Melyssa & Her Husband Are Feeling Great!

“He (Dr. Murphree) introduced himself and I had a great first visit with him. I was excited to get going. I wanted to be one of those people like I am today that’s giving my testimonial about how well this worked, because I kept thinking I wonder if this could be good for me. I wonder if I can get here. I was excited about the testing. We talked. He told me exactly after visiting with him what he thought I needed and what we needed to do. I actually looked forward to visiting with him. I started off visiting with him about once a week. Then as I started getting better, it was every couple of weeks or every 3 weeks. Visiting with him always reassures me that I’m not doing it by myself … Having that coach there.

If I ever had a question or had a flare up or had something, the clinic is easily accessible to make a phone call, to email him or whatever it is and someone gets back to you. That was always very helpful to me that he cares enough to take the time to say “One of my patients is not feeling well. This is what’s going on. Let’s talk to him.” I remember one time I had a pretty good flare up with my stomach; it was just a month or two into the program. I think I’d emailed him and instead of him emailing me back, he just called me. I had no appointment, he just called me and I was so blown away at that. I thought he’s taking the time. He’s got appointments all day long and he took the time to stop and call me and say “What’s going on? Now let’s try this” and it worked. What he said to do worked. He coached me through that. That’s different than working with doctors in the conventional world.

You’ve got to make an appointment to see these people. Sometimes you’ve got to wait 3-4 weeks, maybe even a couple of months if they’re a specialist. To have Dr Murphree right there or if he’s not there, having any of you ladies there that can kind of be the middlemen to ask or be helpful has been the hugest blessing. My experience working with him has totally changed my life. I keep telling my family one of these days I want to make the trip to Alabama to actually meet him in person!”  — Melyssa S.

Above you can listen to Melyssa’s Full Interview, and here is the transcript below:

Melyssa Overcomes Fibromyalgia

Cheryl:                 Hi Melyssa, are you there?

Melyssa:              I am, how are you?

Cheryl:                 I’m great today. How are you doing?

Melyssa:              Pretty good.

Cheryl:                 That’s good. I love that picture you posted today.

Melyssa:              I thought it would be nice to share with everyone else what our area looks like. I hope other ladies will do that because it’s cool to see places maybe you haven’t been.

Cheryl:                 Yeah, that was gorgeous. Thank you so much first of all for agreeing to share your story with other folks. We really appreciate it. If you’re ready to get started, if you could just give us a little bit of background information and tell folks how long you’d had fibromyalgia before you started talking to Dr Murphree, and just a little bit about what that was like for you.

Melyssa:              Okay. My story is kind of different than others, but I hurt. My story doesn’t go back years and years of going to different doctors and trying to figure out what was wrong. I had a hysterectomy a few years ago and it seems like from that surgery on, my symptoms came about very dramatically. As time went on, I kept getting worse and worse and just not feeling well. I’d gone in to my doctor with this achiness in my thighs and in my hands. They tested me for Vitamin D deficiency which I had, and he treated me for that but I still wasn’t getting better. I kept feeling really run down, tired and achy and just not feeling well. I’d had all these tests done and everything came back normal all the time, which frustrated me to death because I knew something was wrong. I just didn’t know what. I went down that traditional road of “Well, this is what we’ll give you for pain” which was antidepressants. Not knowing any different because I had not educated myself, I thought “Okay if this is what I’ve got to do to feel better, then this is what I’m going to do. “ I went down that road but not for very long before I found Dr Murphree. That experience wasn’t very pleasant. I remember my doctor telling me all these antidepressants are different for everyone, and I don’t know how your body will react to them so please be patient with me. I think that probably should have been my first clue, but I didn’t really have any other information on another way to feeling better. A lot of other tests had come back and he finally just said “I believe that you have fibromyalgia.” I’m like “Okay, so now what?”

