Teri’s Story
My career as a healer was born of a failed music career. In my 20’s I played a big ol’ Gretsch guitar in rockabilly, surfabilly and punkabilly bands all over Los Angeles and San Francisco. I got to rub elbows onstage with some of my biggest childhood heroes. Since I was 9, I lived and breathed music. Unfortunately, as I was living my dream playing in clubs 4 nights a week, I was also living and breathing secondhand smoke. A LOT of secondhand smoke. So much secondhand smoke, its remnants showed up in a blood test I took 25 years later.
I don’t know what it’s like today, but then musicians were not jocks. Musicians aspired to be Iggy Pop skinny and pasty. And you most certainly did not wear sneakers onstage…ever. You were a vampire that would leave the house at 11 at night and crawl into bed at 4 or 5. And forget about food. While none of us were huge drinkers, we would emerge after a full day in the studio and head to KFC for a bag of biscuits. Or stop after the gig at 7-Eleven for a frozen Stouffer’s Mac’n’Cheese and a bag of Doritos.
It’s amazing we’re still alive. Because we were a sickly bunch. There was always a bug circulating and at least one of us would have it. One week it was the singer. She’d pass it on to the bassist, who’d pass it on to the drummer. And me? I always had it. With the garbage we were eating, I had zero immune defense. As a young child, I’d been plagued with a lot of respiratory infections and it seemed that they were coming back to get me.
I went to the doctor and was misdiagnosed repeatedly with chronic bronchitis. This inflamed my airways and caused what they diagnosed as an asthmatic cough. That cough would devolve into wrenching coughing fits caused by the prescribed inhaler. I have since come to understand that these were really three separate coughs—one that came with the infection, one that caused bronchiole spasms, and one that irritated airways exacerbated by the prescribed treatment. The only way to knock out that third wrenching cough would be to take prednisone, which is like speed. I would go for weeks without sleeping.
“I tell this story in the hopes that it will encourage those of you who may be suffering from a chronic condition. It’s not something you have to live with the rest of your life. There is a way. And I can help you find it.”
With each bout of “bronchitis”—or each infection—I’d get a round of antibiotics which only further wiped out my immune system and would start the cycle all over again. The cycles were coming closer and closer together as my immune system spiraled downward. It went on like this for years. I was never going to make it to 30. I wudn’t gonna make it. Then one day I was in Dwight Yoakam’s studio listening to my friend Rosie cut demos. I wheezed from 4 in the afternoon until 6 in the morning. Rosie looked at me and said, “You don’t sound too good. You should try changing your diet.” Huh. That’s an idea no one had yet proposed. Hell, the docs were not helping me and I wasn’t gonna make it to 30 anyway, so why not?
The next day on her way to the airport, Rosie stopped by and dropped off some nutrition books. They were not anything radical. One on candida and the other an overview of general nutrition. I read them, hobbled out to the store, and followed their recommendations. After about 3 weeks, I felt pretty good. After three months, I was a new person. I went the next 3 years without even a cold! My band had just gone through a very dramatic rise and fall—a very LA story—and I knew it was time to pack it in and go back to school to get my Masters in Nutritional Science.
And thus began a journey that continues today. This is why I keep a guitar in my office—a reminder of where this all began. I have had to modify my approach over the years and I’m sure I will be tinkering with it until my very last day, but this path saved my life. I have not puffed on an inhaler since. I have not taken any prednisone. I haven’t had a cold or the flu in 5 years. In my 30’s I went on to have a second career as a martial arts instructor and author and graced the cover of Black Belt Magazine—something that would have been unfathomable in my 20’s especially since back then I was sure I was going to die. I tell this story in the hopes that it will encourage those of you who may be suffering from a chronic condition. It’s not something you have to live with the rest of your life. There is a way. And I can help you find it.
Credentials
Teri Tom is a registered dietitian specializing in sports nutrition. Her clientele has included boxing champs Manny Pacquiao, Mikey Garcia, and Amir Khan, UFC champion Andrei Arlovski, the WTA’s Victoria Azarenka, and the NBA’s Byron Scott, Andrew Bynum, and Ronny Turiaf.
Tom graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from UCLA, holds a master’s degree in nutritional science from California State University Los Angeles, and completed her clinical dietetic rotations at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She also holds a personal training certification from the National Academy of Sports Medicine and is a functional medicine practitioner under the Institutes of Functional Medicine.
She has published three books through Tuttle Publishing--The Straight Lead, Jeet Kune Do: The Arsenal of Self-Expression, and Martial Arts Nutrition--and has appeared on the cover of Black Belt Magazine and in the documentary I Am Bruce Lee.
In The Media
Teri Tom appeared on the cover of Black Belt Magazine in 2006 and in the documentary I am Bruce Lee.
