How and When to Be Your Own Doctor · Chapter 15Part 15
This chapter is not translated yet. You are reading the original.
And this is as good a point as any to mention that just like broccoli is not broccoli, a vitamin is not necessarily a vitamin. Vitamins are made by chemical and pharmaceutical companies. To make this confusion even more interesting, the business names that appear on vitamin bottles are not the real manufacturers. Bronson's Pharmaceuticals is a distributor and marketer, not a manufacturer. The same is true of every vitamin company I know of. These companies buy bulk product by the barrel or sack; then encapsulate, blend and roll pills, bottle and label, advertise and make profit. The point of all this is that some actual vitamin manufacturers produce very high quality products and others shortcut. Vitamin distributors must make ethical (or unethical) choices about their suppliers.
It is beyond the scope of this book to be a manual for going into the vitamin business. However, there are big differences in how effective vitamins with the same chemical name are and the differences hinge on who actually brewed them up.
For example, there are at least two quality levels of vitamin C on the market right now. The pharmaceutical grade is made by Roche or BASF. Another form, it could be called "the bargain barrel brew," is made in China. Top quality vitamin C is quite a bit more costly; as I write this, the price differential is about 40 percent between the cheap stuff and the best. This can make a big difference in bottle price and profit. Most of the discount retail vitamin companies use the Chinese product.
There's more than a price difference. The vitamin C from China contains measurable levels of lead, cadmium, mercury, iron and other toxic metals. The FDA allows this slightly contaminated product to be sold in the US because the Recommended Daily Allowance for vitamin C is a mere 60 milligrams per day. Taken at that level, the toxic metals would, as the FDA sees it, do no harm. However, many users of vitamin C take 100 -200 times the RDA. The cheap form of C would expose them to potentially toxic levels of heavy metal poisons. The highly refined top-quality product removes impurities to a virtually undetectable level.
I buy my C from Bronson who ethically gives me the quality stuff. I know for a fact that the vitamin C sold by Prolongevity is also top quality. I've had clients who bought cheaper C than Bronson's and discovered it was not quite like Bronson's in appearance or taste. More importantly, it did not seem to have the same therapeutic effect.
The distributors I've mentioned so far, Bronson, NOW, Cooper, Prolongevity and Vitamin Research Products are all knowledgeable about differences between actual manufacturers and are ethical, buying and reselling only high quality products. Other distributors I believe to be reputable include Twin Labs, Schiff and Plus. I know there are many other distributors with high ethic levels but I can not evaluate all their product lines. And as I've mentioned earlier, businesses come and go rather quickly, but I hope my book will be read for decades. I do know that I would be very reluctant to buy my vitamins at a discount department store or supermarket; when experimenting with new suppliers I have at times been severely disappointed.
Co-enzyme Q-10.
This substance is normally manufactured in the human body and is also found in minuscule amounts in almost every cell on Earth. For that reason it is also called "ubiquinone." But this vitamin has been only recently discovered, so as I write this book Co-enzyme Q-10 is not widely known.
Q-10 is essential to the functioning of the mitochondria, that part of the cell that produces energy. With less Q-10 in heart cells, for example, the heart has less energy and pumps less. The same is true of the immune system cells, the liver cells, every cell. As we age the body is able to make less and less Q-10, contributing to the loss of energy frequently experienced with age, as well as the diminished effectiveness of the immune system, and a shortened life span.
Q-10 was first used for its ability to revitalize heart cells. It was a prescription medicine in Japan. But unlike other drugs used to stimulate the heart, at any reasonable dose Q-10 has no harmful side effects. It also tends to give people the extra pick up they are trying to get out of a cup of coffee. But Q-10 does so by improving the function of every cell in the body, not by whipping exhausted adrenals like caffeine does. Q-10 is becoming very popular with athletes who measure their overall cellular output against known standards.
