I have experienced a professional epiphany and have come to realize that the healthcare system does not necessarily facilitate good health. Unfortunately, the existing system functions as a disease management system where many times symptoms are alleviated, but physiological causes are never addressed. There are trained physicians adhering to the standards of care they were taught; yet there seems to be a revolving door of patients who have a growing list of medications. The results are frustrating for both patients and practitioners.

Another term used loosely in the medical community is health care team. As the patient, you are a member of the team. It benefits you to be more knowledgeable about your health conditions. Many accepted medical standards of care today fall short of having true therapeutic and restorative value. There are definite systemic problems but that should not undermine the professionals’ duty to do the job well or prevent openness to alternative/complementary options to care. With the technology available today, you have enormous amounts of information available to help you make informed decisions about you choices. Use it! Any doctor who encourages you otherwise is not the doctor for you. Choose your physician wisely!

When our daughter had been diagnosed with severe, life-threatening asthma, my husband and I felt we had few choices in regards to her medical care. We saw pediatricians, allergists, and pulmonologists in consultation and it was a great concern when she obtained no relief from the traditional medical interventions. The massive dosages of steroids had greatly compromised her health and led us yet to another specialist, the endocrinologist.

After extensive testing, we were told that she had no sever allergies but some mild sensitivities which were, “Certainly nothing that would be contributing to the severity of her condition.” Our concerns continued to grow as her condition grew more ominous.

I received a phone call from a concerned family friend, who happens to be a family practice doctor. He hesitantly suggested that we had other “alternatives” and told us about NAET. I started my journey into alternative/complimentary medicine and did some research. I found that NAET — an anachronism for Nambudripad’s Allergy Elimination Treatment, was a unique approach to treating allergies/sensitivities and other chronic inflammatory conditions.

I met with “Dr. David”. Dr. David Beaulieu, M.S., D.C. is the leading NAET Practitioner in the KS/MO area. He explained that the treatments are non-invasive and a drug free natural solution to eliminate allergies/sensitivities of all types and intensities through the use of “energy balancing” kinesiology and acupressure. Dr. David has been using NAET in conjunction with other modalities in his practice for over fifteen years.

I was skeptical, to say the least, but desperation won out over skepticism. We proceeded with NAET and the treatments were nothing short of incredible. Following NAET, she has had no reoccurrence or treatment for asthma in ten years. No inhalers, no nebulizer, no medications, no trips to the hospital for asthma! I wondered, “If NAET can do this for asthma, what can it do for other chronic inflammatory diseases?”

I was invited by Dr. David to learn more and began to “shadow” him in his office. For over a year I was observing, asking questions and satisfying my curiosity regarding the use and effectiveness of NAET. I even had NAET treatments myself and found that my health improved. No longer did I have those vague “I don’t feel good” complaints. I felt better than I had felt in twenty years. I began following the life-style instructions I heard him giving to patients. I’m now one of the few women my age that I know who can say “I am pharmaceutically FREE.”

Because of the many positive patient outcomes I have observed with Dr. David, I made the decision to go to California to be trained in NAET and Advanced NAET with the founder, Dr. Devi Nambudripad. It has been the most satisfying experience of my nursing career to work with Dr. David in his practice and to assist in the treatment of patients with a wide gamut of inflammatory disease processes. Most of our patients, like my daughter, come to our office as an act of desperation when nothing else they have tried has brought any relief or improved the quality of life.

If you wonder if you might benefit from NAET; if you just don’t feel as good as you think you should and don’t know why; if you have been told you have no allergies or sensitivities but still have symptoms; if you are taking numerous prescription drugs and finding no relief from physical symptoms, consider the possibilities of NAET. Dr. David Beaulieu is available for free telephone consultations to discuss your health and nutritional concerns. You can view the web site at www.askdoctordavid.com. Be sure to read our “Patient Stories”, which are testimonies of how patients have been helped by NAET.

Betsy O’Neal, R.N.

I received an email video over the weekend from a friend in California. The topic was “why does the USA have the highest rate of cancer in the world?” The ideas on the video could be found in my newsletters that go back over ten or fifteen years, but I have never made my points so elegantly or persuasively. I highly recommend viewing this video, a TEDxTalks presentation by Robyn O’Brien.

