I’ve been thinking about disability a lot lately. Dancing around the word itself, never quite daring to apply the word to me. Never quite daring to dip more than a toe into the water, so to speak. I’ll use the word indirectly, by tagging a post with ‘hidden disabilities’ or by saying ‘I feel disabled by X, Y and sometimes Z’, but that’s about as far as I’ve gone–and even that fills me with doubt as to whether I have the right to use these terms.
I’m not open about this kind of thing offline, in the workspace, even though there are a few people who know I have (unspecified) health issues.
But I’m not doing myself any favours by denying it.
Here’s a bit of backstory: my partner (R) & I came down with the flu last week. Being a bit feeble in the whole immune system area, I had a somewhat more severe case than R did. For the most part, she’s fully recovered whereas I’m still dealing with some lingering nastiness (productive cough, etc). The flu has also upped the usual fibromyalgia fun so I’m still waiting to see if that will settle back down. Anyway, the point to this backstory is that I had to take time off work–something I hate doing and hoped I wouldn’t have to do now that I’ve gone part time.
I was absent on Monday and Tuesday, made it in on Wednesday (oh god, I felt dreadful by the time I got home) and then I did something really stupid.
Even though I had a medical certificate to excuse my absence, even though I wasn’t the only one off with the flu, I fucking well went and volunteered to make up some of the lost time by working on Friday.
Because I felt guilty. Because I’d had two days off out of the three I’m supposed to work. Because I have serious anxiety problems about being sick, and was so convinced that I’d be fired that I offered to go in on Friday just to convince management I’m not a complete liability. Because I’m used to hoarding my sick days like treasure, as I never know when something nasty will flare up. Because I’ve spent the last year working my socks off trying to make up for time lost at doctors’ appointments, running myself into the ground and making myself sicker because sick days are precious, dammit.
Because I didn’t want my manager to think I was skiving, or being a slacker.
And that’s the heart of it. I don’t want anyone to think I’m lazy. I’m already working part time because I simply cannot cope with full time work any more, and I can’t stand the questions I get about it. I’m not open about my health conditions, and I have no acceptable answer when I’m asked what I do when I’m not at work. I’m not studying. I’m not bringing up children. What’s my excuse?
I have been doing so much soul-searching lately, and trying to come to terms with all the changes that have been going on. Trying to come to terms with the word disabled. I still can’t say it out loud, you know, that I have disabilities. A workmate once laughed when I mentioned something about disability discrimination, because I’m not in a wheelchair or anything. Of course I’m not disabled.
But I am. I am disabled, and I’m fucking angry about the way the world is set up right now. I’m angry about the way people with disabilities are always pictured with a nifty mobility aid so that they’re easier for the Able-Bodied to spot. I’m angry about the constant stress of the train journey to and from work, because I can’t stand for the length of the journey but don’t dare ask someone in priority seating to move because I don’t look disabled (unless it’s a day when I actually need my walking stick. Then people are very Sympathetic. I’m angry about that too).
I’m angry about the lack of part time jobs, job share opportunities, and flexibility with sick leave so that people like me find it easier to support ourselves. I’m angry because I’m finding it increasingly difficult to cope without a car–my doctors are scattered around Brisbane and I have to travel by train then bus to get there. I’m angry because I don’t think I’ll ever be able to learn to drive (anxiety), and so a routine trip to one of my doctors takes the best part of a day. I’m angry because being sick is a full-time job and there aren’t any days off. I’m angry because I have to work twice as hard as any abled person just to stay afloat, and I’m angry because they take this for granted and praise me for being so brave and committed to my job.
I’m angry about the way I feel awkward and ashamed and guilty of appropriation when I mouth the words I am disabled silently, alone in my room, because I’d never dare say it in public, because there’s a nasty little voice in the back of my head going no, no of course you’re not disabled, disabled people are all paralysed and stuff like that, they have SERIOUS problems, YOU are just lazy. And so I read wonderful articles like this and this and this in an attempt to silence that little voice, and sometimes I get close to smothering it, and sometimes I don’t.
Maybe it’ll never go away completely. Maybe it doesn’t have to. Maybe that voice isn’t what matters. Seaneen Molloy, in her Ouch! article on disability, says this:
It’s less about having a right to refer to myself as disabled and more about what right I have as a human being living with an illness that causes me disability.
The right to take my sick leave without pressuring myself into ‘making up time’ would be a start, I think.
I am so sorry I have been not reading and updating you guys. Life got in the way, which made me too tired at night to read.
Well, I’m back to now. I really want to have this book read by March 25th because my support group meets and the topic is on books about Fibromyalgia.
Enough chit chat. Here we go!
Part 3: Your Path to Healing – Chapter 6: Why Conventional Medicine Alone Can’t Beat Your Illness
(portions of this blog came from Dr. Rodger Murphree’s book)
This chapter is very long so I will list some of the key points:
Conventional medical treatments of FMS and CFS focus on controlling various symptoms. Physicians generally rely on pain medications of various sorts, muscle relaxants and tranquilizers, antidepressants, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicines. Unfortunately, as you already know, these drugs rarely yield lasting results.
But conventional medicine has its limits, and our quick-fix society has gotten out of hand. So much of modern medicine is about covering up our symptoms with drugs, rather than treating the causes that are to blame for the symptoms. This is like trying to mop the wet kitchen floor while ignoring the leaky roof.
Many drugs are associated with side effects, and the majority don’t actually cure anything. Treating symptoms doesn’t translate to better health. We’ve got to stop thinking “just stop the pain” and start thinking “let’s fix the problem”.
Short-term use of drugs to mask unwanted symptoms is certainly appreciated by both patient and doctor. But FMS and CFS are not short-term illnesses. And drugs used to treat these symptoms can lead to dependence and further complications. One drug’s side effects can initiate new symptoms, which must then be treated by more drugs.
With so many different symptoms, it’s no surprise that fibromyalgia and CFS patients are typically taking 6-12 different prescription drugs.
Many of the most commonly prescribed drugs for fibromyalgia have side effects that are similar or identical to the symptoms of FMS or CFS. These similarities can cause a lot of confusion when doctors are trying to determine the effectiveness of treatment.
It’s important to realize that your drug or drugs can be causing or contributing to some or all of your symptoms.
Drugs deplete essential nutrients that the body needs to properly function, but it can take weeks, months or even years for the drug to fully deplete the nutrient and for you to see the side effects surface.
One question and point made by Dr. Murphree was “How many folks with fibromyalgia get well under the care of a traditional rheumatologist? I speak to fibromyalgia support groups across North America, and I can tell you what the answer is: very few. The three-month wait for a new patient appointment typically ends in a two-hour interview and exam followed by a 10 minute visit to discuss test results, and then several prescription drugs and a follow-up appointment every 3-6 months”.
The next part of the chapter lists some drugs commonly used to treat fibromyalgia. Along with information on the drugs, possible side effects are listed. Your experiences may be different from what’s described, but be sure to read about the drugs you are taking. See if they might be causing some of your symptoms. If you suspect they are, work with your doctor to slowly wean off of them.
(unfortunately, this part was very long so you are going to have to read the book for information and side effects)
NSAIDS (Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs)
Narcotic Analgesics
Sleep Aids
Antidepressants
Tranquilizers
Benzodiazepines
Anticonvulsant Drugs
Beta-Blockers
Stimulants
Statin Drugs
The last part of the chapter is about Treating with Natural Medicine.
Natural medicine uses naturally occurring foods, vitamines, minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids, and herbal supplements to augment the nutritional status, and therefore the health of the body.
Herbs have always been integral to the practice of medicine.
In general, herbal medicines work in much the same way as do conventional pharmaceutical drugs, via their chemical makeup. Herbs contain a large number of naturally occurring chemicals and those chemicals have biological activity.
Herbal medicines should be prescribed by a professional who is familiar with the actions and interactions of herbals and prescription medications.
I really liked this statement from Dr. Murphree: “Prescription medications can, in some cases, be helpful, but they can never take the place of our own self-regulating, God-given healing mechanisms”.
More and more doctors are turning to nutritional medicine. The tide is turning and conventional medicine is beginning to lose some of its luster.
The next chapter is: Chapter 7: Treating with Orthomolecular Medicine
Okay, this is really starting to make me mad… for two weeks straight now, pain has been my alarm clock… After an on-and-off tossing and turning- maddening kind of sleep I get woken up sharply (and way too early) by pain. There has to be a better way…
I am taking a boat-load of medication at night, and I am sure under normal circumstances it would knock an elephant out!! WHY oh why is it that I can’t get more than 3 hours of sleep?!? Grrrr…… it might be another long day.
Again this morning, pain had me out of bed before I could even open my eyes… It is so intense that I can barely breathe, and I am struggling to sit here at the moment… but I thought I would write SOMETHING down as I wait for my meds to kick in.. at least this way I have a distraction. I am MAKING myself go back to bed today… I really don’t want to, but I absolutely have to get some rest…. I am running on empty here, and the fumes are almost gone as well… If I stall out, it won’t be a pretty picture, THAT is for sure!!
On days like this, I try to remember what I was like BEFORE pain hit.. I know that once upon a time I didn’t feel this way, I slept like “normal” people do…. I woke up to my kitty scratching at my feet and the sounds of music blaring from my radio… I turned over and went back to la-la land on weekends… I coveted the “sleeping in” ritual…. I know I did, but I just cannot make a connection to those days anymore…. it all seems so distant and unreal to me now….. With each day that passes I remember less and less about what it was like to live a life with no pain.
