Located on the sunny Gold Coast. Appointments available in person when you take a walk with Dee on the sunny GC.
Or via phone or zoom from anywhere in Australia.
Located:
Gold Coast, Australia
Available by appointment only
Qualified nutritional therapy for mood care, gut health, chronic pain management, migraines & for general well-being. Mind, body, spirit mentorship & personal Tarot readings for physical, emotional & spiritual well-being.
My journey through chronic pain began more than a decade ago. Of course, at that time it was just an incident of ‘pain’. The chronic-ness hadn’t found me just yet.
At that time, I was physically at my peak, I worked in a physical environment. I felt fit & invincible. I’d put in so many long days at work, it didn’t matter because it doesn’t feel like work when you love what you do.
What started it for me as a slight popping sensation in my lower back & a sudden inability to move or bend. I was stuck upright. It wasn’t a painful sensation; it was more of a weird sensation. Like a weird stuck feeling that doesn’t hurt but makes you feel a little bit nervous on the inside, wondering why it hasn’t subsided a minute or two later. Then 5 minutes becomes 10 minutes & half an hour later I was rushed to the nearest medical clinic; I was laying down in the backseat of the car as I still couldn’t bend.
I was reassured that I’d be fine, given some anti-inflammatories & told to rest a few days.
I honestly thought I'd be fine the next day. I laughed it off.
But when I woke up the next morning... Oh my god, the pain.
The pain. The utter, indescribable pain. The only way I could describe it was that it felt as if I had been hit by a truck & that still wasn't enough to describe the level of pain I felt. I was stuck upright, unable to bend or twist my body in any way. And the pain. Oh my god, the pain.
Everything after that felt like a blur. A very long, painful, exhausting, isolating, soul destroying blur.
From multiple visits back to the same doctor's office, with the GPs reassurance, but still no improvement to my condition, to the continuing immobility & indescribable pain, the absolute lack of empathy or understanding from an employer who shortly thereafter basically told me not to bother coming back.
I wasn’t allowed to drive. I couldn’t put socks on. I couldn’t sleep from the burning & unrelenting pain. I was ostracized from my work colleagues. I was ridiculed by doctors who told me it was 'all in my head' because months later, I still couldn't bend.
They had grown tired of me because nothing was helping. And my mood sunk further.
'Emotional lability' they called it, because I was crying. Of course I was crying, I was in constant pain.
I was in constant f*ing indescribable pain.
Of course I was crying. I was young, I was fit & I had lost my livelihood. The daily pain tore through me. I couldn't drive for so long. I couldn't cook & clean or maintain my daily living. I couldn't even pick up the kettle. Eventually my employment was officially terminated. I was fired because it had been too long & I was 'no longer required'.
So, there I was unemployed. Disabled. Depressed. Isolated. Financially shot. Useless to the f*ing world. Emotionally, barely hanging on. Physically, like the Tin Man. Unable to move & living in daily, disabling, pain.
Welcome, the chronic-ness of the pain.
It is dehumanizing to be judged based on your sudden inability to function in a way that serves another. Suddenly you are a thing that is no longer of use to this world. Suddenly the only way you are identified is in terms of your pain level. Suddenly people treat you in a very diminishing way. Or they disbelieve that you are in pain because they can’t actually see you bleeding or broken. They doubt you. You lose credibility. You lose your value, to the world & then you lose your value to yourself. What use am I now? What use will I ever be? Is this it for me? Is this how I die?
Or live, the rest of my life?
I was barely surviving. I wasn't living at all, I wasn't alive, I was just existing in a prison cell that was my chronic pain.
To be young & invisibly disabled, watching the world around you keep turning while you sit in the prison that is your body, in unrelenting daily pain. Isolated. Watching those around you travel, date, get married, socialize, work, study, shop, laugh, get all dressed up & go out for the night & sit through dinner at a restaurant, actually sit on a chair for hours on end. I couldn't even sit upright through a quick meal nor could I stand for long enough to get myself ready in front of the mirror in the mornings.
How diminishing it is to the human psyche to be imprisoned by pain. To lose your life but still be physically existing in a world that you no longer belong to & that continues to exist & thrive joyously & fruitfully, abundantly & progressively. The cogs of society keep turning but not for you, life no longer continues for you.
I sat there, dead on the inside & watched life & opportunities pass me by. I might have looked alive on the outside, but on the inside I had died.
And yes, it is possible to die on the inside. You don't need to tie a noose around your neck & swing from a tree in order to be dead in this world. When you have no ability to truly live & enjoy your life, you are not living, are you?
The amount of times I thought to myself, what is my life for? I cried so many times wondering why the f*, if a God existed, did he put me here just to suffer. The level of my daily pain was insurmountable. It was almost insufferable.
I lost a quarter of my life to chronic pain. A whole f*ing quarter of my life to chronic pain.
Could you imagine what it would be like to have lost a quarter of your life to chronic pain?
Nothing that anyone says helps. Nothing makes a difference. You don’t get that time back, it is lost. You grieve for your lost life in so many instances, so many diminishing moments & you do it completely on your own because no one lived in your prison cell with you to feel how extraordinarily unfair, how extraordinarily painful & just how extraordinary isolating it is to live with chronic pain.
