The Intricate Web of Healing

After my alternative health doctor in Florida discovered that my sciatic pain was from a dental implant and I had it removed, I experienced instant relief. The nerve pain in my legs, hips and lower back subsided almost immediately. However, the road to total recovery was much longer than I had anticipated.

The dental implant came out in May, 2012, and in July I fainted again from the relentless spasms, ending up back in the emergency room. The nerve pain was nearly gone, but my body was still in “protect mode,” trying to shield the weakened surgery sight. I had started living a more normal life, able to do light chores and take short walks with Barney, yet I still suffered from random spasms and fainting spells. I had to carry a small pillow with me (even to restaurants!) in order to sit with a fraction of comfort. My back muscles, tendons and ligaments were simultaneously spasmodic and stretched like licorice ropes from eighteen months of minimal activity.

Anyone who has had muscle spasms knows the first thing we do is try to stretch it out…bad idea! The muscle is contracting to protect what it perceives as a weak spot or an injury. The more you stretch or try to dig it out, the harder it “protects.” Best to lay low, use warm moist heat to loosen it, then administer short bouts of ice to decrease inflammation. When it’s not in spasm-mode, that’s when it’s okay to gently stretch or try to strengthen.

Part of my healing included weekly Prolozone injections in my low back (a mixture of B vitamins, Prilocain and ozone). The combination lowers inflammation and speeds up healing ten-fold. I even had to have one in my pubic area (major OUCH!) in order for the ligaments that held my pelvis together to tighten back up (same ligaments that stretch during childbirth). The loose ligaments supporting my hips were making it impossible for me to sit without knife-stabbing pain. I would watch TV draped over an ottoman! Luckily, the shot worked instantly and I soon moved on to the next phase: minor exercise.

I began exercising with a DVD called Egoscue Pain Free Workout Series. For those of you experiencing any kind of pain that’s inhibiting normal exercise, I highly recommend it. Not only does it make you feel stronger, it helps with mood too. I remember feeling like a wimp at first because it was so easy, but it was the only way for me to get stronger without overdoing it at the gym. It is my tendency to go full-speed ahead and want fast results. This program kept me from hurting myself and I was able to move up to intermediate within about six months. I know – slooooow!! But I had a few set-backs. I was so weak I felt like a newborn, therefore gradual was necessary.

All year, Ken had been waiting for me to get better so we could move to Virginia for his new promotion. Finally in September, I felt I could manage the short flight. Just as we secured plane tickets to start house hunting, he got a call from a company in St. Louis with a job offer he couldn’t refuse. I was shocked and remember thinking, “St. Louis, really?” But, I am a big believer in things happening for a reason.

As we rode in the car for seventeen long hours on the way to St. Charles, Missouri, I reflected back on the progress I had made since being bed-ridden just a few months prior. I was exuberant about the chance to start over in a new place, to witness the seasons again, and make new friends. If you had asked me in February what my future would look like, I would’ve said “wheelchair.”

Though I was optimistic, I was still nervous about each hurdle before me. Would I be able to walk Barney while we lived in our little townhouse? What if it was slippery and I fell? I didn’t have a doctor in Missouri, so what if something happened and I couldn’t walk again? I had to set my fears aside, learn to trust that God would be with me on the journey, and embrace the gift of each day.

Turns out, having to walk Barney several times a day and go up and down the stairs in our rented townhouse strengthened me. I found a chiropractor that also practiced acupuncture and I relied on him heavily. By the time we moved into our house in March, I had returned to my favorite form of exercise and meditation – yoga. I was taking daily Barney-walks, and flew back to Florida a few times for IVs to keep my adrenal system healthy. I was really starting to feel relaxed about my health and then something changed. In May, my system began reacting to everything I was eating again. Fatigue kicked in and brought along my old buddy Fear, and I had to find resources around St. Louis. I suspected the move was to blame; once we were settled my body gave in to the stress of it all.

Thanks to a chance encounter and a referral from the nutritionist at my gym, I made appointments with a few different holistic practitioners and found a new-to-me medical paradigm –– quantum mechanics in medicine. Energy work. What an immediate, life-altering difference it made, and still does to this very day. I can’t imagine my future without it.

I also found a place nearby to get those IVs I relied on so heavily, but I couldn’t get in for six months so the energy therapies had a chance to prove their effectiveness, and did they ever! By November, I was sustaining stable physical and emotional health. Turns out, the practitioners that I see have unique techniques that I wouldn’t have been blessed to find in Florida or anywhere else. An intricate web of divine intervention.

I have always been open-minded about holistic healing, as traditional Western medicine has rarely worked well for me. I’ve discovered many valid forms of treatment, and just as Chinese medicine, herbs and “medicine women” have existed since the beginning of time, there is real science behind our energetic universe (thank you Albert Einstein). For example, Stress. What is it? It’s negative energy. What does it do? Contributes to and causes major illness and cancer. Then there’s the healing power of Prayer/Meditation/Optimism…positive energy and faith, all proven to miraculously heal. Energy.

In future blogs, I will share some of my energy-healing experiences, backed by science and faith, and let you form your own opinions.

