I haven’t posted in a long time, so I hope you enjoy this post after my long absence.

Sunday night I had a beef and tomato stir fry. Monday morning I woke with a sore belly. When I brushed my teeth I gagged and vomited a little bile. Then by about noon I had 4 bowel movements of diarrhea, largely undigested food.

By late afternoon the pain had localized in the lower-right of my abdomen and increased in intensity. I didn’t have a fever but felt weak and sick and suffered a few bouts of extreme vertigo. I had no appetite. Maybe I had food poisoning. Maybe something in the meal didn’t agree with me. Just in case, I threw out the leftovers and the unused tomatoes. Maybe they were tainted.

I slept poorly that night. Tuesday morning I took a hot bath. I figured it must be my appendix, given the location and symptoms. I visualized me holding my appendix and telling it I loved it and didn’t want to lose it. I surrounded it with white light and faeries who told it how loved it was and cleaned it of any nasty critters meant to do it harm.

I spent most of Tuesday laying around. The pain was pretty intense. While I was watching a movie in the afternoon, I started getting chills. When I checked my temperature, it was 102. I bundled up in my terry cloth bathrobe and got in bed under my comforter. My feet were freezing so I put a heating pad around them and got nice and toasty. I stayed at 102 for several hours, and then my temp dropped to 101 and hovered there for a while. Then down to 99.6.

I had a lot of trouble moving around. Washing the dishes and feeding the cats took some time, because I had to take a break every five minutes to lie down. So a friend came over to help me with some chores.

By the evening I had a headache. But I was clearer mentally than Monday. I thought of going to the hospital, but I had had this same problem before in Oregon about four years ago, and it resolved itself. So I stayed home.

I read that if they operate on you for appendicitis and find a healthy appendix, they’ll take it out since they’re there already. No thanks. I don’t want healthy organs taken out. They say it’s a useless organ. They used to say the world was flat. Just because you don’t know the use of a thing doesn’t mean it’s useless.

I fasted. Well, I didn’t eat solid food. My tongue became completely coated with a whitish-blue film. I had a couple cups of homemade chicken broth on Monday, and my friend brought me a ginger ale on Tuesday, which really helped with the nasty taste in my mouth. And it was oh-so delicious!

Again, my sleep Tuesday night was awful. I awoke several times. But by Wednesday morning the worst of the pain was passing. My abdomen was still incredibly sore. And I was weak. So I continued my fast from solid food and rested.

I’m much better this morning. Still a little weak, but that’s typical for me when I fast. No vertigo. No fever. The pain has halved itself. My abdomen is still tender, but I can move about without pain. I feel pretty darn good, but I’m not ready yet to eat. I’m having a couple cups of homemade beef broth right now.

So the bottom line is that our bodies are amazing in their ability to heal themselves. If I followed medical advice, I would be lying in a hospital bed with a hole in my body, a missing organ, and my intestinal flora destroyed. I also believe that any invasive surgery is a psychic insult to the body and soul, which leaves a lasting emotional/spiritual scar.

Now this doesn’t mean I’m completely out of the woods. This could turn around and worsen, leading to surgery. But I’ll give my body every chance it needs to take care of the problem without allopathic meddling. I’ll continue to fast and rest until my body calls for food. I have no interest in giving up my appendix.

This video is a continuation of the conversation I had (Part 1) with Geoff and Jim about Jim’s spiritual journey through a recent illness.

We discuss out of body experiences, chakras, sobriety, heightened states of love, and other spiritual experiences we’ve all had on our paths.

The day my friend Geoff was leaving for California, he dropped by with his friend Jim who has been having health problems. Jim generously shared his experiences with his spiritual life and how it has affected his health.

We are more than just the body with a thinking brain, and when our spirits or souls are suffering, our bodies can suffer as well, and vice versa. I hope you enjoy this impromptu discussion.

Continue to Part 2.

Does the medical model work? Is it helpful going to the doctor? Can the doctor’s advice improve your health? Here are recent experiences I had where I was invited to join the popular paradigm but declined the invitation.

Gynecologist Recommends Hormone Replacement Therapy

Two years ago I menstruated heavily for a month after not menstruating for two months. I went to see a gynecologist. She performed a pap smear and had my blood tested for vitamin D and anemia. I was deficient in D and anemic. She prescribed 50,000 iU D2, which I took because I didn’t know any better (vitamin D3 is better), and I also sunbathed every day. I ate iron-rich food. I’m very grateful to her for checking my vitamin D, because supplementing made a world of difference, and I do appreciate diagnostic tests.

However, she also suggested I go on hormone replacement therapy to regulate my menstrual cycle. I declined. I believe the hormonal system is a highly regulated, sensitive and precise dance, and if I introduce one hormone I throw off the dance. If I am deficient in any hormone, I must first address it nutritionally and emotionally. If that fails, then I will consider resorting to hormone replacement.

I also trust my body. If it bled for a month, then it needed to bleed for a month. Prior to and during this menstrual cycle I was getting surges of blood in my face, neck and chest along with heat. My whole face would turn beet red. This has not recurred after I shed the blood and improved my nutritional status.

