How I Solved a Torturous 3-Year-Long Health Mystery

I can breathe on my own again

For 1024 days, I lived with a rescue inhaler in my hand or by my side because I couldn’t breathe normally. I spent over $15,000 on countless doctors, specialists, and tests, tried medications that only made things worse, and no one could ever tell me why it was happening or how to fix it.

Earlier this year, I followed a hunch with no proof that it would help. I took a leap into the unknown and did what felt most uncomfortable, and somehow, it led me out of the longest, most torturous physical experience of my life.

Here’s how it happened.

In early 2021, I was jobless and struggling to find work in the thick of the post-COVID economy. A year of near-total isolation was starting to take its toll. I couldn’t get even 1-2 hours of sleep a night, and after weeks and months of this, my body began breaking down. I tried everything possible for sleep, often all at once. One of the things in my mix of downers was Unisom. It didn’t help much, but I felt like I needed everything I could get, so I kept taking it.

By November 2021, I’d decided to sell most of my belongings and move to Mexico. By then, I was getting 2-3 hours of sleep a night, which felt like an improvement from the 1-2 hours a week I had been surviving on. So I continued taking all my sleep aids, every night. In the nights before leaving my mostly empty apartment to drive to Central Mexico, I noticed I needed a puff from my Albuterol inhaler whenever I laid down. I figured it was just from the dust kicked up by packing and didn’t think much of it.

On the 5-day drive to Mexico, I needed the inhaler every night and throughout the day. Once I arrived, I couldn’t do anything without it. I needed it to lay down, to drive, to go up stairs, to sit on the couch—just to function.

I went to a hospital in Mexico, where they told me I was extremely healthy. They checked my heart, lungs, and everything else but chalked it up to severe allergies and put me on steroids. While the steroids reduced the inflammation in my airways, I still struggled to breathe. It felt like I had to consciously take every breath through a straw, forcing my airways open instead of my body automatically doing it for me.

I stayed on the steroids for six months, which made me feel like a bloated corpse. I saw two holistic doctors in Mexico and had a virtual appointment with a U.S. doctor. I tried tons of herbs and natural treatments, but nothing worked.

The first year was the hardest. I had to fight for every breath, 24 hours a day. If I wasn’t actively controlling my breathing, I’d feel weak and faint. It felt like I was trapped in a body that couldn’t get air. It pushed all the mental resilience I’d built over the past decade to the ultimate test.

I thought things would improve quickly when I moved back to Los Angeles, but I was wrong. I spared no expense, seeing every doctor imaginable. I got more details about what was happening, but still no clear answers as to why.

I learned I didn’t have asthma—I had esophageal dysmotility, which is when the muscles in the esophagus are weakened and don’t function properly. That explained why I had to consciously focus on breathing instead of it being an automatic, unconscious process.

The guess was that stress had caused it, and they recommended I go on antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds. But if you know my history, you know there’s no way in hell I was doing that.

So I kept going to different doctors, figuring eventually I’d either get more information or an answer.

An ear, nose, and throat doctor suggested I try Omeprazole, a proton pump inhibitor that blocks acid. He said if it helped my breathing at all, it might mean the esophageal weakness was caused by acid. To my surprise, it helped about 30%. I still needed the inhaler, but it cut me down from several puffs a day to just once or twice.

Then I went to the “Rain Man” of holistic, functional medicine doctors. His office was like a massive lab, running all the tests right there. He’d lay out the results and, like in A Beautiful Mind, start piecing things together. I was amazed by his method and how much he could tell me about my body. But after nine months and over $10,000, I didn’t feel like we were any closer to an answer. Still, I did learn I had severe nervous system dysregulation and Candida overgrowth.

It turns out Albuterol inhalers aren’t meant for daily use over years, and doing so can cause a cascade of other health issues, including oral thrush and Candida overgrowth. The side effects I experienced were white patches on my tongue and throat, a constantly sore and burning throat, cracked corners of my mouth, difficulty swallowing, loss of taste, and digestive problems.

I found out the hard way that taking an acid blocker like Omeprazole actually makes Candida grow even more aggressively, since the acid that would normally control it is suppressed. But because the Omeprazole slightly helped with my breathing, I felt like I had to choose between being able to breathe or being overwhelmed by Candida. I chose the former, so the Candida symptoms kept worsening until it felt like I had constant strep throat and pain in my mouth.