That led to the medications which didn’t last long. Like I said, I don’t have that story of going for years and years of being on a ton of different medications. I already had my guard up a little bit once I went on the first antidepressant, which made me very, very sick. I took it once and never took it again. Then I went on to Cymbalta, I took that for several months and still was not feeling well, still run down, actually getting worse and gaining weight like crazy. I remember asking my doctor, ”What’s going on? Why am I gaining all this weight? Half the time I’m sick to my stomach so I’m not feeling very well.” I gained like 50 pounds in 3 months. It was very, very frustrating. I just knew there had to be something deeper going on, which led me to start investigating. I read all the time. I was constantly looking things up and then I came across Dr Murphree’s Facebook page, which sounds like for a lot of people that’s exactly where they find him is on Facebook. I was very skeptical at first but that’s where I found him and I thought, I’ve got to investigate this too because I don’t really have any other option. I was reading about withdrawal symptoms and whatnot about Cymbalta and started to feel very uncomfortable with the fact that I was taking it, due to what they were reporting of people having these withdrawal symptoms. I read about it long enough to kind of just apply that myself without working with my doctor. I felt like I ran into a brick wall there, so I took myself off it slowly. When I started with Dr Murphree, I was on nothing.

Cheryl:                 One thing that he does help a lot of his patients with is backing off on some of those meds, but you were unique in that you had already done that so you were able to start with ground zero on that.

Melyssa:              I was, yeah.

Cheryl:                 I know one of the things you’d mentioned is that you used to have on your worst days, some pretty bad body aches. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and how that’s changed now?

Melyssa:              Yeah. As time went on, I got worse. For me, fibro seems to settle in my thighs and in my hands and my arms. It was getting to the point where pain wise anyway, it was exhausting to even take a shower. I would get my family out the door. My husband and I are self-employed so I work from home. I don’t have to beat the clock to be somewhere every day. My day kind of goes how I want it to go because I’m home, but there were days I’d get my family out the door and just from being up from say 5 o’clock in the morning till 8, I’ve got my kids to school, I’ve got my husband out the door and now I’m here by myself, and I’m like I’ve got to get in the shower, I’ve got to get going and I was extremely exhausted. Not only just exhausted, but to the point where I could not function. Simple things as taking a shower were not only exhausting to me, but it was painful. I could barely lift my arms above my head to wash my hair. When I would get through that, then my arms would ache for hours and hours afterwards … my legs, my thighs have always been, like I said from that hysterectomy on, it does settle there so I always had pain in my legs. I tend to get a lot of tension from time to time in the back of my shoulder blades and the back of my neck. That’s where the fibro settles for me. Since working with Dr Murphree, I can’t remember the last time that my arms ached from that shower experience. I can get through that and not even have any symptom at all whatsoever. If I’m diligent about taking care of myself and doing what he’s asked me to do while I’ve been working with him, my flare days are very far between. I don’t have them very often but when I do, that’s where I’m going to feel the aches and the pains if I even have them. I barely get them at this point anymore but yeah, it turned better.

Cheryl:                 I think that’s something that a lot of folks that haven’t had fibro and haven’t experienced that don’t realize what a big difference that is to just something as simple as a shower, that’s supposed to be restorative and relaxing can be such a difficult part of your day. We hear that all the time, and I’m so glad that for you it’s something that’s not a struggle for you anymore … that shower.

Melyssa:              Yeah, it used to bother me so bad. There were days that I would do okay in the shower and maybe I was doing okay in the morning. Then later in the afternoon, something would come along and hit me and now all of a sudden I’d need a nap. I’m not a nap taker and I’m not a very lazy person. I have things to do, and it drives me crazy when I can’t get up to go do. There were days where I had to lay down. I had to take a nap, even if it was 15-20 minutes. If I didn’t do that, the rest of my day was just a nightmare. I needed to be somewhat prepared between 3 and 5 o’clock timeframe of the day when I’ve got kids coming in and my husband coming in, now it’s time for family, let’s get dinner going, let’s do this that and I’m just like if I didn’t rest, I didn’t have that to offer to anyone. It was too much, the stress of that and then my body hurting … everything was just too much. Definitely, it’s a huge eye opener and a big difference for me. I think about it daily because I pay attention to how I feel. Now since working with him, I can tell on days when I need to take it easy and days when I’m doing well. I listen to my body. If I need to cut back a little back and maybe not worry about things as much one day just so I feel better the next day, I definitely pay attention to that now.

Cheryl:                                 That’s good. That’s one thing we’re glad that you’ve learned through this, is to be a little bit in tune with your body. I’m glad that you do not have to take those naps as long anymore. The other thing I know you had mentioned is that you used to be a big traveler. How did your fibromyalgia affect that and how has that improved since you’ve started working with him?