I’m glad I didn’t follow my gynecologist’s advice and take hormones, because from what I’ve read they’ve caused a lot of problems for women. (My menstrual cycle has normalized since supplementing and increasing my protein intake.)

Life in a New Balance © courtesy of Duquesa Mercedes

Doctor Suggests Drug for Benign Positional Vertigo

A few months ago I went to the hospital because I was having several dizzy spells that became quite frightening. The doctor ordered a CAT scan and a blood panel. No tumors, no abnormalities in the blood. The doctor said I had benign positional vertigo (fancy name, eh?), something about a condition where calcium deposits in the inner ear break free and cause imbalance. He said he was going to prescribe a drug for me that I could take every day that would minimize the dizzy spells.

More U.S. adults are taking prescription drugs than ever before, fueling $12 billion in additional spending during 2006 alone. The number of people with at least one prescription increased from 67% to 74% between 2000 and 2006, according to a new Geographic Variation in Prescription Utilization study by pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts. The number of prescriptions per person rose to 14.3 from 10.8 in 2000–a 32 percent jump. — Reuters, February 13, 2008

Drugs mask symptoms. They don’t cure. And I didn’t want to mask my symptoms or “find relief” or take a poison every day. I wanted a cure. There was something wrong with my body, and I needed to do something about it.

This doctor basically ruled out various disorders from his cornucopia of potential diseases and guessed what was wrong with me, expecting me to trust him and take a drug based on that guess for the rest of my life. (And they say people like me giving out free “unqualified” advice are dangerous!)

Well, it turns out that the mochas I was drinking at Starbucks were causing the vertigo. When I cut back, the dizzy spells stopped. If I’d been like most people, I’d still be drinking too many mochas and popping pills every day to avoid dizzy spells.

Nearly 2.7 billion retail prescriptions were dispensed in 1999, amounting to $110 billion in sales.
In 1997, 44 percent of the prescriptions dispensed were refills.
Almost two-thirds of Americans currently use medicines: 49 percent use prescription drugs and 30 percent use nonprescription medications.
Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) may be the fourth-to-sixth leading cause of death. Serious ADRs occur in 6.7 percent of hospitalized patients.
32 million Americans are taking three or more medications daily.
Almost 29 percent of Americans stop taking their medicine before it runs out.
22 percent of Americans take less of the medication than is prescribed on the label.
12 percent of Americans don’t fill their prescription at all.
12 percent of Americans don’t take medication at all after they buy the prescription.
The No.1 problem in treating illness today is patients’ failure to take prescription medications correctly, regardless of patient age.
10 percent of all hospital admissions are the result of patients failing to take prescription medications correctly.
23 percent of all nursing home admissions are due to patients failing to take prescription medications accurately.
At any given time, regardless of age group, up to 59 percent of those on five or more medications are taking them improperly.
The average length of stay in hospitals due to medication noncompliance is 4.2 days.
More than half of all Americans with chronic diseases don’t follow their physician’s medication and lifestyle guidance.
Two-thirds of all Americans fail to take any or all of their prescription medicines. –Statistics You Need to Know, AHA

Doctor Wants to Put Me on Statins

A couple months ago I went to have blood work done so I could check my vitamin D levels and track my cholesterol and triglycerides to compare later after being on a paleolithic diet for several months. My vitamin D was lower than I like, so I have increased my daily intake to 5,000 iU.

My cholesterol came in high at around 260. Despite my telling the hospital that I wanted to deal with my health nutritionally, they wanted to put me on statins to lower my cholesterol. I declined. I’ve been reading about the science behind the lipid hypothesis and find it wanting.

It seems cholesterol isn’t the big problem the doctors say it is. But statins are definitely a problem. I was just looking yesterday at some side effects of statins. No thanks! I’ve also learned that triglycerides are what you need to watch for. As for LDL, there are two types, only one of which is harmful, but the hospitals don’t differentiate between the two or test to determine their composition.

Muscle pain and muscle weakness are two of the main side effects of statin drugs. While muscle pain and muscle weakness sound ordinary enough, due to the manner in which statin side effects can act in the body they are potentially dangerous side effects of statin use. Another is memory loss. Anyone who is taking statin drugs for any reason should be aware of these side effects and their symptoms. The medical establishment recommends that anyone who suspects they are experiencing any of the possible statin side effects consult with their medical professional. –Major Side Effects of Statins

The Wide Path to Destruction

In the past two years I’ve been given the opportunity to take hormone replacements, a drug for vertigo, and statins. If I followed the advice of my doctors, I would now be taking three drugs a day–forever!

These drugs would have allowed me to continue harmful habits without consequences. But I would have been reducing my vitality and creating a host of negative side effects.

Oh, and if I’d been like most people I would have gone to the doctor last year for the pain in my right hip. The doctor would have diagnosed arthritis and prescribed an anti-inflammatory for me. That would total FOUR PRESCRIPTIONS.

And, if the doctors knew of the stress and depression I was struggling under as I lost my business and home, I’m sure an antidepressant would have been in order as well for a total of FIVE PRESCRIPTIONS.

Then there’s the time I slipped on my porch and landed on my back. OUCH! That would have been good for a prescription of muscle relaxers and an anti-inflammatory. I healed just fine on my own, thanks.