“We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.” Albert Einstein

Vitamin D3 & K2: Essential for Health

In other blogs, I’ve mentioned nutrients, supplements and vitamins that are critical to our well-being and I will touch on many of them in future posts, but right now let’s talk about a wonderful and necessary vitamin (that is actually a neuroregulatory hormone) that we are all deficient in –– vitamin D3.

I am sure you have heard the news about how we are desperately lacking this vitamin and in order to get enough, we need sunshine and fortified foods. But do you know how critical it is to your overall health? And did you know that even if you are taking it, if you aren’t taking it with vitamin K2, it’s not optimal and may even be harmful?

Vitamin D3 influences 3,000 of our 25,000 genes, according to research from Dr. Mercola and a 2008 genome study by Carl Zimmer. Vitamin D literally turns on and off genes that can make you well or harm you. Vitamin D3 can influence many issues, including but not limited to the following:

• Cancer (notably skin, breast, prostate)
• Hypertension
• Inflammation
• Heart Disease
• Vein Issues
• Autism
• Diabetes 1&2
• Cold & Flu
• Autoimmune Deficiency & Diseases
• Depression
• Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Crohn’s Disease
• Asthma
• Insomnia
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome
• Multiple Sclerosis
• Eye, Teeth and Ear Health
• Mental Illness

Vitamin D, along with being an immune system power-house and mood booster, assists our bodies with absorbing calcium. If it’s not taken in conjunction with vitamin K2 at least once a day, it is less effective and can actually cause calcium buildup and arterial plaque! Mounting evidence proves that they depend on each other to work. I found this out years ago and have struggled with the mystery of why most vitamin D supplements don’t have vitamin K2 in them.

If you get a lot of calcium in your diet or you take a calcium supplement, without the balancing effects of vitamin D, magnesium and vitamin K2, all the calcium will not be absorbed. This may lead to a build-up in your organs and joints and cause major heart issues. Vitamin D helps your body absorb calcium, and K2 helps bind and deliver it into the bone, keeping it from being deposited to other areas. Vitamin D also decreases inflammation, wards off infection, and lowers cancer risk.

How much vitamin D is necessary for optimal health? That depends on who you ask. The Institute of Medicine has recommended no more than 600 International Units (IUs) a day for infants to seventy-year olds. Ask any alternative health practitioner or scientist who studies chronic illnesses and they will tell you vitamin D deficiency is an epidemic, and our intake needs to be much higher. All of my alternative health doctors, as well as more well-known doctors, have sanctioned 1000 IUs as being safe without doctor monitoring, though most people need many thousands more.

When checking your blood or saliva for vitamin D (25-hydroxy vitamin D), you want your number between 60-80 nanograms/ml, no higher than 100. The first time I had mine checked it was 18. I started taking supplements right away and my levels have stayed up around 50-60. Per each of my doctors’ recommendations, I take 10,000 sublingual IUs a day (with vitamin K2) and if I don’t, my number falls. There just isn’t a way to get enough without supplementing, and I lived in sunny Florida for fifteen years! I take morning walks without sunscreen (shhh - don’t tell my dermatologist) when the sun isn’t as intense, hoping to get a smidgen of D the way nature intended. Our skin absorbs and converts vitamin D quickly, providing a little mood and energy boost.

Since most of us wear sunscreen and live where it is often cloudy, it is hard to get enough from the sun and there is not much vitamin D in food. In doing research, I have found the food source containing the highest IUs is fatty fish, like salmon, which has 400-450 IUs in a 3oz. piece. Not enough for the entire day, though it is good to get it naturally when possible. Vitamin K2 is found in cruciferous and leafy veggies, green tea, turnips, tomatoes, fermented foods and olive oil. You can take D by itself throughout the day or all at once, just make sure you get some K2 mixed in (75-100 mcg daily with food, per Dr. Uzzi Reiss).

One of the only sublingual vitamin D supplements with vitamin K2 that I have found is Michael’s D3 (amazon.com). There are a couple of other brands but they contain lactose, which is no good for me. To get started feeling better with vitamin D, it’s best to ask your doctor for the 25-hydroxy vitamin D test and check your vitamin K levels, then decide how to proceed from there. Also, check with your doc if you are on blood thinners when it comes to vitamin K2, as it can be associated with slight blood thinning, though it varies greatly from K1 in blood clotting capabilities.*

“Our complicated bodies fight the daily battle of striking a balance between producing what we need to stay alive and counter-acting our lack of knowing how to treat ourselves.” Kristin Deann

There is increasing evidence about K2 and how crucial it is to our bodies and brains; if you want greater detail go to mercola.com and search “articles” about vitamin D and K. There is also in-depth information at westonprice.org.

*There is a difference between K2 and K1. Vitamin K1 is involved with blood clotting, and most of us get enough in our diets from leafy greens and other sources. The K2 that goes hand-in-hand with D3 is from MK7, which is long-acting and has very little blood clotting significance. For more on the difference and importance of K1 and K2, visit westonprice.org.

Sources:

Mercola.com/articles

Westonprice.org

Uzzi Reiss, MD, uzzireissmd.com

chriskresser.com/vitamin-k2-the-missing-nutrient

Are Your Teeth Making You Ill?

