Autoimmunity
When Dr. Niez was still in high school, her elder brother once commented she had big knees. She had on and off pains with chronic constipation, which they never knew were early signs of something big to come with regards to her health. When she was in medical school, she was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis, which was managed by her mom with herbs and, occasionally, with pain relievers.
After medical school she joined the charity institution, Committee of German Doctors for Developing Countries. Since it was a charity institution, the workload was quite heavy. At the end of a day’s work, after seeing an average of 50-100 patients a day, she would hardly have enough energy to take herself home. She had to sleep on the examination table just to regain energy to go home. It was only a matter of time before fatigue, brain fog, irritability, inflammatory symptoms, and skin lesions, as well as various pains emanating from her– head, abdominal, perineal, urinary tract, joints, and back areas began encroaching on her daily functions. When her rheumatologist was now considering Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, Dr. Niez told herself these words : “Tabangi imong kaugalingon, Mary Ann, doctor bya ka (You’re a doctor, Mary Ann, help yourself)! She thought that in going to the specialist, help was on its way. But, those words proved to be a driving force…that fueled her passion to learn more..
She went to another doctor, where she was eventually considered for Mixed Connective tissue disease. At this point, Dr. Niez decided to stop working. She started implementing lifestyle changes which improved her condition to some extent. It was a fragile period of her life:
"It was a soul – searching period for me. I pondered on giving up the profession. Why stay as a doctor when I couldn’t even help myself? I looked back as if trying to assess if there was someone to be blamed for all the difficulty of medical schooling - only to give it up one day. And in a snap, as we if someone whispered, nobody forced you to – it was even given in a silver platter. I reminded myself of how some of my classmates envied me for my free tuition (100%) , free prescribed books, free diagnostic set, and, not to mention, monthly cash allowance! Such blessings could not have been just for naught. It was a major crossroad in my life. To top it all, one day, after I had waited 5 years to get pregnant, I miscarried. This was, of course, due to my condition. My student in medical school dragged me to see his father. I underwent anti-homotoxicological treatment – part of which was to remove the amalgams (metallic tooth filings) from almost all of my molars. I thought it was just intended to improve our next pregnancy. But lo and behold, I started noticing my pains going away. After 5 months of continued improvement, my husband prodded me to pursue this field called Homotoxicology."
Three years after, Dr. Niez noticed a stony, hard breast mass. This was followed by splitting of the center of her areola. As a doctor, she knew it was bad. But opting to defer a mammogram, she went for genetic testing first. To her surprise, it came out positive for 12 cancer genes – including breast cancer. Dr. Niez did integrative interventions first for a couple of months and decided to get a PET scan thereafter.
"Going to the hospital for the procedure felt OK. But left alone under the “doughnut,” I felt a sudden surge of fear. I was having palpitations and could hardly breathe. Tempted to press the alarm button, I was quickly reminded of Psalm 23. I quickly regained my fortitude, and realized – this must be how most patients would feel. "
Heavy Metal Toxicity
After her PET scan came back negative, Dr. Niez had become stable from her previous autoimmune symptoms (pains from head, to abdomen, perineum, urinary, joints and back, skin lesions, and other inflammatory symptoms that affected her daily function ) for 10 years except for on and off dysbiosis and/or candidiasis – an imbalance of bacteria and fungi in the intestines. This was characterized by bloating, reactiveness to certain foods, on-and-off obstipation (no longer constipation), food cravings, and on-and-off thyroid symptoms despite normal thyroid hormone conventional tests.
The bloating and reactiveness to certain food were somehow frustrating because I was already a vegetarian. I was even vegan for the first two years. I kept studying and applied what I learned accordingly, one after the other, or some simultaneously. These would give me relief, but not on a long-term basis. Finally, I had my Toxics Analysis done in the US. To my surprise, this still showed high mercury levels even after seven years from amalgam removal! This played a major role in my recurrent dysbiosis. And these are uninvestigated areas for recurrent symptomatology in other patients also, too often - with escalating severity."
Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Jawbone Cavitations
Dr. Niez’s passion to learn and her commitment to help her patients led her to shift from one course to another. Over those years, she started noting episodes of fatigue which she brushed aside as stress from travel or from work. At that time, mitochondrial pathologies have been starting to be increasingly studied. She decided to have her ATP tested. ATP is the energy currency of our cells’ powerhouses. The result was extremely low;, nearly zero, in fact. Although some developments say the test was not a sensitive test for mitochondrial assessment, when other parameters like measures of oxidative stress, leaky gut, heavy metal load, and others were considered, the test results pointed to a car running low on gas, so to speak.
