Yesterday, I saw my Orthopedic doctor for the six-week follow-up after the three sets of Hyalgan shots in both my knees. Now he is a nice friendly older guy (68) with about 40 years experience in fixing knees and hip joints. Clearly he has a lot of experience and knowledge.

 

Hyalgan was supposed to reduce friction and pain in my knees. I told the doctor that the success of this was not significant (so far as I could tell) and we started to discuss what we could do next. He was about to outline the possibilities when I said, “I have been reading some rather obscure medical papers, some of which suggest that arthritis and joint swelling might be a fungal issue.” I was about to ask what he knew about this and if an antifungal medicine would be in order, when he turned toward me and I saw the expression on his face (if looks could kill!). He said, in a raised voice, “Don’t even go there! You’re wasting both my time and yours! If you want to play that game, you’ll have to find someone else to take care of you!”

 

I was certain he was about to tell me to leave, but I managed to diffuse his anger and we continued talking. During the course of the conversation, he admitted that medical science does not know the cause of arthritis. Knowing full well that I could not say this, I still thought, “If you admit that you don’t know what causes it, why are you so damn resistant to discussing fungi?” I suspect, for some unknown reason, the very subject scared him because he had little or no knowledge in this area. Also, such an admission could bring personal psychological damage – would you want to face the fact that the last 40 years of your career had been wrong?

 

We talked for several more minutes and I decided I am not ready for joint replacement surgery. I suggested he make an appointment for me for one year from now and we’d see if I am still deteriorating and at what rate so we’ll be better able to guess how long I can put this off. Then I snickered lowly and said, “Given the radical change in my diet lately, who knows what next year’s X-rays will show.” He glared at me very hard and I thanked him and left.

 

Now, here’s something you have to see after reading that stuff above:

 

“Mycotoxins are capable of causing illness and death in humans and animals and are common contaminants of grains.” - Ryth Etzel, Journal of the American Medical Association, 2002

 

Excuse me, but don’t all doctors have a subscription to JAMA? Yet my use of the words “fungal” and “diet” caused an extreme negative response in this doctor. He acted as if I had just said maybe this was all the fault of the aliens who experimented with me the last time I was abducted. {That’s a joke, folks. None of my alien friends have ever abducted me.} J

 

Want more proof that doctors know this is a problem?

 

“One of the major risk factors of fungal overgrowth – the antibiotic – is on record as having triggered psychotic episodes.” – N.E. Neff and G. Kuo; Acute Manic Psychosis Induced by Triple Therapy by H. Pylori, Journal of the American Board of Family Practice, Jan-Feb, 2002

 

Gee, my Orthopedic doc probably doesn’t read that journal, but hey, could this imply that those kids that shot their classmates at school were influenced by eating too many Cheerios after having taken antibiotics and it wasn’t really the fault of any “gun-nuts” at the NRA?

 

Speaking of kids, I said a couple issues back that childhood use of antibiotics carries forward to problems in your life right now. Here’s a couple more interesting quotes:

 

Parents report an estimated 2.7 million children with emotional behavioral problems.

 

“A report shows that nearly 5% of teens suffer from definite or severe emotional or behavioral difficulties. These difficulties may persist throughout a child’s development and lead to a lifelong disability, including more serious illness, more difficult to treat illness, and co-occurring medical illness.” – American Children Key National Indicators of Well Being, 2005

 

“One reason many states are deciding to change school lunch menus is because of increasing awareness relating junk food consumption to diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and behavior disorders such as depression.” – American Academy of Pediatrics, National Library of Medicine

 

Is it possible that mainstream medicine is starting to get a clue? Well, I am sure it is still too late for my Orthopedic doctor (he could retire any day now, especially if I keep upsetting him), but maybe the rest of them will wake up soon.

 

Well, this clearly disturbed quack will now turn the show over to his better half. J

 

Acid Reflux

What Would I Do?

by Le Anne Amber

 

This is the first of several issues where I’ll discuss some commonly seen “disease,” what it is, what the doctors’ “Standard of Care” is, and what I might do myself if I had it.

