Andrew was 39 years old when he started experiencing debilitatingly painful headaches that would last for hours, and sometimes days.
While the headaches themselves were excruciating, often requiring that he wait out the storm in bed with the lights off and curtains drawn, their seeming randomness made them even more life-disrupting.
Further aggravating his pain and frustration, Andrew had been intensely focused on his health for years—he ate a pescatarian diet, didn’t drink, took supplements, and exercised regularly—so he didn’t exactly fit the description of someone who was prone to developing chronic conditions.
What’s more, all of his test results were normal, including a brain MRI.
No painkillers seemed to help, whether over-the-counter or prescription.
And the four neurologists that he dragged himself to, over the course of a year, didn’t have any ideas.
Things were not looking good.
It’s all in your head
Desperate for answers, Andrew knew that he wouldn’t get anywhere if he gave up searching, so he asked his primary care doctor for yet another referral, this time to an ear, nose, and throat (ENT) doctor.
He had read good reviews about this particular doctor, including some accounts from patients whose headaches had improved after having certain procedures done, so he arrived at his appointment hopeful.
After asking Andrew a few questions about his headaches, examining his head for possible malformations of his ear canals and nasal passages, and reviewing his test results, his doctor arrived at his diagnosis: psychosomatic headaches, or headaches triggered by psychological factors, such as stress.
You’re probably just stressed
Andrew knew that stress could certainly contribute to the development of certain conditions, but, prior to his headaches, he had never felt unusually stressed about anything.
He had always felt more emotionally resilient than most people, perhaps attributed to his focus on health.
His job wasn’t particularly stressful, and neither was anything else in his life.
Other than his headaches.
That his doctor would suggest that his headaches were caused by stress didn’t make any sense to Andrew, and the quickness with which he diagnosed him with a psychosomatic condition was actually insulting.
It’s almost like his doctor diagnosed him with psychosomatic headaches because he couldn’t identify, at first glance, what was actually causing them, so, in the absence of a more concrete diagnosis, his headaches were therefore caused by stress.
Enter Quantify
At this point, Andrew had seen five specialists, tried basically every kind of painkiller out there, spent thousands of dollars on tests that didn’t show anything, and the closest he had gotten to a diagnosis was that his symptoms were in his head.
Recognizing that he likely wouldn’t get the answers he needed by continuing down this path, Andrew started reaching out to friends and family, asking for recommendations of what he should try next.
One of his friends recommended Quantify, relaying that her health coach had helped her to figure out what was causing her unusual symptoms that she had dealt with for years, that the medical system didn’t have any answers for.
Encouraged by how similar her story was to his, Andrew soon signed up.
After getting matched with a certified health coach specialized in cognitive function, completing a health questionnaire, and meeting with his health coach over video chat, a metals test was ordered for Andrew, to evaluate metal toxicity and mineral imbalance.
Mercury toxicity
A few weeks later, he received his test results, and his health coach explained that his metals test showed significantly elevated mercury, indicating mercury toxicity, which can cause headaches and innumerable other chronic symptoms, ranging from mild to severe.
His health coach added that by following a pescatarian diet for years, Andrew had likely been consuming more mercury than his body had the capacity to detoxify, resulting in the gradual accumulation and, ultimately, toxicity of one of the most harmful heavy metals.
To address mercury toxicity, his health coach continued, Andrew would need to stop eating tuna, bass, swordfish, and other seafood typically high in mercury, and, to support detoxification, drink at least 64 ounces of water per day, take certain supplements, such as activated charcoal, milk thistle, and NAC, and use a sauna at least once per week.
Recovery
Shocked that his presumably healthy diet had caused his headaches, but also thrilled to finally get answers, Andrew wasted no time getting rid of his significant supply of tuna and other fish that he had grown so accustomed to as his primary source of protein.
Within a day, he had completely overhauled his diet, and was up and running with a new diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, oils, beef, chicken, and eggs.
He started drinking more water than he had ever consumed, taking the supplements his health coach had recommended, and using the sauna at his gym regularly.
Within a few months, his headaches started to subside, and within a year, they had completely resolved, with a follow-up metals test showing an almost undetectable level of mercury, validating the work that he had done to rid his body of the toxic metal that had unknowingly accumulated.