Yes, eating genetically engineered veggies and the consumption of manufactured foods is behind the recent epidemic of allergies and asthma. It is also a major player in the USA having the highest cancer rate in the world, but is that the real problem? I think the real problem is regulation and the video makes a poignant argument for that fact. It doesn’t specifically mention companies like Dow and Monsanto, but it’s not too hard to figure out who the bad guys are.

In the Kansas City Star (Tuesday, June 21, 2011), a front page article gave one more example of that, and how dangerous our “safe until proven faulty” approach may become in the near future. The title of the article was “nuclear industry, regulators maintain cozy relationship.” The article gave clear examples of how the regulatory agencies that are in place to protect us are actually in bed with the very companies they are supposed to be protecting us from. Frankly, the article scared the hell out of me. I knew that there was danger from these nuclear plants, but I didn’t realize the degree.

Then on page A10, an editorial titles “Kansas failed citizens on Sunflower plant” told the same old story. So it doesn’t matter if the agency is federal, such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or the Food and Drug Agency, or the local Kansas Department of Health and Environment, we need to regulate the regulators. This should become a major election issue, and that can happen if we all communicate our concern to our legislatures.

Every day I go into the office and work with children and grandchildren who are so much sicker than kids were when I was in school. It’s heart wrenching, and it needs to stop. It can be stopped, one person at a time. Let’s do this. Please!

The American Academy of Environmental medicine has taken the stand that genetically modified (GM) foods pose a serious health risk in the areas of toxicology, allergy and immune function, reproductive health, and metabolic, physiologic and genetic health. This position statement is backed up by a voluminous amount of research. The research has been more than sufficient for European countries to reject the GM foods, but it is more challenging here, where big corporations like Monsanto have taken control of government agencies and get away with murder, all in the name of profit.

You can protect your family by avoiding processed foods, and eating organic. Eating organic is not more expensive, it’s smart. Being sick at sixty is expensive, and eating toxic food is a good way to achieve that.

I never cease to be amazed at how the media chooses experts to quote who represent businesses whose best interests lie in bamboozeling the public. Just a couple of weeks ago a major story in the Kansas City Star de-bunked the vaccination/autism connection, and especially the British research published in 1998 that validated the connection. One of the reasons given for the invalidation of that and numerous other papers regarding this issue was the questionable health of the children studied who appear to have become autistic after vaccination. What difference does it make? Are only healthy children vaccinated? Are all children thoroughly screened for familial health risks and carefully physically examined before each vaccination? Are the makers of the vaccines that still use toxic mercury and aluminum as preservatives looking out for themselves and their profit, or the children? Let’s take a quick look at the facts.

Do really healthy kids from healthy families get reactions to the vaccines? No they don’t, at least not immediately noticeable ones. Maybe decades down the road of life, increased mercury and/or aluminum body burden will contribute to poor academic performance, miscarriage, dementia or cancer. An increased body burden of both of these heavy metals has been implicated in those and a myriad of other terrible conditions, and we continue to load our environment with both. If we warn pregnant women not to eat fish in order to avoid poisoning the fetus with mercury, why is mercury safe when injected in much greater quantities in a vaccination? Simple, it’s good for business. Likewise, if aluminum intake is directly related to Alzheimers Dementia, and it is, why aren’t people who drink beer and other beverages from aluminum cans apprised of the risks? Same answer, it would be bad for business to tell the truth.

Children today are raised in an increasingly more toxic environment. They live in dwellings built from man made materials, and they all off-gas toxic fumes for months or years. These gases are heavy and settle to the floor, so even when most adults aren’t bothered, the kids are crawling around in an invisible cloud of toxic gas. Kids today have more colds, ear aches, allergies, and minor infections, and more severe diseases as well. Anyone with an education and a lick of sense realizes that. And it seems like every ten years or so we come up with another vaccination to poison them with.

More than fifty years ago, Roger Williams, Ph.D., of the Clayton Foundation of the University of Texas, published numerous studies on nutrition, health, and disease. In his lectures he was fond of telling the story of how mothers that he studied, who had large families, began having health problems after 2.3 children, and that from the third child on, each child had more and more health problems. He liked to kid about statistics, and how he had never really met a woman who had three tenths of a child, but his points were well made.

It takes genuine replacement parts to heal an unhealthy body. It takes genuine replacement parts to build a healthy human being. In this country, most people eat from packages and cans. Manufactured foods do not contain natural, healthy, genuine replacement parts, and since the advent of manufactured foods we have become a nation of unhealthy people. The literature tells us that it has definitely affected morbidity (quality of life), and now for the first time the literature tells us that it is starting to affect mortality… for instance, this is the first generation that is not expected to live as long as the previous generation.

Have you been in a maternity ward lately and observed the general health of the expectant mothers? Does it take science fifty years to read its own literature, observe the situation and figure it out? Have you seen what hospitals feed their patients? It’s a travesty. For Heaven’s sake, there’s a McDonalds at Truman Medical Center in downtown Kansas City. What does that say about the mentality of the local medical community? Does it actually suggest that medical authorities think McDonalds fast food provides genuine replacement parts?

Vaccinations are contributing to autism. Any parent who has watched a behaviorally normal child slide into autistic behavior after a vaccination knows that. I have had too many parents relate that story to me in my practice, and my patients’ parents are capable and caring observers.

Facts:

• family health in our country has declined;
• children are being given ever increasing numbers of vaccinations preserved with toxic heavy metals (aluminum and mercury);
• children with poor health histories, colds, etc., are being vaccinated without being appropriately screened as a high risk;
• the medical/pharmaceutical industrial complex is protecting its reputation and profits; and
• the media has fallen in line as usual.

In pre-med, everyone ate in the cafeteria, and the food was similar to what is served in most University cafeterias today, mostly junk. The classes prepared me to memorize enormous amounts of scientific information in preparation for my future as a physician, but certainly not to think for myself. I suppose it was assumed that students were supposed to learn how to think in High School, before arriving at colleges’ doorstep. In retrospect, that concept is laughable.

In Chiropractic College we breezed through the physiology of digestion and utilization. Diet and intelligent nutritional practices were hardly discussed. Students and instructors ate poorly, although overweight seemed to be the domain of the professors. I obtained my Master of Science in Nutrition after attending Chiropractic College, and although we spent a lot of time discussing and studying nutrient actions and associated biochemistry, not much was made of relationship between the modern diet and the prevalence of modern diseases. Of course, the Masters program was supported by businesses like Kellogg’s and Monsanto, and you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

Fortunately, I had an advantage. I had two mentors who guided me through the maze of mis-education. One was Doctor Nickolas Knutz, who in addition to his chiropractic practice attained the rank of General Officer in the army reserves. As a doctor he was interested in everything about a patient’s lifestyle that might contribute to a complaint, and he was an exceptional student of history, both military history and the taking of a patient history. He taught me to question everything.

My second mentor, C. H. Morgan, M.D., D.O., Ph.D., Ph.D., D.D.S., was the only man I ever knew with complete recall. He had committed to memory three successive versions of Gray’s Anatomy and taught gross anatomy at Cleveland Chiropractic College. Dr. Morgan instructed me to memorize enough pathology to get through my Boards, but learn as much physiology as possible, because that would determine my success as a physician. Disease, he would say, was nothing more than physiology gone wrong. He insisted that if a doctor could figure out the physiology behind an illness he stood a good chance to either correct or change the course of the illness. He emphasized that under most circumstances, given what it needs, the body would heal.

Both my mentors were very interested in the ‘diet/disease connection,’ and that is what has driven me in my practice these forty two years.

What amazes me is that it was evident even back in the sixties that most chronic disease was caused by changes in the general diet caused by food processing and chemical farming. Each decade there are hundreds of books and scientific publications describing the disintegration of public health due to the adulteration of the food supply. Doctors, who have studied physiology, don’t seem to have the time to do much more than treat symptoms with the standard and customary approach.

Dietitians/nutritionists don’t have sufficient physiology in their education, and are taught to ‘puppet’ the misinformation of the moment. An excellent example of that would be the disastrous but highly recommended Low Fat Diet that has been making us sicker and sicker over the last thirty five plus years.