Dental related nerve pain and illness are more common than anyone realizes. I was fortunate to have a doctor who had witnessed many nerve-pain, dental-related cases before and thought to ask the question that changed my life, “Have you ever had a root canal?” If he had not stepped in, I may be in a wheelchair today.

Recently, I solved another mystery relating to a tooth and chronic nerve pain in my left shoulder-blade region. For two years, I've been dealing with an injury from my dog, Barney, pulling on the leash. Since the fall of 2013, taking a deep breath or using my left arm has been extremely painful.  No more yoga, or lifting even the lightest weight. I've had to switch to the other arm to carry my purse and groceries, and at times, the pain drove me to distraction and resulted in many nights of lost sleep. My adrenal glands took a beating again and illness crept in. 

Throughout that time, I had my regular dental cleanings and kept muscle testing my teeth to rule out any connection, and all seemed okay. I had an MRI of my shoulder (inconclusive), my neck (inconclusive), and had every theory thrown at me -- it's a rib injury, it's in the neck, it's a tear in the shoulder area, it's in the thoracic spine, and so on. Chiropractic helped, but not for more than a day. I tried physical therapy -- which I couldn't tolerate, laser therapy, massage therapy, ultrasound, traction and acupuncture. I started suspecting it might be a tooth earlier this year, but when I went for my cleaning again in May, all was well. 

However, after that cleaning, the left-side facial twitching I had begun having earlier in the year worsened and my left ear was killing me; then I started having nagging pain in my face, and I knew. I muscle tested myself and it showed the pain and twitching was from my only remaining wisdom tooth, upper left side. I consulted the tooth chart and confirmed that the wisdom tooth correlates to that shoulder, neck, thoracic and rib area. I went to my alternative doctor and had her check it using NIS, NET (see below) and muscle testing. She narrowed it even further by finding it was a "root problem" with that tooth. 

I went to my dentist two days later, told him what we had found and he proceeded with a panoramic X-ray. It showed nothing suspicious. He is an holistic dentist, so he muscle tested and came  to the same finding we did, but he was perplexed by the clean pano X-ray, so he took a bitewing X-ray. It showed a slight "reabsorption" of the root. My body was trying to reabsorb the tooth. (Gross!) He pulled it and guess what? The nerve pain in my shoulder stopped! 

That was July first, so now I'm working on fixing the muscle imbalances, the intramuscular pain, and realigning the vertebrae that changed positions as a result of trying to protect the area from the constant nerve irritation. There's no doubt it all started with an injury and then the bacteria from the tooth settled in the nerve and wreaked havoc.

Two years of suffering, once again, because of a tooth. I'm not certain why it didn't show up as weak until now -- I suspect it is due to the fact that it correlated with my husband dying, and our bodies will only show us what it most prominent. 

My grieving process over Ken, then our dog Barney several months later, overshadowed the mechanics of what was going on back then. I'll explain in more detail the way muscle testing and quantum medicine works, but suffice it to say, it is like the onion I referred to earlier, layered, with emotions overruling mechanics. Once I moved back to Missouri this past May, I grieved all over again. I let it out and processed; I cried and cried, and knew that I was cleansing my soul. Once I processed the emotions I had been holding in, the mechanics of the dying tooth showed up. I was amazed - though I should be used to how all this works with my sensitive wiring.

Dr. George Meinig, D.D.S., root-canal specialist and author, published twenty-five years of research from Dr. Weston Price about the dangers of root canals and the delicate nature of dental issues, in his book Root Canal Cover-Up. He wrote about Dr. Price’s first case (around the year 1900), when he removed a root canal (tooth) from a woman with severe arthritis and immediately implanted it under the skin of a rabbit. Within two days, the rabbit was crippled with arthritis and the woman found relief. He continued for years with smaller bits of teeth and many diseases until he was injecting tooth powder, always with the same results. One-hundred-percent of the time, heart disease was transferred from infected patients to rabbits. Other diseases were about eighty percent -- kidney disease, ALS/MS, arthritis, and autoimmune diseases such as Lupus, Crones, and Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Dr. Price found that people with strong immune systems were able to stay healthy, despite having root canals. He also found that those healthy individuals, when faced with anything that overly-stressed their immune systems, such as an accident, the death of a loved-one, a severe illness or anything severely taxing, allowed the bacteria trapped in the root-canalled teeth to escape into the body and cause any number of diseases, or a "failure of the body defense system."

When a root canal is performed (41,000 in the United States daily as of 2012), the dentist will drill through the enamel and dentin in order to clean out the root pulp, which is all blood vessels and nerves hooked to your jawbone by the periodontal ligaments. When the hollow root is filled, all the germs and bacteria get packed in and have nowhere to go but out into the body through miles of inaccessible, untreated tubules in which germs and toxins can hide, grow stronger, then mutate into super-bugs. These super-bugs can travel to your heart, lungs, eyes, stomach, mouth, brain, nervous system and now, the latest research shows a link to cancer.

Dr. Robert Jones, in a five-year study of three-hundred breast cancer cases, found ninety-three percent had root canals, seven percent had other dental issues, and tumors always occurred on the same side of the body as the root canal or dental issue. Another physician, Dr. Josef Issels, treated terminal cancer patients for forty years and found ninety-seven percent had root canals.