But believe it or not, I recovered. Here I am writing to tell you that, in fact, I recovered. After many years of suffering & many years lost.
I credit no one but myself for my recovery. I credit no medical professional, no allied health professional, no medication, no one with half a brain in this ‘medical’ community to care enough beyond the fees for services charged to Medicare or the cash out of my pocket.
It’s a neglectful medical society we came to rely upon until we realise that no one in this world benefits financially from our recovery, except ourselves. The medical community doesn't make it's money from healthy & able people.
They all made their money from me & would have continued to have done so had I not taken my own health into my own hands. Had I not committed to researching alternatives & pulled myself out of a life of chronic pain, I’d still be in a cattle yard like the rest of the invisibly disabled society, waiting to swipe my Medicare card & wait for my Medicare rebate & bottles of pharmaceuticals.
The system failed me but, in the end, I beat that same neglectful system. Only with the stubbornness of my will to beat this & with countless hours of study & research into natural health & alternate healing practices during immobilizing pain did I recover. And people may look at me sideways because I don't indulge is the same junk foods of convenience the rest of society worships like gospel but I'm ok with that. I'm devout to my health & wellbeing, I couldn't care less about side-eye from a caterpillar society that has no idea the level of pain I endured before I unfolded into this butterfly life.
I manage my health now. I manage it carefully & I carefully avoid those things which I know contribute to pain flares & systemic inflammation.
I didn't ever get those years back, but I decided I had to make the most of the years I had left, those years of which I have a newfound understanding that I actually have no idea of how many years I have left to do all of the things I want to do. Or months, or days. Or if it could all be taken away from me in an instant, again.
None of us do.
I had a new life given to me. This life I had fought hard for. This new life I fought very hard for & so it became my most precious & most valued commodity.
I'll be damned nowadays if anyone is going to stand in my way. I'll be damned now if I'll let anyone tread so carelessly on the peace I have created for myself. I'll be damned now if I'll wait around now for anyone (don't be so impatient, Dee). And I'll be damned now if I compromise my health in any way.
Because I had lost a quarter of my goddam life already.
When the mood strikes, I go. I drive, I adventure. Because I can now.
Thanks to me. I am alive, I'm mobile & relatively pain, now I can live.
Testament to my new life can be found on Instagram, my photos are a constant reminder to myself of all of the things I have managed to achieve since my recovery from chronic pain.
My bucket list items, I tick off, one by one. Each photo for me is another small win, a reminder of how far I have come. A testament to all the years I fought just to be able to live.
Dee
xx
Chronic inflammation plays a role in common disorders such as anxiety & depression, ADHD, schizophrenia, asthma, diabetes, some forms of cancer, migraine, myopathy, gastrointestinal disorders such as IBD & IBS, neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s & Parkinson’s, autoimmune conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, coeliac disease, cardiovascular disease, disease of the joints, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, allergies, chronic fatigue syndrome, to name but a few.
Common to these types of pro-inflammatory disorders is that they appear amongst the top 5 causes of death amongst men & women in Australia as well as plaguing society as a whole, leading to disability of young & old alike.
What exactly is inflammation & does it serve a purpose?
Inflammation forms a natural part of the body's defense mechanism. It is the process in which the immune system recognizes & removes harmful substances or stimuli from the body in order for the healing process to begin.
Inflammation is basically your body trying to remove the harmful substance & begin the process of healing itself. The problem is that if we continue to ingest or expose ourselves to environmental toxins & pro-inflammatory substances, our bodies cannot keep up & this is where disease manifests.
Unfortunately, the modern diet of processed food is flooded with chemicals, additives, preservatives & toxins that most of us have no idea what we are eating. And if you combine that with low levels of physical activity which slows down the body's natural detoxification processes, you are creating the perfect storm for chronic disease to manifest.
You literally are a result of what you eat, drink, do or don’t do & you manifest this into your reality one bite at a time.
Eating a healthy diet can often be seen as a sacrifice people are unwilling to make because they don’t want to give up their favourite meals of convenience. But the reality is that the more healthful foods you include in your diet, the better you’ll feel. And the better you feel, the less you’ll want to reach out for those meals of convenience because feeling healthy & well is sure damn addictive.
I tend to view it from a different perspective in that I am no longer willing to sacrifice my health & well-being for the sake of the modern diet.
The food you eat can either be the safest & most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison.
Dee Flora
Nutritionist, Writer.
Dee, is a qualified Nutritional Therapist with an interest in reducing systemic inflammation to support physical & emotional health & wellbeing.
Dee has overcome many personal obstacles & set-backs to achieve qualifications & success in the fields of nutritional therapy, business, counselling, training & mentoring. She bases her philosophy on bringing life back to basics, regularly connecting with nature, purposely uplifting the lives of others & believes in effective leadership by positive example.
With personal strengths in critical thinking & problem solving strategies, Dee is also a tarot reader, bringing balance & duality to the physical world.
With the belief that each person has the ability to make positive changes, large or small, each little change in effect is the basis by which we reach our ultimate goal.
Dee is an animal lover, an adventurer & is happiest when helping others.
Located on the sunny Gold Coast. Appointments available in person when you take a walk with Dee on the sunny GC.
Or via phone or zoom from anywhere in Australia.
Available by appointment only