Melyssa:              Traveling was always hard. Just like anyone else’s story, before working with him I didn’t know what my day was going to be like. Was I going to wake up today feeling cruddy or am I going to wake up today feeling somewhat ok? There were times I wanted to talk myself out of traveling or going anywhere, just because it’s exhausting. Traveling for a healthy person can be exhausting. When you’re not up to par and you’re not feeling well anyway, with fibro it can intensify that so much. None of my family lives where I live so I do travel a quite often. My parents are at least an hour an half, maybe about 2 hours from where I live but still that’s a travel for me. Even that was exhausting sometimes, and now I don’t have that issue. Since working with Dr Murphree, I haven’t traveled far. I haven’t flown or anything, so I don’t really know how I would do that way. Just in driving… going and doing, I have way more energy and my pain is really not there. It’s helpful, it’s very nice.

Cheryl:                 That’s fantastic. I know you’ve worked really hard to get yourself to that level. Tell me about your sleep as well. Has that improved?

Melyssa:              Yes, and it’s funny. The sleep thing always gets me because Dr Murphree says if you listen to his audios and things, that everybody with fibro has a sleep issue. I never really recognized that I did. I always would go to bed. I would never dream, so I thought I guess I never sleep hard enough to dream. Until working with him and taking the supplements to get sleeping better, then I realized that I really wasn’t sleeping very good. I didn’t have that typical can’t shut your mind off, can’t go to bed, sleepy during the day and up during the night thing. The only time I did have that was when I was taking Cymbalta. Cymbalta would make me stay awake. I’d be tired during the day and run down and then everybody is going to bed, I’m supposed to do the same and I’m up in the middle of the night and can’t get to sleep. Taking the supplements that he gives you to get the sleep better, now that I take it, I love it. I look forward to going to bed every night now because I know that I sleep well. If I don’t get a good 7-8 hours of sleep a night, the next day I tend to not feel as good. I know he talks about sleep being the key; it really is. Life happens, sometimes things go on and maybe I won’t get that 7-8 hours. If I don’t, I tend to be a little achy or lethargic the next day, just not feeling 100% so I definitely pay attention to my sleep. It’s definitely much better and I love to go to bed.

Cheryl:                 That’s fantastic. We love hearing that. I know that that’s common with a lot of our patients. You’ll be focusing so much on the aches or the pains, so used to just getting through the day that you don’t even realize how much something like your sleep is affecting you and you just think it’s normal until all of a sudden one day, you realize wait I’m sleeping now. How could I deal with the way it was before? I know one thing that was really crucial with you in sleep and your aches and all of that was getting your diet cleared up. Some of that was the Shape Reclaimed diet that we did and the anti-inflammatory diet; some of that was getting some food testing done and seeing what allergies & intolerance you had. Can you talk a little bit more about that and how that changed your lifestyle, and changed how you looked at food?

Melyssa:              Yes, I can. That’s a big one. My whole life, I’ve had stomach issues. I’ve been in and out of the doctor a zillion times. I can think back to when I was younger. I was told I had IBS, mostly was told I had IBS. I’d been given different things over time for spastic stomach, different medicines and things that never really did anything, but I’ve always had stomach issues. In the past I’ve asked my doctor, have I been tested … maybe not so much for food allergies, but I wanted to know for sure if I had been tested to see if I had any gluten issues. My doctors would always say “Yeah, you’ve been tested.” Well, no one would ever tell me that prior to. I’ve had blood tests done that would come back showing normal in the medical world. I don’t have celiac but I’m close to celiac, so I’ve got this intolerance to gluten that without working with Dr Murphree I would have never known, because no one did the correct testing. That was the very first thing that I picked up on when working with him and after having my first visit with him was, he described to me the type of testing. It was not anything I’d ever had done before, so I was very excited about doing that testing because I wanted to know. I always had this hunch that I had a gluten issue, and Dr Murphree was able to confirm that. It’s been almost a year now since I started working with him. I remember when that test came back and he called me to give me my results, I had my appointment and I literally broke down when he told me “You’ve got gluten intolerance.”  It was a hunch, it was something I kind of thought but to have it confirmed, it just answered years and years of issues that I’ve had. I was emotional about it but I was also frustrated about it because I thought, had a doctor tested me correctly for this, all these years I’ve gone with all this pain and all these issues, that I could have just taken one thing out of my diet. That one thing is a pretty big thing because gluten is in everything. I’ve learned a lot through this program in foods. Definitely I’ve done the Shape Reclaimed diet. I’m currently working my way into maintenance, and then I will be starting over again in January with Dr Murphree on the diet side of it because I’ve got a little bit more weight to lose. That diet has really changed our lifestyle for sure. My husband has done the diet with me as well and we’ve both lost. We’ve gotten healthier through that, but what you learn through it … doctors don’t teach you that stuff. They just don’t, they don’t bring it up. They’ll just say that you need to lose weight but they don’t really tell you a good way to do it. I’ve learned that I have the gluten issue. I’ve been off gluten for almost a year. That alone not only has made my stomach feel well and better, but as Dr Murphree has explained, the inflammation that you lose through doing the diet helps not only with your fibro pains, aches and different things but the gluten alone for me because it’s something that I’m pretty much allergic to, is kind of what was causing my fibro in the first place, along with some other things. That’s been a huge game-changer in all of this. Dr Murphree has had to work really hard with me on my stomach. That seems to be where I’ve had most of my problems. A year later, I can’t even describe the difference. I feel so much better. I feel like I’ve lost so more weight than I actually have, just because I don’t have the symptoms of the gluten issues just by taking that away from my diet.