Wait, how about my injured Achilles heel that has bothered me for six months but is almost healed. Just a little twinge. I would have gotten a drug for that, no doubt.

All this would have made the pharmaceutical companies very happy and me very sick. I would have been counted among the “typical middle-aged Americans” on multiple pharmaceuticals.

I have not taken a drug in over five years. Not even aspirin. The only thing that concerns me right now is my thyroid. I am taking an iodine supplement and intend to take a thyroid blood panel when I recheck my cholesterol. If I cannot improve my thyroid with nutrition, then I will consider taking a thyroid hormone. But only as a last resort.

None of what I write is to imply that I am immune from disease. I could drop dead of a heart attack tomorrow. I abused my body for years with cigarettes, coffee, alcohol and bad food. But I believe that I will live longer and healthier by managing my own health.

Cutting the Cost of Health Care

If more people were proactive about their health, if they were more knowledgeable about nutrition and addressing cause, if they understood the rudiments of natural hygiene, they would have more confidence in their own ability to manage their health instead of handing it over to the care of a physician or drugging away their discomforts.

Marketing and drug education by pharmaceutical companies drives medical diagnostics. Treatment is typically aimed at symptom suppression via pharmaceutical intervention while the underlying disease process progresses. We are all guinea pigs unless we take charge of our bodies. I can’t stress this enough.

Additional reading:

How Your Paradigms Determine Your Beliefs
The Power of the Mind for Illness and Health
What’s Wrong with Pharmaceuticals

Book recommendations:

Human Life Its Philosophy and Laws by Herbert Shelton
The Great Cholesterol Con by Anthony Colpo
Reclaiming Our Health by John Robbins

Here are some steps you can begin to incorporate into your lifestyle to improve your health and increase your risk of avoiding disease. Now, you don’t have to go hog wild. Take one step at a time until a new habit is created. Then take the next step.

Please bear in mind this is for educational purposes only. I am not a doctor and I do not treat disease. If you are on medications, you should work closely with a qualified health care provider, preferably one who wants to help you get off the meds. Your body is your own and its care is your responsibility.

Eat Whole Foods

Whole foods are those grown by nature. They require no to minimal processing. Examples of whole foods include lettuce, broccoli, blueberries, fish, eggs, a nice, rare sirloin. Example of fractionated (not whole) foods include pickles, macaroni and cheese, pasta, soft drinks. These foods are highly processed and contain chemicals introduced during their preparation. They are not designed with your health in mind, but for maximum profit and long shelf life.

The Stairway © courtesy of pareeerica

Eat Whole Foods Minimally Processed

A rare steak is better than well done. Slightly raw salmon is better than cooked through and flaky. Steamed broccoli is better than broccoli and mayonnaise salad. Raw milk and cheeses are better than pasteurized versions.

Buy Healthy Versions of Your Favorite Food

Do you like beef? Buy pasture-raised. Eggs? Same thing. Go organic if possible. Buy fruit in season, not year round. Choose heirloom vegetables over hybridized. Drink milk? Drink from organic, pasture-raised cows. Learn to make your own cheese. Books abound in food preparation knowledge!

Drink Water

I’m not a fan of drinking 8 glasses of water a day, but I do believe many are chronically dehydrated from consuming water-poor foods and drinking caffeinated beverages. So have a couple glasses. And don’t drink with your meals. It dilutes digestive juices.

Get Some Sunshine

The sun is life to all it touches. Be moderate in your exposure. Don’t overdo it and make up for the excess exposure with sunscreen. Avoid sunscreen whenever possible. But a little sun worship never hurt anybody.

Take a Walk

Walking is very healthy. You can walk slow. You can walk fast. You can even do a little trot. But get moving. If you can walk in nature, so much the better. We came from nature, and we are diminished when separated.

Lift and Carry Heavy Things

Bones are built upon demand. If you don’t place demand on them, the body won’t build strong ones. And I’m sure you’d like to remain strong into your elder years. Heavy lifting involves the whole body. Just don’t overdo it. Pace yourself.

Get Plenty of Sleep

Adequate sleep is absolutely necessary for the human body to regenerate itself. Chronic sleep deprivation is harmful to your immune system. Take naps. If you have noise in your environment, get some white noise CDs of nature sounds. And be sure to ventilate the room you sleep in. You don’t want to be breathing in your own carbon dioxide.

Breathe Deep

Start paying attention to your breathing pattern. Many of us breathe too shallowly. Start taking deep breaths. This increases oxygen in your body and decreases acids through carbon dioxide exhalation.

Make Some Friends

Turn off the TV, get off your butt, and go make some friends. Do things together. Talk. Go for a cup of java. Make love. Laugh together. Cry together. Get involved in the community.

Give Up Grains for a Season

Go without grains for a couple months just to see how your body reacts. You’d be surprised how many people are sensitive to gluten and don’t even know it, wondering why their body aches and they have inflammation. That means no pizza, bread, cookies, cakes, oatmeal, rice. Additionally, grains contain phytates that bind with healthy minerals and prevent their absorption. Our species has been eating grains only 10,000 years, and they’re proving very harmful to our health and our planet.