Besides acting as a general tonic, when fed to lab animals, Co-Enzyme Q-10 makes them live 33 to 45 percent longer!
DMAE
is another extremely valuable vitamin-like substance that is not widely known. It is a basic building material that the body uses to make acetylcholine, the most generalized neurotransmitter in the body. Small quantities of DMAE are found in fish, but the body usually makes it in a multi-stage synthesis that starts with the amino acid choline, arrives at DMAE at about step number three and ends up finally with acetylcholine.
The body's nerves are wrapped in fatty tissue that should be saturated with acetylcholine. Every time a nerve impulse is transmitted from one nerve cell to the next, a molecule of acetylcholine is consumed. Thus acetylcholine has to be constantly replaced. As the body ages, levels of acetylcholine surrounding the nerves drop and in consequence, the nerves begin to deteriorate. DMAE is rapidly and easily converted into acetylcholine and helps maintain acetylcholine levels in older people at a youthful level.
When laboratory rats are fed DMAE they solve mazes more rapidly, remember better, live about 40 percent longer than rats not fed DMAE and most interestingly, when autopsied, their nervous systems resemble those of a young rat, without any evidence of the usual deterioration of aging. Human nervous systems also deteriorate with age, especially those of people suffering from senility. It is highly probable that DMAE will do the same thing to us. DMAE also smoothes out mood swings in humans and seems to help my husband, Steve, when he has a big writing project. He can keep working without getting 'writers block', fogged out, or rollercoastering.
DMAE is a little hard to find. Prolongevity and VRP sell it in powder form. Since the FDA doesn't know any MDR and since the product is not capped up, the bottle of powder sagely states that one-quarter teaspoonful contains 333 milligrams. Get the hint? DMAE tastes a little like sour salt and one-quarter teaspoonful dissolves readily in water every morning before breakfast, or anytime for that matter. DMAE is also very inexpensive considering what it does. A year's supply costs about $20.
Lecithin
is a highly tonic and inexpensive food supplement that is underutilized by many people even though it is easily obtainable in healthfood stores. It is an emulsifier, breaking fats down into small separate particles, keeping blood cholesterol emulsified to prevent arterial deposits. Taken persistently, lecithin partially and slowly eliminates existing cholesterol deposits from the circulatory system.
In our cholesterol-frightened society lecithin should be a far more popular supplement than it currently is. It is easy to take either as a food in the granular form or when encapsulated. Lecithin granules have very little flavor and can be added to a home-made vinegar and oil salad dressing, where they emulsify the oil and make it blend with the vinegar, thickening the mixture and causing it to stick to the salad better. Lecithin can also be put in a fruits smoothie. A scant tablespoon a day is sufficient. Try to buy the kind of lecithin that has the highest phosphatidyl choline content because this substance is the second benefit of taking lecithin. Phosphatidyl choline is another precursor used by the body to build acetylcholine and helps maintain the nervous system.
Algae
. Spirulina or sun dried chlorella are also great food supplements. Both make many people feel energized, pepped-up. It is possible to fast on either product and still maintain sufficient energy levels to take of minimal work responsibilities. Algae reduces appetite and as a dietary supplement can assist in weight loss. It contains large amounts of highly-assimilable protein due to it's high chlorophyll content, as well as a large amount of beta carotene. It also assists in detoxification of the lymphatic system. It can be purchased as tablets or powder. Take a heaping teaspoon daily, or at least six tablets.
Chapter Seven
The Analysis of Disease States: Helping the Body Recover
From the Hygienic Dictionary
Diagnosis. [1] In the United States, making a diagnosis implies that you are a doctor duly licensed to engage in diagnostic function. . . . The making of a diagnosis is reserved only for doctors. . . . The term "analysis" does not have such an explicit legal definition. Thus, it is the term of choice of iridologists and the one most often used by them. It is essential for the survival and promotion of iridology that those who choose to engage in its practice avoid naming any disease condition. As we have seen, to do so is to infringe on rights reserved exclusively for doctors and can land the iridologist, sooner or later, in a snarl of legal troubles.