I am not asking for much I don’t think…. 5 hours of sleep each night… peaceful, restful, healing sleep…. I would love to be woken up by my son at the bedroom door, or by my kitty wanting to get scratches and love… I would even be THRILLED to be woken up by the garbage truck outside on the street…. All the things that people complain about, I would LOVE to experience…. because it has to be better than what I’ve got now…
My meds are starting to work now, and the shock that I felt an hour ago is being replaced with exhaustion…. so I am heading back to bed…
Whatever it is you are doing this weekend, I hope you are doing it with a smile in your heart, and less pain in your body… You all keep me going some days… and I wanted to thank you for being my strength at times when I cannot seem to muster any up on my own…
Yawn… stretch… ouch…. time to go back to bed…
**If you are reading this anywhere other than www.gracefulagony.wordpress.com it is because this post has been stolen. Please click on the link provided to return to the site of origin
Walking has always been my thing, whether it was my escape or my salvation. At first, I’d “take a walk” when I was running away from home, at age five, with a little suitcase in hand. Later, I learned walking would allow me the quiet time I craved to have my creative thoughts and bright ideas. I’d make my big plans, groove out to music, and perhaps most importantly, walking would calm me down when I was upset or pissed off, and being a Sicilian, I got PISSED OFF, especially since my life had thrown me a lot of challenges and obstacles. Walking just instantly makes me happier, and there has been rarely a day I haven’t walked in my entire life, except for this past year with some health things going on, like neuropathy pain and my hysterectomy recovery, although the hospital did have me walking at 6 am the following morning, those bastards. But you know what I mean – I’m … just a walker.
I learned to walk everywhere as a kid, mainly because I never had a bike until I was in college. When my friends would go for a bike rides, I’d have to walk or jog along side them if one of their extra bikes was already in use. My mom was not one of those mothers who would drive me all over the place, especially since she was a raving lunatic when it came to driving, and a nutty unmedicated bipolar the rest of the time. To this day she still brakes at every intersection, every single block. When she had to drive me to college at Michigan State, it would take us three hours to get there, more than twice the normal time. But as a kid, she seriously charged me $2 for a one-way ride, which I couldn’t afford unless The Big A was with me. But, when The Big A was with me, the price then went up to $4 total, $2 a piece, which of course The Big A paid, but we didn’t always get our money’s worth. My favorite memory of my mother’s driving was when The Big A and I had been stuck without coats on a cold and rainy November school night, about a mile away from home, and we were forced to call my mom to come get us. Not only did my mom’s 20-year-old car have no floor in the back seats, but on this night it did not also have working windshield wipers, so she and my brother had to roll down their windows, and pull the heavy rope that was tied to each blade. We got soaked from the open windows, and the ride took us like 30 minutes because she could barely drive with one hand, with all of her stops at each block, not to mention the water splashed up from the floor, where we already were holding on to our feet in the air above where the car floor was supposed to be. If we had walked home, we would have been drier, safer, and less soaked. I once told this story to a college friend who laughed for over an hour, so trust me, the story is even funnier than it sounds. So, needless to say, I learned sometimes it is just easier to walk than ask for a ride.
I walked everywhere until I was 25 years old and finally got my driver’s license. Oh, how I was terrified to learn how to drive, especially since I had been the passenger in a number of near-death car accidents. Plus, the first two times I ever tried to drive I nearly crashed both times, but I suppose it was because I was blind as a bat and went by the name Squint until I got contacts at age 16. Walking in high school wasn’t a problem, as my friends lived close and my boyfriends always had cars. But at college, I had spent years walking between 40 – 60 miles a week, walking all over campus, especially since I always managed to live far away from campus and work. I did get my first bike ever during my first week of college, but on the third day I was hit by a chinese dude in front of Brody Complex who managed to drag both me and the bike without noticing, and the bike was never the same since, very hard to ride. I mainly walked, or friends occasionally drove me to class or work. My last year at State I moved eight miles away from the bar I worked at, and my friends basically banded together and forced me to get a car, because they knew it was time. I was completely terrified, as I grew up with that crazy lady driver and had no idea how to drive, even though I somehow passed my driver’s test at Secretary of State. I think the guy just felt pitty for me because my friend forced her way into my driving test and she kept telling me not to crash her car since she had just crashed it drunk-driving three months earlier, and her dad would kill her if she had to get it fixed again. I lived at State just three more months before moving to Las Vegas, and I never once drove on campus or downtown East Lansing once I got that car.
Life has just come full cycle for me, because last month we had to go down to one car, and I am hoofing it back and forth to my volunteer jobs. With my husbands schedule, there really isn’t a way for me to drive him back and forth to work to keep the car at home, trust me, it is a long story. I don’t really mind that much, because I can walk anywhere in town if I need to go somewhere. When we have events, then it’ll suck trying to arrange four people’s schedules, but we will cross those bridges when we come to them. Truth be told, I’m having a really hard time walking right now, because my knees and back are killing me. But, I just tell myself “too bad” and I’ve begun my hard-core spring training this week, but I’m moving pretty slow, according to the hubs. I still walk, because I know walking will make me feel better in the long run.
I’m a little broken down these days since I have Degenerative Joint and Disk Disease, and it is everywhere – my feet, my knees, my SI Joint (The spot where a tramp stamp would go) my L-Spine, my C-Spine, and my hands. I’ve got bone spurs in both of my feet and one in my neck, and I need spine surgery in two places because I have seven disks that are torn, bulged, and/or herniated, and one of them is also pushing on my root nerve in my neck. I even wore leg braces for 18 months until my doctor found out it was making my knees worse. Oh, I have Fibromyalgia, too, so I have to worry about weird pains from things like my shirt and pants touching my skin. Seriously. I know that sounds nuts, and trust me, it makes me feel nuts, but it happens to me daily. Right now almost every piece of clothing I wear is plushy or soft or smooth. I can’t do heavy, tight or polyester. When I found this sports bra for $10, I could have died, because it is soft, supportive, yet loose, and still manages to give me a decent-looking rack. Thank you Walmart!
I had to update my walking clothes, because the last thing a girl wants is to feel more miserable when they already are miserable when they walk. I realized I had two pairs of Nike’s, and one pair was three years old, the other was five years old. I keep my clothing pretty nice, so you’d never know it by looking at them. I bought a new pair (at a bargain price, because I am the bargain hunter) and when I walk in them it feels like heaven. I had forgotten that cushion-y feeling Nike’s give me, and it was the best $ I’ve spent all year.
I also want to walk more for fun, because I am tired of being in this house. Naturally, my iPod died the same week I had to turn in my car, so I had to get a new one, because I can’t walk that long without music. I’m so mad, because this was my original iPod, so it was only a few years old. I suppose it was time for it to die, because they don’t build things to last. I have a stereo at my mom’s house that is twenty years old that had been moved all around the US, playing at 10 pretty much 24/7, with beer and booze spilled into it a million times. But an iPod that is built with ”modern technology” only last six years, so go figure. I got the iPod Touch, which is the love of my life, but the 8 Gig didn’t go very far, so now I’m mad I can only squeeze in 900 songs. Here she is, in my fancy arm band that was $5 and it fits people like me who suffer from “fat-arm syndrome,” or FAS.
And, here are the best pair of pants I have ever worn. I need like 15 more pairs and I really wish I was rich so I could buy some more. Since I lost some weight over the past year, all of my workout clothes are either from 2003, 2005 or are a size fat. I’m still wearing all of them because I don’t really care about them being faded or baggy, because no one sees me, but still, I needed one cute outfit, for those days when I expect to run into people, because, I always run into people. My goodness, did I ever find the best feeling pair of pants in my life. Nike’s of course, but they were also on sale, because who the hell can afford their normal $50 price tag? Nothing in my workout collection ever cost me more than $11.99 at Kohls, so I feel like royalty today when I put them on to work out. Oh, yes … one of my volunteer jobs has a gym and I can work out for free, which is so cool, but totally killing my arse.
Walking is like this free, magical drug that helps prevent all sorts of medical conditions. It improves a person’s health in so many ways, yet I don’t see enough people doing it, or at least in Michigan they aren’t, since we are a state that loves our cars and we don’t have trains, subways, or even extended bus routes. I’d have to walk maybe 10 miles until I could catch a bus, but then that bus would only take me to Detroit or by a mall or shopping center. I’d much rather live like a New Yorker, taking trains and hoofing it. I know some of you readers do walk or run daily, or do other forms of exercise, which is great, but I don’t understand why people, as a general rule, don’t walk more. Heck, even my own kids whine when I force them to walk to the ice cream place, and it isn’t even a mile away. Why have we moved away from walking and loving the outdoors to staying inside to exercise, or to just not exercise at all? I rarely see kids outside playing in my stepchildren’s neighborhood, and rarely in my own, and I think back to my childhood in the 70s and 80s, when as kids we were basically forced to stay outside and play until the streetlights come on. I’m not trying to be preachy, I’m just lamenting walking “falling out of fashion.”
So, I am sad to say that today the illness has ruled me. When I got up this morning, I was in tears. I gave it my best shot to get up and get dresses. Even the hot shower did not do anything to aid in my relief, so I called in.
I really hate not being at work. I hate letting this thing beat me! I was doing so good all week. All I wanted to do this week is stay in bed and just feel like a person. I had 1 day this week were I didn’t feel like the living dead and that was Tuesday. The fates were looking out for me that day as far as pain goes.
So there may be many posts for the day, as I have nothing else to do but sit in bed watching TV or playing on my laptop.
She understands my situation with Fibromyalgia. She told me that she has a dear friend with it and helps her out when she needs the support to carry on. It really helps to have someone on your side that truly understands. She doesn’t know the extent of the pain, as she has never experienced it herself, but she can see it.
The other day I went to her office for a meeting and she was looking at her computer when I first sat down. When she finally looked at me, she said to me, “This is a bad day, I’m sorry let me know if there is something I can do.” I was amased because I was smiling and talking to her just with a smile in my voice.