Give Up Vegetable Oils

Let’s face it, corn oil doesn’t grow on trees. Neither does canola or sunflower oil. Seed oils are omega 6 polyunsaturates, and contrary to corporate interests, excess omega 6 polyunsaturates are not so good for the body. Our ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 is about 20:1, where it should be 1:1. Stick with fruit oils, like olive and coconut. Use animal fats, like lard and butter. That’s what we used before we started dropping dead from heart attacks and cancer. That’s what grandma used, and she had 13 babies and died at 90.

Quit Drinking Sodas and Flavored Waters

Coke is not a food. Mountain Dew is not a food. Gatorade is not a food. Fruit juice is not a food. These are all liquids flavored with high-fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors, and various toxic colorings. And don’t forget the caffeine they put in them to addict you, as if the HFCS wasn’t enough! Same thing goes for coffee. Yes, it’s yummy. But it’s a stimulant that masks your true, exhausted state of health. Wean yourself off and save it for special occasions.

Shun High-Fructose Corn Syrup

HFCS is an ubiquitous ingredient in processed foods. It’s how food manufacturers make overprocessed, tasteless food palatable to the tongue. It spikes blood sugar and carries no nutrient value but the stimulation it provides is addicting. It’s just rotten stuff.

Avoid Boxed, Canned, and Packaged Foods

Again, most whole foods are not found in boxes, cans or bags. Frozen foods are the least damaged of all packaged foods. If you don’t recognize the ingredients on the label, pass. Shop the outer edges of the store.

Aisle of Delight © courtesy of Temporary Transfer

Get Your Vitamin D Levels Tested

We are chronically deficient in vitamin D. I think this supplement is one of the easiest things we can add to our diet that will have major and lasting impact on our good health and mental outlook. And it’s so cheap. Buy vitamin D3 in gelcap form. Current recommendations are 5,000 iU daily until sufficient serum levels are reached, but everyone is different and you should know your serum levels prior to supplementation. Also, make sure you have a source of iodine for your thyroid.

Add a Fish Oil Supplement to Your Diet

Fish oils contain important EPA and DHA omega 3 fatty acids, which are necessary for controlling inflammation. The body can create these fatty acids from the essential omega 3 fatty acid alpha linoleic acid (ALA, such as that found in flax oil), but only poorly, and most people are deficient in ALA anyway. That’s where pasture-raised meat and vegetables come into play. Mankind has often settled around waterways and harvested their bounty.

When Stressed, Breathe!

Stress is a killer. And stress happens when you let your mind run amok. Tame the mind. Control your thoughts. Breathe when you feel your body tense. Remember that last horrible thing you thought you wouldn’t survive, and yet here you are.

Live Simply and Stay out of Debt

Debt is servitude. Freedom from anxiety is better than a boat with a loan payment. A small house with peace of mind is better than a big house with a heartbreaking mortgage.

Find Your Song and Sing It

We all came here for a reason. We all have gifts to contribute. Don’t let poor health and lack of energy keep you from playing your part. Each step you take to improve your health will improve your energy level and mental outlook so that you can pursue your dreams. Me, I’m going to produce a television show.

Recommended reading:

The Real Food Revival by Sherri Brooks Vinton and Ann Clark Espuelas

I was on a discussion board where the question “Is Health Care a Right?” was asked, and someone responded with

Is it a “Right” for our children to have a K/12 education??

Is it a “Right” for the fireman to come when your house is burning down??

Is is a “Right” to have police protection??

Well, I felt a rant coming on, so I thought I’d share it with you. Now, I haven’t been following the news or Obama’s plan or anything. Why bother? I know it will ultimately provide yet more taxation and funnel this money to pharmaceutical companies and corporate interests. That is the function of entrenched government paid for by those interests.

The entire medical model is so deeply flawed and corrupt that nothing can fix it. It must be thrown out and rebuilt, and that’s never going to happen. So you have to take charge of your own health and disconnect from this flawed system.

K/12 education is not a right but a requirement by law. The responsibility for educating our children has been taken away from the parents and given to the state. Breaking free of this system requires a lot of work to comply with the state’s requirements. Most parents, I believe, are just too harried to homeschool their children. A stay-at-home mom can’t be taxed, so women were encouraged to join the workforce.

Corporations ensure children are indoctrinated into our system of compliance, conformity and consumerism. It is no education if at the end you do not know how to balance a checkbook, start a business, negotiate a deal, plant and harvest a food item, or know what constitutes food or how helpful a fever is. If you want a good education, you have to pay for it out of your own pocket.

Otherwise, your taxes pay to create nonthinking drones for the system, hopped up on food additives and high-fructose corn syrup, their cognitive development damaged by excessive media multitasking.

People who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information do not pay attention, control their memory or switch from one job to another as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time, a group of Stanford researchers has found. –Science Daily

Most children will go on to work for someone else, filling their employers’ pockets while they go into debt buying fancy toys to distract them from their emptiness because the song that sings inside them is silenced. Would-be artists settle.

Firemen only protect houses that are accessible and clear of fire debris. They will let houses burn that do not meet minimum requirements. Homeowners are responsible for caring for their property to ensure minimal risk of fire and making sure it is accessible to fire trucks. You don’t care for the property, you lose the home.

