I
believe our bodies are always in a state of healing, always moving toward
optimum health. This is what bodies do
naturally regardless of what we do to circumvent the process. I read every two
years we have a brand new body as it takes about that long to regenerate
everything. I'm fairly certain it is the belief of most doctors our bodies
aren't doing it fast enough so they need an extra push...with pills.
Pharmaceuticals or supplements, it doesn't matter. Most are chemicals. All are
drugs.
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| Yum! Yum! Why eat when we can take pills? |
Americans
love convenience. Why do the hard work when you can just pop a
pill? I shouldn't even need to discuss the dangers of pharmaceuticals, but so
many people blindly take them without much thought to the small-print warnings
on the labels. All one needs to do is watch the news for another celebrity who
has died from a pharmaceutical overdose. Nearly all drugs have a history of
emergency room visits for overdosing, even the over-the-counter type you can
get without a prescription. Pharmaceuticals are chemicals. They will add to the
chemical overload your body is already experiencing.
Notes
on pharmaceuticals and chemical sensitivity: If one of your side effects is respiratory
dysfunction, the easy assumption most conventional doctors will make is it's asthma
and they will want to further poison you with inhalers. In addition to the
drug, most inhalers use a chemical propellant and for the MCS patient,
this will often make breathing more difficult and painful. Another common
prescription is anti-depressants. A well-known side effect of anti-depressants is
suicidal tendencies. Does that make
sense? The chemical overload is messing with our brain function. It doesn't
seem rational to me to add more chemicals that might make it all worse.
What
worries me more are the over-the-counter supplements that holistic doctors
prescribe and anyone can buy and take freely. And they do, usually without any
thought to how the particular supplement is manufactured, in what ratios and
dosages, and how it might affect the natural chemistry of the body. Doctors rarely
confess that many of the nutrients in the mix can negatively react with one
another. Maybe they don't know? Maybe they don't care?
For
instance, if you take too much vitamin C, it affects your body's ability to
absorb iron. How many people eat flavored, synthetic vitamin C like it's candy
and assume it's good for you? Synthetic vitamin E affects your ability to
utilize real vitamin E. Calcium not in proper ratios with magnesium affects the
absorption of both. The premise behind these issues is if you are giving your
body extra synthetic nutrients, it gets
lazy and starts using the synthetics instead of the natural ones, but it can't
utilize the synthetic ones as well. Then
the body shuts down its own absorption/utilization processes of natural
nutrients. I just recently read if you
are taking calcium you have a higher risk of heart attack. Detoxification
theories suggest taking all these extra synthetic supplements makes your body work twice as hard to get rid of the
excess when we should put our energy toward healing instead. These are just a
few examples of the bad chemistry of unnatural supplements.
What I want to know is how do manufacturers know the proper amounts and ratios for MY body specifically?
I can't be the same as everyone else on the planet, but this is the assumption.
Still, every doctor I've ever seen in my life wants to force a vitamin down my
throat and not one of them can tell me the side effects of taking these drugs.
They claim they are all safe. Hardly.
And
what about the additives and fillers used to make these pills? Magnesium
stearate, calcium stearate, silica, soy lecithin, cellulose, microcrystalline
cellulose, glycerin, gelatin. Isn't silica in ceramics? Synthetic forms of nutrients with industrial
strength fillers...it makes no sense. Eat some fresh fruit instead.
I
grew up working in health food stores so for years I was brainwashed into
believing because of modern agricultural processes, we MUST take supplements
because there are not enough nutrients in the soil to produce nutritious foods.
REALLY? If there weren't enough
nutrients in the soil, the plants wouldn't grow! It makes you wonder who
started that rumor and what were they trying to sell? Supplements, you think?
If you are eating a healthy diet of fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, you should be getting enough nutrients. Add some organically grass-fed, steroid-free fresh meats and you'll get more. If you aren't digesting the nutrients well, that is a whole other health issue you need to address, but as I started this post, our bodies WANT to heal themselves. Give them time, proper diets and health lifestyles, they will.
Herbs,
on the other hand, ARE drugs and have been used as drugs for centuries. Yet so
many people take herbal supplements everyday as if they are food stuffs with no
safety issues. After all, herbs are
available on the shelves for anyone to buy and the FDA hasn't restricted them
so they must be safe, right? We don't even need a prescription, just money. We
are far too trusting of the FDA to protect us from everything. Many herbal
drugs react with pharmaceuticals, too, so that has to be a common-sense warning.
I read once no one should take an herb for more than two weeks at a time, yet
manufacture advertising promotes eating Echinacea
non-stop during the winter to fight off colds. We need to stop being so naive
and instead start using our brains to protect ourselves instead relying on a
steady diet of pills.
MY
PERSONAL DRUG STASH:
Aside from my lofty opinions and soap-box lecture on the evils of pills, I do
understand when push comes to shove and a person is so miserable with illness
or pain they would do anything, drugs have their place. I have emergency relief
drugs I take only if absolutely necessary:
Benadryl This over-the-counter allergy medication seems to be the go-to drug to give to
anyone so I've always been against how easy it is
for everyone to trust taking it or giving to their kids. However, one day while
I was surfing the internet looking for clues I came across a woman's comment on
how she uses Benadryl when her brain swells and becomes inflamed due to a bad exposure. Whoa! She went on to explain
about the severe mood swings and neck pain, basically describing those scary
ultradian cycles I have experienced. This to me was a lifesaver, literally. So
my next bad exposure I tried it. It worked! Benadryl is an anti-histamine and controls
swelling. It also makes my ears
ring, is dehydrating, and knocks me out for hours so I can only take it at
night.
Ibuprofen Migraines are a bitch. I can tolerate one for
about 24 hours before I realize it's affecting my ability to function and then
I give up. I take only one which only reduces the pain slightly, enough so I
can get out of bed. I know what this drug can do to a person's liver so I avoid
partaking as much as possible and only when desperate.
Dr. Shulze's Intestinal
Formula #1 Dr. Shulze is into herbal dextoxification
programs and through his website www.herbdoc.com and mail catalog he is
willing to sell you any remedy for any bodily affliction. He's a wheeler and
dealer, too, like an old-fashioned snake oil salesman. I
love listening to him. He believes if you keep your colon clean, then your
other detox organs (liver, gall bladder, bladder, skin) can clean your body
properly and efficiently. His theories make a lot of sense. I have done his intestinal
cleansing program and it works fine. I wouldn't make a habit out of it as I
think one needs to eat right to properly motivate the intestines, but in an
emergency situation, I use this formula to expedite the process. Any time I
have a bad exposure whether it's toxic air or something I ate, this is my first
line of defense: get it out of my body. Whoosh! He used to give out a free tape recording of
his philosophy one could order off his website. It's hilarious!
In
my part of the country we suffer from solar deficiency so I'm buying into the
fact I don't get enough sunshine on my face. My labs are showing low levels of
Vitamin D so lately I've been testing Vitamin D to see if it makes any
difference. I'm not having any side effects, which is rare with a supplement,
so we'll see what happens. Regardless, it's a temporary test. It would take a
heck of a lot of misery for me to take a pill every day for any reason and I'm
not there yet. (Update: Even if I use Vitamin D as a moisturizer my neck and spine start hurting. I think it's the glycerin, but I don't see how lanolin is good for anyone to eat and it's the source for this natural Vitamin D supplement. I also read Vitamin D can cause kidney stones which is not a selling point. I've been eating lots of eggs and getting out in the sun as often as possible and my labs have improved.)
Do
you take anything that helps alleviate your chemical sensitivity?
Do
the supplements you take really help or are they contributing to the load?