She could tell by my facial expression that she actually knew, so she just said the “rocking.” I didn’t even know that I was rocking. It’s something that I have been told that I do when the pain gets really bad. Unconsciously, I rock because the motion actually helps ease the pain, even for just a moment.
Anytime I really need something that has to do with my pain, she is willing to help in any way possible. My boyfriend even has someone in another department that is looking out for me. It’s nice to know that people care, and I am glad that I am not taking advantage of the assistance that is offered. I don’t want them to think that I take things for granted and that I truly appreciate the things that they do, no matter the efforts.
Have I been judgmental of disabled people? I never thought so… but I’ve never been one either. Until the past few years. But I’ve been judging myself for my lack of ability to do anything. I’ve berated myself for my laziness and motivation, kicking myself… trying to make my body do what it used to… and it just doesn’t listen!
I have gone from an independent person, to an invalid. Basically that is the deal. And I’ve fought it…. to no avail. My body has not cooperated.
Whether this ends up being chronic fatigue or something else, I have not been able to do much of anything for nearly 2 years now. It has been longer, but the worst of it hit right after my father’s death the end of June, 2008. I am just beginning to be able to do some things if I rest up for it.
I’ve never been skinny… far from it… but I have enjoyed a very independent life. I’ve been able to do what I’ve wanted. I’ve never been in perfect health or shape… but I’ve always enjoyed exercise and weight training when I could fit it into my life. Right now, the old ladies in the arthritis swim class can kick my butt… I can’t keep up with them. Aaargh! And they go 3 times a week… I can barely handle once, because it takes me a week (no joke) to recover for the next class.
I was even too wiped out to keep up on here for most of it. It has taken everything I have to take care of my 4 kids… and even then, only the basics! I miss you all…
I’m seeing a new doctor, a neurologist, who is doing a slew of tests… so we’ll see what it comes down to. But I finally have to accept the fact that for the time being, this body has stopped working the way it is meant to work. I hope it starts again soon, because I am feeling just enough better now to be BORED SILLY!!!! And really depressed.
“Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.”
~ Langston Hughes
It is pouring with rain in the city tonight and to hear that drenching sound is to have my spirit refreshed. After the humidity of the past few weeks, it is so good to have cooler nights.
I’ve loved nights like this since I was a little girl, when I would sit with my father on the front stoop, licking an ice block and thinking there was no one cooler than my Dad. I sat out on the balcony tonight thinking about him. His 71st birthday would have been last Tuesday. I miss him on when it rains, but I’m glad of it because it means I won’t forget him.
Rain is such a refreshing thing: the ground gets a good water, the dams hopefully get their fill, and the smell that rises up from grass is a potent summer memory.
It’s also an opportunity to rest. The past few weeks have been incredibly busy and on nights (and days) like this I want to snuggle up with a book and exert no more energy than I have to, maybe spend some time fixing stuff around house neglected during my working week.
Lately my home has looked somewhat dingy, just because I’ve not had the energy to clean it often. Often when I finish up work for the day, the choices are make dinner or clean up. Dinner comes first, and I tackle the clean up in the morning when my hands have eased off.
It’s been five years since the RA was diagnosed, 2 since the fibro. I realised the other day that I don’t remember what it’s like to live without pain. I was talking to a girlfriend about it (she has lupus) and we were discussing how different life is when you live with chronic pain.
She has had to give up work to ensure she can care for her young son, and she said, ‘I don’t envy people who have to work and run a household when they have chronic health problems. My choices are simple ones because I have a wonderful, supportive husband who knows what I need even when I don’t. And my family are brilliant at being there when I need them. Not everyone has that – I’m grateful for it.’
Sitting out here in the rain is meditative, which clears a calm space in my head. The visit with my friend had initially made me a little envious that she had such a great man in her life who supported her and such a close family. It got me to thinking about how fragmented my own support system is here, and the downside of independence being that often my relationships have been rooted in the knowledge that I will move on at some point.
So the question begs, when you can’t move on from chronic illness (even though you can manage it well), how do you develop an accepting, compassionate relationship with it?
Well we collaborate more or less devaluation I hear a few of you believe that family that are sick but always thinking negatively. If we would have in support of a while more apprehension attitude towards family that suffer from depression, there should already suffering ago.
A neurotransmitter test is the best way to identify and correct neurotransmitter imbalances before they become authoritarian enough to cause symptoms such as Depression, Fibromyalgia.
Increased risk in support of depression and suicide is much publicized but probably bloody.
For several patients it is mildly annoying, in support of others it can be very distressing, withdrawal and depression and suicidal ideation.
There are a number of reported suicides and suicide attempts in people taking isotretinoin; however, the connection between isotretinoin and suicide or depression is not known.
Removing buffalo hide layers to halt wrinkles or alternating depressions is an high-spirited way to regain smoother, more youthful looking buffalo skin.
This approach is even more useful in treating depression caused by thyroid dysfunction.
If depression is accompanied by EDS, antidepressants with activating merits (eg.
In Reference to
Depression, Elaine Fantle Shimberg, 1996
Children of the Great Depression, Russell Freedman, 2005
How to Heal Depression, Harold H. Bloomfield, Peter McWilliams, 1996
If your adolescent has depression or bipolar disorder, Dwight L. Evans, Linda Wasmer Andrews, 2005
Depression, Steven Richards, Michael G. Perri, 2002
Depression, Edzard Ernst, 1998
Depression, Markus Gastpar, 2002
Approved Links Depression Living with chronic depression Indianapolis Weight Dr Counseling and Psychological Services Depression Atypical Depression Chronic Depression
Depression Problem what people can accomplish with it is filed under Depression.
Parenthood is enough of a challenge when you’re healthy, and with an illness like fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome, it’s especially difficult. I know it’s something I struggle with every day, and a recent comment left by a reader put our common struggle into words really well:
“I still feel like I’m letting my kids down because I’m not able to do/be/have enough energy to give them everything they need. But at least, I guess, they’re learning that when Mom says in answer to, ‘Can we go/do…….?’ ‘It depends on how I’m feeling’ really means just what it says. I try to say ‘yes’ some of the time for little things and make sure I’m able to follow through, but I feel like I’m saying ‘No’ constantly.
I’ve lost many so-called ‘friends’ because of my inability to make plans, but it’s with my children that I *really* feel guilty.” -A.
Like her, I try to say “yes” and give my children fun times, but unfortunately they have to settle for “I’ll try” far too often.
I’ve said before that we have to learn to accept certain things, and this is another one of those things. It may well be the hardest one to accept, though, because we all want to give our children so much, and it’s hard to think about them missing out on meaningful experiences because mommy or daddy is sick.
While I can’t always choose fun activities for the kids over things like laundry and housework, I do put off the mundane now and then so that I have the energy. I also look for things that they can enjoy that are also low-key for me — a play area at a park or inside the mall, a children’s museum we have in town, places where I can sit and watch them. My kids are also lucky enough to have a dad who’s great about taking them to do stuff while I stay home, or who involves them in household projects and makes it fun.
I don’t know that any of us can ever truly get past feeling like we’re short-changing our children, but I think kids with chronically ill parents probably do learn some valuable skills. My kids have had to be especially self-sufficient and learn to entertain themselves. Having seen kids whose parents do every little thing for them, I’m proud that mine are able to do so much for themselves — and you know what? They’re proud of themselves, as well.
My kids have also learned early that illness is just part of life. They’re very compassionate, and they aren’t uncomfortable around sick or injured people. They’re at the doctor’s office with me enough that it’s not a strange or scary place for them. They’ve even seen acupuncture and cupping performed. I do think it’s possible, however, for kids who are around chronic illness to worry too much about their own minor illnesses and bumps and bruises — that’s something we’re working on with my son.
In some ways, I think it’s been easier on my kids that my fibromyalgia developed when they were little — my son was 4 and my daughter was 1.5. They don’t remember the year I spent laying on the couch in excruciating pain, and they don’t remember when I was healthy. This is just how mom is to them. In my forum, we’ve talked about the differences in how kids react based on age, and it seems like teenagers have the hardest time. That makes sense; they’re going through major changes already, and then all of a sudden a parent can no longer fill the accustomed role. That can create a lot of insecurity. No matter the children’s ages, though, family counseling might be something to consider, so that everyone can work toward acceptance of the situation.
I think we need to remember 2 things when raising children while living with a chronic illness:
1. We cannot judge our parenting skills based on other people’s expectations, and 2. We need to be honest with our children.
I know, number 1 is easier said than done, but it’s crucial. It doesn’t do us any good to beat ourselves up over what we can’t do. I’ve had to ignore my mother, who tells me I “just can’t be on the couch all day” when I’m home with my daughter. It’s easy for her to say that from 670 miles away, when she’s still has the energy at 64 to babysit my niece and nephew, but what can I do about it? Some days, it’s all I can do to provide basic meals for my family, and if I don’t rest in between I won’t even be able to do that. I have to focus on the basics, and anything beyond that is a bonus. Martha Beck, who’s now a life coach (you may have seen her on Oprah) and fibromyalgia advocate says she raised her children from a king-sized bed. Do what you can, and make sure they know they’re loved. That’s all any parent can do.
As for number 2, I think it’s important not to underestimate our children. Now 5 and almost 8, my kids can tell you a lot about anatomy because we’ve always explained as much to them as they could understand. They know I have limitations, they’ve seen what happens when I do too much, and they rarely seem upset when I say, “I can’t.” While just saying that makes me a little sad, I have to wonder if it’s not a good lesson, in a society where instant gratification is the norm.
How has your illness impacted your parenting? How has it effected your children? What has helped? Do other people give you guilt trips over what you can’t do? Leave your comments below!