Police protect those who obey the laws. Again, there is an agreement that you abide by laws in exchange for their protection paid for by your tax dollars. If you flaunt the law, if you break it and are caught, you are fined or jailed. This money helps pay for the protection of those who obey the laws.

Same should hold true for people’s bodies. People abuse their bodies with poor diet, lack of exercise and sunshine, and too much stress, among other things. They buy cheap food and expensive TVs. They can spend hours in front of the TV but can’t be bothered to read a book on nutrition. Any little discomfort and they run for a drug to suppress it. They consistently work against the body and then expect doctors to fix them all up when the body finally breaks down.

Supersizeme © photo courtesy of Xhanatos

I pay a premium for meat direct from the farmer, but my taxes pay for the grain subsidies so others can eat their cheap meat from the grocery store. I buy organic produce when I can, but my taxes are given as incentives to farmers to grow conventional grain crops that I don’t even eat.

I educate myself on health matters and make changes to address cause instead of merely suppressing symptoms, but my taxes go into a system of Medicare that I don’t use and hope to never use. (I don’t mind helping others; I just don’t want to be taxed into poverty.)

I could go to the VA hospital for statins to lower my cholesterol, but I don’t believe the cholesterol theory of heart disease and choose to purchase my own supplements and eat healthy food to care for my heart. And I try to find and express the song inside me.

I am being taxed to death for services I don’t use and then paying a premium for items I do use.

The whole system is corrupt and designed to benefit the banking industry and corporate interests. Corporations control the government and enact laws to their benefit.

The dietary advice given by those we trust is deeply flawed. Nay, it is deadly and designed to produce customers for the medical and pharmaceutical industries. And most people are just too tired and confused to give a shit.

The low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet that’s been pushed on us since the 1980s isn’t working! Avoiding the sun is folly. Spending half an hour on a treadmill is deadly to the psyche. How boring can enjoying the body be? We’re fatter than ever. Half of us are depressed and on pharmaceuticals.

But we don’t have to be. You have power to change your health and your life and live the dream you desire. It just takes a bit of common sense. You don’t need to read scientific studies to understand the simplicity involved. My next post will discuss some of the things you can do to improve your health.

Additional reading:

The War on Terror Is a Fraud
Shopping Local Farms for Pasture-raised Lamb, Pork, Beef, Poultry and Eggs
Symptom Suppression Does Not Equal Healing or Cure

I’ve made quite a few changes in my diet this year and thought I’d write about the many benefits I’ve experienced in my body.

Changes in Diet

• Eliminate grains, particularly wheat
• Increase meat and fat consumption
• Reduce carbohydrate consumption
• No vegetable oils. Use olive oil, butter and coconut oil for cooking
• Reduce fruit consumption

Changes in My Body

The biggest change is that a longstanding pain in my right hip that I thought might be arthritis is gone. It began in Oregon about a year and a half ago and became very painful this past winter.

I use to have trouble walking after being off my feet for a while. Every morning I would have to move slowly because my ankles were sore and stiff. Same thing if I’d been sitting for awhile. Now I bound out of bed or my chair without any soreness at all.

It’s an odd thing about chronic pain. You come to live with it and sometimes don’t even notice that it’s gone until a memory of pain surfaces. I’d completely forgotten that I used to hobble. A friend of mine who has also removed grain from his diet and increased his meat and fat consumption told me he noticed the same thing with his ankles.

My hair and fingernails are growing faster and stronger.

My concentration and recall have improved.

Low back pain has lessened considerably. I can walk longer and farther without experiencing any back pain whereas before my low back would get very tight and ache.

My back also hurts less in the morning upon waking but the pain and tightness are not completely gone yet. Perhaps a dairy intolerance? Definitely an inflammatory process, and I will get to the bottom of it. Pain is a message that should be heeded, not drugged away.

I can also walk long distances without foot pain, but I think that has more to do with ditching my tennis shoes and wearing very flexible shoes with minimal padding. I’ve changed how I walk and land on my feet. This is a post for another day.

When I went to the VA hospital in Roseburg in July 2007, I weighed 194 pounds and was considered obese. I had quit smoking the year before and packed on a lot of weight.

I had a heavy period that lasted a month leaving me anemic, which is why I went to the VA. I found out I was also deficient in vitamin D, which explained my falling into walls. I refused to diet and just tried to make better food choices. I now weigh 157 pounds (13 pounds lost since moving to Erie last November) and have 20 pounds to go.

I’ve begun to desire and enjoy more physical activity. My body is getting stronger and more flexible.

I am indeed growing younger.

The Camera Doesn’t Lie

I’ll tell you one thing. When I was young and went from 138 to 155, I felt like a fat slug and hated my body. And when in middle age I went from 155 to 194, I felt demoralized, gross and over the hill. But now that this same body has reduced from 194 to 155, I feel sexy and healthy.

I just pulled a picture into Photoshop that someone took of me last week in a bathing suit intending to post it. The mirror may lie, but the camera doesn’t. Damn, those are big thighs! So I ain’t postin’ no picture of me in a bathing suit. When I get to my desired weight of 138, I’ll post befores and afters. You won’t believe them.

