In 2005, while hiking on the Appalachian Trail, I contracted Lyme's Disease, Giardia, and an unknown third ailment – the beginning of a long battle with ill-health. After five years of exhausting the resources available through western medicine, I began exploring the world of alternative medicine from the viewpoint of an engineer. I have been through the fire and emerged unscathed. For my fellow chronic sufferers, this blog is for you. May hope sustain you and relief find you quickly...
If ever a spinach dish could be called luxurious, this is it. Rich, smooth, and flavorful, this dish works well as a side dish or as a spread on a sandwich. And its super simple...
Spinach w/ Garlic
INGREDIENTS:
6 Cloves Garlic
1/4 c. Olive Oil
1 lb. Baby Spinach
Salt
INSTRUCTIONS:
(1) Mince Garlic.
(2) Heat olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add garlic and allow to infuse in the oil for approx. a minute.
(3) Chop baby spinach and add to the pan. Allow to cook for approx. 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt.
The flu is highly contagious virus that spread through contact with infected bodily fluids. The virus spreads
rapidly throughout the body and, aside from specific antiviral
medication (like Tamiflu), is only eradicated by your body's immune
system. The video below shows how the flu spreads in your body.
This virus comes with miserable symptoms including fever, body aches, chills, diarrhea, and vomiting. I personally subscribe to the notion that prevention is one of the best ways to deal with flu but there are helpful tools for
PREVENTION
In addition to the flu vaccine, which by all accounts is the most effective preventative measure, several alternative options can help you prevent the onset of flu, including the following:
(1) Flu Vaccine - not an alternative therapy but by all accounts the most effective.
(2) Lifestyle Choices (diet, exercise, etc.) that help maintain a strong immune system.
(3) Immune Boosting Therapies:
Echinacea is scientifically proven to help with upper respiratory infections, like the flu, according to Germany's Commission E.
Turmeric is also highly suspected to boost immune function (though not scientifically proven).
(4) Sleep - the primary means for your body to focus energy on internal affairs.
TREATMENT
If you are unfortunate enough to be symptomatic, in addition to Tamiflu (an amazing antiviral medicine), the following alternative therapies are worth exploring:
(1) Immune Boosting Therapies:
Echinacea is
scientifically proven to help with upper respiratory infections, like
the flu, according to Germany's Commission E.
Turmeric is also highly suspected to boost immune function (though not scientifically proven).
(2) Sleep - the primary means for your body to focus energy on internal affairs.
WHAT WORKED FOR ME
I have just finished a trial of Echinacea and Turmeric Tea while being in extremely close contact with confirmed flu. Additionally, I was unable to sleep, due to the flu-driven nighttime needs of my daughter. Though I did feel more tired than normal, I ultimately did not get the flu. I'm sold.
Flu season has hit our house. We all got the flu vaccine this year - but have been exposed to one of the majority of flu viruses not covered by this year's vaccine. One daughter confirmed with the flu, another highly suspected with the flu. We took our girls to the pediatrician early enough to acquire Tamiflu, in my experience an amazing conventional treatment, for the girls. However, as Ingrid and I are not symptomatic (yet), we are anxiously awaiting our own fates.
When it comes to contracting illness, Ingrid has a pretty good history of not contracting illness. I have a miserable history - it's virtually guaranteed that I'll contract any illness in close proximity. I had not done any research on alternative therapies for acute illnesses until late last night while frantically looking for a credible alternative therapy that might help fend off, reduce the duration, or reduce the intensity of any oncoming flu.
The flu, just like the common cold, is a virus (though they are different viruses) and prevention and treatment of each is generically (though not always specifically) interchangeable. It is highly contagious and spread through contact with infected bodily fluids. The virus spreads rapidly throughout the body and, aside from specific antiviral medication (like Tamiflu), is only eradicated by your body's immune system. The video below shows how the flu spreads in your body.
There are a lot of alternative therapies touted on the internet to help prevent or treat the flu (many of them unsubstantiated as far as my research showed). A common thread between some of the more plausible therapies was their purported role in boosting the body's immune system to quickly deal with any invading virus. Under this generic guideline, my immediate reaction was to start a regimen of Turmeric Tea (not proven but highly suspected to boost immune function and/or kill viruses). After consulting a number of the resources that I use to spearhead my own research into alternative therapies, I also ran out to the store to grab some Echinacea. Echinacea is approved for use by Germany's Commission E (The equivalent to the US Food & Drug Administration) for treating upper respiratory infections (URIs) - though the literature I've read makes distinctions between specific plant parts and species and recommended dosages. More to come on Echinacea in a separate blog post - but for my immediate purposes, I decided there was enough evidence in support of echinacea to make the purchase (for an in depth look, click here to read the American Botanic Council's clinical guide to echinacea).
Since Adelaide got ill, I've been coughed on (in the face), snotted on, handled dirty clothes, tissues, and blankets, and spent significant time comforting in extremely close proximity. Although by no means scientific, if I don't get the flu I'll consider my efforts with turmeric and echinacea a likely contributing factor. We'll know shortly...
After my post massage soreness and malaise (PSMS) relented, I continued to perform the trigger point massage routinely. Due to the quantity of my identified trigger points (forty plus) and the hour it took to perform one session, let alone the six recommended by The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook, I aimed for three sessions a day.
I had a feeling that the trigger point therapy was providing relief well into the second week but it wasn't until I took a break from the therapy - a day's lapse - which allowed my muscles to rest and recuperate, that I felt the full benefit. My calves, tight for over a decade, no longer felt like rubber bands at full stretch. They felt somewhat relaxed. Of course, as I rolled them on my 5" foam roller ball, they were still tender (and are still tender in some areas), but they were noticeably different - better. Previously painful muscles in my deltoids (shoulders) were no longer painful when rolled. My pectoralis major, though still tender, felt less irritated.
