These Hands...
The Body tells a different story....
In my last post on Motrin…and arthritis, doctors, and almost-wheelchairs, I promised this little follow-up.
https://debra152.substack.com/p/motrin
Picking up the trail at “Through trial and error…”
I proceeded to do what most all of us do.
I was in severe pain around-the-clock, hands gnarled, knees useless, frankly terrified by this mysterious disease that had taken me from healthy, active and fit and reduced me to a whimpering mess at the ripe old age of 26.
Everything came to a head with the offer of disability, a wheelchair and the intrusion of a sudden Voice that galvanized me into breaking the spell and putting my own brain to work. I knew what the Voice was referring to when it said “This is not the best choice for you.” The implication was that I had what it took. I needed to figure this out. “The doctors are not curious about how you got this way.”
The implication part, especially… I had started med school a few yrs prior. I was dismayed at what I found there and turned aside.
I was disappointed in myself, as well. Helping people along these lines had felt like my calling since I was about 4 yrs old and had a curious encounter at the county fair (another story for another day).
In any case, I set my studies aside… After all, there was nowhere to go with all that information. Thankfully I was wrong about that as I would discover 20 yrs. later.
This fork in the road re-kindled that love of learning.
“Natural” was the buzzword of the day back then, so I embarked on that direction with enthusiasm. (Enthusiasm is akin to madness, folks)
What was more helpful was living on Cape Breton Island where people lived like we did 150 yrs ago. They had old remedies, old ways, plant knowledge, all this baked in homely wit and wisdom. I was forever foraging for old folks and their soon-to-be-lost ways.
A special recipe to be shared in my next post….”Slish me baby one more time”…. a tribute to those good folks.
Ok…so on with the story. A new world opened up and I was hot on the trail. Apple-cider vinegar and honey was a big one, along with essential oils, teas, herbs, balms, arnica, tinctures, vitamin mixtures, special foods, certain fruit juices…loads of things!
My education had begun in earnest!
I tried it all…all at once…in my desperation!
and no….I didn’t get better.
It dawned on me slowly that IF any of those things worked, I would never know exactly WHAT it was that worked.
I had to slow it waayyy down, get some notebooks going and start over, taking one thing at a time in isolation. Observe, take breaks, study further.
That got me somewhere. But not where I hoped to go.
There were some left-handed lessons along the way…
Most Memorable Left-Handed Lesson Award goes to Apple Cider Vinegar with Honey…hands down the most poisonous concoction I ever self-administered!! By the 3rd modest dose, my joints were ON FIRE in ways I couldn’t imagine! My mouth broke out in really painful acid blisters, as did the webbing between my fingers and toes. I was in AGONY for days afterward!
Hear me out… I know this apple cider vinegar stuff gets the best press, but I was beginning to learn that most of the advice so confidently and often, authoritatively handed out, has NEVER been tried by the ones giving the advice…
There oughta be a law….
(ditto for the doctors who would never dream of taking the roster of meds they hand out to their patients)
Acidic fruit juices, still all the rage with the unsuspecting public, rank in 2nd place for adding misery to pain.
I had no idea the placebo effect was so strong!!
Because, honestly, if it wasn’t for that, there would be scant improvement.
Some things, like ointments, can give temporary relief, but nothing appeared to offer more than that. (they can also burn the skin and injure the liver….icy hot, bio freeze. etc…all over-the-counter meds considered safe)
No healing, no improvement, no reversal….no understanding of the causes or mechanisms. This trial and error went on for about a year. I had weaned off most of the meds, which helped, but I also swallowed a bottles’ worth of aspirin each week until my stomach said “No more.”
I was at a standstill…unable to figure it out, not knowing where to look next.
AND THEN! (and this is such an important clue…)
One day, I was searching through my fridge and cupboards for something to eat. Normally, I’m not too fussy, but on this day, nothing appealed. I was going to have to go the the grocery store. Given my circumstances, that was a 7 mile round-trip hike. The country store didn’t have much of a selection-just 5 or 6 aisles of basic necessities.
Once there, I wandered up and down the aisles, but still couldn’t find anything that appealed. I did it again…and slowed down and did it yet again.
What was I hunting for?! I didn’t know.
Then I gave myself an ultimatum. I was NOT going to walk 7 miles and return empty-handed!
Even though, I now knew every foodstuff and its location by heart, I made myself look at every single item one by one.
And then my eyes landed on a jar of mustard and all the lights and sirens went off!! MUSTARD!! That’s what I had to have!! I was nearly frantic with craving.
I really wasn’t myself at this point…that’s all I can say.
I grabbed the jar, hurriedly paid for it and jogged down the road toward home until I was just beyond the village where no one would see me.
I wrestled it open, dipped my finger inside and started eating it straight from the jar! I got home with barely half a jar.