Supplements Recently Added

• 5,000 iU vitamin D every day
• 1/2 teaspoon fermented high vitamin butter/cod liver oil
• Seaweed with iodine

Last time I had my serum vitamin D tested was May 2009, and it was 35.5 ng/mL. This is a vast improvement since July 2007 where it was 13.1 ng/mL, which is very deficient. I’d like to get my D levels up to at least 70 ng/mL.

I’ve added the butter/cod liver oil for the EPA and DHA fatty acids and vitamins A, D and K.

I only recently learned that iodine deficiency is common among those avoiding salt or switching to celtic sea salt, since it is not supplemented with iodine. I think this has a lot to do with my previous weight gain, course hair, lethargy, and various symptoms of low thyroid. The thyroid needs iodine to function.

I’ll report on what these supplements have done for me in a couple months. Right now I’m very excited about the improvements I’ve noticed and look forward to increasingly better health, vibrancy, and cognitiion.

Smoking is hazardous to your health, and anything that can help you quit seems welcome. But sometimes the price is too high. All drugs are poisons, and as such they carry side effects, which is a euphemism for physiological responses to toxins.

The side effects for Chantix and Zyban have prompted the FDA to require new box warnings for these products.

The analyses revealed that some who have taken Chantix and Zyban have reported experiencing unusual changes in behavior, become depressed, or had their depression worsen, and had thoughts of suicide or dying. In many cases, the problems began shortly after starting the medication and ended when the medication was stopped. However, some people continued to have symptoms after stopping the medication. Also, in a few cases, the problems began after the medication was stopped. –FDA

But does labeling products help?

Pfizer had already updated its labeling following the beginning of an FDA investigation into the potential side effects in 2007. That investigation was sparked by reports of about 37 suicides and more than 400 of suicidal behavior in connection with the drug.

In February 2008, the FDA said the connection between Chantix and serious psychiatric problems was increasingly likely, though the company had already updated the label to reflect the potential side effects. — Forbes

That’s messed up. You want to quit smoking so you take Zyban and end up killing yourself or becoming horribly depressed, even after you quit taking the drug! What’s even more troubling is that the FDA’s proposed action is to create a new graphic for the box! Oh, and they’re discussing potential study designs to address the problem. Really? Two years later?

Don’t Smokers Have a Say?

Meanwhile, I came across the request for comments by the FDA in response to their “Regulation of Tobacco Products.” The following response was from a William A. Siebold, an academic at the Art Institute of Portland:

I understand that the FDA is constrained such that tobacco/nicotine products
cannot be banned by that agency. However, the time has come for severe and
uncompromising controls that can and will be effectively enforced.

The reaction from the tobacco industry will be forceful and will solicit the support
of influential parties – their vision is short-sighted and founded in greed or
ignorance.

The reaction from tobacco-product users will be loud and complaining. It will be
the reaction expected from drug addicts whose drug of choice is under threat.

It is critical that these reactions do not become influential in the development,
administration & enforcement of strict FDA-directed nicotine controls.

What kind of country are we living in? The gist here is “Let’s affect the lives of smokers and manufacturers of smokers’ products and then let’s completely ignore their input because they’re motivated by greed or addiction.” In other words, Might Makes Right. Where’s King Arthur when you need him?

How Do You Like Controls, Mr. Siebold?

Wait a minute there, Mr. Siebold. We all know alcohol is a protoplasmic poison, is potentially addicting and causes untold deaths on the highway and the bedroom. So you need to put down that glass of Merlot and step away from the table.

And the sugar substitute you’re using in your caffeinated beverage is known to cause damage to your health, and the caffeine has turned you into a grumpy prig. So we’re going to take those away, too, for the betterment of society.

And just in case you decide that your government has curtailed too many of your liberties, we’re going to take your gun away too, because we all know guns kill people.

But if you want to take Chantix or Zyban to help you quit smoking (or even Wellbutrin for depression), even though we know depression and suicide are potential outcomes, well, we won’t take that away from you despite the untold emotional, societal and fiscal costs. Because we’re a pharmaceutical-friendly country.

I was reading an article at the blog of Michael R. Eades, M.D. titled Snake oil comes in all types of bottles wherein Michael comments on the placebo affect in science and medicine. He wrote about studies of weight loss diets in conjunction with injections of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) that showed it worked no better than placebos in helping people lose weight.

A couple comments were made by someone who had lost weight using HCG, convinced that it was effective. This person could not be dissuaded. The idea that it might have been “all in her head” was probably offensive, as it would be to most of us. To deny that a particular treatment was ineffective is a form of mental protection.

I mean, what happens if you believe in something and it works for you, and then you realize you were ripped for thousands of dollars for what turns out to be a sham? This is why it is so important to have an open mind and be willing to be wrong. But isn’t it also empowering to know that your mind is so powerful that it can affect matter?

Another problem in saying a condition is caused by thought is that people take it to mean that they invented their illness or their recovery or that they are imagining it. But this isn’t happening on a conscious level. It’s the subconscious mind that rules the roost.

As an example, years ago when I was still a Christian, I attented a Kenneth Copeland faith rally in Los Angeles. It was several days long, and we were all sore from sitting in chairs and standing. My feet and back were killing me. I responded to an altar call, and while standing in line I vaguely heard Copeland say something about feet. And then my feet and back stopped hurting completely! I went from hobbling to no pain at all. The effect lasted a few hours and then the pain returned. This is how powerful the mind is. God didn’t heal my feet. My mind–prompted by something Copeland said–told my feet that they no longer hurt.

