Ok, so i figured this out but have a residual issue. In my blog posts I had a strange character  show up instead of double spaces. After some digging, I learned that commenting out this line
define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8’);
from wp-config.php would solve this. However this solution made me unable to edit published posts (the original problem). I’ve since uncommented out that line and am dealing with the strange Â’s in my blog posts for now. However, I’d love to know if anyone has any suggestions for solving these issues without creating new ones.
Thanks again, hopefully these updates may help someone in the future.
Note: This is only occurring for published posts, not drafts.
Thanks