 

Acid Reflux Disease, also called GERD, for gastro-esophageal reflux disease, (which isn’t actually a disease at all, but only a symptom) is quite common today, although it was virtually unheard of fifty years ago. What the medical profession will tell you is that it’s caused by “inappropriate relaxation of the esophagus” allowing stomach acid to burp up into your esophagus, damaging the lining. In severe cases, people have even been diagnosed with esophageal cancer. They can’t tell you, though, what causes an otherwise normal, healthy esophagus to “relax inappropriately.” The reason we see so much more of it today than we did fifty years ago, I think, is because of the overuse of antibiotics as well as the processed foods and fast foods that most people eat nowadays.

 

The Standard of Care (the treatment authorized by the American Medical Association) is anti-acid drugs to lower the amount of stomach acid in your stomach, such as AcipHex and Nexium, to name just two. The medical community figures that if there is no acid in your stomach, it can’t back up into your esophagus. That’s all well and good, but then how do you digest your food?

 

And what are the side effects of these drugs? This is from the “Physicians’ Desk Reference”:

 

AcipHex          Common side effects: Headache

 

Less common side effects: Abdominal pain, abnormal dreams, abnormal stools, abnormal vision, allergic reaction, anxiety, arthritis, asthma, belching, bladder inflammation, bone pain, breakthrough menstrual bleeding, bruising, bursitis, cataract [oh, how nice], chest pain, chills, constipation, convulsion, decreased sex drive, dehydration, depression, diarrhea, difficult breathing, difficult periods, dizziness, dry eyes, dry mouth, ear infection, fainting, fatigue, fever, fluid retention, frequent urination, gallbladder disease [necessitating removal of the gall bladder, no doubt], gas, glaucoma, gout, gum inflammation, hair loss, heart attack [HEART ATTACK?], hiccup, high blood pressure, hives, hyperventilation, increased appetite, inflammation of the esophagus [say WHAT???], inflammation of the pancreas, insomnia, intestinal inflammation, irregular heartbeat, itching, joint disease, kidney stone, laryngitis, leg cramps, loss of appetite, lymph node disease [lymph node disease? like cancer, maybe?], migraine, mouth inflammation, mouth sores, muscle pain, nausea, nerve pain, nervous system disorder, nervousness, nosebleed, overactive thyroid, painful urination, pins and needles sensation, pounding heartbeat, rash, rectal bleeding or inflammation, ringing in the ears, sensitivity to sunlight, sleepiness, slowed or racing heartbeat, stiff neck, stiffness, stomach upset or inflammation [wait, isn’t this supposed to prevent these problems?], sweating, tongue inflammation, tremor, underactive thyroid, vertigo, vomiting, weakness, weight gain or loss.

 

Rare side effects: Abdominal swelling, absence of breathing, agitation, amnesia, bile duct inflammation, blood clot [going to which vital organ?], blood in the urine, blood vessel enlargement, bloody diarrhea, breast enlargement, confusion, deafness, dry skin, eye pain, fluid retention of the face, hangover effect, heavy periods, hyperactivity, impotence, inflammation of the small intestine, intestinal bleeding, irregular heartbeat, liver disorders [disorders?], nervous disorders, salivary gland enlargement, shingles, skin discoloration or scaling, slowed breathing, stomach bleeding, testicular inflammation, thirst, twitching, urinary incontinence, vaginal discharge, vein inflammation, visual disturbance.

 

Wow, that’s quite a list, isn’t it? How about that wonderful “purple pill”?