Doctors and dentists who are knowledgeable about this topic recommend never having a root canal. Even if you’re well after the procedure, as the aging process happens, immune systems become weaker and trouble can start. If you’ve already had a root canal, have the tooth removed, even if it looks and feels fine, and replace it with a non-invasive option (bridge, partial, spider). If you have it removed, make sure your dentist removes the tooth AND the dental ligament along with 1mm of the bony socket to reduce risk of bacteria from infected tissue being left behind. 

If you have infected teeth that need to be extracted, get them out of your body and opt for false teeth (no implants) and watch chronic illness, and aches and pains dissipate or even disappear, and watch your health improve.

To find a biological dentist who will be aware of this procedure, visit toxicteeth.org, or search the internet for an holistic dentist in your area. True natural dentists tend to lay low in order to avoid backlash from the American Dental Association, and may only be found through word-of-mouth.

If you’re living with chronic pain or auto-immune disease, a wise step would be to start checking your teeth. Even if you’ve never had a root canal, subtle dental issues can cause a myriad of life-altering symptoms and diseases. I am living proof that something as simple as a botched filling or a dying tooth can change a life forever.

                                                                                                                                                  

If you suspect your teeth are making you ill:

Find a practitioner who performs any version of muscle testing or energy healing such as:

Applied Kinesiology (AK)

Total Body Modification (TBM)

Neuro Emotional Technique (NET)

Applied Psycho Neurology (APN)

Autonomic Response Testing (ART)

Neurolink (NIS)

Touch for Health

These practitioners can help you discover if it is dental, then you can go on to more testing for confirmation and fix the issue. Generally, you will not find these people on the internet. Chiropractors commonly use AK, but the rest of the list usually practices quietly, so you’ll often find these amazing healers through networking. Once you witness your body showing you what’s wrong in ways that blood work will not, the healing will begin.

To print out a tooth-organ chart visit:

http://www.preventionandhealing.com/articles/ToothOrganChart8.5x11.pdf

Other References:

Root Canal Cover Up, Dr. George Meinig, DDS, FACD

Price-Pottenger Foundation, www.ppnf.org

Cancer Free, Bill Henderson, www.beating-cancer-gently.com

Rescued by my Dentist, (E-Book), Dr. Douglas L. Cook, DDS, SC, www.dentistryhealth.com

www.mercola.com

www.foodmatters.com

www.westonprice.org

The Mysterious Link

If you read my last blog, you know how I struggled with a dental infection, chronic hip pain and immune reactions for almost two years.  The story ended when the dental implant was finished in early September and I had a beautiful molar that cost as much as a diamond ring. I was hopeful that my issues were behind me and my immune system would begin healing.

However, by late autumn, my body couldn’t take the ever-increasing hip pain any longer and responded by repeatedly fainting -- always in public, much to my embarrassment. I visited my regular doctor thinking I was having blood sugar or blood pressure issues, only to find out, once again, my blood work was perfect and maybe I should "take an anti-depressant," (though my blood sugar hovered around 59 and had spikes down into the low 50's). I walked out wondering why I wasted my time and energy, yet again, for zero results. Instinctively, I felt my problem was adrenal related, and the hip pain had something to do with it.

After a few more weeks of suffering, I relented and met with an orthopedic surgeon who diagnosed a tiny rupture in my L-5/ S-1 disc. It was pushing on the sciatic nerve, radiating pain across my pelvis, into my groin and down my right leg. "A laminectomy would fix it," he said with complete confidence, so I scheduled surgery five days before Christmas. I wanted to trust him but my gut was doubtful as I wondered, is that teeny-tiny rupture really the cause of such deep pain or was it the result of fainting in full-stride a couple of weeks prior? 

Throughout the two-year ordeal, I had continued with Vitamin C IVs and as many immune strengthening procedures as I could afford, but it wasn't enough. My practitioner at the time recognized that my problems were too layered for her level of knowledge, and recommended another clinic with two alternative doctors that had been practicing for decades, and specialized in severe immune deficiency cases. 

I got an appointment at the new clinic right away. At the initial consultation, I was tested and diagnosed with twenty-three viruses and illnesses, and had follow-up blood work and other tests to confirm the results. The doctor commented that he didn't know how I was upright and functioning, and that he hadn't seen anyone that ill at my age (41), ever. We created a plan to get me through the impending surgery while repairing my immune system. Hope was restored and I went forward with a positive attitude.

The day of surgery, the surgeon assured me I would have immediate relief, yet four days post-surgery, the pain had increased and I could barely walk. He said to give it more time, “Sometimes nerves take a while to heal.” Recovery didn’t happen and my pain worsened.

Feb 6, 2012, I had a second laminectomy and four other procedures. The surgeon was baffled and tried everything to offer some relief. To no avail -- the pain intensified until I was bed-ridden in agony. My blood pressure kept dropping and I kept fainting. One morning it fell to 60/40 and I had to be taken by ambulance to the ER. After a week in the hospital and test after inconclusive test, they started to act like I was faking it. Yet my legs would fold from underneath me upon standing, and I would crumple to the floor from back spasms and electric shocks that would paralyze my entire body. The doctor started talking about fusing my spine. I refused to have any more surgery, and left the hospital with a heavy heart and no solution.

