One of the things you have to learn early, if you want to take back your health, is that everyone is just going to doubt you, claim your sources aren't good enough, and cling to 10-50 year old science as though it was carved in stone tablets by God, himself.
I happen to be a person who can bear up under the load of that doubt for some time, somewhat better than the average people struggling with health issues, I think. But even I am not made of steel.
I listened to an interesting public radio piece the other day on This American Life, (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/590/choosing-wrong) about why people make bad decisions that they know are bad decisions. It talked about how some people have different thresholds on their willingness to deviate.
Those of you who know me, know that I have spent a lifetime on deviating. I have low patience for doing things the way everyone says I should, when the results don't match. So unlike Wilt Chamberlain, if I find that I am more successful throwing 3 pointers underhanded, I am not very likely to go back to throwing over-hand for fear of perception of others.
Sometimes it sucks to stand out from the crowd. And even as good at it as I am, I still get exasperated at the people who imply that what I am doing must only work by placebo, or that the references I post on my Facebook feed are not sound enough, when I post the lay person readable version, rather than the medical journal I read first. I get this a lot, by a lot of sources who don't realize they are condescending and making sweepingly inaccurate assumptions that it is the only thing I have read on the subject. I have learned, over time, to just roll with it, and consider it their own baggage with themselves, but it isn't always easy.
One of the subjects where this has come up for me, is enzymes. The science is rolling in, but most of the time when I post science papers, I hear crickets of silence. So I have been known to suggest to various people that they read a book I read about enzymes and autism. (https://www.amazon.com/Enzymes-Autism-Neurological-Conditions-Updated/dp/0972591850) I don't suggest this book because it is the paragon of science tomes. I suggest it, because it is imminently readable, and perfectly in keeping with the science not funded by big business, that I have read, even if not being a deep scientific treatment of the subject.
One of the things it does talk about, though, is that the enzymes from Houston Enzymes are somewhat unusual. (http://www.houston-enzymes.com/) They were developed by a man who was at the top of his game, when a group of parents of autistic children approached him for help. And unlike most of what was available on the market at the time, it created miracles for a lot of these young people when combined with a gluten free and casein free diet.
I have been diagnosed with ADHD. Some of the scientific community consider ADHD to probably be on the autism spectrum. And that is how I came to read things about autism, looking for clues. At the time, there was partial theory of the reasons it might be working as well as it was for some.
Over time, I have found more evidence, and one of the things I think is probably relevant for why it matters to me, has to do with viruses and how they function.
I have changed a lot of things in my life. Maybe most of them were necessary, but one of the things I did several years ago was add the enzymes listed above, because of the research on it, and the way the company's enzymes have been vastly more effective than any other brand, in autism circles. I paid the extra for these enzymes.
I could tell they helped me, by themselves, but in retrospect, I realize the weight loss started at the same time I added coconut oil as my cooking oil or part of my cooking oil, at about 80% of my meals.
I know that diabetes runs in my family, and have read about dementia because of my father's struggle with this problem. Many consider dementia to be a form of diabetes of the brain. I knew that coconut oil is an amazing alternative fuel for the brain and body when insulin resistance is a factor. Insulin resistance probably was a problem for me, given the years of self medicating the ADHD with soda, and the grain related addictions.
So I started using coconut oil as my primary cooking oil for a lot of reasons. At about that time, I finally had everything in line well enough to really see weight improvement.
I have said before that doctors are wrong when they claim that weight problems are a calorie problem. I have counted calorie, I have done all the things to lose weight that people claimed during all the 80s and 90s, to be the path to weight loss. Only they weren't. As far as I could tell, they were basically a way to torture my system and make me sicker.
I have had so many arguments with doctors suggesting weight loss surgeries, and believing I wasn't trying hard enough about diet and lifestyle. Many have flat out refused to believe me about much of it, certain I was lying about my eating habits, and just complaining too much about the rest.
But I know gas lighting when it's pointed at me, and I don't fall for it anymore, even when the source is supposed experts. So I kept turning down their surgeries and looking for answers. Slowly I have put together a lot of pieces. There are other factors, too, but I am reasonably sure that viral load was one of my ongoing problems. Which virus? I can't honestly say, other than ruling out a few that were tested for one reason or another. But I can tell you that many of my worst problems followed a viral flare pattern.
This is a halfway decent treatment of the subject of viruses while still being readable by the masses. http://www.enzymestuff.com/conditionviruses.htm
I fit the patterns perfectly, and it pulls together something I have read bits of in a lot of medical papers. What do Alzheimer's, ADHD, autism, autoimmune disease, and various other of my personal issues share? They all behave with a pattern very similar to a viral infection pattern, just interacting with different environmental factors, parts of the body, and genetics.
So I switched to mostly coconut oil, and continued my expensive enzymes, while also eating a diet very high in nutrients to help with healing, and very low in things that drag on my immune system. And that combination of things seems to have created some miracles. They may also be impacted by other changes, but I believe these are some of the most necessary of the set.
I am still losing weight, but to give you an idea, I lost 150 pounds in about a year and a couple months, without going hungry at any point, and with a higher calorie diet than I was eating before. If calories are the important thing, that weight loss is impossible. And yet my scale and my old doctor confirm that it happened.
Are there people out there trying to thin down for a wedding gown, who just need to lose 10 or 20 pounds, for whom a calorie is an important thing? Sure, probably. But when we're talking about serious obesity, diabetes and all the rest, we're not talking about the same sport anymore.
And in my case, the weight, along with many of the other problems, like much of the pain problem, the migraines, etc, are all a side effect of inflammation. Many things were keeping me inflamed. Some of that list includes nightshades and grains, glyphosate, and other poisons sprayed on conventional foods, chemicals, and more (all of this has been confirmed by genetic test or, in the case of nightshades, by elimination diet). But I believe, even before the nightshades and grains and all the rest were a problem for me, there was something viral going on.
I was a sick kid, regularly. I know my mother had cold sores, which I have gotten a few times in my life. Maybe it was the herpes virus from birth. I really can't say. But I think, and current medical research supports the idea, that it may well have settled itself into my vagus nerve, and been a recurring nightmare ever since, making my immune system stay pegged, and causing a variety of other problems.
So while I have changed many things, I think one of the critical things to my healing process was the combo of enzymes, which have been found to dissolve the protective coatings on viruses, and coconut oil, which has also been found to be a significant fighter of viral load in many different scientific circles.
I don't say any of this to undermine the importance of the therapy or other things I have done. Probably those were important too. But I share this so that if you're stuck on your healing journey, you can consider a focus on how best to reduce your viral load and heal. Perhaps it will be the missing bit of your health puzzle, too.
And I say it so that those of you who are fighting this battle have a chance to hear from someone who puts up with the gas lighting all the time, that it's not just you. It's not in your head. Our culture's behavior toward pain disorders and autoimmune problems and weight problems is often, frankly, abusive. We are the canaries in the mine, and we must decide to deviate from all the garbage big business wants us to believe is safe, in order to heal. You will hear doubt. People will be downright condescending and awful to you, because their threshold for deviation doesn't allow them to think outside their box.
Take the risk anyway. Throw that free throw underhanded. Do whatever it takes to break the pattern. Remind yourself that insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. Try things. I don't care if you read the idea on a napkin left on a bar one night. If you haven't tried it yet, you have researched the risks, and you want to give it a shot, go for it. Ignore the doubters who would rather live with their terrible free throw record. And know that one of us out here is proud of you for your courage to keep trying new things until something works.
By my definition, failure is accepting quick fixes that aren't, and settling for comfortable cultural defeat. You can do better than that, just by having the courage to keep trying new things.
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