Speaking of cures you wouldn't believe all the well meaning advice I've received from friends and colleagues about how to treat this autoimmune disorder. Just a sample list:
-Immunosuppressive meds (which gave me fungus, arthiritis, uveitis, GERD, bone marrow shutdown, diabetes, etc, etc) - fine these are not alternative but western therapies but they still suck
-Energy healing with a group chant
-Goji Berry Juice
-A sitz bath of mangosteen juice (WTF!)
-Coffee Enemas
-Butter enemas (maybe this is better suited for other men to enjoy... Dave?)
-Metal shapes to step into to get the Golden Ratio's magic on your side
-Salt crystals in each corner of a spiritual room that can relay special energies
-Underwear encrusted with magnetic flakes
-Naturopathic approved crystals
-The raw food diet which boosts fiber intake through the roof (boy thats all I need when flaring!)
-The avoidance of fluoride and chlorine in my showers, toilet water and drinking water
-The avoidance of sitting toilets, as they dont let you empty completely as compared to a squat toilet
Things I actually tried:
-Probiotics a-la-extreme, making my own yogurt which would ferment for 24 hours and give an apparent 800 billion bacteria per bowl but make me bleed within 24 hours
-Probiotic Enemas (I used VSL3 and damn did it burn!)
-Low dose naltrexone which made me want to hang myself after 1 week - what an emotional downer that was
-A stress free life with hours of daily meditation (but as soon as someone sneezes on me I get a flareup doubling for the next 3 weeks!)
-Being meticulously clean with bird feathers and dog hair around the house (Thanks to my wife for facilitating that experiment!)
-Fasting for a few days (it does cool things to your sense of smell and mental acuity) but the inflammation keeps on running
-Leaving my home for a few weeks to test other environments and countries but that didn't do much good either
-Hiding all the kippas and mezuzzim in my house so that my Ashkenazi heritage and resulting predisposition to JBS (Jewish Body Syndrome, where your body falls apart after age 35) is hidden from the great (vengeful) Yahweh. That didn't work too well. Perhaps I should get a moyle to reverse the original deed and then the disease will reverse? Ok just kidding about that one.
-And some weird things which actually are not fit to print without disclosing too much (really there is such a thing as too much disclosure!)
Something that did work? Avoiding wheat and complex carbs like rice, potatoes, beans. That cleans me up better than any prednisone or glucocorticoid enema but life sucks eating just meat and cheese and eggs for months straight. And it makes you lose weight, not a good thing to do before surgery when you already weigh less than your wife... and her best friend with long blond hair (who visits occasionally and who should remain nameless) stares at your concentration camp style body and tells you how pathetic you look (maybe that will be the new "look" of 2010, she should keep an open mind).
That's about it for now.
Time to get out the tranquilizers so I can get some sleep now and say goodnight to the prednisone anxiety which drives the salient, timely humour this blog and its myriad followers depend upon to see just how good their own life really is.
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