It simply does not take a genius to understand that if we do not supply our physiology with genuine replacement parts (adequate protein and fat, and the essential vitamins and minerals) our machinery will falter. A good example of that is after the First World War, according to medical records of the time, about 3% of the population died from cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular disease and cancer have been around forever, but only in the last century have they become the number one and two killers. Every decade they gain in their numbers and the reason is relatively simple.

Food processing and chemical farming have removed sufficient genuine replacement parts from our foods that they no longer are able to produce health. Agribusiness is killing us!

Consider that your body replaces itself approximately every two years. Some organs like the intestines are quicker and replace themselves about every two weeks, some slower like the brain replaces itself about every two years. If genuine replacement parts are unavailable, replacement takes place anyway, with the result being something less than what was there before. Because the body has amazing organ reserve, it often takes numerous two year cycles before the results of insufficient genuine replacement parts demonstrates itself as chronic degenerative disease.

We had healthy soil before the First World War, and foods had a short shelf life, were local, fresh, and life giving. The advent of chemical fertilization and food processing changed all that, robbing us of the genuine replacement parts we need to have healthy lives.

The experts have failed us. They have ignored science and overwhelmed us with opinion over and over again. The businesses involved have become so rich and powerful that they now control the government agencies that were established to protect you and me, the public, from their dangerous stream of misinformation. They have in fact educated us through mass advertising that what is bad for us is good for us, and our poor health is the result.

A good rule of thumb might be, if you see it advertized on TV, don’t eat it.

If what we are eating is healthy, why are most of us sick? Why are most of us fat? Why are most of us on numerous medications? Let’s get back to basics. It doesn’t cost more to buy local and organic, it pays. You can use the Referral Network Section at www.askdoctordavid.com to get information on local farmers markets and organic producers.

The first rule of sensible eating: Eat foods that are indigenous to the area in which you live, in the seasons when they are available. This is how we ate for the thousands of years before big agribusiness and the food manufacturers began to make us sick.

I haven’t been able to continue treatments during this school year because of my work schedule this year. But as spring arrives and everyone is suffering from spring allergies, I suddenly realized that I am NOT!! I can’t thank you enough.

In addition, my B.M.’s have remained perfect. You are a miracle worker!!

Thank you so much,

Miki Heyne

(looking for relief? See Allergy Treatments and Nutritional Assessment & Treatment for more info)

One of the most memorable experiences of my life occurred back in the 1980s, when I was on the board of directors of the International Academy of Preventive Medicine. I was at a meeting in Chicago, and skipped a lecture that I had heard at a previous seminar. When I walked into the hospitality suite reserved for board members and speakers I found myself alone with Dr. Linus Pauling. A conversation ensued that would change my life.

When he discovered that I was a Chiropractor, Dr. Pauling told me that in his opinion the Chiropractic premise of the spinal misalignment didn’t go far enough. He suggested that before the misalignment could exist, a sprain/strain syndrome must occur at the musculo-ligamentous support for any specific joint(s). This is not what someone wants to hear who has invested a huge amount of time and money in a pre-med and Chiropractic education. He spoke to me of Vitamin C and its relationship to detoxification, immunity, sprain/strain repair and aging. The information on sprain/strain repair and aging was all new to me and I had some serious doubts. However, Dr. Pauling’s reputation as a recipient of two Nobel prizes prompted me to respectfully hold my tongue.

Upon arriving home, I immediately headed for the library at the local medical school to look up the available research on Vitamin C. This is what I found.

Vitamin C is a powerful anti-oxidant and detoxifier

Vitamin C is a powerful anti-oxidant, and it is stored in small amounts in the liver and adrenal cortex. One of its many functions is the reactivation of Vitamin E. In the presence of adequate Vitamin C, Vitamin E is able to be used over and over. Vitamin C also plays a large roll in carrying various heavy metal poisons like lead and mercury out of the body. In inner city children, where testing has shown that the toxic body burden of these poisonous heavy metals is often perilously high and significantly effects I.Q. and life expectancy, Vitamin C can be a virtual lifesaver.

Vitamin C is an immune system booster

Vitamin C has been shown to increase the effectiveness of white blood cell function. White blood cells (WBC’s) are the policemen of the body. To simplify a complicated chemical interaction, it is safe to say that they “beat up” invading germs to keep us from infections. Vitamin C potentizes WBC’s to the extent that when adequate Vitamin C is taken, the body will automatically reduce the WBC’s it makes because it can then do a better job with fewer WBC’s.. Now that’s efficiency. Vitamin C is also important in the manufacture of anti-stress hormones that are so important when the body is under stress from infection or environmental pollution. In fact, it is so important to the manufacture of these hormones that Vitamin C is stored in the actual adrenal glands that make these hormones.

Vitamin C and sprains and strains

Sprains and strains occur when ligaments (they hold bone to bone), and tendons (they hold muscle to bone), are torn or damaged. A subluxation is a sprain/strain injury between two vertebrae (bones of the back). A common complaint about Chiropractic care is that it takes so many adjustments or manipulations to fix a problem. When I started using Dr. Pauling’s advice about supplementing my chiropractic patients with Vitamin C, I reduced the number of office visits needed to fix the average back, hip, shoulder, etc., problem to between two and three. Although my income was initially reduced, it was soon more than made up for by referrals from happy patients. If you utilize Chiropractic care, it is possible to save yourself a fortune in office visits by simply supplementing with adequate Vitamin C.

The mechanism of action for healing sprain/strains and anti-aging are the same

Vitamin C is a major component of collagen. Collagen is the basic building block of connective tissue. Connective tissue holds the other tissues of the body together. Some connective tissue is relatively inelastic while some is very elastic. Tissues that need stretchability usually have more of the elastic type. When the body has inadequate Vitamin C, sprains/strains repair very slowly. As we get older and our ability to absorb Vitamin C is compromised by the aging process, not only do sprains and strains heal more slowly, but all connective tissue repair is compromised. When that happens, we virtually disconnect and one of the signs of that is drooping and sagging skin. Aging can’t be stopped by taking Vitamin C, but it can sure be slowed.

Why isn’t there enough Vitamin C to keep us healing quickly and looking young?

Scientists have discovered that virtually all animals make copious amounts of Vitamin C. The exceptions are guinea pigs, the South American bubal bat, some species of new world monkeys, and man. Thousands of years ago, a genetic glitch took place and mankind completely lost its’ ability to make Vitamin C. The mechanism to make Vitamin C from glycogen (storage sugar), is intact in our livers with the exception of the last enzyme in the chain (l-gulunolactone oxidase). Interestingly, animals that make the most Vitamin C have the least cancer, the least overall illness, and they age the most slowly. This inability to make Vitamin C is an important part of why humans age faster than practically all the other animals on the planet. Supplementation is the only solution.

How much Vitamin C is enough?

Medicine hasn’t been much help determining optimum Vitamin C amounts because it is primarily concerned with the amount needed to keep from dying of scurvy (the disease associated with Vitamin C deficiency). There’s a huge difference between the amount needed to avoid scurvy and the amount needed for optimum health. Linus Pauling suggested that we use the amount of Vitamin C made by other primates that do make their own Vitamin C as a reasonable amount for optimum health. The recommended daily amount (RDA) for Vitamin C (the amount needed to avoid scurvy), is 30 mg. Primates that make their own Vitamin C make about 1000mgs (1 gm) of Vitamin C for every 50 pounds of body weight. That would mean that a 150 pound chimpanzee would make approximately 3000mgs (3 gms) of Vitamin C a day when under low to moderate stress. When heavily stressed, the amount of Vitamin C manufactured can quadruple.

In my practice, I have recommended a gram of Vitamin C for every 50 pounds of weight for over thirty-five years.

Do certain things increase the need for Vitamin C?

Unfortunately, Vitamin C needs increase when we are confronted with a hostile chemical environment, e.g., pollution from chemical dumping; preservatives, hormones, and antibiotics that are added to our food; off-gassing of modern building materials and carpeting; airborne agribusiness chemicals used by farmers; first or second hand tobacco smoke; etc. To use tobacco smoke as an example, the average smoker needs approximately 600mgs of Vitamin C just to detoxify a pack of cigarettes. Remember now, the RDA is only 30 mgs. I have been called a megascorbic practitioner, but given the scientific information available in the literature, I think my recommendations are on the conservative side.