Article source: Being a Parent With Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Further Reading
Living with Fibromyalgia (Overcoming Common Problems) by Christine Craggs-Hinton
The Fibromyalgia Handbook: A 7-Step Program to Halt and Even Reverse Fibromyalgia by Harris H. McIlwain and Debra Fulghum Bruce
Fibromyalgia for Dummies by Roland Staud MD and Christine Adamec
Foods That Help Win the Battle Against Fibromyalgia: Ease Everyday Pain and Fight Fatigue by Deidre Rawlings
Fibromyalgia: Simple Relief Through Movement by Stacie L. Bigelow
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (The Facts) by Frankie Campling and Michael Sharpe
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for Dummies by Susan R. Lisman M.D. and Karla Dougherty
Joyful Recovery from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome / ME by Sasha Allenby
Related articles by Zemanta:
ME/CFS Pain & Fibromyalgia Pain – Can You Distinguish Between the Two?
Feeling Like Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde With Chronic Illness
Not too long ago I made a comment, in passing, that I have yet to earn any awards for my blogging efforts. Truth be told, I don’t really think I deserve any awards for my blogging. My posts are pretty splotchy as far as consistency goes as I am kind of scattered about with my time and commitments. My family, my passions, and my part-time job keep me away from indulging in my writing as much as I would like. But, as I visit other blogs, all very good ones, I can’t help but admire the badges and awards posted proudly on their pretty spaces. It feels good to be recognized, doesn’t it?
Well, today I received an unexpected and most delightful gift, that certainly put a smile on my face. A fellow blogger and individual who also happens to live with chronic pain surprised me with the gift of The Fabulous Sugar Doll Blogger Award!
This is such an act of kindness on behalf of the giver, more so than I think they could even know! I am just joyful about it, it is such a warm fuzzy kind of feeling. So, it is with receiving this gift that I am also given the opportunity to share it with others. The rule goes that I must share 10 things about myself in this post and then spread the love with a handful of other bloggers, so here goes…
1. I am a hopeless romantic. You’d never guess it, because I frown upon most kinds of romance movies and the incurable disease of romanticism that they promote. I refuse to go see most… I think it is mean, to give our fragile minds the thought that movie romance actually exists, hmmpf! I don’t like sappy stuff so much, in regular life, but when it comes to poetry, art, or music… (oh wait, maybe flowers and jewelry, too) I am all sap. Romance has been infused, somewhere along the way, into my blood.
2. I can get along without (well, without name brands, etc)…I don’t need fancy stuff to be happy, but I secretly would LOVE to live extravagantly. I know, I know, it goes beyond all reason, it doesn’t even fit in well with my desire to be more aware of our environment and to live “green”, but it’s horribly true.
3. I can’t believe I am admitting this, but … I love the Jonas Brothers! Ha, I said it. I have followed the band with my 10 year old daughter, since they were just getting their start, and I just can’t help myself now. I think they are adorable and I truly do like a lot of their music. They get me pumped up and I have a great time listening to their music with my daughter.
4. I love my children with all of my heart, all of it. (This should be number one on the list!) They are so amazing and beautiful and just the most miraculous things to have come into my life. Because of them, I can find purpose when I feel that I have none. But, I often wonder if I am a good enough mom. It comes with the territory I guess…but I do sometimes wonder…
5. I am terrified of Statistics, as in the college course. I am approximately one semester shy of completing my Bachelor’s degree, but I have hesitated, in large part, to complete it because of this one coarse…”Psych 300: Psychological Statistics”. There have been other obstacles as well, but the biggest one between me and my degree is that one single course. It has held me at bay for 10 years now. I think it is getting close to time for me to face my fear, don’t you?
6. I am pretty introverted at this point in my life. Once I open up and get to know you…no longer an introvert. But I don’t like big groups, I much prefer one on one conversations and small gatherings. Large groups are very uncomfortable for me. I’m working on that.
7. If I could listen to live music (good music, of coarse) every single night of the week I would. That would really be the best thing ever!!!
8. I don’t like the cold. I want warmth. I want scenery. I want SUNSHINE.
9. I am afraid of never feeling “normal” again. I am afraid of failing at my goals to become more physically fit and to be well, to be free from fibromyalgia and mental health issues. I am afraid of my “flaws” haunting me forever… and I am afraid that I am my biggest obstacle.
10. I am a dreamer, I have some big (and some little) dreams inside my tender head, many of which I truly hope to realize. Dreams are good, so I will hold onto them.
And now the time to award the Fabulous Sugar Doll Blogger Award to other wonderful bloggers:
Marie @SpreadingJoy “Spreading Joy Corporation“
Jamie @fightingdepression “Fighting the Darkness”
Teia @vinamist “Just Breathe“
Kelvin @kelvinringold “Ramblings Lite” ( I hope he doesn’t mind being called a Sugar Doll, ‘cuz he sure is one, albeit a masculine one)
These are just a couple that I could come up with tonight, all special and unique. Every blog I seem to come across has something magnificent to offer and I am blessed abundantly by those who share through their writing. Please forgive me if I did not mention yours, because You deserve an award, too! =)
How many articles can you find if you google sitting increase heart disease??? WOW too many. Egoscue Portland listed just a few: All the sitting you do is killing you, new research says
Bits from the blog: The studies found for every hour spent watching TV (sitting still) was associated with an 18% increase in heart disease deaths and an 11% increase in deaths overall. People who watched TV at least 4 hours a day were 80% more likely to die of heart disease than those who watched less than 2 hours a day. By the way, Americans watch an average of 5 hours of TV a day.
This is what Pete Egoscue has been saying for years: humans are build to move and move constantly. In The Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion Pete says…
Take a moment to read this whole blog : All the sitting you do is killing you, new research says
Pacific Laser Therapy Center’s smoking cessation therapy consists of three sessions. From my experience most clients require only one session (I have treated many clients successfully with a 92% success rate however since brain chemistry and initial response is idiosyncratic the protocol is three 60-90 minute sessions to quell any lingering physical withdrawal.
The first session consists of extensive intake (addiction inventory) where I investigate the “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” and “how” per their smoking behavior. I literally walk through an average day with a client and craft a “new daily life schedule.” This schedule empowers the client to create a new life routine which is very powerful in quelling the self-destructive addictive tendencies of the nicotine addict. I also teach my client powerful and practical CBT techniques which assist the client in “releasing” the cigarette (or negative or troubling thoughts or feelings such as doubt, etc) thought. The laser therapy session in itself only takes 25 minutes to complete.
All three sessions consist of: cold laser session, CBT-like “releasing therapy,” beta wave relaxation. Every client takes home a very informative and easy to follow-up aftercare kit as well as a positive affirmation CD in a cool tote bag.
I haven’t been seriously depressed for about a month now. The Pristiq made me very-very-happy at first which lead to a minor burnout, but now everything seems to have stabilised and I haven’t had any strange thoughts or hallucinations or compulsions. Admittedly, I have been breaking down into hysterical tears & contemplating overdosing or stopping all my medication completely, but this isn’t depression–this is me being overwhelmed by everything and completely at the end of my tether with all things medical.
I have a swelling at the base of my spine.The swelling has gone down a bit now, but it’s been very painful and hot to the touch. I can’t bend properly. Sometimes I can’t walk properly because the stiffness radiates out to my hips. I’ve had stiffness and pain and spasms in that area for seven months, but this swelling isn’t likely to be fibromyalgia as that doesn’t cause inflammation. However, I’m not actually sure what it is and none of the options appear to be nice ones. When the first words out of your GP’s mouth are ‘Any history of ankylosing spondylitis in the family?’ you kind of want to just stab yourself and have done with it. (Incidentally, I almost died of shock when my mum said ‘oh, your granddad has that!’ yesterday. Turns out he has spondylitis in the neck, not ankylosing spondylitis–but omfg, almost had a heart attack.)
I’ve had an X-ray and an ultrasound done. They were both incredibly painful experiences, but the results were completely normal. So yay, I don’t have a tumour? And yay, my bones haven’t fused together? That’s something at least. But I’m still waiting for the results of my blood tests to see if my rheumatoid factor has gone up or if my white count is elevated as I could have a spine infection. My rheumatoid factor was normal last time I had the test done, in June, but apparently you can be symptomatic for a while before things show up in the bloodwork. Also, there is a family history of rheumatoid arthritis. That being said, the x-ray didn’t indicate any bone deterioration so maybe this is just a soft tissue problem.
So tired with all of this. I can’t face the thought of seeing any of my doctors. I burst into tears last time I saw the endocrinologist because she was talking about radioactive iodine therapy again as my thyroid just WON’T give up, and I can’t deal with that. I just can’t. I just can’t be bothered any more. I’m sick of things going wrong. I’m sick of being disappointed when tests come back normal–it’s not that I WANT a horrible disease because I don’t. I just want to know what’s wrong with me so I can fix it and move on.
Today, I received a call from my doctor, telling me I have a deviated septum and thats why I have been on the receiving end of a barrage of sinus infections. Due to having fibromyalgia (short definition Im in pain everyday; long definition click here lazy ass), I have to get MRIs regularly so my doctors can check out my joints, muscles and other stuff that I dont really understand or care about because bottom line, I still hurt every damn day.
Anyway, a combination of poor bone structure and breaking my nose 22 times while I was in high school (yes, even as a thin teen I was kluzty and accident prone), caused my septum to veer off course. It began smoking and abusing over the counter cough syrup, told its parents to shove MIT he was joining a motorcycle gang and would backpack across Europe.
My doctor suggested putting it in some kind of Christian reprogramming camp, I believe the medical term is “septoplasty”. Being a big ol wuss I am avoiding surgery like the plague or those little demon girls selling thin mints outside of Randalls.
before and my nightmare after
My doctor assures me that I wont look as plastic as Ashlee Simpson after the surgery, but Im not sure I can trust a man who always matches his tie with his socks.