It is better for the iridologist to refrain from suggesting to a person that he has any particular disease, letting such diagnostics remain the province of licensed doctors. In so doing, the iridologist will avoid transgressing the law and stepping on the toes of those who are legally qualified to diagnose.
It is indeed unfortunate that one of the greatest pitfalls awaiting the iridologist is the temptation to name diseases. The feelings of satisfaction and power resulting from conferring a name are deeply rooted in the human psyche. For example, the Bible tells us that man's first task on Earth was to name the animals, thus giving him power and dominion over them.
Strong is the temptation to name diseases because nearly everyone has come to expect that his malady has a name. Patients have come to expect, and doctors have been trained to make, a diagnosis. . . . "After all," the patient may reason, "how can you hope to deal with my condition if you aren't knowledgeable enough to call it by name?"
It is not necessary to name diseases in order to exercise dominion over them. Dr. Bernard Jensen, Visions of Health.
In self defense, I must make it very clear from the first word that hygienists and most other naturopaths of various persuasions, and especially I myself, have never in the past, never!, and do not now, diagnose, treat or offer to cure, disease or illness. Diagnosis and curing are sole, exclusive privileges of certified, duly-licensed medical doctors and may only be done with a grant of Authority to do so from the State. Should an unlicensed person diagnose, offer to treat or attempt to cure disease or illness, they will have committed a felonious act. With big penalties. Therefore, I do not do it.
When one of my clients comes to me and says that a medical doctor says they have some disease or other, I agree that the medical doctor says they have some disease or other, and I never dare say that they don't. Or even confirm on my own authority that I think they do have some disease or other.
What I can legally do for a client is to analyze the state of their body and its organs, looking for weaknesses and apparent allergies. I can lawfully state that I think their liver tests weak, the pancreas appears not to be functioning well in terms of handling meat digestion, that the kidney is having a hard time of it. I can say I see a lump sticking out of their body when one is obviously sticking out of their body; I can not say that lump is cancerous but I can state that the cells in that lump test overly strong and that if I myself had a mass of growing cells testing overly strong and if I believed in the standard medical model, then I would be rushing my overly strong testing cells to an oncologist. But I don't dare say the person has a cancer. Or diabetes. Or is getting close to kidney failure. That is a diagnosis.
To me, diagnosis is a form of magic rite in which the physician discovers the secret name of the devil that is inhabiting one's body and then, knowing that secret name, performs the correct rite and ritual to cast that demon out. I don't know why people are made so happy knowing the name of their condition! Does it really matter? Either the body can heal the condition or it can't. If it can, you will recover (especially if you give the body a little help). If the body can't heal a condition you will die or live a long time being miserable. No "scientific" medical magic can do better than that.
By describing a disease in terms of its related organ weaknesses, instead of pinning a Latin name on it, I am able to assist the body to achieve recovery in a superior way that the physician rarely does. By discovering that the body with the lump of overly strong cells also has a weak spleen, liver and thymus gland, I can take actions to strengthen the spleen, liver and thymus. If the body can strengthen its spleen, liver and thymus, then the overly strong cells miraculously vanish. But of course I and what I did did not cure any disease. Any improvements that happen I assign (correctly) to the body's own healing power.
The way I analyze the organic integrity of the body is through a number of related methods, including the general appearance of the body, the patient's health history, various clues such as body and breath odor, skin color and tone, and especially, biokinesiology, the applied science of muscle testing. Biokinesiology can be used to test the strength or weakness of specific organs and their function. A weak latissimus dorsi muscle indicates a weak pancreas, for example. Specific acupuncture points can be tested in conjunction with muscle strength to indicate the condition of specific organs or glands. The strength of the arm's resistance to downward pressure could be calibrated with a spring scale and precisely gauged, but experienced practitioners have no need for this bother, because they are able to pick up subtle changes in the arms resistance that are not apparent to the testée. Thus muscle testing becomes an art form, and becomes as effective as the person using it is sensitive and aware.
Biokinesiology works because every organ and gland in the body is interconnected with other parts of the body through nerve pathways and nerve transmissions, which are electrical and can be measured through muscle testing. This may seem too esoteric for the "scientific" among you, but acupuncture points and energy manifestations around and in the body--are now accepted phenomena, their reality demonstrated by special kinds of photography. Acupuncturists, who heal by manipulating the body's energy field with metal needles, are now widely accepted in the western hemisphere. Kinesiology utilizes the same acupuncture points (and some others too) for analytic purposes so it is sometimes called "contact reflex analysis."
I have studied and used Kinesiology for 25 years with the majority of my clients with very good success. There are some few people who are very difficult to test because they are either too debilitated, lack electrical conductivity, or their state of mind is so skeptical and negative about this type of approach that they put up an impenetrable mental barrier and/or hold their body so rigidly that I can hardly determine a response. A skilled can overcome the obstacle of a weak body that can barely respond, but the person who is mentally opposed and determined to prove you wrong should not be tested. If you proceed it is sure to have an unsatisfactory outcome for all concerned. For even if I manage to accurately analyze the condition of a skeptical client, they will never believe the analysis and will not follow suggestions.
The "scientific," open-minded, "reasonable" client can be better approached using an academic-like discussion based on published literature that demonstrates how people with similar symptoms and complaints do very well on a particular dietary regimen and supplements. This type of person will sometimes follow dietary recommendations to the last letter, because their scientific background has trained them to be obedient.
When a client comes to me, I like to take a real good look at who is sitting in front of me. I take my leisure to find out all about their history, their complaints, their motivation to change, their experience with natural healing, their level of personal responsibility, whether or not they have to work, whether or not they can take time out to heal, will they fast or take supplements, do they have sufficient finances to carry a program through to a successful completion, do they have people closely connected to them that are strongly opposed to alternative approaches, can they withstand some discomfort and self-denial, do they have toxic relationships with other people that are contributing to their condition, are they willing to read and educate themselves in greater depth about natural healing, etc. I need to know the answers to these questions in order to help them choose a program which is most likely to succeed.
Even though fasting is the most effective method I know of, it is not for people who are compelled to keep up a work schedule, nor is it for people who are very ill and do not have anyone to assist them and supervise them. Nor is it for people who do not understand fasting and are afraid of it. People who have associates that are opposed to it, and people who do not have a strongly-functioning liver or kidneys should not fast either. Seriously ill people that have been on a meat-heavy diet with lots of addicting substances need a long runway into a fast so as to not overwhelm their organs of elimination. Does the person in front of me have an eating disorder, or an otherwise suicidal approach to fasting, etc. Clearly fasting is not for everyone, and if I recommend it to the wrong person, the result will be a bad reputation for a marvelous tool.
Given that many clients can not fast without a lot of preparation, the majority of my clients start out with a gentle detox program that takes considerably more time, but works. These gradients have been outlined under the healing programs for the chronically ill, acutely ill, etc.
To help rebuild poorly functioning organs, I sometimes use a specialized group of food supplements called protomorphogens. These are not readily available to the general public and perhaps should not be casually purchasable like vitamins, because, as with many prescription drugs, supervision is usually necessary for their successful use. If the FDA ever succeeds at making protomorphogens unavailable to me, I could still have very good results. (At this time the Canadian authorities do not allow importation of protomorphogens for resale, though individuals can usually clear small shipments through Canada Customs if for their own personal use.) But protomorphogens do facilitate healing and sometimes permit healing to occur at a lower gradient of handling. Without them a body might have to fast to heal, with the aid of protomorphogens a person might be able to get better without fasting. And if protomorphogens are used (chewed up--ugh!) while fasting, healing is accelerated.
Protomorphogens are made from freeze-dried, organically-raised animal organ meats (usually calf or lamb) combined with very specific vitamins, herbs and other co-factors to potentiate the effect. I view protomorphogens as containing nutritional supplementation specific for the rebuilding of the damaged organ.
Doctor Royal Lee, a medical genius who developed protomorphogens therapy in the 50s and who spent several stints in prison in exchange for his benevolence and concern for human well-being, also founded the company that has supplied me with protomorphogens. After decades of official persecution and denial of the efficacy of protomorphogens by the power structure, it looks like they are about to finally have their day. As I write this book cutting-edge medical research companies are developing therapies using concentrated animal proteins (protomorphogens) to treat arthritis, multiple sclerosis, eye inflamations and juvenile diabetes. The researchers talk as though they are highly praiseworthy for "discovering" this approach.
Unfortunately, this development is likely to cut two ways. On one hand, it vindicates Dr. Lee; on the other, when these drug companies find a way to patent their materials, they may finally succeed at forcing protomorphogens (currently quite inexpensive) off the non-prescription market and into the restricted and profitable province of the MD.
I divide clients into two basic types: simple cases and complex ones. When I was treating mental illness, occasionally I had a client who had not been sick for too long. I could usually make this client well quite easily. But if the person had already become institutionalized, had been psychotic for many years, had received much prior treatment, then their case had been made much more difficult. This sort had a poor prognosis. A very similar situation exists with physical illnesses. Many people get sick only because they lack information about how to keep themselves healthy and about what made them sick. Once they find out the truth, they take my medicine without complaint and almost inevitably get better very rapidly. Some of these people can be quite ill when they first come to me but usually they have not been sick for very long. Their intention when coming into my office is very positive and have no counter intentions to getting better. There are no spiritual or psychological reasons that they deserve to be sick. If this person had not found me, they almost certainly would have found some other practitioner who would have made them well. This type of person honestly feels they are entitled to wellness. And they are.
However, some of the sick are not sick for lack of life-style information; they suffer from a mental/spiritual malady as well, one that inevitably preceded their illness by many years. In fact, their physical ailments are merely reflections of underlying problems. This patient's life is usually a snarl of upsets, problems, and guilty secrets. Their key relationships are usually vicious or unhealthy. Their level of interpersonal honesty may be poor. There are usually many things about their lives they do not confront and so, can not change. With this type of case, all the physical healing in the world will not make them permanently better because the mental and emotional stresses they live under serve as a constant source of enervation.
Cases like this usually do not have only one thing wrong with them. They almost always have been sick for a long time; most have been what I call "doctor hoppers," confused by contrary diagnoses and conflicting MD opinions. When I get a case like this I know from the first that healing is going to be a long process, and a dubious one at that. On the physical level, their body will only repair one aspect of their multiple illnesses at a time. Simultaneously, they must be urged to confront their life on a gentle gradient. There is usually a lot of backsliding and rollercoastering. The detoxification process, physical and psychological, can take several years and must happen on all the levels of their life. This kind of case sees only gradual improvement interspersed with periods of worsening that indicate there remains yet another level of mental unawareness that has to be unraveled.
Few medical doctors or holistic therapists really understand or can help this kind of case. To do so, the doctor has to be in touch with their own reactive mind and their own negative, evil impulses (which virtually all humans have). Few people, including therapists, are willing to be aware of their own dark side. But when we deny it in ourselves, we must pretend it doesn't exist in others, and become its victim instead of conquering it. Anyone who denies that they have or are influenced by their own darker aspects who seem to be totally sweet and light, is lying; proof of this is that they still are here on Earth.
