“I forgot I could feel this good!”
Doctors brushed off Ivana Ayala Esslinger’s fatigue. But she kept searching for answers and found the common culprit that often goes undiagnosed—and the easy fix
Number 15! Your order is ready,” the clerk at the deli counter called. “Number 15?!” he repeated impatiently. “Oh, that’s me!” Ivana said, picking up her order. “As I turned around to leave, I saw a woman walking away, waving to me,” recalls Ivana. “I hesitantly waved back but I had no idea who she was. A few minutes later I realized the woman was my coworker, Heather. We had been talking just minutes earlier while waiting in line at the deli but I had completely forgotten about it. Sure, the store was packed and I was exhausted and stressed, but I had no recollection of our conversation. I was mortified!
Utterly depleted
“Moments like these were increasingly common last year, when fatigue and brain fog took over my life. Although I used to love to sweat it out in karate class, suddenly I could barely get through a workout.
“The fatigue also affected my relationships with my family. When my kids asked me to play outside or take them for a bike ride, my answer was always no. I wanted so badly to spend quality time with them but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t muster up the energy to get moving and off the couch. Eventually they stopped asking me and I felt so guilty about it.
“Although my husband tried to be supportive, he was frustrated. He always wanted to go to the beach, surfing, kayaking or hiking but I was too tired to join him. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ he’d ask all the time. ‘You never want to do anything or go anywhere.’ But I didn’t know what was wrong with me, so I couldn’t explain it to him. I didn’t want to hold him back, so I would tell him to go without me, and he would but I felt awful about it.
“Not only did I have nonstop fatigue to contend with, I was also suffering from bloat, nausea and pain in my hands and feet, and I was constantly irritable and blue. Worst of all was the vertigo I often felt.
“To figure out what was going on, I saw several doctors and other health-care practitioners, including my primary care physician, a gastroenterologist, an ENT, a chiropractor and a massage therapist. The ENT prescribed antihistamines for my allergies and fluid in my ears, which he said were linked to the vertigo. It helped a bit, but when I told him I was still dealing with the fatigue, he said he didn’t know why.
“I also saw my ob-gyn because I thought it might be hormonal. She said she thought I might have dysmenorrhea, a term for menstrual cramps that can cause migraine-like symptoms like vertigo. She prescribed birth
control pills but they didn’t help. None of the doctors ordered blood work and none of them knew why I was always exhausted. It was so frustrating to feel that they weren’t listening to me and they didn’t have answers. Instead of trying to find out the real reason I was so tired, they put me on medications. I started to worry that I was going to get worse and be forced to stop working. All I knew: I needed to find someone who could help me—fast.
A solution at last
“After years of trying to get to the bottom of the fatigue and my other symptoms, a friend suggested I see Mylaine Riobe, M.D., director of the Riobe Institute of Integrative Medicine in nearby Stuart, Florida, and author of The Tao of Integrative Medicine. At my first appointment, I described my symptoms to Dr. Riobe and she said I definitely had some sort of nutritional deficiency. She ran blood tests and told me I was severely deficient in choline, which she said was the cause of my fatigue and other symptoms.
“I was so surprised. I had never even heard of choline and I had no idea that it could affect my body in such a major way. But it made sense when Dr. Riobe explained that the nutrient was found in broccoli, Brussels sprouts, eggs, pork, tuna, salmon, beans and healthy fats like olive oil—foods I wasn’t eating on a daily basis.
“Dr. Riobe said the first step was to add plenty of these cholinerich foods to my diet, so I did. I also started drinking vegetable smoothies with choline-rich foods in them. Dr. Riobe said that since I had signs of inflammation and gut issues, it would be more difficult for me to absorb nutrients, which would further contribute to the fatigue, so I eliminated dairy and gluten, which are inflammatory. She prescribed 900 mg of polyunsaturated phosphatidylcholine, a highly absorbable form of choline. She also recommended B12 shots, a B6 complex supplement and vitamin D to boost my energy.
“Within six weeks I started to have more energy, and by four months my energy was completely restored. I was shocked—I finally realized what normal felt like!
“Today I’m able to live the life I’ve always dreamed of. Instead of sitting home on the couch, I have plenty of energy to play with my kids for hours at the beach, go kayaking with my husband and take karate classes without needing a cup of coffee. I feel amazing!”
—As told to Julie Revelant