And in before you assholes tell me “ASHLEE IS GORGE-OUS!!!!” I never said she was ugly, I said she looked plastic and frankly unnatural. Call me crazy but I find the beauty in the flaws.
This week, after flipping through older posts and recently talking to one of my friends (I had a great night out Thursday without the boyfriend,) I realized that I mention fibromyalgia often without explaining what it is. I also remembered that most people probably have no idea what fibro is or isn’t considering most people’s interaction with the syndrome is drug commercials. So since fibromyalgia is a very complex syndrome with more theories than answers, I will slowly be doing a series of posts as crash course on the overall syndrome and my first hand experience with it. I also think that one of the things that’s hurting people with fibromyalgia the most (from limited research to not being diagnosed) is a lack of awareness and understanding in the medical community, people who have or have loved ones that have the syndrome, and by the general population. For this post, I’ll start with a brief overview, diagnosis and problems that face diagnosis.
Quite simply in medical Greek “fibromyalgia” means “muscle pain” and that is the only symptom that all fibromyalgia patients have in common. More specifically, fibromyalgia is chronic pain that is widespread throughout the body (has to be in all four quadrants.) However, most people with fibro exhibit at least one (if not many) of other symptoms from an extensive list of potential symptoms or related conditions (i.e. for me, chronic fatigue, gluten sensitivity, headaches, reactive hypoglycemia, nerve pain, mental fog also called fibro-brain, and muscle spasms.)
Fibromyalgia is a difficult condition to truly diagnose (no blood test, no x-rays, nothing conclusive,) and is thus a popular syndrome for hypochondriacs to mimic, which also hurts the overall credibility of the syndrome to many people. Another problem facing the diagnosis of fibromyalgia is that many people can go to many different doctors without being diagnosed. I remember having symptoms of fibromyalgia as early as 10, but was not diagnosed (despite going to many doctors) until I was almost 21. The reason for this is that fibromyalgia symptoms can overlap with other conditions that a doctor is more familiar with, and thus a patient can go for years misdiagnosed, or because there are no conclusive laboratory tests for fibromyalgia, many doctors assume that the patient’s pain is not real. I spent many years dealing with both kinds of doctors. My general doctor that my parents always dragged me to would test me for hypothyroidism, and when that came back negative, he would tell me I was just depressed and that all my symptoms were caused by depression, never mind that I clearly explained that I was starting to feel depressed from feeling like crap all the time and being unable to function properly. Many Orthopedists I went to assumed I was a hypochondriac or quite simply “didn’t know what to tell me,” instead of looking more closely at my chart, realizing I had been there more often than most people end up in their lives, and had me sent to a doctor that could have checked me for conditions that cause chronic (mostly phantom) pain.
Another huge problem with fibromyalgia diagnosis is the everyday treatment of the people who have it by their loved ones. Two of the biggest problems I had growing up was having symptoms that most people associate with illness, like headaches or feeling achy like the flu, but never coming down with anything and having very minor injuries feel like major injuries from anywhere between an hour and a few days. My parents assumed I was a hypochondriac that wanted attention or didn’t want to go to school, or that I was quite simply “a wimp.” As much hurt and pain their assumptions have caused me mentally and emotionally, the logical part of me does understand that they didn’t know better since no doctors had suggested it, the internet was in its infancy, and information about the syndrome was hard to come by. But it is because of this history of being called “a wimp” that caused me to assume that my pain was normal, that everyone always felt achy and slightly twisted ankles always hurt so bad. So I admit there was a period between the ages 16-20, I didn’t bother to mention pain since I assumed it was normal. It wasn’t until I started getting intense nerve pain and muscle spasm problems that I started to re-evaluate my pain.
The only criteria for a diagnosis of fibromyalgia (which according to the American College of Rheumatology the doctor should be familiar with fibromyalgia) are a history of widespread pain for three months and the presence of pain at 11 out of 18 recognized “tender points” from 4kg of pressure. Even then these criteria are interpreted differently by different doctors. The last doctor I had before my current one, which was the first to even suggest fibromyalgia, simply poked my tender spots to see if there was any pain versus doing the actual “test,” and then told me that despite my history with chronic pain, I could not be diagnosed unless I had the pain for three more months. If you have exhibited symptoms of fibromyalgia for years if not a large portion of your life, and a doctor tells you this, tell him he should learn to listen to his patients and find another doctor. My current doctor accepted my personal history of pain as history, was horrified that another doctor told me I couldn’t be diagnosed for three months, and proceeded to do the “tender points” test properly. My doctor told me he was going to put 4kg of pressure on points on my body. He started by applying 4kg of pressure to the middle of my thigh so I could get an idea of how it felt; 4kg is almost 9 lbs, and really isn’t a lot of pressure, and did not feel like anything on my thigh. But when he applied pressure to the “tender points,” I was in so much pain I was uncontrollably crying; I’m not even sure if he did the full 18 or stopped at 11 because I was in so much pain.
If you think that you or a loved one might have fibromyalgia, instead of immediately going to your general practitioner do some research online (searching google, web forums, etc.) and find a doctor that has experience with fibromyalgia (they are probably the best people to diagnose you.) Also do extensive research on fibromyalgia (there are other chronic pain disorders.) And if you plan to get the “tender point” test done, expect that you could continue being sore from the test for at least a couple of hours (I think I was sore for 6 hours.)
I have to admit, this is not what I expected from life. When asked “what do you want to be when you grow up?” never in a million years would my answer be sick. The warped perceptions people have of chronic illnesses doesn’t settle well with me and it causes me daily anxiety. I feel like I lead this double life. On one hand I’m educated and appear to be put together, on the other hand I feel as though it’s all just pretend. I suppose some days it’s not pretend and I actually do beleive that I’m super-woman….yet there are so many days where the frustration takes me over that I can’t really be “normal” and never will be “normal”.
I had hoped that this last surgery would be the end to my pain, but also knew that my problems would be ongoing. what I didn’t realize is that within a year of this surgery I would trade my ovary for more diseases. Sure, I’ve suspected PCOS and some sort of autoimmune disease for a long time, but now it’s becoming a reality. And you know what scares me the most? Not what these things will do to me…but what OTHERS will think of me. How family, friends, co-workers will perceive me if or when they find out I’m still sick after all these health problems and that my last surgery just helped a bit but didn’t cure anything. I feel weird admitting that it’s about what others think of me, but it really is. To me a diagnosis is just putting a name to something I’ve felt for the last ten years. To others it lables me, and not in a positive way either. Yet because all of my problems aren’t apparent to everyone I feel like everyone thinks I’m full of shit or just pretending to be “sick”. That I’m a hypocondriac or that I’m overreactitng. Of course I have thought through all of these possiblities quite often and know they aren’t the case. Yet I know people think that about me. Or that I’m just lazy and that’s why I sleep so much. I could go on and on about what people think.
The question is…why do I care? and truly I don’t know how to answer that. I feel that I have lost a lot from being sick, but I also feel that there has been insight that I have gained. So there have been some positive benefits to what I’ve gone through even though I sense a loss of what USED to be my life. It seems like looking at someone elses life now. I am a completely different person than I was before. There is good and bad aspects to this so I try to focus on the good. I do end up greiving the loss of things that once were…friendships that are no longer, energy I used to have, optimism and so on. I greive these things like a death. Some days I’m angry, some days I’m sad, some days I’m ok.
I’m walking foreward and trying to be a little easier on myself. I keep trying to remember what I have gained by being sick not what I have lost. This is one of my biggest battles. I often focus on what I’ve lost, what people think of me and get sucked in and think those things of myself. I’ve always been hard on myself, so now imagine how it is to be hard on yourself when you can’t actually meet your own standards? physically I can’t do the things I want to, I run out of energy, I get sore, I get sick…..then I get frustrated because I have let myself down. For the longest time I thought things weren’t going well because I wasn’t trying hard enough, because I wasn’t working hard enough, because I just was being lazy or overreacting to situations. I had “friends” telling me that everyones life was hard, mine was no different, I just had to try harder and not be so depressed or anxious. Even though I was trying my hardest. I now know that advice was well meant, but came from someone who couldn’t comprehend what it was like to have a chronic illness AND deal with life at the same time.
Since then I have learned of the Spoon Theory, which explains what I go through in the most basic terms possible. I wish I had known it a long time ago and been able to show it to people who might have cared to read it.
Perhaps I will always care what others think about me being sick all the time. I hope that someday I won’t care, or the people that I fear view me as lazy or a hypocondiac will just not be in my life anymore. I would rather surround myself with support. I have enough skeptisism on my own to go around.
Fibromyalgia is a very harsh disease to suffer from. Pain racks the bones and muscles. The ailments cause is not even completely understood. Even worse, relief can feel like a pipe dream at times. This is why so many sufferers try anything to relieve themselves from this unrelenting pain. New techniques are tried and tested on a routine basis. One of the technologies, has gained success in the whole body vibration. This is a very passive treatment, it is easy to do, and seems to help. Patients only need to stand on a platform, income or body shook shaken up. A recent participants were examined the effects of Whole Body Vibration. The aim was to determine whether it had any effect in pain relief. To ascertain this, the medical team reviewed three sets of participants. One group participated in the traditional exercises such as stretching and aerobics. The second group did this, plus Whole Body Vibration. The last group did not participate either in the form of exercise. The results showed that the group the biggest advantage of traditional exercises, followed by Whole Body Vibration that saw. The proof is the fact that exercise alone is not sufficient to produce pain relief for those affected. These patients have also noticed less fatigue as well. There is enough evidence to support patients to Whole Body Vibration as an option for fatigue and pain to see. Whole Body Vibration is a low impact way to work from the body. In fact, in some cases, the movement of the patient is not required. The patient must simply on a plate. Each position is acceptable. Sit, stand, it does not matter. Once on the plate, start the engine vibrations caused by the patient's body. You always enter from 30 to 50 times per second. The frequency setting is up to the doctor. The when is also behind this therapy, that the vibrations make the muscles or to work. The contraction guest machine, it is very difficult to replicate with other methods. The vibrations of the muscles to work in a very creative way. As they shoot through the patient, the body begins to feel how it is unstable. To correct this, he begins to contract. Their natural instinct is to compensate for the vibrations. This reflex is a counterweight, which produces the results. Whole Body Vibration is good for anyone. Users range from professional athletes, patients must be helped where due to physical limitations. Since this therapy is low impact Whole body vibration vibration also easily lead to brain waves. Researchers are studying this program is difficult. It is important to determine this treatment are also committed to the real health benefits. So far, the evidence is facing in the affirmative. It helps the pain, fatigue, stiffness and stress. Some patients have the additional benefit of a happy mood, the state of peace and calm.