This turned into a full-blown mustard fetish! Food scarcely mattered. I just needed vehicles for mustard! My strange predilection was so well-known that friends (from all over creation, thanks to my hostel) sent me gifts of mustard for birthdays, holidays and any time they needed to curry favor. Which brings me awkwardly to a segue…
CURRY!! became my next obsession. I had to have curry. Had to, had to, had to!!! During these times, I felt better. (still clueless, however)
Some mysteries unfold over time…It would be 27 yrs. (2004) before I understood those peculiar cravings.
By then I was a Thai Massage practitioner with lots of hurting folks. Vioxx and Celebrex were pulled from the market suddenly, leaving people desperate and without good substitutes. Knowing that many meds were initially derived from plants, I did some research and found that the cox-2 inhibitors that made those meds so effective were found in abundance in turmeric…a principle ingredient in mustard and curry!
My body knew.
Long before the supplement sellers…
I was to discover the same thing with chocolate…a craving for chocolate is the body’s call for magnesium. In fact, most cravings are a search for a mineral.
These things fly just below our conscious minds… We were just never taught to regard them. In fact, we tend to DISREGARD the information our bodies are sending us.
Alright…the last piece of the puzzle came through an out-of-print book written by a Chinese-American doctor living in LA. In fact, he was a doctor to the ‘Stars’.
But by the age of 50, he was wheelchair-bound and suffering from severe crippling arthritis, obesity, diabetes, heart disease and gout…the ‘rich man’s disease’. He could not help himself, nor could his doctor friends do anything for him.
A favorite line from his book: “One day I was sitting in my wheelchair, slowly going mad from the pain, when a thought came to me…
Do you remember the food you grew up on in China? (a simple Chinese peasant diet of vegetables, rice and a little meat) You were healthy back then! And your family in China is still healthy. Maybe the good life is killing you.”
He HAD been living the high life. Lobster, butter, steak, cocktails, wine, rich desserts…the works!
The thought lingered.
He reasoned that if he returned to the diet of his youth, he would lose a few pounds and that would be good for his joints. So he gave it a try.
A surprise awaited him…
About 10 days later, most of his pain and swelling was gone. Three weeks later, he was sure he was healing. But how?! In fact, all of his conditions were improving.
Diet couldn’t possibly do all that!! But he was LIVING it.
In an effort to understand what was happening, he turned his attention to research. He met a scientist who was also on the trail. Together they put together one of the first and best anti-inflammatory diets. They wrote a book. I had a tattered copy of it.
As he laid out his rationale, it made sense to me. His approach was concentrated on a simple diet and stress management as a way to reverse arthritis.
As a young person, the ‘stress’ part of his equation didn’t compute. At that stage of life we just aren’t ready to see how stress and the body are interrelated. There wasn’t much I could do about the stress anyway, so I just went with the diet at first.
It was challenging to me in that it targeted all of my favorite things for elimination! Had I not been so desperate, I would have passed it by. I reminded myself that it was just for 3 weeks, and then I could indulge once again.
I tried the diet…and it worked! It worked for me just as it had for him. Finally something worked. I was ecstatic!
But I had the occasional setback. And that’s how I learned about the stress factor. I would read the book again. What am I missing? What am I doing wrong?! The diet was working…until it wasn’t. I began to see that the overlooked factor was stress. Now we all have stress, but there are certain things that REALLY stress us out. Take special note of those things. When you experience one of those events, your amazing chemical factory in your brain can churn out enough acid to impact your body. In my case, the chemical hit could render me curling up in pain in 20 minutes. It takes your body 2-3 days to mop up that chemical spill. So you find better ways to deal with those people and situations.
Everyone’s path to illness is a bit unique. If you can observe your path, you can generally ‘walk it back’. In my case, a period of extreme stress, calcium and dairy supplementation (too much of a good thing can be a bad thing-arthritis and about 200 other conditions are due to excess calcium and/or lack of magnesium which makes calcium behave itself properly in the body) and a high acid diet were the things that deranged my body chemistry. Once I put things more or less right, my body was able to heal. I got well and stayed well.
Why do I say ‘more or less’? Because the body does not require perfection. Just get within range after the initial correction and you’ll be alright.
To this day doctors still say “We don’t know what causes arthritis and we don’t know how to cure it.”
How can that be?! I cured mine…twice, in fact.
At the age of 50, I moved to Indiana. Within 9 mths I was developing arthritis again. I attributed it to my age, occupation and a genetic tendency. Fortunately, my patients saved the day. They all had extremely tight muscles, constant spasms, orthopedic issues, insomnia, tense personalities, and heart disease. Their conditions did not respond to massage as they did elsewhere in the country. They also had inordinately high numbers of massage therapists and chiropractors who were kept quite busy. I made friends with a lot of practitioners with the hope of getting to the bottom of this. My question “Are you having the same problem that I’m having? Everyone’s in spasm and instead of improving they come back every week for treatment? They don’t get better?”
“Oh yes…We have the same experience.”
“Well, what do you think about this?”
“Well, it’s REALLY GOOD FOR BUSINESS!!”… with the implied threat to not rock the boat!
