Today we’d like to introduce you to Heather Shover.
Heather, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
At age 37, a personal health crisis dramatically changed my life and opened my eyes to Functional Medicine and to the importance of taking a holistic approach to health. I had spent over 15 years in corporate America, early on as a consultant with Deloitte and later as a partner in a commercial real estate firm. For most of those years, I thought I was a healthy young woman with a bad case of eczema. Then, almost overnight, I realized I was extremely unhealthy on the inside and the steroid creams I had been using for 25+ years to “manage” the eczema were simply masking the symptoms and suppressing my immune system in dangerous ways.
I came across the concept of Topical Steroid Addiction on the ITSAN.org website, a grassroots organization trying to spread information about the dangers of topical steroid use. After reviewing numerous case studies and before/after pictures of people who claimed they were addicted to their steroid creams, I decided to stop using my creams. That was the only way to know for sure if my “worsening eczema” was actually an addiction to the creams I was using to treat it.
Sure enough, in short order, I began exhibiting some of the symptoms of Topical Steroid Withdrawal (TSW). According to ITSAN.org, it takes an average of one to three years to get through the withdrawal period. During this time, many people break out in a “rash” all over the body that is unlike any rash you’ve ever seen. Their skin looks like they have 3rd-degree burns. It swells, oozes, cracks, crusts over, flakes, and itches in a way that is unimaginable. Many people have to spend hours upon hours in the bathtub for relief. Some have to quit their jobs and stay home, flattened by complete exhaustion and pain. Sometimes spouses have to tie their hands at night so they don’t claw their skin in their sleep. The itch simply cannot be described.
My arms turned bright red and the intense itching began. My neck looked like gooseflesh and I clawed it every night in my sleep. I had never used the steroids on my arms or my neck. I developed folliculitis (infected hair follicles) on my legs and stomach. I experienced painful, unexplained swelling in my elbow and wrist. My hands were so swollen, cracked, and painful that I couldn’t bathe my young children. My husband had to wash my hair in the kitchen sink. I couldn’t find a doctor that was open to the concept of “TSW”. It was a very dark and lonely time.
Then, I found Functional Medicine and everything changed. After months of going to various doctors and practitioners and being told to “just get back on the creams” and that my lab work looked “fine”, I finally found myself in the office of a Functional Medicine practitioner. She took one look at my lab work, heard about my years of steroid and antibiotic use, and immediately suspected imbalances in my immune system, my hormones, and my gut (microbiome). She confirmed everything with lab work and then put me on numerous supplements to help correct deficiencies and imbalances, changed my diet to a non-inflammatory diet (no gluten, dairy, sugar), and prescribed an aggressive detox protocol. I did two ionic foot baths and two lymphatic massages each week to assist my body in this major detox effort. A week by week account of my healing journey is described in great detail on my website, www.myHealthTorch.com.
When Functional Medicine sped my recovery through TSW faster than anyone would have ever thought possible (especially for a steroid user of over 25 years!), I began to understand the power of taking a holistic view of the body and addressing underlying imbalances, thus bringing out the wisdom of the body to support self-healing.
In short order, holistic approaches to health began to consume my mind. I wondered who else was out there… like me… suffering unnecessarily. I felt an indescribable urge to share this “secret” with more people. Everyone deserves to be “in the know” and to be healthy! I began studying Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, Energy Medicine, yoga, Functional Medicine, and more. There were entire systems of healthcare based on holistic healing and I had always disregarded them before. NOT ANYMORE!
I began talking about the importance of nutrition and detoxing to anyone who would listen. I openly shared my journey and documented my health recovery on the internet, with very personal before and after pictures. Uncomfortable? Yes. Very. But people deserved to know! I held monthly meetings at my home. Free. Just come listen!! You won’t be sorry. People came. Then, they came back the next month. And they brought friends. YES – people are waking up and wanting to feel better. People are tired of being chronically unwell.