Never mind searching for who you were. Search for the person you aspire to be. – Robert Brault
Before pain, my aspirations for MYSELF were much different. I always knew that I wanted to be a Mother and a Wife. I knew that I wanted stability and success, but HOW that was to happen and WHO I aspired to be inside somehow changed when the pain seeped in. I prided myself on certain attributes that were robbed from me when I lost my health. And I think like many people who suffer from chronic pain, all of my personal wishes and dreams fell apart.
I have had to battle chronic illness for most of my life. I do not just have one affliction, I have many. In late 2006 when my life completely fell apart, I was set upon a journey to find a “diagnosis”, and because of my previous health complications, it was almost impossible for the medical world to differentiate where one “pain” ended and another one “began”…. It was like putting together a 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle, when ALL the pieces were the same color….. black…. It wasn’t like we could find the color of the “border” of the puzzle and start from there, working out way into the middle…. there were thousands of pieces looking exactly the same…. and with one arm tied behind my back, I set out to put the puzzle together.
or masking pain….
Emdometriosis….. Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome…… Severe Myofascial Disorder, Myofasciatis….. Severe Fibromyalgia….. Unclassified Nerve Pain….. Congenital Heart Disease……. TMJD…….. CFS……. Chronic Migraines……. SI Joint Disfunction……. the list went on and on and on an on….. One diagnosis bled into the other….. One Doctor’s appointment a week turned into three or four appointments a week…… One specialist turned into a multitude of white coats that completely overwhelmed me……
I now know who I AM…. And now I only have to search for who I WILL BE.
Pain…..
or fighting pain….
or explaining pain…..
or hiding from pain…..
This all became my life……
And I lost myself.
I completely lost ME.
I spent the first 3 years of this journey looking BEHIND me…. I was trying to figure out how all this happened?!? If I could ONLY just find that one missing piece to the puzzle, then maybe… JUST MAYBE I could figure out how I got here, and HOW to get back to where I was!! I needed to make SENSE of all of this, and the further the journey led me from where I was, the more I would panic, because all I really wanted was my life BACK… I wanted my life to be the way it was the DAY before my life fell apart. I didn’t want to move forward…. by doing so I thought that I would forget the person I knew I once was.
4 years later, I am in a much different place than I used to be. My body holds NO memory of what it was like not to feel pain. I honestly don’t remember. I held on to those memories of pain-free days for as long as I could, but it prevented me from accepting that I might never experience that again in my life. For as much as anyone can accept that they will live their life in pain, I accept that this is my journey. Don’t get me wrong, I still have my bad days…. I still pound my fists and say “Why me!”…. and I still sometimes go searching for that missing puzzle piece. But all in all, I have learned that I am no LESS… I simply different.
I grieved hard over what “once was”, and with that I wiped the slate clean, aspirations and all. And now I no longer have to search for what once WAS….. I now only have to look towards what WILL BE.
I lost ME…. and in doing so, I believe I found a BETTER ME.
Townsend Letter- The Examiner of Alternative Medicine, April 2007
The Effectiveness of Samento, Cumanda, Burbur and
Dr. Lee Cowden’s Protocol
in the Treatment of Chronic Lyme Disease
by
Suzanne Arthur, Lyme Disease Research Database
The annual number of new cases of Lyme Borreliosis disease occurring in the United States is
unknown due to many factors, mainly under-diagnoses and misdiagnoses. Harvard researchers and
Lyme-literate physicians believe that as many as 200,000 new cases of Lyme occur in the U.S.
annually, and that the number of people infected grows each year. As reported in the Townsend Letter
article from July 2004, What Makes Lyme Disease Tick and How Samento Eliminates It,1 Samento was
the only herbal antimicrobial recommended for treatment of Lyme Borreliosis. Nutramedix now offers
many additional products, some of which are currently undergoing clinical evaluation for effectiveness
in the treatment of Lyme disease. Dr. Lee Cowden considers the use of Samento, Cumanda, Burbur,
Quina and other products to be a fine-tuned antimicrobial approach that addresses fungus and other
problems that accompany Lyme disease.2
Dr. Lee Cowden suspects Lyme Borreliosis to be root cause of many chronic illnesses;
recommends detox program and herbal antimicrobial protocol
Although many Lyme patients have had success with long-term antibiotics, Lee Cowden, M.D.,
integrative medical researcher and physician, believes many patients being treated with antibiotics have
recovered hundred percent for months or years only to suffer a recurrence.
“Lyme disease is an epidemic in this country,” says Dr. Cowden. He believes most of the diseases “that
are considered incurable by conventional medicine have some kind of Lyme component.” Many
chronically ill people have Lyme as a factor. Dr. Cowden not only suspects Lyme bacteria as a root
cause for autoimmune diseases, he also lists neuro-degenerative diseases, cardiovascular diseases,
cardiac-arrhythmias, gastrointestinal diseases, MS, ALS, Parkinson’s, ADDHD, and autism. “I’ve found
that if you can start working on the Lyme and the toxins, then a lot of these labels go away,” he says.
Dr. Cowden says that through the studies he has discovered that “antibiotics do seem to work fairly
well in a lot of patients. But, if they’ve had the illness for longer than six weeks, the chance of
antibiotics getting rid of the infection, in my experience, is pretty unlikely, pretty remote. So, they’re
basically just guaranteeing that they’ll stay on antibiotics for the rest of their life.
“The problem with staying on the standard pharmaceutical antibiotics longterm is that you kill off the
friendly bacteria in your gut, and you cause an overgrowth of fungus in your gut, so then you trade one
problem for another.
In the pilot study in 2003, we used Samento quite a bit, and still use it. But we’ve found that there are
some other herbal therapies that have been brought from Peru by Nutramedix that work just as well or
better than Samento.
Townsend Letter- The Examiner of Alternative Medicine, April 2007
Cumanda is an extremely powerful anti-Lyme treatment, as well as an excellent anti-fungal. And also
is a pretty good anti-viral, and anti-parasitic. So you eliminate a lot of different bugs with one therapy.
It’s a different philosophy than the philosophy used by conventional medicine, which is one bug, one
drug. So if you have six bugs, you have six drugs.
Now, besides Cumanda we have Banderol, which is a very powerful herbal antimicrobial from Peru
also through Nutramedix, and Quina, which has been used in Peru for many centuries for treatment for
malaria, but is also an excellent anti-Lyme treatment as well as a pretty good anti-fungal and antiparisitic.
I guess the most important thing we’ve learned since the pilot study is that if you don’t continue to work
on getting the physical toxins out of the body, the few remaining microbes that can survive the
aggressive therapy with herbals or pharmaceuticals, or whatever is used, those surviving microbes will
usually regrow and form a completely new population of Lyme-related microbes in the body because
of the toxins stimulating their regrowth.
So, it’s so critically important, in my opinion, to work as hard on getting the toxins out of the body as
on working on getting the microbes out of the body.”
“The worst culprits usually are the heavy metals,” says Dr. Cowden. “The most common source for
heavy metals that I see usually is mercury from the silver mercury amalgam fillings in people’s teeth.”
The simple act of chewing releases mercury back into the body, where it stimulates the growth of
Borrelia and other microbes, and where, additionally, it “blocks the release of other toxins, including
other metals, pesticides, solvents, herbicides and so on,” says Dr. Cowden.
Dr. Cowden urges Lyme patients to have amalgam fillings removed “in a very cautious and methodical
way. Then, once the mercury is removed from the teeth, the patient must gear up the detoxification for
mercury, so that the mercury can be removed from the body over time.”
Mercury is just one issue that predisposes patients to microbial growth and poisons their systems. Other
metals such as aluminum, boxite, and copper are also found in high levels in Lyme patients. Pesticides
from household use and from conventionally-produced meats, and petroleum by-products from skin
care products and cosmetics represent further challenges.
“Once you get a lot of that toxic load out, then it becomes easy to get rid of the microbes,” says Dr.
Cowden.
“The other thing we’ve learned since the study is that enzymes are critically important in breaking up
the fibrin that covers over the bugs and hides them from the immune system. The fibrin is a protein
produced by the body in response to infectious illnesses. And those bugs can hide very well if the fibrin
is coating them over, but if you give a proteolytic enzyme about thirty minutes before food with water
only, a couple of times a day, enough of that enzyme gets absorbed and breaks down the fibrin coating
on the surface of the bug so that the immune system can find them and get rid of them.
In addition to that, the fibrin that is being produced gets plastered up against the capillary walls, the
blood vessel walls and restricts the movement of oxygen into the tissues. So the tissues become oxygen
starved, and start producing lactic acid and go into anaerobic metabolism and create all kinds of other
trouble from that. So the proteolytic enzymes have been very helpful to resolve that.