Weeks passed while I lay in bed depressed and hurting, not eating until three in the afternoon some days because I couldn't get to the kitchen. By then, I was only able to walk with assistance, and wondered how this would all end. The nerve pain was so excruciating, the sheets touching the tips of my toes felt like nails being driven into them. Involuntary screams ripped from my mouth when back spasms wracked my entire body. I toyed with giving up but my faith kept me going, and I believed there was an answer out there somewhere.

I dug deep and used my Type A personality and German stubbornness to make sure I did not quit exploring every option -- I was hell-bent on getting better. I continued to drive myself to the clinic (an hour away) to stay with the immune-repairing program, knowing that strengthening my system was only going to help. 

After several months, my allergies to food and nickel improved, I stopped fainting, and the viruses had been knocked down to twelve, then five. But, the nerve pain remained and I began coming to terms with the potential of living in a wheelchair...and then a miracle happened.

Friday, April 13, 2012, was the day my life changed forever. The doctor I had been seeing was off that day; I was at the clinic for allergy desensitization. The practitioner conducting the procedure noticed the tears gently streaming out of the corners of my eyes as I lay on the exam table, and asked if he could get the other doctor (Dr. M) involved. Why not? I was open to anything. 

He listened carefully to my story, and when I finished he pondered for a moment, then asked me if I had ever had a root canal. "Huh?" was all I could think. He explained that he had seen dental-related nerve pain often, and shared a story about a man in his thirties who hadn't walked in seven years. He came to see Dr. M and discovered it was a dental infection that went undetected by X-rays. After removing the tooth and treating the infection, the man climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro a year later. When I shared my dental nightmare with the doctor, he thought he may have a solution.

He muscle tested the dental implant and found a weakness, so he injected it with Novocain to numb the area and see if there would be any relief. My pain slowly ebbed like a wave rolling out to sea; I got off the exam table easily and walked around the clinic like a normal person. Everyone working there watched. Our eyes got as big as the full moon and we were all silent for a moment. Disbelief....relief...a miracle! I cried tears of joy. I think Dr. M did too. 

Three additional times, a week apart, he numbed it, the spasms released, and the pain washed away. During that time, we tried healing it with ozone and a laser, and my periodontist removed the crown and screw, to no avail. The implant had to come out. 

May 15, 2012, immediately upon its removal, I walked out of the periodontist's office on my own. I could walk! I live a very normal life now. I'm back to exercising and though I see a chiropractor about once a week to keep my lower back healthy, I am grateful every day that I am able to walk and never take for granted my ability to be in this world without a cane, or worse.

From my horrible life-altering experience, I grew in ways that I never would've understood before. I still feel blessed every single day that I can do normal activities; things I thought were over for me. I have patience with people who are hurting, or those who may walk "too slow" in front of me. My compassion for others has grown and I try to take life as it comes -- in moments. If I have an uncomfortable day, I allow myself rest and remember what a bad day truly consists of. 

The strength and knowledge that I gained throughout this ordeal, as well as deeper faith, have helped me deal physically and emotionally with even bigger life-altering events that have happened since. I hope by sharing this information, it continues to shine the light on thinking outside the Western Medicine box and may help one person solve their own health mystery.

In the next blog -- how to determine if your teeth are making you ill. The science behind it and resources to explore. 

"To know truly is to know by causes." Bacon 

[from the book Root Canal Cover-Up, George E. Meinig]

Another Layer of the Health Onion Revealed

Have you ever had unexplained pain? Or pain and exhaustion that seems to have an explanation but no remedy? There may be a simple (yet seemingly crazy) reason why. This is a two-part story due to the tangled knot of discovery and efforts to unravel my very own mystery. You may see yourself or someone you know in the following two stories.

As I marched through the process of feeling better, feeling worse, feeling better, worse (you get the idea) from 2006 through 2009, I figured it was my busy lifestyle that created the health roller coaster. Mid-year 2006, I was working as a commissioned sales rep in Florida and having a long-distance relationship, travelling every couple of weeks to Tennessee. After about six months, my boyfriend (eventually my husband, Ken) who lived in Knoxville decided to move to Florida to be with me, so we bought a house together and got ready to settle in when an amazing job opportunity for Ken presented itself -- in Las Vegas. 

Now we had to rent or buy a house in Vegas and fly hours to be together. I did most of the travelling and ended up working there and Florida, opening Vegas accounts for my company a week or two a month. Back and forth I went for a year until Ken's dream opportunity fell through and everything seemed to fall apart. The list of disasters that followed are too lengthy to detail here, but suffice it to say the immense financial strain, the emotional stress and the physical toll came together like the perfect storm and at the end of 2008, I crashed. I was sick with respiratory infections and strep for months and couldn't seem to get back on track. 

I was still getting Vitamin C IVs, and doing all the right things for my body and my spirit, but it wasn't enough. I slogged through 2009, planned our small wedding on the beach, and ended up having to quit my job (doctor's orders) due to stress and exhaustion. I ended up with strep throat again on our honeymoon in November, and never felt completely well even after it was gone.

