I nibbled on three different things, right? Just nibbled. Because I was so reactive to all kinds of food. And this year, you know, I'm looking forward to being able to have a bite of everything, you know, because that's the total turnaround I've had. And in 12 months.