I use bromelain as a proteolytic enzyme. Bromelain is derived from pineapple. And also I use
Carnivora, which is derived from Venus Flytrap. These two seem to be fairly well-tolerated and not
likely contaminated and not very allergenic. A lot of the other enzymes that are on the market are either
contaminated or allergenic. But those two work really well.
We’ve found that if you rotate remedies, that you’re less likely for the microbes to develop a sensitivity
or resistance to the treatment, and less likely for the patient to develop an allergy or sensitivity to it.”
In 2001, Dr. Cowden co-developed a technique to remove toxins using the principle of complex
homeopathy and laser, called cold laser therapy. “That’s been a great advent in getting the toxins out of
the body, and the doctors I’ve taught how to do that are very impressed with their results,” he says.
“Unfortunately, there are so few doctors in the country that are trained in that technique, that there are
more people wanting it than doctors who can deliver it.”
Dr. Cowden currently leads seminars for physicians who want to learn how to use cold laser therapy for
faster detoxification.
Dr. Andrew Wright treating CFS and Lyme disease with Samento and Cumanda3
Dr. Andrew Wright sees patients in his private clinic in Bolton, near Manchester, UK. For the past
fifteen years he has specialized in the treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. He believes that CFS is
mainly a chronic bacterial infection, and that Borrelia is one of the bacterias that can cause CFS.
“Clinically, CFS is identical to chronic Lyme disease in many ways,” says Dr. Wright. “I think there
are several reasons for why we should think that bacterias are the main causes of these illnesses. The
symptoms are similar to bacterial illnesses. The gene expression, in very carefully selected CFS
patients, appears to be identical to that found in Lyme disease. Many patients are positive for Borrelia. I
do microscopy and I find spirochetes in many people.”
Dr. Wright has treated five hundred or more patients with Samento, which he says is safe, and welltolerated
by most people. He believes that for treatment of CFS and Lyme Borreliosis, the best choice
is an integrated program if the patient can afford it.
“Often it comes down to what patients can afford,” he says. “Many of my patients are on pensions and
Social Security and can’t afford to pay for lots of herbs and supplements. They go for cheap antibiotics.
Some of them get better.”
Dr. Wright says that because Samento works very well in at least two thirds of his patients who choose
alternative therapies over antibiotics, it remains his first choice in treatment with Lyme Borreliosis.
Eighty percent of his patients who are on the antimicrobial treatments respond positively, with about
sixty percent of the patients declared clinically cured after a period of one or two years. He now uses
other Nutramedix products as well, particularly Cumanda, Quina, Burbur and also Amantilla.
Townsend Letter- The Examiner of Alternative Medicine, April 2007
In general, Dr. Wright says, he tries Samento first. If patients don’t respond he puts them on Dr.
Cowden’s protocol. He finds that about half the patients who don’t respond to Samento will respond to
the protocol. Some people simply do not respond, which, as he points out, is typical for any type of
treatment including conventional antibiotics.
The results of Samento treatment are varied due to patients’ spectrum of tolerance, in Dr. Wright’s
experience. “In general,” he says, “it is very well-tolerated. It’s very rare for someone to have to stop
treatment.” Some people are very sensitive and can only begin with one quarter of a drop. Others have
a greater tolerance and can build up their dosage more quickly, thus achieving quicker results. “The
fastest I’ve seen it work is in six weeks,” he says.
Dr. Wright typically recommends a dosage of five to ten drops, three times per day, working up to that
dosage over a period of a few weeks. Occasionally, he has put patients on sixty drops a day. In his
experience, if Samento is going to work, the patient sees a reduction in symptoms within three months.
“Certainly, Samento causes fewer side effects than antibiotics, such as gastritis, rush or irritable bowel
syndrome, and so forth,” says Dr. Wright. The only side effect from Samento that his patients have
experienced with any frequency is diarrhea, which subsides after about one week.
Dr. Cowden comments on why patients have fewer problems with herbal antimicrobial treatments than
with conventional antibiotics. “Fungal overgrowth can be just as bad a problem as Lyme disease,” he
says. “The herbal treatments we’ve been using don’t tend to cause that problem, because they kill the
funguses as much as they kill the Lyme-related bacteria and protozoa, without, in many cases, killing
the friendly bacteria in the gut.”
In treating CFS and Lyme, Dr. Wright would ideally employ a “combination of therapies,” he says,
“including Samento, nutritional supplements, dietary change, stress management, the whole thing,
because this is a holistic illness. I think we need to do more research, because long-term effectiveness
of these therapies is yet to be determined.”
Clinical Study currently evaluating effectiveness of Samento, Cumanda, and Burbur
In Fall 2006, pharmacist Philip Kielman of the Netherlands, began a year-long, random double-blind
placebo controlled study to evaluate the effectiveness of Samento, Cumanda and Burbur in the
treatment of Chronic Lyme disease.4This is a follow-up to the pilot study conducted with Samento in
2003. The twelve week preliminary report shows a sixty five percent reduction in symptoms in the
treatment group, and a twenty percent reduction in symptoms in the placebo group. EMPHASIS ADDED
Kielman says, “When we check with the Western Blot or ELISA and we get a negative result for the
disease, and there are no symptoms remaining, we conclude that it works. Of course, some people are
skeptics. They will say, yes, but you can’t cure one hundred percent of the people.”
“But I’m a pharmacist,” he continues. “And I know that I can’t cure anyone with any disease, one
hundred percent with ‘normal’ medication. When you have a thirty percent success rate with
pharmaceutical medication, everyone shouts ‘wow, that’s great, we have a new drug.’ But when there is
a natural product and people who have been given no hope with conventional therapy succeed at a rate
of fifty or sixty percent, well, I think that’s great.
Townsend Letter- The Examiner of Alternative Medicine, April 2007
Jean Reist, R.N., treats Lyme patients with help
from detox formulas Burbur and Parsley5
Jean Reist, RN, has treated over a thousand people diagnosed with Lyme disease in her Pennsylvania
clinic, Journey to Wellness. Nutramedix products Burbur and Parsley are in her arsenal of herbal
therapies for treatment because of their effectiveness in lymph drainage, which she considers critical in
healing Lyme. Reist believes that the most essential ingredient in her patients’ therapy is diet and
lifestyle changes.
“Lyme Borrelia will thrive in the presence of fungal elevation. Therefore, sugars, grains, can definitely
make the inflammatory situation a lot worse. Sugars will suppress the immune system. But what’s more
damaging, in our experience, is that Nutrasweet and Splenda are like poison and you want to avoid that
like the plague. Splenda will actually dry up the thymus and effect your T-cells in a way that you
cannot afford if you have Lyme disease. So, stay away from those artificial sweeteners. Just don’t do
it.” For her patients, Reist recommends Stevia as an alternative sweetener.
Bea Mistich6, success with herbal antimicrobial therapy
Bea Mistich of Colorado Springs, Colorado, spent nearly a decade dealing with serious health
challenges and was hospitalized and treated for pain, but not tested for Lyme disease until years later.
She now believes that many, if not all, the health problems that plagued her over the course of nine
years were caused by Lyme. During that time Bea underwent neck surgery for herniated discs, she
suffered back issues, cellulitis, depression, as well as severe flu symptoms. She also believed that she
was experiencing strokes.
For pain relief, Bea tried many types of therapies including acupuncture, with little success. Eventually
she received a positive diagnosis for Lyme from IGeneX in Palo Alto, California. She began a course
of Doxycyline prescribed by her Colorado Springs physician. In spite of an entire year of treatment, she
remained symptomatic. As her health declined, a friend who had heard about Dr. Cowden and
Nutramedix products urged her to look into it. Initially reluctant to try yet another purported remedy,
Bea eventually considered her friend’s advice, went to see Dr. Cowden and began his protocol. Since
then, Bea has become progressively healthier.
Dr. Cowden and his associates told Bea that she would start to feel better in about two months. She
reports that she had to increase the protocol slowly, at the rate of one drop per every five to seven days.
Although she had doubts and feared disappointment in the herbal therapy, she was impressed with the
results.
“Within three weeks, I was one hundred percent better. It was incredible. It was wonderful,” she says.
As most Lyme patients are, Bea was well aware of the magnitude of effect that her illness was having
on her loved ones. “My husband threw a party on my birthday recently, and announced to our friends
the party ‘wasn’t necessarily just to celebrate Bea’s birthday,’ as he said, ‘it’s to celebrate getting my wife
back, and getting her healthy again.’ It was great.”
Townsend Letter- The Examiner of Alternative Medicine, April 2007
Johnny Asia7 speeds his recovery from long-term illness after switching to natural protocol
Johnny Asia is healing from Lyme disease after a long struggle, made more challenging by the fact that
he is a professional musician. For a time, memory loss and rheumatoid arthritis, profound muscle
twitching and crippling fatigue robbed him of his ability to perform and earn a living. Johnny says his
healing progress intensified when he started using herbal alternatives Samento, Cumanda, and Quina,
In 1995, Johnny knew he was very ill but was informed by a doctor who was not Lyme literate that he
did not have Lyme disease. Eventually, Johnny did receive a positive diagnosis and was treated with a
two week course of antibiotics. In spite of his doctor’s pronouncement that he was then Lyme-free, his
symptoms did not resolve, but plagued him for many years.
Because he believed was Lyme-free, Johnny could not understand the persistent symptoms.
Discovering that he was experiencing many symptoms of Lyme, he realized that he may have chronic
Lyme disease.
In his research he came across positive reports about Samento from people whose symptoms were
similar to his. After beginning treatment with Samento and other nutritional supplements, he
experienced the Herxheimer reactions created by the die-off of toxins. After a few months, his
headaches subsided. The eyelid twitching stopped completely.
Beginning in mid-2006, Johnny began Dr. Cowden’s protocol and is now taking Samento, Cumanda,
and Quina. He expects to be symptom-free within a year.