The cascade continued into December when I had an old dental filling replaced. It should have been an easy procedure, but it didn't go as planned (very inexperienced dentist) and I ended up with my first root canal in March 2010. Infection took hold and I had an apicoectomy in July. I was also on Amoxicillin the entire time (seven months), which was counter-intuitive to everything I knew but felt I had no choice. We went on a vacation in late August and while we were in northern Michigan, the throbbing in my face was so awful I ended up having the tooth yanked. A $4100 molar in the garbage...ouch!

That same summer, I had also begun suffering with a bum hip. The vice-like tightness and stabbing, shooting pain in my groin and thigh worsened until I could barely walk -- I was running on pure frustration. I had recently turned forty and thought, "Well, isn't this wonderful. I can hardly wait to see what fifty is like." I was not in a good place emotionally, however I did start feeling better after the infected molar was pulled, and within a couple of months my hip pain receded enough that I could get back to yoga and light exercise. Finally some relief.

In January 2011 as I began the somewhat violent process of a dental implant to replace the missing molar, my groin pain waxed-and-waned and I started having allergic reactions to God-knows-what. I was covered in hives and my lips, tongue, throat and cheeks were raw, swollen and blistered all the time. It was especially bad in the morning; my lips would crack and bleed from the swelling. I looked like Goldie Hawn in First Wives Club. If it didn't hurt so much it might have been funny, but I was miserable and scared. What if whatever I was allergic to caused me to stop breathing while I slept? I eliminated everything I was eating in stages trying to figure it out. This went on throughout the summer as I went to numerous allergists and specialists trying to figure out the mystery. Nobody had any answers.

I was limping (again, no exercise) with a swollen face and hives. I was thin, tired, gaunt and afraid of everything. I didn't want to go anywhere for fear I'd pass out (as I had started to do). I was racking up thousands of dollars of debt on holistic and regular treatments and tests. Depression and fear were my constant companions, though I had to pretend otherwise. 

Just as I gave in to feeling totally lost and out of ideas, along came one of my angels, my dermatologist's PA, Sandra, who had been doing my mole checks for years and knew me very well. I told her what was going on and she asked, "Didn't you have your wedding ring reset because of the nickel in the white gold?" I looked at her strangely, and replied, "Yes, why?" 

"There's nickel in silverware and cooking utensils and pans and a lot of food," she explained. She suggested I eat with plastic and use ceramic pans and knives and research foods containing nickel. For the next couple of days, I ate with plastic and the reactions subsided. The only spot that was red and raw was a stripe on my tongue below the temporary abutment (screw) that was for my soon-to-be permanent crown. It was the abutment! I called the periodontist and found out I could get the permanent titanium abutment and crown right away. 

At last I had a gorgeous new molar and massive relief knowing I could control my allergy to nickel. I bought nickel-free silverware, ceramic pans, knives, made sure my mixer, toaster and other items were nickel-free, though I had to continue to eat with plastic for many, many months when we went out to restaurants -- so embarrassing! I always felt compelled to explain myself to the server, "I'm allergic to nickel," I would sheepishly say. I ordered things that were grilled (to avoid pans) and food that I could eat with chop sticks. It took several months for my raw mouth to calm down, but eventually it did. 

There are six hundred million people allergic to nickel and many more who don't know they are. It's in everything, all around us -- cell phones, purses, jewelry, zippers, coins, most metal kitchen items, belt buckles, some dental metals, tattoo ink and surprisingly it's in medical needles. It's in most food but higher concentrations are in canned and fermented foods, like sauerkraut, beer and wine. It's also higher in food that grows in the ground like peanuts and potatoes. And sadly, it's high in coffee, tea and chocolate. 

Yes, I am still allergic to nickel, though symptom free. Back then it became so severe because it was in my mouth and my immune system was at rock-bottom. My body wasn't able to handle the long-term load of physical pain, months of antibiotics and the emotional distress, which led to my adrenal glands working in "fight or flight" mode constantly, weakening them so they could no longer do their job. 

So how do you know if you're having an allergy or intolerance to something? There are two reactions and we're all familiar with the obvious one where you itch and swell and sneeze and sometimes have an anaphylactic response. That's an immediate histamine reaction (IgE antibodies) that can be controlled with antihistamines or a steroid injection.

The other, more subtle allergy is an IgG immune response (food, nickel) where your body will release antibodies to an invader over the course of several days. These can show up as headaches, rashes, nausea, hyperactivity or anxiousness, swollen joints and fluid retention, intestinal disorders, and sometimes even seizures. They are hard to detect because they're not obvious and require a lot of trial and error. I have found in doing research that these kind of sensitivities seem to be a clue to the early stages of an autoimmune deficiency.

I have done several food sensitivity tests, but in my experience, I can be intolerant to a food for a day or a month, stay away from it and then be able to eat it again in moderation. And most results have shown that I am allergic to everything I am currently eating, like lettuce, because it's in my blood serum. One test result said I'm not allergic to nuts. If I had believed the test and ate nuts, I could have died. So, I personally don't trust the tests anymore. I listen to my body and use muscle testing as a guide (I'll explain that later).

One of my experiences with food sensitivities that came out of nowhere and went away was with corn and turkey. The day of my husband Ken's funeral, I had a light luncheon for all who attended that included a sandwich platter and seven-layer dip with corn chips. I was able to choke down some turkey and a few corn chips. My immune system associated those two items with the severe anguish that my adrenal system was trying to handle and said to my body, "This is bad -- we don't want you here." I could finally eat those two things again about six months later. 

When my immune system is strong, I have a little more freedom with what I eat, but when I'm stressed or feeling low, I have to be careful. 

As for jewelry, white gold can be made with palladium instead of nickel. It's about the same price and keeps its shine better. Platinum and nickel-free sterling silver are also good choices. 

To start a nickel-free kitchen, you will find a wide variety of nickel-free flatware online. Stainless will have a number stamped on it like 18/8. That means its 18% chromium, 8% nickel. Nickel-free is 18/0. It's not as durable, but it's a safer choice and it's inexpensive so you can change it up every couple of years. 

I find my ceramic pans at the TJ MAXX group of stores.  I haven't found ceramic baking sheets yet so I always use parchment to line them. I won't use Teflon or any pans (ceramic or otherwise) made in China due to possible lead and other additives. My ceramic pans are all made in Italy, Germany or the Netherlands. You can also use aluminum or cast iron, but I try to eliminate any metal leaching into my food. 

There are nickel testing kits on nickelfreelife.com or amazon.com that are easy to use. If an item contains nickel, the cotton swab turns pink. It's as simple as that.

Once the dental implant process was over I was sure I could rebuild my system and get back to a normal life. Little did I know, the nickel allergy was just a pebble in a heap of gravel and things would get much worse before they would get better. 

Stay tuned...the Mysterious Link will shake your beliefs and maybe save a life.

"When you are young and healthy, it never occurs to you that in a single second your whole life could change." Annette Funicello

This blog is in no way a diagnosis tool or medical recommendation. Do not use it to make your own diagnosis without consulting an alternative/holistic or eastern medicine practitioner.

Hormone Balance at Any Age

This post is quite personal, but I am sharing it with the hope that it will have a positive impact on at least one reader. The summer of 2005 I began searching for a reason (and a solution) to sudden "female" issues and the onset of crushing fatigue that I couldn't seem to get over.

I had been using Depo for ten years due to uncontrollable and severe periods and PMS, with positive results. However, at thirty-five, I began having strange female issues and concluded that it might be the shot. I finally skipped a round of shots and started having heavy periods every ten days, bleeding so badly that I couldn't work or function. I felt like my body was falling apart but figured it would settle down once the drug was out of my system. It didn't.  

After about two months, I went to my gynecologist for help and also saw my general practitioner for a regular physical. I was informed that my blood work was "PERFECT" and told that indeed, everything I was experiencing would get better with time. My regular GP suggested antidepressants for the fatigue, mood swings and body aches. I tried a few different brands over the course of several months and found they made me feel strange and did not change my energy. In fact, from what I remember, they made me more lethargic and sort of mentally numb. As for the bleeding, he said "perimenopause" and that was that.

That's when I turned to a friend who had started walking the "natural hormone" path. I found out where she was going and how she was going about feeling better and thought I'd give it a try.

Problem was, I couldn't work or live a normal life due to the bleeding, so something had to be done rapidly. To my relief, I convinced my gynecologist to perform a hysterectomy nearly a year after the mess had started. A week before surgery, I went to the clinic suggested by my friend and started my evaluation with saliva testing to find out my hormone levels. I knew it would be a good baseline for bioidentical hormone replacement. Surgery went well and I kept one ovary (thank you Dr. Stephanie for begging me to do that). 

Meanwhile, my friend recommended I read Suzzane Somers's book, Breakthrough. I was happily surprised by the information contained within (interviews with leading alternative practitioners and their research) and became excited to learn more. Thank you Suzanne Somers! Then I read Dr. Uzzi Reiss's book, Natural Hormone Balance for Women, and my life was forever changed. I finally understood the complex relationship between our many hormones and their vital functions to well-being. I felt a little stupid that I didn't know we have three main estrogens: Estrone (E1), Estradiol (E2), the most potent form, and Estriol (E3), and I was (and still am) baffled that unless you're into Alternative Heath, nobody ever talks about them and their benefits. 

Estrogen is our Power House as women. Along with progesterone, it contributes to a healthy cardiovascular system, weight control, energy and SLEEP, a healthy libido, muscle growth, inflammation, memory and brain health, bone density, and our ability to handle stress, depression, anxiety and migraines, as well as hearing and so much more. Wow! 

While I was healing from surgery, I couldn't research fast enough and felt excited to start feeling healthy again. My saliva results showed severe adrenal fatigue and lack of thyroid function (rarely shows up in blood work and the span of what's "normal" is huge). I also had too much estradiol and testosterone and too little progesterone. I learned that high estradiol, if left unbalanced, increased my chances of female cancer and was the reason I was so moody and had horrible PMS. I needed to significantly raise my progesterone, slightly raise my other estrogens, lower my testosterone (some estrogen is actually made from an enzyme from testosterone called aromatase), raise my DHEA, and ideally my estrogen would naturally balance, as would my mood, seesawing weight and everything else mentioned above. So about three months post-surgery, off to the compounding shop I went to start bioidentical progesterone. I was lucky -- just adding that one hormone brought my estrogen and other hormones into balance. I also supplemented with adrenal and thyroid glandulars.