Cheryl:                 That’s wonderful that you’ve had all those improvements. I know you mentioned one thing that really struck you was that it was a different type of lab. One question we get a lot from folks that are thinking about maybe doing the program is, how does this work? It’s phone consults, how does he do lab work, how does he get these tests ordered? If you could talk a little bit about what it was like doing phone consults with him and what was different about working with him, than it is working with other doctors?

Melyssa:              I remember when I was investigating him and the clinic there, at one point I thought you see this stuff on Facebook and you’re thinking is this real? Is this just some scam? I’m very skeptical, probably like most people. I just decided one day to call the clinic and I ended up talking to Juno for quite a while. By the time I was done talking to her, she had me at ease but yet had me so excited about wanting to do something different and really wanting to try this. I was a little nervous. I remember I set up my consult, I was nervous to talk to him. I thought this is really different to be talking to someone all the way across the US, a doctor … but I felt like it was helpful because I had watched a lot of his videos on YouTube and on the website. I knew what he looked like and it was really neat to get that first phone call and hear that voice that I’d been actually hearing and listening to online. I knew right away. He introduced himself and I had a great first visit with him. I was excited to get going. I wanted to be one of those people like I am today that’s giving my testimonial about how well this worked, because I kept thinking I wonder if this could be good for me. I wonder if I can get here. I was excited about the testing. We talked. He told me exactly after visiting with him what he thought I needed and what we needed to do. I actually looked forward to visiting with him. I started off visiting with him about once a week. Then as I started getting better, it was every couple of weeks or every 3 weeks. Visiting with him always reassures me that I’m not doing it by myself … Having that coach there. If I ever had a question or had a flare up or had something, the clinic is easily accessible to make a phone call, to email him or whatever it is and someone gets back to you. That was always very helpful to me that he cares enough to take the time to say “One of my patients is not feeling well. This is what’s going on. Let’s talk to him.” I remember one time I had a pretty good flare up with my stomach; it was just a month or two into the program. I think I’d emailed him and instead of him emailing me back, he just called me. I had no appointment, he just called me and I was so blown away at that. I thought he’s taking the time. He’s got appointments all day long and he took the time to stop and call me and say “What’s going on? Now let’s try this” and it worked. What he said to do worked. He coached me through that. That’s different than working with doctors in the conventional world. You’ve got to make an appointment to see these people. Sometimes you’ve got to wait 3-4 weeks, maybe even a couple of months if they’re a specialist. To have Dr Murphree right there or if he’s not there, having any of you ladies there that can kind of be the middlemen to ask or be helpful has been the hugest blessing. My experience working with him has totally changed my life. I keep telling my family one of these days I want to make the trip to Alabama to actually meet him in person, all of you actually …

Cheryl:                 We’d love to meet you in person.

Melyssa:              Definitely, it’s one of my goals.

Cheryl:                It’s always been so wonderful talking to you on the phone. I’m so glad to hear that we’ve been accessible to you because that’s very critical to all of us here. I know especially when you have fibro, it can affect your mood and just having one bad day can set off that domino effect. We want to make sure that we’re able to get right back to you as soon as possible and get you feeling better.

Melyssa:              Yeah, it’s been great. You’ve done that every time and that’s my experience. My mom actually has fibro and she worked with Dr Murphree also, and her experience is the same. It’s a blessing, it really is.