All this generalizing about diagnostic methods and clinical approaches could go on for chapters and more chapters, and writing them would be fine if I were teaching a group of health clinicians that were reading this book to become better practitioners. But I'm sure most of my readers are far more interested in some complaint of their own or in the health problem of a loved one, and are intensely interested in one might go about handling various conditions and complaints, what types of organ weaknesses are typically associated with them, and what approaches I usually recommend to encourage healing. And, most importantly, what kind of success or lack of it have I had over the past twenty five years, encouraging the healing of various conditions with hygienic methods.
In the case studies that follow I will mostly report the simpler, easier-to-fix problems because that is what most people have; still, many of these involve life-threatening or quality-of-life-destroying illnesses. I will tell the success story of one very complicated, long-suffering case that involved multiple levels of psychological and spiritual handling as well as considerable physical healing.
Arthritis
Some years back my 70 years old mother came from the family homestead in the wilds of northern British Columbia to visit me at the Great Oaks School. She had gotten into pathetic physical condition. Fifteen years previously she had remarried. Tom, her new husband, had been a gold prospector and general mountain man, a wonderfully independent and cantankerous cuss, a great hunter and wood chopper and all around good-natured backwoods homestead handyman. Tom had tired of solitary log cabin life and to solve his problem had taken on the care and feeding of a needy widow, my mom. He began doing the cooking and menu planning. Tom, a little older than my mother, had no sense about eating but could still shoot game. Ever since their marriage she had been living on moose meat stews with potatoes and gravy, white flour bread with jam, black tea with canned milk, a ritual glass of brandy at bedtime, and almost no fresh fruit or vegetables.
In her youth, my mother had been a concert pianist; now she had such large arthritic knobs on all of her knuckles that her hands had become claws. Though there was still that very same fine upright in the cabin that I had learned to play as a child, she had long since given up the piano. Her knees also had large arthritic knobs; this proud woman with a straight back and long, flowing strides was bent over, limping along with a cane. She was also 30 pounds overweight and her blood pressure was a very dangerous 210 over 140, just asking for a stroke.
Instead of a welcoming feast, the usual greeting offered to a loved one who has not been seen for a few years, I immediately started her on a juice fast. I gave her freshly prepared carrot juice (one quart daily) mixed with wheat grass juice (three ounces daily) plus daily colonics. She had no previous experience with these techniques but she gamely accepted everything I threw her way because she knew I was doing it because I loved her and wanted to see her in better condition. She also received a daily full body massage with particular attention to the hand and knees, stimulating the circulation to the area and speeding the removal of wastes. Every night her hands and knees were wrapped in warm castor oil compresses held in place with old sheeting.
I did not use any vitamins or food supplements in her case. I did give her flavorful herbal teas made of peppermint and chamomile because she needed the comfort of a hot cupa; but these teas were in no way medicinal except for her morale.
In three weeks on this program, Grannybelle, as I and my daughters called her, had no unsightly knobs remaining on either her knuckles or knees and she could walk and move her fingers without pain within a normal range of movement. The big payoff for me besides seeing her look so wonderful (20 years younger and 20 pounds lighter) was to hear her sit down and treat us to a Beethoven recital. And her blood pressure was 130 over 90.
Breast Cancer
I have worked with many young women with breast cancer; so many in fact, that their faces and cases tend to blur. But whenever I think about them, Kelly inevitably comes to mind because we became such good friends. Like me, Kelly was an independent-minded back country Canuck. At the age 26, she received a medical diagnosis of breast cancer. Kelly had already permitted a lumpectomy and biopsy, but had studied the statistical outcomes and did not want to treat her illness with radical mastectomy, radiation and chemotherapy because she knew her odds of long-term survival without radical medical treatment were equal to or better than allowing the doctors to do everything possible. Nor did she want to lose even one of her breasts. She knew how useful her breasts were because she had already suckled one child, not to mention their contribution to one's own self-image as a whole person. I admired Kelly's unusual independent-mindedness because she comes from a country where universal health coverage is in place; her insurance would have paid all the costs had she been willing to accept conventional medicine, but Canadian national health insurance does not cover alternative therapy.