I recently read a story of a prisoner of war who was tied to a chair in a dark room, a small cut was made in his leg, and he could hear the blood dripping all night long. He was dead by morning. But the cut was superficial and the bleeding soon stopped. The sound he heard was a recording that played all night. His mind killed him. Isn’t this how voodoo works?

Perhaps you’ve seen the episode on M*A*S*H where the hospital runs out of morphine, so they inject the patients with saline. All the patients happily float off the sleep. The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot is full of all sorts of strange tales of mind over matter, such as the religious group that hit each other with sledge hammers and attempted to pierce one another with swords, all to no avail.

The mind is an amazing organ. While under hypnosis, skin can form blisters at the mere suggestion that it’s being burned. I’ve read of people with multiple personality disorders where one personality is healthy and another has all the clinical signs of diabetes. And I’ve read of the effects of worry on T-cell counts and that those most likely to survive cancer are those with a fighting attitude.

When people hear that their condition is a result of thought, they think they’re being blamed or conned. That they’re hypochondriacs or gullible. That’s not it at all. Your body is just doing what your mind believes is true. This is why science developed the “double blind” test, meaning both the patient and the doctor were unaware of who was receiving the treatment and who was receiving the placebo, because the doctor’s belief could affect the test.

If anything, the placebo response shows you how very powerful you are to control your own body with your mind. Personally, I think the mind rules everything, but it’s easier to believe in nutrition and exercise and sunshine than it is to overcome millenia of race conditioning that tells us we get sick and die.

There Is No Cure

Sadly, if you consult a physician for a chronic disease, his typical response will be, “There is no cure.” He’s right about that, because there is no such thing as cure. There is only self-healing.

But his thinking is that you can’t do anything about your illness and will need ongoing pharmaceutical care or surgical intervention. In most instances he’ll be wrong, because most chronic diseases are reversible when you remove cause. But if you believe the doctor, then you are doomed to eternity in his care. Your belief will validate and feed the thought of illness.

Photo credit — Squeaky Marmot

Medicine, homeopathy, herbalism…the focus of all of these is symptom management through biochemical interference. But symptoms are the body’s attempt to heal. Yes, an herb may reduce a fever as well as a drug, but the fever is a healing event that kills bacteria and speeds enzymatic action. An herb may reduce inflammation just as a drug may, but inflammation is prompted by the body in response to irritation. It is the body’s attempt to correct an imbalance.

It is only when you remove the cause that the body reaches homeostasis and restores itself to health, provided permanent damage has not occurred.

Here’s a quote that I can’t quote often enough:

If many kinds of diseases get well at nature’s hands, and others get well under the treatment of all sorts of mountebanks, quacks, cults, and deluded scientists, what does that mean? It means that headaches and many other minor discomforts–such as colds, sore throats, indigestion, constipation, diarrhea et alii–come and go, receiving no attention, or at most home remedies whose principal virtue is in not doing any harm. This tendency to stay normal, or to get back to the normal, or to throw off disease, is so constant that all sorts of delusions, theories, and systems of cures have been given life and perpetuity. Every sort of scientific medical man, mountebank, adventurer, knave, and fool has found success and a following–for a time at least–in this No Man’s Land, with its serious, grotesque, scientific, pseudoscientific, and superstitious therapeutic cure-alls. The advocates of all sorts of overnight cures, physical and mental, extend their pipelines into this Fool’s Medical Paradise, and never fail to suck sustenance–a thing made possible by the fact that nature so often cures ills without extraneous aid from any source.” –J. H. Tilden, M.D.

Additional Reading:

Symptom Suppression Does Not Equal Healing Or Cure
What’s Wrong with Pharmaceutical?
Book Review: Human Life Its Philosophy and Laws — Herbert Shelton

Requesting Nutritional Profile Blood Tests

I went to the VA hospital Monday for a followup visit after my vertigo scare. I asked the nurse, whom I’ll call Julie, to request a nutritional blood panel for anything available, including vitamin D levels and a test for gluten sensitivity.

Since it was my first visit to this hospital, Julie asked a lot of questions regarding my current health status, drugs used, past hospitalizations or surgeries, family histories, level of exercise, and social drug use, such as alcohol or cigarettes. She didn’t ask if I drank coffee, but she did ask if I was on any special diet. I told her I was starting the paleolithic diet. She asked how to spell paleolithic.

When I asked her if there was a blood test for gluten sensitivity, she knew of one but didn’t know how to order it because she didn’t know the name of the test. She had to call the lab for the name: celiac panel. I guess this was her first time ordering one, which I find both shocking and pitiful.

We discussed various chronic diseases and Julie said that heart disease was the number one killer. I replied, “I thought iatrogenic disease was number 1.” When discussing vitamin D, she said they prescribed 50,000 IU D2 for those testing low, and I told her about a study that showed that D2 was much less effective than D3. She didn’t care. Who was I, anyway, to teach her anything new?

