From crippling OCD to thriving family man, optometrist and health/fitness specialist

I have been able to manage crippling OCD that started noticeably at age 19. I would say the majority of intrusive thoughts that are listed when looking up OCD I have experienced at one time or another. I essentially suffered in silence from age 19-27 before it was diagnosed. Unfortunately during the span of strong symptoms and not knowing what was going on with me until diagnosis, I was in the midst of getting my Associate’s degree, Bachelor’s degree, and finally Doctor of Optometry degree. Fast forward to age 42 I have a wife, 8 year old daughter, 5 year old son, 4 year old Bernedoodle, and a rewarding optometry career. 

The goal of this “About Me” page is supposed to let you know who I really am. There are a lot of about me pages that strictly talk about the person’s successes. Successes are definitely important to talk about, but there is much more to my story filled with ups and downs including what guided me to another passion for health and fitness.

Happy Childhood and Teen Years

I grew up in a loving household with my mom, dad, and younger brother. My brother and I were lucky we had parents that would do anything for us and were active in our lives. I was a well rounded athletic and musical child growing up playing soccer, basketball, and football. My mom taught me piano and I started in 5th grade playing the baritone. I also happened to be physically healthy as a child which was a blessing.

I can’t remember my exact age (less than 10), but we were involved in a hit and run car accident where the back car door was hit and I happened to be sleeping against that door. I did not have any noticeable injuries and everyone was physically fine. However, years later I would think about this event.

I continued excelling in sports in grade school and actually won 2nd place for the state of Illinois in a free throw contest in the 10-11 year old division. When I hit junior high (its called middle school now), I still considered myself athletic, but my peers were growing faster than I was. This definitely affected success in sports which probably affected me at the time, but looking back I still had fun!

In high school due to the late growth spurt, I focused more on soccer and was good (not great) gaining honorable mention in my senior year.

Mental Health Struggles

When I was 19 and in my 2nd year of community college, I unknowingly started to seriously struggle with OCD. The type of OCD I was struggling with I found out years later was Pure-O. This involved intrusive thoughts that went against the type of person I was, and then finding ways to mentally get rid of them (mental compulsions). As far as I remember I didn’t have any of the visible physical compulsions that people attribute with OCD (ex: flicking light switches, washing hands excessively, etc.). Everything that was happening with me was in my mind. As I said at the beginning, if you look up themes that are typically involved with OCD, I I had the majority of them at one time or another. This went on through college getting my undergraduate degree and continuing through my optometry school training. Looking back now at 42 I am proud of myself that I was able to make it through all of my schooling with everything my mind was dealing with. It wasn’t until my first job as an optometrist that I had a crisis moment and that is when I was specifically diagnosed with OCD/anxiety. Prior to that I didn’t really know what was going on with my mind.

Post Diagnosis

During all of this my activity level waxed and waned throughout. I always tried to be active, but there was definitely some exhaustion involved that inhibited me from doing what I wanted. I was being medically treated and some therapy was involved as well. Over the years I was able to ween off much of the medication and am currently on a minimal dose. In 2016 I started going down different avenues of health (exercise, nutrition, etc.). Some of that was because I figured there had to have been a “root cause” to my illness. At that time gut health wasn’t as talked about as it is now, but I did find a doctor (Zach Bush) that was talking about the role of glyphosate (main ingredient in round up) in affecting everyone’s gut microbiome. I decided at that time to try a gluten free diet and as much organic produce, meat, spices that I could. I didn’t really give it a great try, because it caused significant constipation. I probably was not drinking as much water as I should have.

My Dad’s Death

In March of 2018 my dad passed away from complications from exposure to Agent Orange from his time in Vietnam. He had been struggling for a while, we knew the cause and that there was not a whole lot we could control. As I’ve described, I was paying attention to my health and fitness prior to my dad passing, but when he actually passed a switch flipped in me. Part of it was the research I had done on Agent Orange possibly altering the DNA of the person affected. This could mean possible problems with offspring. Obviously you can’t live in fear, but you can be proactive in “optimizing” your health. I continued researching gut health, but in early 2019 I went to a local functional medicine doctor and had extensive blood work done. The most glaring result was “free” testosterone. It was lower than the normal range, and the “normal” range is not considered optimal anyway.

Over the next few years I went to 2 functional medicine doctors and tried to optimize my health and fitness the best I could. I believe in 2021 I read a book called “Estrogeneration” by Anthony Jay, Phd. The main point of the book is how toxic of a world we live in, and that there are many ingredients in food, plastics, water, beauty products, etc that bind to estrogen receptors in the body mimicking estrogen itself. In Summer 2022 I decided to have Dr. Jay analyze my DNA. He uses the raw data from 23 and Me and analyzes gut health genes, brain genes, exercise genes, and much more. It turns out I have horrendous gut health genes and should not be consuming gluten and dairy. Knowing this information now makes me wonder how it has affected me over my entire life. The chronic low grade inflammation being caused could have contributed to my mental health struggles, thyroid function, testosterone levels, and much more. 

Starting July 2022 I decided to go gluten and dairy free. Now since I don’t have an actual allergy to gluten or dairy I didn’t do the whole “clean out the cupboards”, because my wife and children are not gluten and dairy free. I am the type of person where if I know something is not good for me I will stop whatever it is. As I’m writing this we are in February 2025, and I haven’t had a piece of pizza or a beer since July 2022. The BIGGEST benefit has been my digestion and bloating.

The last 2 major aspects of my health optimization journey has been addressing sleep apnea and finding a hormone optimization doctor. My wife was key in letting me know she heard me gasp during my sleep. I am not your stereotypical sleep apnea patient, because I am relatively fit and thin. It doesn’t necessarily matter, because I tend to be a mouth breather while sleeping which could be due to my mouth and nasal physiology. Either way I was stopping breathing about 17 times per hour. I am currently using a CPAP machine which is definitely helping my quality of sleep. The other aspect is finding Dr. Keith Nichols with Tier 1 Health and Wellness. He is a well known hormone optimization doctor who has helped me with my testosterone, thyroid, as well as other areas in the hormone space. This brings us to my current time in life as a 42 year old with my wife of 11 years, Missy, my daughter Lexi (8), my son Nathan (5), and our dog Astro. Thank you very much for reading my story, and if it helps even 1 person I’ve succeeded.