A Painful Detour

11/10/13  7:30 PM

A week ago after going off the juice fast and eating solid food I made a dumb mistake. Even tho I really knew better.  I didn't slowly phase from liquid to solid. Well that, or something, wreaked havoc with my digestive system. Let me just say it was both diarrhea and constipation. Kind of a combination. Certainly, unique in my experience.   I'll spare you the details.  Painful.  Debilitating.
  And really scary.  Didn't feel safe leaving the house, away from the bathroom.  The saving grace, my new Primary Care Doc was available.  Actually picked up the phone Sunday afternoon and early Monday morning.  Has anyone else ever had this Doc availability experience in this modern age of medicine?  When I say early, I mean it 4:30 AM.  No I didn't mean to call him that early.  Didn't realize the hour shift in the time.  When I apologized he said "no problem, I'm up at 4AM".  (I knew he started seeing patients at 6AM).  He did a very extensive DRE and determined there probably was no blockage ( a great relief to know as the painful days continued until today, a week later).  But now I'm OK. Back to normal and I can focus on my rare disease PRP.  I guess this experience gave me some perspective on my condition.  Reminding me things could be much worse, as they were the last week.  Whew. Glad that's over.

So what am I doing for PRP?  And how am I doing. Well I'm now still juicing but only 1/2 as much. And I am eating solid food and on a Vegan diet.  I stopped in the Barnes & Noble bookstore cafe a couple of days ago and there was nothing, like really nothing, I could find I could eat. Coffee and a blueberry muffin, one of my favorite treats are history.  As is bread, meat, poultry etc.  Just fruits, vegetables, nuts and beans.  If you want to learn more about this go to the diet link here (or on my main Blog page).  You can learn all about this by painlessly watching an hour's worth of videos by my latest treatment guru Dr. Fuhrman recommended to me by my Nova Scotia Naturopath, who also has me taking a bunch of supplements to slow the inflammation supposedly no longer inhibited by the drug Prednisone which I completely went off of two weeks ago.

How am I doing?  About the same.  Which I think is good, given the stress of the last week.  I think I can also say I've had no bad effects from going off Prednisone.  Just sleeping more, but I think that is leveling off.  I think the drug was making me a bit euphoric (I've heard others have the exact opposite reaction).  But my spirits are now quite good.  I find myself thinking of Churchill saying "there is nothing so exhilarating as being shot at and missed".   That's how I feel about surviving the last week's torment. I know the analogy is not that good, but the exhilaration is.And that quote pops in my mind and gives me a nice feeling. So I am drug free.  Dealing with this completely naturally.  And I am convinced this is the way to go. Following the PRP support group and reading the emails I don't see evidence that the drugs the Derm Docs are so eager to push actually have a track record of success. To say nothing of the horrendous side effects they expose people to.

Oh which reminds me.  I finally, got an answer from the Chairman of the Johns Hopkins Department of Dermatology.  Which you can read here.  (Although it's dated Oct 20, it wasn't sent-postmarked until Nov 6).  You can, of course, draw your own conclusion.  My conclusion?  Johns Hopkins isn't really interested in a non drug cure. While he tries to make this into just a difference of opinion, between two Docs (note the patient's opinion really doesn't count) the difference was major ("dramatic improvement" vs "none"). And one side (the "none") was unwilling to look at the proof (the photos that the "dramatic improvement" side had).  A friend told me today that the major source of Johns Hopkins' funding is from government grants and the pharmaceutical companies. A natural cure could be great for the patient but wouldn't help Johns Hopkins with their funding needs which he thinks is the focus for them not the patient.  Hmm..

I expect to get better with what I am doing now and there is much more I can do:  mind body stuff, more exercise (really non existent in the last week), possibly yoga, acupuncture etc. More on this in the coming days.

That's it for now.  Good to be back.  Thanks for reading!