Nurse Volunteers My Breasts to Mammography Radiation

Julie said, “I’m also ordering a PAP smear and a mammogram.” Did I ask for that? Hell no. I told her I wasn’t interested. Why? Because in the event I had cervical or breast cancer, I wouldn’t do anything different than what I’m doing now, which is improving my health step by step by making better choices. I wouldn’t take chemo or radiation, and I wouldn’t allow surgery.

Nearly all men die of their medicines, not of their diseases. –Molière

So there would be no point in exposing my breasts to crushing metal plates and radiation, themselves invasive and harmful practices. Hell, they just exposed my head to a whopping dose of radiation, and now they want to expose my breasts?

Julie told me how much more successful the survival rates are today compared to thirty years ago, and it’s all because of early detection through mammography. (Hey, what about thermography?) She also said that very few women survive breast cancer who don’t undergo traditional treatment. I should have asked where she got that opinion from, because I would bet any money she was just parroting someone on staff.

Despite the long-standing claims, the evidence that routine mammography screening allows early detection and treatment of breast cancer, thereby reducing mortality, is at best highly questionable. –Samuel Epstein, Danger and Unreliability of Mammography Breast Examination is a Safe, Effective, and Practical Alternative

Statistics on Cancer Survival Deceptive

If you’re considered a survivor five years after detection, the earlier you’re detected, the greater chance you have of hitting five years, right? If you go to see a doctor by the time you can feel a tumor, it may have been developing for five years. Then if you die in three years, you’re a mortality statistic. Though the cancer has been in your body eight years, the time between diagnosis and death is less than five years.

But if you have a mammogram, which detects a tumor one year in the making, and you die in six years, well, statistically you’re a survivor, even though you lived one year less than the previous scenario. That’s because you survived five years after detection. How very tidy.

Cancer centers and public health agencies frequently cite increases in 5-year survival rates to measure the success of the war against cancer. In fact, for many cancers, including the most common ones—prostate, breast, lung, and colon—5-year survival rates have increased in the last few decades.

By this standard, the $45 billion spent by the National Cancer Institute since its inception has paid off. Not necessarily, argue three physicians from the Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, N.H., in an article published in the June 2000 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

They concluded that the most likely explanation for the increased survival rates is not that patients are living longer, but that cancer is simply diagnosed earlier. –Demystifying Statistics: Experts Discuss Common Misunderstandings

Later the nurse told me I was being irresponsible for not getting a mammogram, but the word wasn’t irresponsible. I can’t remember what word she used, but it carried heavy shame and judgment, like accusing me of not feeding my own child. I was disgusted. I refrained from telling her how deceptive the whole process was. At one point she said, “It appears you don’t want much from the VA other than diagnostic tests.” Bingo!

Mammogram Caused False Positive and Excessive Worry

I was talked into having a mammogram about ten years ago by a nurse who said the radiation received was no more than that exposed to in an airline flight. I was not counseled at all about the risks of mammography. A small abnormality was found and I was scheduled for a biopsy. (The best part was that the hospital decided my breasts were suitable for an intern to practice on.)

I’ll tell you, my immune system took a shock when I started worrying about breast cancer. I was surprised at how much I was holding in when, being informed I had only a cyst, I broke out in tears of relief. I now choose not to subject my soul or my immune system to this sort of unnecessary stress. This is just my choice, one not made of ignorance or superstition, so it’s not appropriate to shame me into getting this procedure.

And since I don’t focus on breast cancer, I don’t carry around this worry in the back of my mind all the time. I concentrate on health, not disease. The whole pink ribbon campaign infuriates me. Like we need reminders! Don’t you know that every month is breast cancer awareness month for women? How many of you women think about getting breast cancer? How many of you worry about it a lot? Your thoughts are powerful things. Control them.

I Have Dominion over My Body

I made it clear that I have dominion over my body. I don’t take drugs. I don’t get vaccinations. And I don’t go to doctors for chronic problems, and seldom for acute ones. I educate myself and give my body what it needs to heal. I don’t run to the doctor for a drug to suppress a symptom so I can keep up my bad habits without experiencing discomfort.

Hey, if I’m in an accident and my body gets rearranged, the allopathic doctors are the ones I want to see. They are the best at putting people back together. But if I collapse in a shopping mall and my heart stops beating, just leave me alone. I’ll come back if I want to. Pounding on my chest won’t do a thing if I want to leave, and pounding on my chest won’t bring me back if I want to stay. And I really resent that I could go to jail for not pounding on someone else’s chest. It’s all just show, in my opinion. The incessant need of the physician to “do something.” Kevorkian understood this, and he was sent to jail.

Most allopathic doctors are meddlers–some well-intentioned–who think they are indispensible, that people like you and me can’t make informed decisions in our own best interests, including the decision to let go of the body and let it die. Death is the end of birth and life continues beyond the body. Thank goodness for doctors like Fuhrman, Mercola, and others who have an open mind, keep up on the latest nutritional research, and teach people to be self-reliant.

How did we get to such a place where I could be sent to jail for giving someone health advice? Why have we handed over our bodies and our wealth to the medico-pharmaceutical cartel? They hold an iron grip on the health of the nation, and if you’ve been doing any studying, you know our nation’s health is pretty poor compared to other nations.

It’s your body. Take dominion.