My Kangen Journey

I was introduced to Kangen Water after I got home from a 4-day hospital stay at the end of October 2012.

Brad and I decided to start trying for a family in June of 2011, and we learned pretty quickly that it was going to take a little more than trying to get our blessing, so I visited a fertility specialist in August of 2012, a little over a year after we first started trying.  While at our first appointment, our doctor let me know I’d need to repeat the surgery I first had in July of 2007, followed with quite a bit of medication and a set of Lupron injections.

I had the surgery in September of 2012, and at my follow-up appointment, I was quickly prescribed about 3200 mg of various medications.  All of those medications, along with a doctor prescribed change in my diet, led to my trip to the ER, which you can read more about here.  The final diagnosis: ACIDOSIS, meaning my body was dangerously acidic.

It was definitely a difficult and frustrating week, and it left me feeling hopeless and scared.  Not only did I feel like I was back at square one regarding my desire to have a baby, but I NEVER EVER EVER wanted to feel that way again.  I told Brad several times on the day we went to the ER that I felt like I was dying.  I felt silly saying that at the time until we realized just how serious things were and how sick I really was.

We hadn’t been home too long when I got a call from my high school youth minister, Jimmy Reynolds.  He introduced me to some very simple facts about WATER, and then asked me a question.  Seven very simple words changed my life forever: Would you like to try the water?  As I mentioned earlier, I was desperate to NEVER get that sick again, so I was willing to try anything.

Part of my prescribed fertility treatment was to take care of myself and try to get as healthy as possible – the healthier I was, the "easier" it would be to conceive.  Not to mention I had endometriosis on my bladder, which caused CONTINUAL bladder infections (so severe I would end up vomiting for days at a time and miss countless hours, sometimes days of work).  Needless to say, I had already cut out caffeine, and I eventually decided to cut out everything but water.  I was drinking between 3 and 5 bottles of Dasani water a day, so I was pretty shocked when the kidney specialist told us just how dehydrated I was…enough to need 5 bags of IV fluids over the course of 3 days, which I was told is just about the entire amount of fluids my body requires to function.

Did you know that the bottled water you religiously drink, thinking you are hydrating and helping yourself is actually ACIDIC?  It doesn’t even qualify to go through city pipes, and if it did, they’d be rusted and ruined! On the scale of acidity, 14.0 being alkaline, bottled water is 2.5.  TWO POINT FIVE.  If you’ll take a look at a pH scale, you’ll quickly see that level promotes sickness and disease in your body.  

After talking with Jimmy about the various types of water people drink today, I quickly learned just how wrong I had been about what I thought was a healthy habit to have.  Each of those bottles had directly contributed to the acidic state of my body and were leading causes of my severe dehydration.  I was able to have a loaner machine in my apartment for 30 days, thanks to Ty Musser, my middle school youth minister. He was extremely helpful in our introduction to Kangen water.  He came and installed the loaner machine and talked with us for a good 2 hours, answering all of our questions and telling us some of the stories from things he had seen.

Brad and I agreed we would do anything possible to keep from going back to that state again, so we purchased our machine in January of 2013 after getting settled in to our new home and finishing up with the holidays.

I had high hopes that the water would keep me out of the hospital and, more importantly, keep my hydrated (which it has done both), but I had no idea all of the other ways it was going to help me.

One of the wonderful side effects of the endometriosis I have is IBS, and I have a pretty severe case of it.  I had my FIRST (and yes, there have been multiple) colonoscopy when I was 17.  Each test (colonoscopy, scopes, gallbladder tests, cat scans, endless blood work, etc.) has come back with the same results: inconclusive.  And each doctor left me with the same outcome: no answers, no suggestions, and NO relief. (I received my first OFFICIAL diagnosis of Endometriosis at 21 and IBS at 27…I went to my first doctor appointment for severe stomach pains at the age of 16.)

It is this area of my life and health that has seen the MOST improvement, and this alone was worth purchasing the machine for me: I went from having diarrhea between 5 and 7 times a day, EVERY. SINGLE. day of the week (and no, I am not exaggerating for added effect), to not having it AT ALL.  (If you are praising Jesus right now, SO AM I!)... I realize this might be a little TMI, but it's also TTT (totally the truth) and part of my story, and I hope that I can share the waters with other people that have a similar story.

I have been able to see other improvements from the water as well, including added energy, no soda withdrawals (I now CRAVE water), no headaches (these were actually starting to become a weekly occurrence as well), but I am even more excited to see what’s to come.  I hope to learn ways to manage (or even eliminate) my endometriosis pain and the side effects of PCOS.  I know this isn’t the end of my Kangen testimony.  I am hopefully that someday I will be able to add a chapter about beating infertility. I’ll keep you posted on that one! ;)