Ultimately I resigned from my position as a partner in the real estate firm and poured myself into training in health modalities that could help others. I spent a year studying with the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy and I am now a Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach. I traveled to the Center for Neuroacoustic Research in Carlsbad, CA and trained extensively as a Holistic Health Practitioner and as a Neuroacoustic Sound Therapy Practitioner. I’m also certified in Emotion Code, an energy modality that releases trapped emotions from the body. Touch for Health® is a holistic health approach to the body and I’m also certified in that and I love to teach Touch for Health® techniques to my clients… empowering them to take back control of their health.
Has it been a smooth road?
There have definitely been struggles along the way! It’s not considered “normal” or “mainstream” in some circles to talk about the wisdom of the body to heal itself and to share information about the energy that animates our physical body. But this energy – which is foundational to Chinese Medicine and the meridian system – is so key to our physical health.
It’s also considered a bit weird for a computer engineering major and very “left-brained” person to leave a successful partnership in a commercial real estate firm without another job lined up — to just spend time studying, understanding, and teaching about the human body. Yeah, that was a fun one to explain to my husband (and to my parents!). But, when you have a soul calling, you really don’t have a choice except to answer it.
And thankfully, it all worked out! I now have a growing practice where I work with clients both one-on-one and in a group health coaching format. I’m also about to expand nationally (and internationally!) with online group health coaching services using video conferencing. Watching clients get healthier and happier is my current addiction, and it is far better than an addiction to steroid creams!
So, as you know, we’re impressed with myHealthTorch – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
I love merging leading-edge medical science with ancient healing modalities, and Neuroacoustic Sound Therapy is the best example of this and is foundational to my practice. I can find the exact note – the exact frequency – that helps bring a person’s nervous system into homeostasis. Someone could be an F# minus 32 cents. Or an A-note plus 14 cents. These are very finely tuned, customized frequencies that break the stress loop that so many of us are stuck in today. When you listen to your specific note on the sound table, and every one of your trillions of cells is vibrating to that exact note, the body’s nervous system finally relaxes and leaves the sympathetic fight or flight state and enters the healing “rest and repair” state of the parasympathetic nervous system. I can watch this happening in real-time on my computer monitor. Sometimes for the first time in months, years, or even decades, a person is finally able to spend significant time in the parasympathetic self-healing state. It’s truly life-changing and self-empowering.
My clients then take their customized soundtracks home and listen every day in between sessions. This is like going to the gym to “muscle up” your nervous system. We cannot avoid the constant stresses of modern life, but we can help our nervous system evolve so that we remain in the parasympathetic healing state rather than living in the constant adrenaline/cortisol cycle of Fight or Flight.
Also, as part of Neuroacoustic Sound Therapy, we use binaural beats to entrain the brain to different brainwave states to affect healing. In the first session, we gently slow the brainwaves to Delta frequencies, which is where our brain naturally goes during the deepest stages of sleep each night. For someone who is chronically stressed and hypervigilant, sometimes they don’t allow themselves to be so vulnerable to enter this deepest stage of sleep at night time. Therefore, spending 30 minutes in this brain state each day is extremely beneficial for them to experience physical rest and rejuvenation, which is the purpose of the Delta sleep states. In later sessions, we entrain the brain to Theta frequencies for emotional healing, Alpha frequencies for mental healing, and more. It is a powerful work.
In the next few months, I will release an online course that combines the power of Functional Medicine with the self-healing effects of sound healing and brainwave entrainment. People will be able to listen to custom soundtracks in the comfort of their own home while also implementing simple yet transformative protocols from a Functional Medicine perspective to affect real change in their lives and in their health. You can sign up for my bi-monthly newsletter on my website to be alerted when this online course is available.
If you had to start over, what would you have done differently?
If I had to start over, there is one thing I would change. I would take the path of holistic health long before the actual health crisis arose. So many people wait until a serious diagnosis before finding the motivation to make real change. I did. But it’s my passion to educate and convince people of the importance of making holistic lifestyle changes NOW — thereby avoiding that scary diagnosis. But even for those who wait (and the majority still do!), incredible steps toward healing can be realized when nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress management are implemented. The body has an amazing ability to heal. We just have to learn how to support it and let it do what it does best.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.myHealthTorch.com
- Email: heather@myHealthTorch.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myhealthtorch/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/myHealthTorch/
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