WRONG ANSWER, I thought to myself!!! I was shocked at their attitudes…every last one of them gave that answer. I re-doubled my efforts and worked hard to get it figured out. In the final analysis it turns out that we were built over limestone: calcium carbonate! We have the most calcium in the water, soil and diet of any place in the country. The water and soil make the people… So we moderated the calcium and brought magnesium in to break down calcium deposits and help restore the bones. Bone spurs, breast lumps, plantar fasciitis, carpal tunnel, etc. etc. resolved. People got better, I reversed arthritis for a 2nd time.
And yet all the medical literature still says “We don’t know what causes arthritis and we don’t know how to cure it. We just know how to treat it.”
Tell me experts…tell me.
So…a word about entrenched ways of thinking. I no longer say “I have arthritis” or that I am prone to or have a genetic tendency, etc.
The truth of the matter and the good news is that I accidentally MADE the arthritis and, for that reason, I was able to UNMAKE it.
Basic chemistry…works for everyone. This making and unmaking is true for many conditions!
It was a major turning point. Not only was the pain and swelling almost gone, but the impossible was happening. The deformities were healing. I was becoming my former self. Hiking, exploring, biking…living!
An important mental hurdle was being overturned through watching my body heal.
We are given to understand that our various maladies are with us throughout life. We are stuck with them, by accident of birth or whatever other sloppy excuse we are handed. They can be ‘managed’ but never healed. Perhaps treatment can slow the progression…perhaps not. It’s a crapshoot as we’re sent from specialist to specialist, pharmacy to hospital, etc.
The Body tells a different story…
So these are my hands….decades later! As for the rest of me, if you know anything about Traditional Thai Massage… In Thai, a session can last for 3 hours. The practitioner uses their whole body to do the work…kneeling, sitting, standing, lifting, bending in a beautifully choreographed moving meditation. My Thai teachers imparted a work ethic that I emulated…6 days a week, often 12-14 hrs a day. I always felt better at the end of a day than at the beginning.
There are potentials in our bodies that we are barely cognizant of…
We just have to change our thinking…
I invite you to choose the story you want to live in.
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THE DIET
This diet is for arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, gout.
It can be adjusted for other needs, but this is what I used.
It is essentially a low-acid diet that also targets typical arthritis triggers like nightshade plants.
Interesting note is that the foods YOU crave, are your trigger foods.
In three weeks, you essentially change your body chemistry from acidic to alkaline (what we were as babies-the ideal environment to thrive in)
Restore the right chemical environment and your body can take it from there.
You can use PH testing strips to see your progress. Aim for 7.4-7.6 alkalinity.
Had I known about magnesium, I would have gotten better twice as fast…(more to come)
This diet calls for a 21 day elimination of the foods on the 1st list. Typically, people are pain-free after 7-10 days as the body rids itself of toxins and irritants. Remain on the diet for the full 21 day period. Then you can gradually re-introduce small amounts of the listed foods to your personal level of tolerance.
(I can…and do…have a little of everything on the elimination list, just in moderation)
FOODS TO ELIMINATE for 3 wks
caffeine (coffee, tea, energy drinks, supplements like guarana. (you may want to step yourself down gently to avoid caffeine withdrawal headaches)
alcohol, wine and vinegar
all peppers and tomatoes, hot sauces and spices
potatoes and other root vegetables
red meats, foods containing nitrates/nitrites (processed meats)
all dairy products
sugar, including all fruits, honey, etc.
wheat and rye (bread, pasta, etc)
junk food, restaurant food which is loaded with irritating chemicals
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FOODS YOU MAY ENJOY
white meat : poultry, fish, a bit of pork
eggs
salads
all vegetables not listed above
rice and other grains
herbs
herb teas
vegetable oils
As you re-introduce foods, how will you know if it’s too much? Your body will tell you. Achy joints, stiffness, a return of symptoms. So you just pare it back for few days.
Once you get used to feeling better, eating along these lines is a pleasure.
The Body is very forgiving once we start moving in the right direction.
It doesn’t require perfection either…
Had I known about magnesium (through the skin) I would have gotten better twice as fast… Magnesiumshoppe.com
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We all slice and dice our experience of life a little differently…
For example: some folks are more self-focused and their tendency is to micro-manage their diets, exercise, and supplements.
Another places their trust in the doctors implicitly (that didn’t always work for me).
Another might place themselves in a mindset of ‘I’m trying, but I’m gonna fail again.’
You see what I mean….
I tend to be more of a regular person…middle path, no extremes, ‘we’re all made of the same stuff’ kind of a person.
So no special heroics here…
I move more along the lines of ‘what works, works’. This works!
A note regarding the photo…These are my hands at 60 yrs old. No trace of arthritis. I was doing both Thai and deep tissue massage for 40-50 hrs a week with no difficulty (I don’t even own aspirin)
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Thanks for reading! As always, feel free to share and restack any of this information.
Very helpful, thank you! I love how you write!