About Leanna

 It's quite fitting that Hope Health of Texas was born from a story where hopelessness was all I had experienced for decades.  From infancy I was exposed to mold and also plagued with severe reflux, and by the time I was seven years I was on allergy shots and all kinds of medications for severe allergies. My active teenage years were spent with my eyes often swollen shut and my nose so clogged I rarely could smell.  I was a constant mouth breather. I would get lethargic and be ready to go home when normal teenagers were roaring to keep going. 

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Fast forward to my early twenties, still on allergy shots and issues continuously progressing in the wrong direction, I started having more extreme reactions and had to get steroid shots three to four times a year. I also started experiencing P.O.T.S. for the first time, episodes of passing out. No one knew why or what it was called.  I figured out much later in my adulthood that these episodes had a name. 

I was also having yearly surgeries to remove polyps from the sinus cavities.  My allergist said it was the worst case he had ever seen.

By the time I got to my later twenties there were weeks and months I would be trapped in my house because I was so allergic to the world. If I would try to leave my home, I would have anaphylaxis. This went on and off for the next ten years and progressively got worse. There was even a time when we had to move in with family to help take care of me and the kids so my husband could keep working. 

One day I was sitting in chair at the kitchen table slurring words and unable to hold my head up. My parents drove me to Houston medical center and stayed until we could get in to see someone who could give us a name to my issues or a direction to how to help myself. I found a G.I. Doctor who performed an endoscopy that gave me my first clue as to what is going on; I had Eosinophilic Esophagitis or "EoE". The G.I doc said, “you’re eating or breathing something you’re allergic to.” While it was good to have a starting point and a name of my aliment I did not know where to go from there. At this point my husband and I felt it was best to move to Texas. We spent a lot of our time, resources, and money trying to figuring out what we could do to help me. By this time, I was having to periodically do formula diets to calm the inflammation in my digestive tract. The formula diets were helpful, but did not get to the root of my issues.

The solutions I was offered by traditional medicine were allergy shots starting at age 7 (only to become anaphylaxis to them as an adult), yearly polyp surgeries, steroid pills, steroid slurries, and formula only diets. Before my turning point there was the possibility of a permanent feeding tube. There were several doctors that told me “I don't know what to do with you.” I learned that the last resort for people like me is cancer treatments to “hopefully” kill bad cells so new ones can grow. Luckily I never got that far.

Once I saw where this path was heading I decided that that path was not for me. That is when I found the book Never Bet Against Occam and realized I probably have Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, also referred to as MCAS. A couple of years later, a new MCAS book came out called Mast Cells United and I knew this was my root issue and I had to learn more about what to do to help my body. I kept learning and kept growing. I eventually began educating my doctor about what I was learning, and she worked with me to try new supplements and food plans to help support my body and allow healing to finally begin. Along the way, in a myriad of wrong directions and U-turns I learned about many diseases that are closely related as well.

The healing journey continues for me. Everyday I try my best to make choices that will further propel my body in the right direction, and every year I continue to get better. I have poured the last two decades of my life into deeper knowledge about health and wellness. Eventually, I started receiving texts and phone calls from people that were sick and tired, and needed hope.   

 When I began to realize that I was making a big, positive impact to these people, it drove me back to school to become an Integrative Health Practitioner. I want to offer HOPE that there is a way to healing that works with your body. There is a way to healing that supports your body rather than tear it down. There is HOPE in the journey of chronic illness, and I look forward to helping you and walking that road with you.