Studies on understanding the mitochondria still continue to evolve, but because of this pursuit to learn, to be able to help difficult cases, Dr. Niez would often volunteer in demos in whatever training and conference she would go to. On one occasion, she volunteered for neural therapy of the abdomen (given her persistent abdominal symptoms). The following day, Dr. Niez felt one of her molars aching. Her teacher said, this is called Retrograde phenomenon – the body, through the autonomic nervous system, is saying that there’s a problem in that area. Dr. Niez went to see her dentist upon returning home but no visible problems were found regarding the affected tooth.
Incidentally, Dr. Niez’s blood test results also came out, revealing high levels of RANTES. At that time, she couldn’t relate fully to the implications of those results except that they implied the presence of necrotic tissue on the jawbone. But, since Dr. Niez’s jaw had no pain or other symptoms and, due to her passion to learn and help others, it did not deter her from continuing to attend summits, seminars, and conferences. Eventually, she learned that:
"Aside from RANTES implying presence of necrotic tissue in the jawbone, I started learning about it and its implication in systemic disease, especially Immune System Diseases. I also eventually learned about RANTES as an indicator of retroviral activity and how endogenous retroviruses could play a significant role in telling you’re in the highway street for chronic illness. I also learned that the MITOCHONDRIA, the supplier of energy to our cells (that’s all we knew of the mitochondria back then), is critical to regulating the control mechanisms that keep our system functioning optimally – playing a role in switching on/off control mechanisms of life at the cellular level. And where there’s already mitochondrial dysfunction, regulation mechanisms are thrown into chaos, cancer genes turn on, and the body’s health is severely compromised."
One year after Dr. Niez experienced that pain on her molar after neural therapy, it came back. This time, she insisted to her dentist to pull the tooth out in spite of the absence of visible pathological signs on the area. Upon pulling out the tooth, the dentist herself was surprised. They saw that the socket was already rotten and the neighboring jawbone was necrosed (foul smelling dead bone). And there was already a hole in her jaw, all the way up to the sinus. Thereafter, the hole never closed and Dr. Niez’s health progressively deteriorated. She sought specialists regarding her case and ended up seeing Dr. Dominik Nischwit (http://www.dnaesthetics.de) of Germany. Dr. Nischwitz found that Dr. Niez not only had jawbone cavitations but was also suffering from severe bone loss to her jawbones. Dr. Nischwitz was so committed to helping Dr. Niez that after her cavitation surgery, he consulted with their society in Munich regarding the severity of her case. Dr. Niez underwent another surgery to close the hole in her jaw using APRF and bone graft using human allograft.
Lyme-Mold Toxicity
When one is high in heavy metals, his ability to detoxify is progressively compromised. The build-up of toxins makes the body a haven for bugs to flourish in; it also gradually alters the digestive, hormonal, neurologic, and immune systems – eventually affecting all organ functions. Heavy metals cause malabsorptive tendencies, hormonal imbalances, and neurotransmitter alterations. They also trigger autoimmunity. Heavy metals also block the enzymes for converting raw materials into energy and make it difficult for nutrients to enter the cell. The poor energy production, and poor nutrition utilization, on top of a compromised multi-system malfunction, complicate matters so much for a patient that it can overwhelm him.
When Dr. Niez was first considered to have Lyme disease, it didn’t sink in immediately. She thought the Philippines probably did not have such, as it was Europe that was known for it. But when Dr. Niez’s health crashed, that’s when she studied more about Lyme disease, and realized how little was known of it in the Philippines.
The tipping point came when Dr. Niez discovered she had mold toxicity. One day, she woke up vomiting, and found her entire right face was blocked full with discharge. She underwent surgery, and the surgeon said the discharge they drained from her maxilla was grayish. Thereafter, Dr. Niez’s health went into a major crash. When one has jawbone osteonecrosis, which is a very long, chronic and mostly, asymptomatic process, the affected area becomes a haven for co-infection to set in – from fungal growth, to bacterial, parasitic, and viral pathogens. She was severely debilitated for more than a month – unable to eat, unable to move, unable to sleep. When Dr. Niez did move about, severe fatigue plagued her. It was the kind of fatigue that made one feel paralized, like his body was shutting down from too much exhaustion. That year, Dr. Niez underwent four surgeries. A well- rounded biological practitioner can tell that all those mentioned are complications brought on by mercury toxicity from amalgam fillings.
"Going through the ups and downs of Lyme-Mold toxicity has elevated my respect so much for patients complaining of fatigue and similar toxicity symptoms. When the struggles became so real, I started to understand why some patients are dismissed as psychogenic or psychiatric, and why some of them end up committing suicide. It drove me to learn more. Although the more you learn, the more you realize the more you don’t know, surprisingly, it made me realize that my brokenness would bring me to deeper understanding. And this understanding started to give me peace. Indeed, healing starts with understanding … (1), understanding that God has a purpose for our brokenness; (2), understanding that there is time for everything and the most that we could do is to equip ourselves as time unfolds new developments in our struggles; and (3) understanding that there is always hope even if we don’t understand everything. "