Eve Paraschuk, MSW, RSW

How Did I Become The CIRS Therapist?
My clients don’t need to try to convince me that CIRS is real.
They don’t have to waste precious energy trying to explain their symptoms in hopes I’ll believe them. I believe them. I have it too. I know what it’s like to have lived experience of feeling unsafe in the world and in my body.
I also know CIRS is something you can heal from because I am doing it.
I have lived experience of receiving support from a village of skilled clinicians and practitioners, and learned to resource myself in a way that often allows my nervous system to feel safe.

How did I become The CIRS Therapist?
I didn’t even know what CIRS was until 2023. It was through meeting my now-fiance Mark Volmer that I learned what it was. My first question to Mark was “is CIRS even real?” As we know, CIRS is real and there is scientific literature to support it.
I had intended to build a trauma therapy practice at Flourish Clinic after graduating from a Master of Social Work, and they needed a CIRS-literate therapist to cover a maternity leave.
While I was learning about CIRS in the Shoemaker Proficiency Partner training, too many of the symptoms sounded familiar for me to ignore them. I started to wonder if I had it.
I did receive a CIRS diagnosis and am on the last stage of the Shoemaker Protocol at the time of writing this. In some ways I feel fortunate to have experienced this journey because it puts me in a position to help others. Sometimes the only way to make meaning out of a difficult experience is to be a light for others who are still in the dark.

I have struggled with my body for as long as I can remember.
Like many of you, I experienced multiple years of mysterious and debilitating health symptoms (primarily fatigue, sleep issues and anxiety). I attempted to self-manage symptoms and threw metaphorical spaghetti at the wall with doctors, naturopaths, supplements and diets. Nothing ever really worked.

Looking back, I was an anxious child and riddled with perfectionism. I recall obsessively scratching at my head as a young child which drove my mother crazy. I also struggled with binge eating from a young age and was bullied for being overweight in elementary school. I feel like my food satiety signals have always been “broken”. This probably deserves its own article.

I became severely depressed as a teenager with chronic and unpredictable anxiety. I was medicated as a teen with SSRI’s twice, with negative effects. I spent many years trying to work on my mental health after obtaining my first bachelor’s degree. I kept trying to eliminate carbs and heavily strength-train.

I began working with a brilliant somatic therapist in 2015; we took the approach that my issues were related to attachment disruptions and complex relational trauma. CIRS does have deep connections to trauma, in the sense that the organism itself is responding to external threat.

I worked on the trauma angle for years and found some relief by learning to feel the sensations of anxiety in my body, attend to my dysregulated infant parts, provide comfort to myself as a safe adult, and by building secure attachment relationships in my life. I went to many wellness retreats including two weeks in the jungles of Peru during this time but nothing seemed to “fix” the anxiety.

I got into nursing school in 2015 and was drinking heroic amounts of caffeine in order to complete my studies, do hospital rotations, work as a research assistant in the university nursing faculty and strength training for competitive powerlifting. I got STRONG, but at the expense of my nervous system.

Some of you may know the feeling of “tired-but-wired”, especially when trying to manage the fatigue of CIRS, run a household, work a job, and just generally live life with enough spoons.

I would often feel “physiological anxiety”, in my body, creating thought loops that something “must be wrong”. I would often notice my heart racing or feel the “impending doom” or general dysphoria upon waking which was unpredictable.

Anxiety is one of the most challenging symptoms many of my clients face. It’s made more difficult when there isn’t a discernable trigger for the anxiety. Recognizing environmental exposure as a cause of my anxiety was an incredible relief. It meant I wasn’t inherently “broken”, but that my body was responding to an external stimulus as a danger signal. In CIRS, anxiety makes sense.

After starting working as a registered nurse in earnest in a hospice and a hospital, my hair began shedding. I struggled with falling asleep and staying asleep. I was up all night using the washroom and would have extreme fatigue after my nursing shifts were done. Some days I’d need multiple days in my bed to recover after a set of work. I thought I was just burnt out from
work, not understanding that the units I was nursing on and the home I was renting were likely both exposing me to mold and/or biotoxins. I worked extensively with a naturopath who was kind and attuned, and we worked on lowering cortisol and sleep and some hormonal balance.

CIRS was not presented to me at this time.

Most medical professionals have never heard of CIRS.
My experience was one of being passed around between primary care (ADHD/generalized anxiety/thyroid issues), dermatologists (“you have PCOS”), endocrinology (no pathology noted).

Chronic inflammation as a result of innate immune system disruption from environmental causes was never even considered, and somehow I felt like it was my fault for “not trying hard enough.”

If you have been searching for answers, you’re not alone.
I nursed through through the COVID-19 pandemic. At this time I was working in Vancouver with veterans and first responders, and became fascinated with trauma. Most people I worked with had some form of trauma, and I wanted to know how to support individuals beyond trying to get them to use cognitive behavioral therapy. I knew on an intuitive level that you can’t out-think
biology. The pandemic feels like “lost time” where our collective memory of what occurred is hazy and muted. I lost a friend to suicide at the end of the pandemic and the shock and grief prompted me to start looking for new tools to take care of my health.

Your mileage may vary here, and deciding to go on or off medication is something to be discussed with your medical practitioner.

I made the decision to be medicated with a GLP-1, and found the effects on satiety to be remarkable. Some folks with CIRS really struggle with being able to eat enough but I am the exact opposite. My cells always feel like they are starving and I always feel hungry unless I am stuffed. GLP-1’s were a gamechanger for me.

Some folks can simmer a long time with CIRS without fully crashing.
It is my belief that I was limping along for many years and “functioning” at 60-70% capacity until I fully crashed during the end of my Master of Social Work Program while still working as a nurse. This was a period of immense stress for me. I felt worse and worse at my nursing job.

The site was a converted residential house and had multiple leaks while I was working there. I suffered from extreme fatigue, difficulty sleeping, and constant anxiety while at work. I noticed panic come over me one morning while I was sitting in the staff office even though there was nothing happening.

I took a somatic therapy training from Sharon Stanley on Saltspring Island right after graduation, and was barely able to keep my eyes open. The training site was likely water-damaged, exacerbating my fatigue.

THIS was the point where I requested the GENIE test. I could no longer ignore my symptoms.

CIRS practitioner Jane Prescot, Mark’s colleague at Flourish Clinic, helped me interpret my GENIE. It was clear I had a diagnosis of CIRS.

Reactions to a diagnosis are rarely one thing.

I felt both extreme relief and grief at the diagnosis. You might also have felt something similar; happy to have answers but also coming to terms around having a chronic illness. I began CIRS treatment during the summer of 2024. I remember crying in bed because my fatigue levels hit a new high after starting mycobind (binder). I was worried I would never feel better again. My brain fog and word recall was also compromised which caused feelings of frustration and incompetence. My practitioner assured me it would get better but I needed to be patient.

This is not uncommon with people just starting treatment. You may feel worse before you feel better. The trick is to keep going and ask for help and support at this stage.

Treatment usually takes between 12-18 months and mine has been on the longer end due to exposure at various work settings in public healthcare and an extremely stubborn case of MARCoNS (multiple-antibiotic-resistant-coagulaze-negative-staph bacteria) in my nasal passages. I suspect this is due to exposure as a nurse to various pathogens at different times in my career but this is certainly not common in everyone.

I’ll be honest: I was also really bad at avoiding water damaged buildings. I was never so sick that I couldn’t work, so I kept pushing myself until I crashed again the following year. Eventually I “got the message” and really started limiting my exposure.

It has been a long and challenging journey for me but I finally feel that I am on the other side of the worst part of CIRS.

I still get exposed to mold or other things now and again, and feel worse for a time, but now at least I know what’s causing my symptoms and have the tools to manage it. I am able to notice my racing thoughts or fatigue as exposure and I don’t automatically blame myself or see my body as being deficient. I have hope around participating in a fulfilling life.

If you are still with me, I appreciate your willingness to hear my story. What I have learned as a clinician treating CIRS is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach, and that each story is as unique as the human sharing it.

I love weaving nervous system regulation, education, caring, medical experience, and co-regulation into my work.

I have the great privilege and honour of walking beside folks as they learn to trust that our clinic will be with them every step of the way. I love how this has given my own illness journey meaning and hope to be able to help each and every person see hope for themselves.