The relief was real and definitively attributable to my work with trigger points. Despite the noticeable relief in my calves, deltoids, and pecs, I still had major work to do. My quads, hamstrings, subscapularis, trapezius, serratus anterior, scalenes, and many more muscle groups remained tight. (sorry for the muscle names - as I learned in this process, most muscles only have Latin names). I played with my massage techniques, using different balls, foam rollers, and a theracane in different positions, finding some new tools and positions that worked better than before.
As of today I have been exploring trigger point therapy for approximately two months, attacking tight and painful muscle group after tight and painful muscle group. The results have been consistent and amazing - so much so that I can't stop talking about trigger point therapy to anyone that will listen. I have long suspected that tight muscles were amplifying my symptoms if not actually causing them - and my experimentation with trigger point therapy has helped reaffirm that belief. In addition to the relief in muscle tension and pain, my energy level has increased, I am less irritable, my digestion seems to be much better, and as long as I continue to work on my muscles I no longer react as severely when going off my diet. Relief has been obtained on a number of fronts - with more expected as I continue to dig in to the tightest and longest-maligned muscles.
To read more about my experiments with trigger point therapy, click the following links:
My latest method for searching the internet for plausible alternative therapies is to type in a symptom combined with another keyword. For example I'll type muscle pain and oxygen, which brings up a number of interesting leads. Most of the websites that I come across are aggregator sites such as livestrong.com or the huffingtonpost.com or superficial websites designed to give no or misleading information in an attempt to get you to buy whatever products they are selling. However occasionally, I come across a website with information that appears, to me, to provide actual content.
One website that I recently found was that of Dr. Ben King, an acupuncturist and chiropractor in Toronto. I have read some very insightful articles on health, symptoms, and treatments on Dr. King's website and thought I'd share. Click here to be taken to Dr. King's website.
Like most of my experiments, I decided to give trigger point therapy (as prescribed by Clair Davies) a thorough vetting, despite discomfort and pain. Forty plus trigger points is a lot to deal with at one time. In the Trigger Point Therapy Workbook, Davies recommends specific massage protocols for eliminating trigger points. The basics of Davies' recommendations is to massage the trigger points at a pain level of 7 (out of 10) for six to twelve strokes three to six times per day. For one or a few trigger points, this would equate to a few minutes per session per day. But for my forty plus trigger points, I ended up spending over an hour per session and didn't end up treating all of my trigger points each session. Fortunately, I started over Thanksgiving break so I was able to commit to three sessions per day - three very painful sessions.
There is something in the massage world called post massage soreness and malaise (PMSM). PMSM is exactly what it sounds like - you feel sore and tired. I was sore and tired and developed symptoms similar to a really bad cold (sore throat and stuffy head) in addition to the soreness and tiredness. Then my urine changed color slightly, was more brown than normal. A search for the cause of this particular symptom resulted in discovery of the condition of Rhabdomyolysis, a term used to describe the breakdown of muscle fiber, which releases the contents of the muscle fiber into the blood stream. To read up on Rhabdomyolysis, click here for the NIH link. Rhabdomyolysis can be dangerous but it didn't seem to be overwhelming my system, so I opted to continue but monitor for worse symptoms. After about a week and a half, my PMSM subsided, leaving only the pain of the massage.
To read more about my experiments with trigger point therapy, click the following links:
First things first. What is a pathogen? A pathogen is a generic term for anything that can cause disease. Pathogens are often sub categorized as viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites, and prions. Each of these subcategories of pathogens have been known to cause disease in humans. Many pathogens are well documented, have known means of identification, and have known means of treatment. However, for every well-known pathogen, there are many more unknown pathogens with unknown symptoms and outcomes.
Two case-in-points: Lyme Disease and Hantavirus.
Lyme Disease wasn't identified until the early 1970s when an affluent community in Connecticut experienced a wide-reaching epidemic of unknown and debilitating illness (preliminarily identified as rheumatoid arthritis). The episode garnered the interest of researchers and universities and resources were devoted to finding the cause. It wasn't until 1982 (almost a decade) until the bacteria that caused the unknown illness was identified. The reason it took so long was because the bacteria, a spirochete, was really good at hiding in the body and very difficult to find via conventional diagnostic tools. Click here for an article on the discovery of Lyme's Disease by the Connecticut Department of Public Health. Hantavirus, a respiratory illness, was first identified by the modern medical community in the early 1990s after several fatalities from an unknown illness in the four corners region of the southwest spurred interest in the disease. Click here for an article on the discovery of the disease by the CDC. Hantavirus and Lyme Disease existed before they were documented by the modern scientific community; however, if you would have visited a doctor with these diseases prior to identification they would have been misdiagnosed and you would not have received effective treatment.
Both Lyme Disease and Hantavirus have devastating outcomes - debilitating chronic disease and/or death, which is one of the reasons why they garnered so much attention from the medical community. Imagine with me, if you will, a scenario where the outcome of an budding but unknown disease or diseases is mild and generic chronic illness. Would anyone be interested in or put money towards finding out the source of this illness? Fortunately, the answer to that question is yes. There are doctors and institutions looking for a pathogenic source for chronic illness (click here to read a few blogs on the subject). Okay, now imagine with me that this pathogenic source is extremely good at hiding in the body, similar to Lyme disease. Will it (or they) ever be found? Good question - only knowable if someone finds one or more pathogens that can be associated with mild chronic symptoms. The bottom line is that one (or multiple) currently unknown pathogens could be responsible for one or more chronic diseases.