How is Lyme disease contracted and spread?
The question only seems to invite more controversy to a growing population of Lyme sufferers seeking
answers. However, one thing is becoming clear. “Only a very small percentage of those have
contracted Lyme disease through a tick bite, the way conventional medicine thinks,” warns Dr.
Cowden.
Dr. Wright agrees. “It’s not necessarily transmitted solely by ticks,” he says. “There is evidence for
other means of transmission in the research literature.” He lists congenital and sexual transmission. “I
think the incidence of Borrelia is much higher than just Lyme disease,” he adds.
Master Herbalist and author Stephen Harrod Buhner author of Healing Lyme: Natural Healing and
Prevention of Lyme Borreliosis and Its Coinfections8, reports that although transmission through a tick
bite is still believed to be the most common way of contracting the disease, he notes, “little research has
been conducted on other routes of transmission.” As he states it, “spirochetes are passed not only
through tick bites but also through other mechanisms. Once they infect people they can be found in
breast milk, in tears, in semen, and in urine. Babies have been infected in the womb.”
Buhner says that while gathering research for his book he expected to find that nonpharmaceutical
alternatives were not included in any mainstream medical discussion about treatment of Lyme disease.
But he was surprised by something else he discovered, which is “that a significant amount of reputable
research is being ignored by the mainstream medical community.”
Townsend Letter- The Examiner of Alternative Medicine, April 2007
COWDEN LYME DISEASE PROTOCOL
Causes: Borrelia burgdorferi bacterial infection and usually one or more of the following
microbial infections; Erlichia, Babesia, Bartonella, Mycoplasma, Coxiella, etc. Heavy metal
toxicity (usually mercury) plus pesticides, herbicides, petroleum byproducts and plastics make
the patient more susceptible to these toxins.
For the first 3 days do only the following:
Mix the following 4 products together in at least a ½ cup (4 oz./120ml) of water and take 3
times daily immediately before mealtimes (whether eating a meal or not): BURBUR- 10
drops, AMANTILLA- 10 drops, PINELLA- 10 drops and TRACE MINERALS- 15 drops.
Continue this for the entire protocol unless the patient feels fairly well. If so, then the noontime
dose can be eliminated.
Then add the following……
Mix the following 3 products together in at least a ½ cup (4 oz./120ml) of water and take twice
daily 30 min before breakfast and supper: PARSLEY DETOX- 10 drops, TRACE MINERALS-
15 drops and CUMANDA – start with one drop adding a drop with every dose until reaching
30 drops. It should take approximately 15 days to reach the full dose of 30 drops. At the same
time take CARNIVORA- 4 capsules. If a dose of Carnivora is missed it can be taken at
bedtime when the other products are taken.
Mix the following 2 products together in at least a ½ cup (4 oz./120ml) and take twice daily
after mealtimes (whether eating a meal or not): ADRENAL SUPPORT- 20 drops and
BURBUR DETOX- 10 drops. If feeling toxic (headache, muscle ache, nausea, joint ache,
etc) take 10 drops of Burbur or Parsley in water or under the tongue every 10 min. until
feeling better and then resume the protocol.
Take 2-6 capsules twice daily of MAGNESIUM MALATE (only if kidney failure is not present)
with the liquid products before or after meals. Start with 2 capsules twice daily increasing the
dose until bowels move at least 2 times a day.
On day 18 of the protocol add the following products mixed together in at least a ½ cup (4
oz./120ml) and take once daily at bedtime: SAMENTO- 20 drops, PARSLEY DETOX- 10
drops, AMANTILLA- 15 drops and TRACE MINERALS- 15 drops. Every 3rd night take
ALGAS- 10 drops mixed with the Samento, Parsley-Detox, Amantilla and Trace Minerals.
After two months on full dose of Cumanda, start taking QUINA in place of Cumanda. Then,
alternate between Cumanda and Quina every two weeks for 4 months (some patients require
only 2 months of rotating therapy, but it may be more prudent to rotate for 4 months). Take
Cumanda for 12 ½ days stopping for 36 hours then, continue with the Quina for 12 ½ days,
stopping for 36 hours. Then, restart with Cumanda for 12 ½ days, etc. Most patients with
Townsend Letter- The Examiner of Alternative Medicine, April 2007
chronic, third stage Lyme Disease require four to six months of alternating treatment but
never less than two months.
If the patients suspects that a sensitivity or apparent resistance develops to either Cumanda,
Quina or Samento, BANDEROL can be substituted for any of these products.
For pain: CONDURA- 20 drops as needed placed under tongue and held for at least 2
minutes before swalllowing and apply topically on the site of pain using the number of drops
necessary to cover affected area. May be repeated every 10-15 min. as needed.
For Depression: AVEA- 15 drops three times daily 15 min. after mealtimes. If the patient
becomes suicidal, take Avea-15 drops and Pinella-10 drops every hour.
For Insomnia: AMANTILLA- 15-30 drops 15 min. before bedtime, can be repeated every 30
min. until patient falls asleep and if the patient wakes up at night. Amantilla can also be taken
every 15 min. for extreme anxiety or panic attacks.
Also recommended: Drink 3-4 liters (quarts) of water daily (clean mineralized, not
distilled or reverse osmosis), Avoid common food allergens- all cow milk and cow cheese
products, all corn products (corn oil, corn starch & corn syrup), peanuts and peanut oil (most
oriental foods), soy products (it is a common filler in fast food restaurants), black pepper,
white pepper, sugar (may substitute Nutramedix STEVIA) Take Proteolytic enzymes (such
as Carnivora)- 4 capsules two times daily- 30 minutes before food with water. Proteolytic
enzymes can be taken at the same time as Cumanda, Quina, Samento, Banderol. Consider
having silver (mercury) dental amalgams replaced with composites by a biological
dentist. Chlorella (if sensitive to Chlorella substitute with Spirulina)- build up to 1500 mg
daily before the mercury amalgams are removed and continue for 3-4 months after the
amalgams are removed. After all dental amalgams are removed, DMSA- 100-300 mg
depending on kidney function, age and body weight can be added every 3rd night for 2-3
months with 10 drops of Algas and 1500 mg of Chlorella or Spirulina.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
The dosages recommended in this protocol are for an average size adult that weighs
between 120-170 pounds (55-77 kilos). Adjust the dosage according to weight; ie. a
patient that weighs 30 pounds would take one-fourth of the recommended dose.
Unless the protocol specifies that products can be taken exactly at the same moment,
it is best to separate the products by at least 10-15 minutes so that one does not clash
with another.
Unless otherwise specified mix all Nutramedix remedies with at least ½ cup (4oz. /
120ml) of water and wait at least 1-2 minutes before drinking. The products are most
effective when taken in water. The products can be taken directly in the mouth without
water, but this should only be done when water is not available.
Townsend Letter- The Examiner of Alternative Medicine, April 2007
13 PRODUCTS USED IN PROTOCOL WITH PRIMARY FUNCTION
Adrenal Support- replenishes the adrenal glands restoring normal function
Amantilla Relax- relieves stress and anxiety
Algas Metal Detox- mobilizes heavy metals out of the interior of the cells
Burbur Detox- aids detoxification of the liver, kidneys, lymphatic system and the ground
matrix
Carnivora- proteolytic enzyme that dissolves the fibrin coating around harmful microbes
helping the immune system to identify and eradicate them
Chlorella- binds heavy metals and boosts the immune system
Cumanda- anti-inflammatory, broad spectrum antiviral, antiparasitic, antibacterial and
antifungal- effective against Borrelia burgdorferi and the co-infections
Magnesium Malate- helps maintain normal cardiovascular, muscle, nerve, bone and cellular
function
Parsley Detox- aids detoxification of the liver, kidneys, lymphatic system and the ground
matrix
Pinella Brain/Nerve Cleanse- eliminates neurotoxins
Quina- anti-inflammatory, broad spectrum antibacterial and antiprotozoal- effective against
Borrelia burgdorferi and the co-infections
Samento- immune system modulator, anti-inflammatory, broad spectrum antibacterialeffective
against Borrelia burgdorferi and the co-infections
Trace Minerals Relax- restores depleted mineral stores in the body, helps correct tissue
acidity, aids in relaxation, aids in hydration, enhances the effect of the antimicrobials
Townsend Letter- The Examiner of Alternative Medicine, April 2007
Resources
Health care professionals can request product samples from Nutramedix, LLC, Suite 301, 900 East
Indiantown Road, Jupiter, Florida USA 33477; Tel. (800) 730-3130 or (561) 745-2917; FAX (561)
745-3017; Email: info@nutramedix.com ; Website: www.nutramedix.com.
For comprehensive scientific information about Nutramedix products and Lyme disease visit the
following two websites hosted by Bionatus Laboratories in Ecuador, www.nutramedix.cc and
www.samento.com.ec
For information about the author of this article and for access to audio interviews with Lyme literate
physicians on the Lyme Disease Research Database, please go to
http://www.lyme-disease-research-database.com
1 . Morton Walker, D.P.M. with Randall S. Walker. What Makes Lyme Disease Tick and How
Samento Eliminates It. Townsend Letter, July 2004.
2 . Cowden, W. Lee. Phone interview, August 2006.
3 . Wright, Andrew. Phone interview, January 2007.
4 . Kielman, Philip. Phone interview, January 2007.
5 . Riest, Jean. Phone interview, December, 2006.
6 . Mistich, Bea. Phone interview, October 2006.
7 . Asia, Johnny. Phone interview, November 2006.
8 . Buhner, Stephen Harrod. Healing Lyme: Natural Healing and Prevention of Lyme Borreliosis
and Its Coinfections. (White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2005).
Townsend Letter- The Examiner of Alternative Medicine, April 2007
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=9887b834-0706-413b-8c9b-8415546f39ed)
