“I just feel comfortable in my body again. I’m active, very active with my daughter again.”

– Rachel

Rachel Weyenberg isn’t just an active Hawaii resident. The many roles she plays every day depend on movement:

Massage therapist, yoga instructor, and outdoorsy mom to an active teen.

But when health challenges came on suddenly and worsened quickly, Rachel was forced indoors, unable to work more than a few hours a week, cook, or join in her full life.

“I started to call it the watching-my-plants-die phase of my life because I was so incapacitated,” she says. “I went from a vibrant life to like negative a thousand.”

A Sudden Decline — With No Answers

Rachel’s health challenges started with severe fatigue. Then, she noticed a pain in her back and dark urine that would later be identified as stage 2 kidney failure.

Intense joint pain, particularly in her hands, had her wondering whether she needed to leave her hands-on career behind.

Migraines, once occasional, were now more frequent, lasted 36 hours, and no longer responded to medication.

Also new were brain fog and emotional dysregulation. For the first time, she experienced severe anxiety and depression that took her to dark places.

“The thoughts of ending my life were a real thing, and that’s terrifying from somebody who loves life,” she reflects.

Rachel had always focused on the positive and taken steps to stay healthy, like eating organic, exercising, and meditating. But nothing in her toolkit seemed to pull her out of this downturn.

Diagnosing Reactivated Epstein-Barr Virus

After not getting answers from her conventional doctor, Rachel turned to Traci Potterf, PhD, a functional anxiety detective and founder of Inner Genius Health.

Potterf recommended a variety of tests that went beyond typical conventional lab work, including looking into reactivated Epstein-Barr virus (EBV).

A reactivation of EBV occurs when the virus, which normally lies dormant after an initial infection, becomes active again — sometimes years or decades later. This can lead to a range of systemic symptoms, especially in people with immune or inflammatory conditions.

Rachel saw her doctor for an EBV test, but her doctor wasn’t familiar with testing for and diagnosis of reactivated EBV.

“She didn’t have any idea, bless her heart … I had to coach my doctor how to order this test,” she recalls.

When the EBV test came back, the infectious disease department read it incorrectly, indicating Rachel didn’t have it. When Potterf looked at the ranges, however, Rachel learned she did, in fact, have a reactivated form of the virus.

“[EBV] can hide dormant in cells until stress or immune weakness awakens it, creating persistent mental and physical health symptoms remarkably similar to Long Covid,” Potterf explains. “When testing, have an EBV-literate functional or integrative practitioner advise on the markers to order and interpret the results. Understanding whether the virus is actively causing your symptoms requires a knowledgeable expert who can decode the patterns and help you find the best path forward should you turn up with chronic EBV reactivation.”

Almost everyone will show antibodies from a past infection, which may not mean it’s reactivated, Potterf adds.

Finding EBV helped explain Rachel’s symptoms and sudden decline and gave Rachel a sense of hope that she was on the right track.

Comprehensive digestive testing also uncovered that Rachel wasn’t digesting fats properly, possibly contributing to symptoms such as brain fog, anxiety, depression, and joint pain.

Testing also uncovered intestinal permeability, or leaky gut. With leaky gut, the lining of the small intestine has become damaged or compromised, allowing undigested food particles, toxins, and microbes to “leak” into the bloodstream. This can trigger immune reactions, inflammation, and contribute to a variety of chronic symptoms.

Treating EBV and Healing the Gut

With these insights, Rachel and Dr. Potterf devised a plan:

  • Herbal antivirals targeting EBV
  • Digestive enzymes to help break down her food
  • Diet changes, including removing dairy and gluten, and adding more nourishing foods such as cooked vegetables and bone broth
  • For nervous system support, Rachel practiced yoga nidra, breathwork, and Holosync meditation programs

Within two weeks, she saw a glimmer of hope. She regained some energy and mental clarity and felt the emotional heaviness lifting.

“My spirits were a little bit up and that was so refreshing,” she says. “It was like somebody just threw me a life vest — thank God for the life vest.”

In three to four months, she could join in more activities with her daughter and see clients without needing a full day to recover.

Then, after the one-year mark, her cloudy thinking seemed to clear. A lifelong organizer, Rachel’s renewed ability to plan — from the shopping list to each day — marked a milestone.

“To have my brain come back online and start organizing my life the way that I used to was just fantastic,” she says. “… And now it’s like, I just feel comfortable in my body again. I’m active, very active with my daughter again.”

Mercury Fillings and Mental Health

Healing isn’t always linear, Rachel learned. Aside from EBV, she woke up one day with an extremely sore tooth, which was soon identified as an infection in one of two teeth with mercury fillings.

Following removal of that filling, she noticed a major shift in her mental health.

“One the biggest and most debilitating symptoms was anxiety … that led to severe anxiety, which led to panic attacks,” she says. “After the removal of that filling, there was a dramatic shift in my anxiety and panic attacks. A few months later, I had the other mercury filling removed. With both fillings removed, my anxiety was gone and I was able to navigate the rest of my healing journey with far more clarity and ease.”

“So many of my clients have experienced significant improvements in symptoms like anxiety, ADHD, brain fog, and crushing fatigue by having mercury fillings safely removed using a dental dam and vapor vacuum,” Potterf says. “Then it is crucial to have someone help you gently detoxify the residual mercury from your tissues to get it out at a pace that doesn’t make symptoms worse. People are blown away that removing such tiny specs of metal in their teeth can have such an enormous positive impact on their mental and physical health.”

Rachel’s Return to a Full Life

These days, Rachel has returned to her full, active life — teaching yoga, going to the gym, hiking, cooking, working, and keeping up with her daughter.

The fatigue and joint pain disappeared, as have the anxiety and dark thoughts. She still experiences migraines, but much less often, and finds that medication enables her to function.

“It makes me a little emotional. I was so sick and now I just feel comfortable in my body again,” she says.

For those experiencing EBV reactivation, or any health setback, Rachel suggests turning to functional medicine as a way to uncover root causes faster — a route she wishes she had taken earlier

“I was kind of in this cycle where I thought, ‘I can shake this off…,’” she says. “It kind of prolonged the cycle. You can’t afford not to do this.”

It took time — and patience — to regain her life and Rachel is full of gratitude for it.

“Be patient and don’t get discouraged when things maybe backtrack a little bit, or it’s not going as fast as you want,” she says. “Sometimes the body really just takes time.”

The Steps That Helped

  • Testing for reactivated Epstein-Barr — Functional testing confirmed reactivated Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), providing clarity and direction after initial misinterpretation by the infectious disease department.
  • Addressing digestive health — Comprehensive gut testing revealed fat malabsorption and intestinal permeability, which helped explain symptoms like brain fog, joint pain, and anxiety.
  • Using herbal antivirals — Targeted protocols helped reduce the viral load of EBV.
  • Removing mercury dental fillings — Rachel saw a significant shift in anxiety and panic attacks after safely removing fillings and detoxing from the heavy metal.
  • Supporting digestion — Digestive enzymes were added to improve nutrient absorption and reduce inflammation.
  • Making strategic dietary changes — Rachel eliminated dairy and gluten while emphasizing healing foods like cooked vegetables and bone broth.
  • Calming the nervous system — A consistent practice of yoga nidra, breathwork, and Holosync meditation helped regulate her stress response and improve emotional resilience.