Natural Cures or just more Voodoo Medicine

My in-laws have always been very much involved with alternative medicine. They became very involved with Sunrider long before I joined the family. I always know I can have interesting conversations with them about alternative health options.

A few months ago my mother-in-law was having some trouble with her legs shaking. I told her about my friend who owned the spa. At the spa she offers an ionic foot detoxification system. My mother-in-law immediately called and made an appointment. She came back with a horror story about the color the water changed as it cleared out the toxins in her. Some time later, another friend and I went to visit the spa. She was going through a huge stressful time in her life. She had been to many medical doctors and she was trying out some of the many different options at the Spa. I sat there while she went through a foot detox. It was as if the water turned into orangish-brown mud.

It was too intriguing to me, I had to try it. We switched places, the machine was cleaned out and I got to sit for the 15-20 relaxing minutes. The water did not change for a long time, then it started getting a little gray colored. It settled into a light greenish color with some cloudy patches of fizzy gray bubbles. I was feeling pretty good, but had been dealing with a little bit of hay fever. A month or two later I was feeling rotten. The hay fever had set in big time, none of the normal meds were working and I was willing to try anything. Off I went to my friends spa. I stuck my feet in the water and out came the orangish-black mud. Too weird!

In July, while I was using the SparkPeople program, my husband and I went to the spa for a double date. I had not had any processed foods for a couple of weeks. I had severely limited my white sugar and white flour intake and had only eaten the natural foods that were good for me. My water did not change color for the first 10 minutes and after that barely got cloudy. The girl doing the test said she had never observed one that turned out like that. She even put me in for an extra ten minutes, trying to get the water to change color. My husband got the brown mud.

Voodoo Medicine

During this highly allergenic time of my life, I began going to a naturopath/chiropractor. This was quite an act of desperation. I had a Bachelor’s degree in Zoology, all those pre-med and pre-dental guys had been my study buddies, and I had a roommate who was a daughter of a physical therapist. I had the traditional medical system ingrained in me and to look at alternative solutions required me to change my mind set greatly.

I went to his office bearing the paperwork from my recent visit to the allergists where I had reacted to numerous items and felt like I had a life of rice ahead of me until I developed a sensitivity to that ... and then I was just out of luck. I could die a slow and painful death of starvation. Yeah, I’m probably being a little too dramatic, I could live on twinkies. I didn’t seem to react to those, not in the short-term anyway. So, Dr. G. introduced me to a BioMeridian Electro-Dermal Test. This test was conducted by having me hold a large electrode in one hand and having him put a small tip electrode on various acupuncture sights on my hands and feet. This produced a small voltage in which the range would be measured. I watched the screen as it would rise up and then level out landing in a green (Yeah, healthy), yellow (oh,oh Warning!!), or red (BAD!) zone. Most of mine landed in the red. Not that I was surprised by that. The one area I was surprised by was the female and urinary tract areas. I had been suffering from Yeast and UTI type infections for many months off and on, but nothing showed up with a normal urinalysis. I had not shared any of that with him, feeling it was completely unrelated to my allergies. His test showed red in those areas.

After taking the test he then presented to me around 6 different natural substances that he felt I needed to take for the next month that would “cause natural healing in my body”. Again out of total desperation I bought them all. I’m not a great pill taker, so, this was a huge commitment of money and of me to actually take them. My husband created a chart for me for each day of the month with little circles for me to fill in when I had taken the supplements. It was like 12 different pills or powders 1-2 times a day. I plugged away at it. I ate my rice cakes and one month later I returned to take the test again.. Same test – new results. According to his test many of my stressed out areas were now in the normal range or very close to it. I started incorporating real food back into my diet.

Currently, I am able to eat most anything but fruits and vegetables. I can eat most fruits and vegetables if they have been cooked or processed in some way. I do not eat any fruit with a pit, cherries give me horrible immediate sinus reactions and avocados bring on migraines. I can eat red grapes, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, and peppers raw. I can have a banana if it is completely ripe. I am continually trying different fruits and vegetables to see whether I will react or not any particular day. I never did fill the prescription for the Epi-Pen I am supposed to carry around with me. I don’t think I’d be brave enough to shoot myself, anyway.

The Set up ...

I have decided to undertake a program called The UltraMind Solution, based on a book of the same name by Dr. Mark Hyman. It’s a six week program dealing with diet, nutrition, supplementation, stress management, and more.

First a little history:
Approximately 6 years ago, maybe more, I began developing extreme food allergies. Swelling lips and tongue, canker sores, itchy throat, difficulty breathing, sinus infections, migraine headaches, etc seemed to come on unexpectedly. I went to the allergist and had the normal skin tests and reacted to about 61 different items. At one time I was eating nothing but rice for a 3-4 week period. I finally narrowed the allergies down to most raw fruits and vegetables. From a medical perspective they call it Oral Allergy Syndrome and it seems to be a reaction to the pollens that the fruits and vegies cross-pollinate with of trees of which I have always been allergic to.

The miserable thing is that I can eat a candy bar and feel great and eat cherries and end up sick in bed. It seems a little mixed up to me.