Cheryl:                 Yeah, I did want to ask you about that. One thing that some folks don’t realize is your family is like a jigsaw puzzle. It’s all one big picture. If that one piece that’s you is out of shape or going wrong, then it affects that whole picture. Fibro can affect the people around you. One side effect we see with some of our patients is that it improves their family’s lives as well as they start to feel better, but you had more of a direct effect. You said how it affected your family … it affected your husband and your mom. If you could tell us a little more about the overall benefits in your life around you, that would be wonderful to hear some more about.

Melyssa:              Yeah, my mom does have fibro. She watched me for the first several months go through this, and I kept telling her you’ve got to do this. It’ll help you too. She’s doing fabulous working with him and getting so much better. For me, how it related to my actual home with my husband and my kids … I don’t know that my kids really picked up on it as much. My kids are older so they’re not as needy. I think they realized and could see when I didn’t feel well and when I was down, but with my husband he definitely could tell a difference. There were some things that led up to before I worked with Dr Murphree, there were several issues that had come up. I had brain fog before working with him. I’d get dizzy and have issues that way as well. I actually got in a car accident … At that time, not really feeling like I’d done anything wrong. It was one of those situations where you’re like, how did that happen? Now looking back on it and remembering not feeling well that day, I had extreme brain fog and it resulted in a car accident that I had caused just because I wasn’t really there. I was there but I wasn’t. Those things directly affected my home life. Like I said, we run a business and I’m the books person. I was slacking on my end a little bit, so he could tell that I wasn’t at my 100% like I always had been. That was one of the main things. I investigated Dr Murphree for over a month before I even brought it up to my husband that I’d found something, maybe we should try this. When I finally had enough information about what I thought I knew, I approached him about it and said “Look, I don’t know what else I can do. This sounds good. I can relate to this and it makes sense. I feel like if I don’t try this route, I’m really shooting myself.” I already had decided I wasn’t going to go back on an antidepressant. I wasn’t going to go back on anything. I was so annoyed by the fact that that whole situation had happened to me. After listening to all the testimonials and different things about how he talks about these different medications not being helpful, I thought I had no other way. If I don’t try this, then what else do I try? My husband was very open to it but along the way, he did the diet with me as well. It’s improved him in his health. He’s lost 70 pounds working with Dr Murphree on this program.

Cheryl:                 That’s amazing. You have to feel so much better losing all that weight.

Melyssa:              His energy is so much better. He knows he’s getting healthy. It was nice to be able to do it with him, and that was something I appreciated that he jumped on that bandwagon. He knew he needed to lose weight, but he really was doing it not only to lose weight but to help me. He knew it would be easier to cook for both of us that way than just me. I was very thankful that he was open enough to be right there beside me, as I went through the program and then do the diet as well. That’s been a huge part for him that it’s been helpful for him.

Cheryl:                 Melyssa, I’m so glad and thank you so much for sharing your story. We’re all really proud of you here at the clinic because we know you’ve worked really hard. Your mom worked really hard and your husband has been such a great support for you. You’ve had such a great, positive, proactive attitude and we love seeing all these great results, and seeing your happy pictures. That’s been wonderful and we’re really proud of you. Before we go, is there anything else you’d like to share with the audience … Maybe some who are listening to this for the first time and they’re trying to decide, is this the right plan for me?

Melyssa:              I would just say a lot of the stories you hear of people that are just at their wits’ end, don’t really know what direction to go, it’s worth every second that you spend working with him. He is a fabulous doctor. I’ve never ever had a doctor like him. It’s worth the time and the effort, even if you decide not to work with him personally but follow his protocols through his book. It’s all worth it. Even if you don’t know a lot about him, it’s worth your time to investigate him and what he offers because his theories work. He’s helping a lot of people and it’s in a natural, healthy way. It’ll change your life so it’s definitely worth checking him out. He’s a great man.

Cheryl:                 Thank you so much Melyssa. I really enjoyed talking to you today.

Melyssa:              Me too.

Cheryl:                 Thanks. We will say goodbye for now and look forward to this being posted on the page soon. I’ll let you know.

Melyssa:              Sounds good, thanks Cheryl.

Cheryl:                 Thank you Melyssa.

These patients and hundreds of others who’ve worked personally with me have in fact beaten their fibromyalgia. You can read or listen to their stories by clicking the link below: