“I haven’t felt this good in four years!” April reflected. Tears began to stream down her face. “My husband is so supportive because he has seen the difference.” When April’s neighbor recommended she make the hours-long drive to Prestige Wellness Institute, she and her husband were so desperate that they didn’t care what it took for her to get better.

April’s health had taken a sharp downturn after her second child was born. She was exhausted. Postpartum depression further sucked the life out of her. When she stopped breast feeding, her periods returned and made life even worse. She and her family gave the week before each period the designation “hell week”. During that week, she wanted to divorce her husband, quit being a mom, be by herself, and “burn everything to the ground”. She was depressed about everything, full of rage, ready to leave everyone and move out of state. Her family would be better off without her, she thought.

As if the week before her period wasn’t bad enough, once her period came, it was heavy and painful. And she was irritable all the time, not just before her period. She also had acne, heartburn, ringing in her ears, gas, bloating, no desire for intimacy with her husband, and a host of other health complaints.

Eight months after her third child was born, she had finally had enough. She had already seen a therapist and been prescribed an antidepressant that made her feel as if she had the flu all the time. Another antidepressant triggered suicidal depression, prompting an emergency meeting with her therapist and discontinuation of the drug. Her gynecologist naturally prescribed birth control pills, but those, too, made her depressed and grouchy. She saw her family doctor, underwent basic lab tests, and was told everything was fine. But everything was not fine. Not only was she miserable all the time, but she and her family had learned to prepare safeguards to keep her from lighting the world on fire every hell week.

After only four months, April feels like a new person. Life is finally worth living again. In fact, she is no longer depressed and anxious. Her belching, gas, fatigue, irritability, acne, and the constant ringing in her ears have all improved dramatically. She no longer wishes she was dead or has to restrain herself from burning her house to the ground before each period. Periods only require a Super instead of an Ultra every two hours. The cramping has diminished dramatically. She actually welcomes intimacy with her husband, and it is no longer painful. Her Hashimoto’s thyroiditis is gone. Sleep has improved significantly. She now has the energy to resume her exercise routine. Her frequent heart racing is gone. She lost 10 pounds without even being on a drug or weight loss diet. All this, and she is only halfway through her treatment program.

In medical school, we learn to select drugs for each of the symptoms a person has, and to switch to different drugs when the first ones don’t work. But April’s symptoms didn’t stem from a deficiency of any drug. Nor do they come from a disease. Instead, they point to patterns of dysfunction in multiple systems in her body. It would be nice if, in medical school, we had learned “the magic formula” for fixing depression, PMS, heavy periods, anxiety, insomnia, obesity, infertility, and so forth. But there is no magic formula for any of these problems because humans are not machines made up of independent components connected with wires. Depression, for example, isn’t necessarily a brain problem. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it’s a metabolic problem, a gut problem, a liver problem, an infection, or something else. Similarly, heavy periods aren’t a uterine problem, and PMS isn’t a problem of the ovaries. This is one reason why birth control pills don’t fix these issues.

In April’s case, her many debilitating symptoms stemmed from deficiencies of specific vitamins, minerals, and hormones, along with a hidden infection, toxins, and intestinal permeability. The reason she was unable to find solutions to her problems sooner was that, despite an explosion of medical science, doctors are not taught what to look for, nor what to do about it if they find it, when it comes to deficiencies, toxicities, chronic infections, and dysfunction. We were taught all about how to diagnose and treat diseases, like heart failure, but nothing about recognizing, diagnosing, and treating dysfunctions, like intestinal permeability. Yet intestinal permeability has been discussed in the medical literature since the 1950s! Perhaps the reason for this is that dysfunctions are not effectively treated with drugs, so these conditions are not even on medical schools’ radar screens.

Whether it’s PMS, irregular periods, PCOS, endometriosis, infertility, or any number of other female problems, your problem does not stem from a drug deficiency. And surgery isn’t always the answer, either, as helpful as it can be when all other options have been exhausted. If you look for patterns of dysfunction, including all the seemingly unrelated symptoms in your gut, brain, skin, and other organs, what ails you is no longer a mystery. Moreover, instead of having to live with fifty different problems, or find drugs for each of them, you may learn that all of them come down to only a handful of interconnected dysfunctions. Understanding what is actually going on, you can then fix the core problems using the following framework:

Restore what is missing from the body: vitamins, minerals, hormones, fatty acids, amino acids, enzymes

Remove what does not belong in the body: toxins, infections, dysfunctional thought patterns

Use tools that work with the body to help it heal itself: peptides, herbs, LIESWT, PEMF, HBOT, microcurrent neurofeedback, and much more

As a caution, owing to repeated unexpected outcomes, we now have to warn women who follow this approach to use some form of protection unless they are prepared to have more children. Just because a couple was unable to have children without in vitro fertilization sixteen years ago and hasn’t had to worry about pregnancy since then doesn’t mean they don’t have to worry about it once her physiology is fixed.

If the process of getting your health back seems like a lot of work, consider the reality that symptoms don’t arise out of the blue. More often than not, they have been brewing in the background for years if not decades before coming to the surface. If you are like April, you’ll discover that a few months of work to erase years of female dysfunction is an investment well worth making. If the D-I-Y approach isn’t working; if you’ve been told your labs are normal; or if the medicines you’ve been prescribed have not solved your problems, consider calling Prestige Wellness Institute at (435) 210-0184 for a whole-body approach to a new life. We see people like April all the time. You could be next.

And be sure to mention you read about it in Moab Happenings.

Moab Regional Hospital is pleased to announce the appointment of April Larsen as the new Trauma Program Manager (TPM). With 18 years of nursing experience in various emergency rooms across the Intermountain West, April brings a wealth of knowledge and skill to our team. Since April 2011, she has served as a flight nurse in Page, Arizona, and Moab, providing emergency medical care in challenging environments.

Larsen has held significant roles, including Director of Clinical Operations for Classic Air Medical and flight nurse for Haiti Air Ambulance in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Her passion for prehospital medicine is evident as she continues to work as an EMT in Utah. Larsen is excited to bring her expertise to Moab Regional Hospital as the Trauma Program Manager.

Dr. Deidre Flanagan, Trauma Director at Moab Regional Hospital, is enthusiastic about welcoming Larsen to the team, “April brings significant clinical and administrative experience to our team, and she will be a great asset.

She is clearly passionate about trauma care, particularly in the rural setting. There are exciting updates to the trauma program both at the local and state level, and I look forward to working with April to continue to improve our great trauma care here at MRH.”

What is a Level IV Trauma Center?
According to the American Trauma Society, a Level IV Trauma Center provides advanced trauma life support before transferring patients to higher-level trauma centers. This includes advocating for trauma system development, enhancing emergency services, and improving care efficiency.

At Moab Regional Hospital, our trauma team diagnoses and stabilizes patients with severe injuries, performs emergency surgeries, and provides critical care when needed. Our facility includes 24-hour laboratory coverage and trauma-trained nurses and physicians.

Why is Level IV Trauma Certification Vital for our Community?
In remote rural areas, timely trauma care is crucial. As a Level IV Trauma Center, Moab Regional Hospital has the equipment and staff to respond to emergencies quickly, ensuring patients receive prompt medical care and improving survival chances.

Moab Regional Hospital, an independent nonprofit located in Moab, Utah, is a Critical Access Hospital and Level IV Trauma Center. With 17 beds, the hospital focuses on prioritizing patients, providing high-quality and affordable healthcare, and promoting community wellness.