Feeling disenchanted with conventional doctors, I sought out a medical intuitive. She picked up on everything the other doctors had found and believed that my breathing issues were related to nervous system dysregulation. However, she seemed stumped about the cause. She asked me to send her a full list of every supplement, vitamin, and pill I was taking. When I did, she emailed back, advising me to stop a few of them. The most critical one she highlighted was Unisom. She said, “I don’t know if it’s the source of all your problems, but try to go off of it as soon as you can.”

I decided to quit Unisom cold turkey. I didn’t sleep at all, felt insanely anxious and delusional, and after 3-4 days, I broke out in full-body hives. Discouraged, I went back on Unisom and felt better almost immediately. I convinced myself maybe she didn’t know what she was talking about—perhaps she was accidentally right about everything except Unisom being harmful.

I casually did some research to prove to myself that Unisom wasn’t hurting me. In the process, I discovered that doxylamine succinate (the active ingredient in Unisom) should never be taken for more than two weeks due to its effects on the autonomic nervous system. Autonomic functions include all the automatic processes your body handles without thinking, such as BREATHING.

But despite my efforts, I couldn’t find anyone on the entire internet who had experienced what I had, and I struggled to comprehend that an over-the-counter medicine could cause such damage.

I told every doctor I visited about my long-term use of Unisom, but none of them seemed concerned.

Determined to try everything, I knew I needed a plan to slowly go off of it without breaking down physically.

At the end of December 2023, I began dissolving the pill in 1ml of water and gradually reducing my dose by fractions of a miligram each week with an oral syringe. I thought I’d be able to quit within a month or two, but the withdrawal side effects were far more intense than I could have imagined for an over-the-counter drug.

It took a full seven months to get off Unisom, with my last dose taken at the end of July 2024. After it was completely out of my system, I noticed my breathing very slowly improving. The nervous system heals at a glacial pace, so it wasn’t immediately clear that I had resolved the issue entirely. I still needed the inhaler at night to sleep.

Once I had stopped Unisom, I turned my attention to Omeprazole, the acid blocker. It was exacerbating the Candida overgrowth that was worsening. Even though I tapered off Omeprazole as gradually as possible, it felt like waves of acid were raging inside me every day for weeks. I had to sleep with three pillows under my head just to avoid mouthfuls of acid each night.

By the end of August, having been a month off Unisom and newly off Omeprazole, my breathing was erratic. One day, my esophagus would feel more open than it had in years; the next, it would feel tight and collapsed. Part of me wondered if I had come this far just to find out my breathing issues had nothing to do with Unisom. Another part of me saw the fleeting improvements in esophageal function as hopeful signs of recovery.

Throughout September, I had more days of easy breathing than I’ve had in years. I’d have one good day and night without needing the inhaler, followed by 2-3 days where I did. Gradually, the good days became every other day—one good day, one bad day, repeat. Even if it felt painfully slow, I could tell I was moving in the right direction.

As of now, it’s been five days since I’ve needed the inhaler—the longest stretch in almost three years. I anticipate a few more bad days as my esophagus fully recovers its muscle function, but I’m more confident than ever that I’ve finally found the solution. While hints from various doctors and tests were helpful, it was ultimately the gentle nudge from the medical intuitive and my own obsessive perseverance that led me here.

It’s hard to describe how incredible it feels not to think about each breath, to no longer feel faint a few times a day from forgetting to breathe, and to simply have my esophagus stay open on its own. It’s like the relief of finally breathing through your nose after a week of congestion, but a hundred times better. After years of feeling like I was breathing through a straw, I now feel like I can go anywhere and do anything.

I feel free.

Looking back, it’s crazy how far I’ve come from those dark days of struggling for every breath. The journey was often agonizing, but every setback led me closer to the breakthrough I desperately needed.

Through countless doctors, endless tests, and a big dose of intuition, I found the answers I needed. Now, as I breathe freely and fully for the first time in years, I’m filled with an overwhelming sense of liberation and gratitude.

This chapter of life has taught me the value of listening to my inner voice, reminding me that sometimes the answers we seek are hidden in the actions we’re most afraid to take. As I move forward, I’m grateful for the lessons in resilience, in finding my way back to myself, and to never fucking trust another over-the-counter medication for the rest of my life.