Three months after I started on the sublingual progesterone, I did another saliva test and found everything was closer to being aligned as I slowly became a more stable individual. This somewhat easy routine kept me feeling positive and steady for quite a while. My estrogen/progesterone hormones are still well balanced, ten years later.

I will be honest and say, given the nature of my screwed up female system, surgery was a good option for me. I still feel that way, even though the alternative doctors would disagree. There is definitely less worry given my compromised system and my remaining ovary worked beautifully, providing plenty of estrogen until this year, so the only hormone I had to add was progesterone for nine years. Now I've added a tiny dose of bi-est and a little DHEA and feel that natural hormones have been a blessing. 

Let's talk about BHRT/Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy and birth control.

This is a SUPER lengthy and controversial topic, but science is proving and has proven that there are so many benefits to NATURAL estrogen and other hormones and so many detriments to not having them that it blows my mind when I hear doctors and the general public calling it hocus-pocus and saying that it has no merit. 

The birth control pill has synthetic estrogen and progestin, suppressing a woman's ovarian production of estrogen and progesterone, ultimately causing estrogen deficiency. At sixteen, because of heavy periods and massive PMS for more than half of every month, I started on a low-dose pill (even worse, I now know) thinking that would stop the madness. All it did was whack out my natural balance. My body was stubborn and still tried to make its own estrogen and was so unpredictable that I continued to search for a better solution. More than anything I wanted to control my whacky periods, mood swings and weight fluctuations, so at twenty-five I started using Depo-Provera. OMG! I thought using progestin -- which shut down my female cycle and tricked it into menopause, was the best thing ever. No more periods for the next ten years and I didn't have any of the side effects. Woo hoo! 

Guess what? It could be the reason my immune system is so poor. According to Dr. Uzzi Reiss, M.D., from his latest book, The Natural Superwoman, studies of the chemical used in Depo-Provera have shown that it "suppresses cellular immunity, further compromising an already-compromised immunity." Hello adrenal fatigue and auto-immune issues.

Chemically created hormones for pharmaceutical HRT do the same thing. The most common one is Premarin. It stands for Pregnant Mare Urine, and it's altered in a lab for human use. Why would anyone knowingly put a chemical in their body that isn't something molecularly identical to what our own body makes and expect a positive long-term outcome? I know so many women that won't do hormone replacement because of fear of cancer. Instead, they lose their femininity, lack good sleep, and have higher risks associated with cardiovascular issues and bone-loss, not to mention loss of libido and a multitude of other negatives. 

Supplementing with BHRT can be tailored to each person to lower the risks and improve the benefits. Bioidentical hormones are just that -- plant-based and molecularly identical to what our bodies make so we processes them easier. And they have the added benefit of being able to be tweaked as our needs change. 

Sadly, I have unknowingly done so many things wrong over the years that have culminated in the constant health battle that I now endure. I will probably always live without a fully functioning immune system (though I'll never stop trying to make it so) and I'll never know exactly why, but I certainly didn't do myself any favors following western medicine. 

Take my situation as one example and do your own VALID research (be careful -- lots of untrue information out there) and treat your body right. We need our hormones to be healthy and happy and high functioning (women and men). Be armed with the best information available and try not to be coerced by the allopathic medical opinion that natural medicine is hogwash. It is nature's ORIGINAL medicine.


*My mother, who had a full hysterectomy at age twenty-nine, tried quitting Premarin and going to natural hormones after she had been on it for thirty-five years. She couldn't do it. We suspect she went too long without her own hormones. She also suffers from massive immune system issues. Correlation?

Resources:
Dr Uzzi Reiss, M.D.: Natural Hormone Balance for Women (A "MUST HAVE" book)
And his latest, The Natural Superwoman

www.uzzireissmd.com

Suazzane Somers' Breakthrough is great; I think there's been a lot of change in the industry since it was written

Lifeextension.com -- they have reliable research and a thorough explanation of this topic

Mercola.com -- reliable information

Stpetehw.com -- Dr Les Cole, M.D. publishes a lot of beneficial articles

This blog is in no way a diagnosis tool or medical recommendation. Do not use it to make your own diagnosis without consulting an alternative/holistic or eastern medicine practitioner.

Something a Little Different...

May Fly

Dragonfly in body, butterfly in spirit

Delicate veined wings of sea glass

A thread-like tail that curves in the breeze

In groups, you cover porches, windows and eaves

A loosely knitted sweater

Alerting fisherman that it's time to leave

In the north-country, your arrival is usually May 

Today it is July and surprise!

You are alone on my window

A short dainty life only minutes, sometimes a day

I watch closely and can't help but feel grace 

You are the fleeting nature of life amplified

Momentarily I am distracted, when I glance again 

You are gone, blown away without a trace

Kristin D. Sadler