How and When to Be Your Own Doctor Part 21

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 s.h.i.+pments 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 inst.i.tutionalized, 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 pract.i.tioner who would have made them well. This type of person honestly feels they are ent.i.tled 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 relations.h.i.+ps 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 pract.i.tioners. 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 a.s.sociated 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 gla.s.s 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 k.n.o.bs 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 k.n.o.bs; 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 gra.s.s 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 ma.s.sage 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 k.n.o.bs 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She knew how useful her b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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.

Kelly stayed with me for nearly two months as a residential faster, because she needed to be far from the distractions of a troubled family life. With financial support from her parents and child-care from her friends she was able to take time out to give the recovery of health top priority in her life without worrying about whether her small son was being well cared for. This peace of mind was also very important to her recovery.

a.n.a.lysis with biokinesiology showed a pervasively weak immune system, including a weak thymus gland, spleen, and an overloaded lymphatic system. Her liver was weak, but not as weak as it might have been, because she had become a vegetarian, and had been working on her health in a haphazard fas.h.i.+on for a few years. Kelly's body also showed weaknesses in pancreatic and adrenal function as well as a toxic colon. Most immediately worrisome to her, biokinesiology testing showed several over-strong testing lumpy areas in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s and over-strong testing lumpy lymph nodes in the armpits.

Cancerous tumors always test overly strong

Kelly's earlier life-style had contributed to her condition in several ways. She had worked for years in a forestry tree nursery handling seedling trees treated with highly toxic chemicals. She had worked as a cook in a logging camp for several seasons, eating too much meat and greasy food. And she had also spent the usual number of adolescent and young adult years deeply involved in recreational drug use and the bad diet that went with it.

Kelly started right in on a rigorous water fast that lasted for one entire month. She had a colonic every day, plus body work including reflexology, holding and ma.s.sage of neurolymphatic and neurovascular points, and stimulation of acupuncture points related to weak organ systems and general ma.s.sage to stimulate overall circulation and lymphatic drainage. She took protomorphogens to help rebuild her weakened organs; she took ten grams of vitamin C every day and a half-dose of life extension vitamin mix in a.s.similable powdered form; she drank herbal teas of echinacea and fenugreek seeds and several ounces of freshly squeezed wheat gra.s.s juice every day.

Twice each day she made poultices out of clay and the pulp left over from making her wheat gra.s.s juice, filled an old bra with this mixture and pressed it to her breast for several hours until the clay dried. Shortly, I will explain all the measures in some detail.

These physical therapies were accompanied by counseling sessions dealing with some severe and long-unresolved problems, response patterns and relations.h.i.+ps that triggered her present illness. Her son's father (Kelly's ex) was suppressive and highly intimidating.

Fearful of him, Kelly seemed unable to successfully extricate herself from the relations.h.i.+p due to the ongoing contact which revolved over visitation and care of their son. But Kelly had grit!

While fasting, she confronted these tough issues in her life and unflinchingly made the necessary decisions. When she returned to Canada she absolutely decided, without any nagging doubts, reservations or qualifications, to make any changes necessary to ensure her survival. Only after having made these hard choices could she heal.

I one respect, Kelly was a highly unusual faster. Throughout the entire month on water, Kelly took daily long walks, frequently stopping to lie down and rest in the sun on the way. She would climb to or from the top of a very large and steep hill nearby. She never missed a day, rain or s.h.i.+ne.

At the end of her month on water Kelly's remaining breast lumps had disappeared, the lymphatic system and immune system tested strong, as well as the liver, pancreas, adrenals, and large intestine. No areas tested overly strong.

She broke the fast with the same discipline she had conducted it, on carrot juice, a cup every two hours. After three days on juice she began a raw food diet with small servings of greens and sprouts well chewed, interspersed at two hour intervals with fresh juicy fruits.

After about ten days on "rabbit food," she eased into avocados, cooked vegetables, nuts, seeds, and whole grains and then went home.

As I write this, it is eight years since Kelly's long fast. She still comes to see me every few years to check out her diet and just say h.e.l.lo. She has had two more children by a new, and thoroughly wonderful husband and suckled them both for two years each; her peaceful rural life centers around this new, happy family and the big, Organic garden she grows. She religiously takes her life extension vitamins and keeps her dietary and life-style indiscretions small and infrequent. She is probably going to live a long, time.

I consider Kelly's cl.u.s.ter of organ weaknesses very typical of all cancers regardless of type or location, as well as being typical of AIDS and other critical infections by organisms that usually reside in the human body without causing trouble (called "opportunistic").

All these diseases are varieties of immune system failure. All of these conditions present a similar pattern of immune system weaknesses. They all center around what I call the "deadly triangle," comprised of a weak thymus gland, weak spleen, and a weak liver. The thymus and spleen form the core of the body's immune system. The weak liver contributes to a highly toxic system that further weakens the immune system. To top it off, people with cancer invariably have a poor ability to digest cooked protein (animal or vegetable) (usually from a weak pancreas unable to make enough digestive enzymes) and eat too much of it, giving them a very toxic colon, and an overloaded lymphatic system.

Whenever I a.n.a.lyze someone with this pattern, especially the entire deadly triangle, I let the person know that if I had those particular weaknesses I would consider my survival to be at immediate risk I'd consider it an emergency situation demanding vigorous attention. It does not matter if they don't yet have a tumor, or fibroid, or opportunistic infection; if they don't already have something of that nature they soon will.

Here's yet another example of why I disapprove of diagnosis. By giving the condition a name like "lymphoma" or "melanoma", "chronic fatigue syndrome" "Epstein-Barr syndrome" or "AIDS," "systemic yeast infection", "hepat.i.tis" or what have, people think the doctor then understands their disease. But the doctor rarely understands that all these seemingly different diseases are essentially the same disease--a toxic body with a dysfunctional immune system. What is relevant is that a person with the deadly triangle must strengthen their immune system, and their pancreas, and their liver, and detoxify their body immediately. If these repairs are accomplished in time, the condition goes away, whatever its Latin name may have been.

Now, about some of the adjuncts to Kelly's healing. Let me stress here that had none of these substances or practices been used, she probably still would have recovered. Perhaps a bit more slowly.

Perhaps a bit less comfortably. Conversely, had Kelly treated her cancer with every herb, poultice and vitamin known to man but had neglected fasting and colonics, she might well have died. It has been wisely said that intelligence may be defined as the ability to correctly determine differences, similarities, and importances. I want my readers to be intelligent about understanding the relative importances of different hygienic treatment and useful supporting practices.

Echinacea and chaparral leaves, red clover flowers, and fenugreek seeds are made into medicinal teas that I find very helpful in detoxification programs, because they all are aggressive blood or lymph cleansers and boost the immune response. These same teas can be used to help the body throw off a cold, flu, or other acute illness but they have a much more powerful effect on a fasting body than on one that is eating. Echinacea and chaparral are extraordinarily bitter and may be better accepted if ground up and encapsulated, or mixed with other teas with pleasant flavors such as peppermint or lemon gra.s.s. These teas should be simmered until they are at the strongest concentration palatable, drinking three or four cups of this concentrate a day. If you use echinacea, then chaparral probably isn't necessary and visa versa. Red clover is another blood cleanser, perhaps a little less effective but it has a pleasant, sweet taste and may be better accepted by the squeamish.

If there is lymphatic congestion I always include fenugreek seed tea brewed at the strength of approximately one tablespoon of seeds to a quart of water. Expect the tea to be brown, thick and mucilaginous, with a reasonably pleasant taste reminiscent of maple syrup.

Kelly used poultices of clay and wheat gra.s.s pulp on her lumps, somewhat like the warm castor oil poultices I used on my mother's arthritic deposits. Poultices not only feel very comforting, but they have the effect of softening up deposits and tumors so that a detoxifying, fasting body is more able to re absorb them. Poultices draw, pulling toxins out through the skin, unburdening the liver.

Clay (freshly-mixed potters clay I purchase from a potters' guild), mixed with finely chopped or blended young wheat gra.s.s (in emergencies I've even used lawn gra.s.ses) makes excellent drawing poultices. Without clay, I've also used vegetable poultices made of chopped or blended comfrey leaves, comfrey root, slightly cooked (barely wilted) cabbage leaves, slightly steamed onion or garlic (cooked just enough to soften it). These are very effective to soften tumors, abscesses and ulcers. Aloe poultices are good on burns. Poultices should be thought of as helpful adjuncts to other, more powerful healing techniques and not as remedies all by themselves, except for minor skin problems.

Poultices, to be effective, need to be troweled on half an inch thick, extending far beyond the effected area, covered with cheese cloth or rags torn from old cotton sheets so they don't dry out too fast. Fresh poultices needs to be applied several times daily. They also need to be left on the body until they do dry. Then poultices are thrown away, to be followed by another as often as patience will allow. Do not cover poultices tightly with plastic because if they don't dry out they won't draw much. The drawing is in the drying.

Sometimes poultices cause a tumor or deposit to be expelled through the skin rather than being adsorbed, all with rather spectacular pus and gore. This phenomena is actually beneficial and should be welcomed because anytime the body can push toxins out through the skin, the burden on the organs of elimination are lessened.

Wheat gra.s.s juice has a powerful anti-tumor effect, is very perishable, is laborious to make, but is worth the effort because it contains powerful enzymes and nutrients that help detoxify and heal when taken internally or applied to the skin. As a last resort with dying patients who can no longer digest anything taken by mouth I've implanted wheat gra.s.s juice rectally (in a cleansed colon). Some of them haven't died. You probably can't buy wheat gra.s.s juice that retains much medicinal effect because it needs to be very fresh and should be drunk within minutes of squeezing. Chilled sharply and immediately after squeezing it might maintain some potency for an hour or two. Extracting juice from gra.s.s takes a special press that resembles a meat grinder.

The wheat is grown in transplant or seedling trays in bright light.

I know someone who uses old plastic cafeteria trays for this. The seed is soaked overnight, spread densely atop a tray, covered shallowly with fine soil, kept moist but not soggy. When the gra.s.s is about four inches high, begin harvesting by cutting off the leaves with a scissors and juicing them. If the tray contains several inches of soil you usually get a second cutting of leaves.

You need to start a new tray every few days; one tray can be cut for three or four days. (Kulvinskas, 1975)

More wheat gra.s.s juice is not better than just enough; three ounces a day is plenty! It is a very powerful substance! The flavor of wheat gra.s.s juice is so intense that some people have to mix it with carrot juice to get it down. DO NOT OVERUSE. The energizing effects of wheat gra.s.s can be so powerful that some people make a regular practice of drinking it. However, I've seen many people who use wheat gra.s.s juice as a tonic become allergic to it much as antibiotic dependent people do to antibiotics. Better to save wheat gra.s.s for emergencies.

I also have treated my own breast cancers--twice. The first time I was only 23 years old. One night I noticed that it hurt to sleep the way I usually did on my left side because there was a hard lump in my left breast. It was quite large--about the size of a goose egg.

Having just completed RN training two years prior, I had been well brain washed about my poor prognosis and knew exactly what requisite actions must taken.

I scheduled a biopsy under anesthetic, so that if the tumor was malignant they could proceed to full mastectomy without delay. I was ignorant of any alternative course of action at the time.

I might add that before I grew my first tumor I had been consuming large amounts of red meat in a mistaken understanding gained in nursing school that a good diet contained large amounts of animal protein. In addition to the stress of being a full time psychology graduate student existing on a very low budget, I was experiencing I very frustrating relations.h.i.+p with a young man that left me constantly off center and confused.

A biopsy was promptly performed. The university hospital's SOP required that three pathologists make an independent decision about the nature of a tumor before proceeding with radical surgery. Two of the pathologist agreed that my tumor was malignant, which represented the required majority vote. But the surgeon removed only the lump, which he said was well encapsulated and for some reason did not proceed with a radical mastectomy. These days many surgeons routinely limit themselves to lumpectomies.