 

Nexium           Common side effects: Abdominal pain, diarrhea, headache. [these are bad enough – read on]

 

Rare side effects: Abnormal sense of smell, acne, allergic reaction, anemia, apathy, back pain, black stools, blood disorders [do they mean like leukemia?], blood in urine, burping, change in bowel habits, chest pain, chills, confusion, constipation, coughing, cramps, difficulty breathing, difficulty swallowing, dizziness, dry mouth, ear infection, earache, enlarged abdomen, enlarged thyroid gland [there’s that thyroid gland again], eye infection, facial swelling, fast or irregular heartbeat, fatigue, fever, flu-like symptoms, flushing, frequent or increased urination, fungal infections, general feeling of illness, hernia, hiccups, high blood pressure, hives, hot flushes, impotence, inability to sleep, increased appetite, indigestion [did that say “indigestion”?], itching, leg and body swelling, liver problems, loss of appetite, loss of taste, lymph node problems, menstrual problems, migraine, mouth and throat problems, nausea, nervousness, nosebleed, pain, painful joints and muscles, painful urination, prickly or burning sensation, rash, rectal problems, rigidity, ringing in the ears, runny nose, sensitivity to touch, sinus problems, sleep disorders, sleepiness, sore throat, stomach bleeding [oh, how nice, stomach bleeding], stomach pain, stomach upset, sweating, swelling, taste changes, thirst, tremors, urinary tract infection, vaginitis, vertigo, vision changes, vomiting, weakness, weight changes, worsening of arthritis, worsening of asthma, worsening of depression.

 

Now, you might say that most of that bad stuff is a “rare” side effect, but if some people didn’t have those side effects, they wouldn’t be listed at all. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’d want to risk some of those side effects just in order to “manage” my acid reflux disease. Because they say it’s incurable, all you can do is manage the symptoms. Sorry, but some of those side effects are not only serious, but also a sign of a fungal overgrowth.

 

I think that all digestive problems are fungal in nature, as are most physical problems we have today. It might be the antibiotics the doctor gave you for that ear infection when you were 10 years old, or it might be the boxes upon boxes of Cracker Jacks you ate when you were a kid (corn, peanuts, and sugar), or maybe all those deep-fried fast foods you eat when you’re too busy to cook that helped to destroy your beneficial bacteria and replace them with fungal mycotoxins. Once you get fungus in your GI tract, it will put down roots and start feeding itself. It eventually wants to get into the bloodstream, and most often it does, so you end up with little perforations in your esophagus, stomach, intestines and colon. Once in the bloodstream, it can settle anywhere in your body. The bottom line is, you need your stomach acid to destroy the fungus when it first enters your system. Your beneficial bacteria also produce acid as a preventive measure against fungal infections, so when you take an anti-acid drug to control the symptoms, you’re actually making the situation worse by making the GI tract uninhabitable to your beneficial bacteria and inviting the fungus to “be fruitful and multiply.” Most of those side effects listed can be traced back to fungus in the first place. All that tells me is that it’s the wrong medicine to take for “Acid Reflux” or “GERD,” yet this is the standard of care today.

 

That doesn’t make sense to me at all. So if I had acid reflux, I’d simply try to starve out the fungus and replenish my “good guys.” The first thing I would do is cut out grains. This is kind of hard for me to do, because of my activity level (I need the carbs), so I would try to eat as few as possible. I’d eat lots of raw carrots and broccoli, both of which are antifungal, without doing any damage to my beneficial bacteria. Fresh tomatoes are another very good antifungal food. If the problem was very bad, I might supplement my changed diet with an antifungal supplement such as olive leaf extract or cinnamon. Cinnamon, by the way, is also an antimicrobial, which means that it, like garlic, will kill not only fungus but also bacteria, including the “good guys,” so use with care. Then I would take a probiotic supplement (e.g., Natren’s “Healthy Trinity” or “Bifidus Powder”) in therapeutic doses, meaning several times a day for at least a few weeks, then cutting back to once a day thereafter for maintenance, providing of course, my acid reflux was gone. Not just controlled, but gone. If it wasn’t gone yet, I’d just continue with the antifungals and the probiotics until it was, but I think a few weeks is more than enough time to get rid of that problem.