How much Vitamin C is too much?

Just over two decades ago, a very famous orthopedic surgeon named Robert Cathcart became interested in Vitamin C when he noticed that when his patients were given large doses before and after surgery, their expected fatality rate dropped to almost non existent, and they healed at a much faster rate. Dr. Cathcart wondered if Vitamin C needs differed greatly from person to person, so he embarked on a few research trials. What he found was that when you give a patient more Vitamin C than they can use, they stop absorbing it. It then becomes an irritant to the large intestine and causes diarrhea. He called that the Cathcart point, or bowel recognition. He also found that some of his patients reached bowel recognition on as little as 5 or 6gms of Vitamin C per day, and that some needed 50 or 60gms to reach the same recognition, a ten fold difference. He also found that his patience healed significantly faster when they were supplementing with Vitamin C just below the point of bowel recognition. Other than diarrhea, no other side effects have been attributed to megadosing Vitamin C.

Does Vitamin C quality differ?

Unfortunately, most Vitamin C on the market is ascorbic acid. It is cheap, irritates the stomach, and is not found in this form in nature. Nature buffers ascorbic acid with minerals, which makes it gentle to the stomach and intestinal tract. Nature also supplies Vitamin C as a member of a group or family called the bioflavonoids, along with other members of that family. The correct ratio is controversial, but is generally thought to be about 10% bioflavonoids. Vitamin C can be made from almost any source of sugar. The technology involved in making Vitamin C in pill form is universal, and everyone uses the same technology. Some companies use only the best ingredients. The companies that sell exclusively to physicians are among those companies. An example of quality Vitamin C that can be purchased in a health food store would be “Ester C.” It is the most advertised Vitamin C product on the market. Preventics Vitamin C 1000 is the equivalent of “Ester C,” and because you buy Preventics Vitamin C1000 at wholesale you save over $30.00 a bottle.

Are there circumstances where we need more Vitamin C?

When my patients are seriously acutely or chronically ill, I will often recommend they take their Vitamin C levels up to bowel recognition. I suggest they do this by taking it with meals, and by increasing one pill per meal each day until recognition is reached. At this point, the Vitamin C is reduced somewhat, which depends on the dose at which recognition occurred, and continued at the reduced dose until recognition occurs again. This is continued until wellness is achieved or it is determined that it is time to go back to maintenance dosage. This is not something I recommend people try on their own, and is why we have a Health Help Hotline for our customers.

The solution is prevention, and in that arena your nose mucous is your friend. Nose mucous is loaded with immune cells that protect us from inhaled pathogens, and the CDC says that 90% of all bacteria that invade the body do so through the nose. The advice here is that a runny nose is you friend. Drying up your nose mucous with spray decongestants and antihistamines makes the body much more susceptible to infection. So the latest words from authorities like the Mayo Clinic seem quite contrary to current media advertising and past medical information (misinformation?). To stay healthy, keep your nasal mucous healthy.

In recent tests, about 40% of all adults tested carried Methicillin resistant stapholococcus aureas (MRSA) in their noses. This is the “skin eating” super bug that also causes death by toxic shock and numerous non lethal but debilitating health challenges…and is antibiotic resistant. Many other antibiotic resistant bacteria are carried in the nose and sinuses, but MRSA at this time is the worst of the bunch.

This mess was created by the cavalier use of antibiotics. In a recent clinical study in Switzerland, it was shown that the same treatment we use to reestablish a healthy balanced gut flora after antibiotic use is the same treatment that helps clear these antibiotic resistant bacteria from the nose and sinuses. Probiotics, in our case that would be iFlora, work by triggering the immune cells in your gut to tell the immune cells in your nose to fight off staph, strep and other pathogens. It’s called “distant site effectiveness,” and it is a significant advance in knowledge about how our immune system works. Scientists now believe that the mucosal sites of the body are all connected, and the command center is in the mucous of your small intestine.

Taking antihistamines, decongestants, codeine, and inhaling pollutants can damage cilia, the little nose hairs that move the mucous, and stagnant mucous breeds disease.

Drinking lots of water keeps your nasal mucous fluid, which is what you want. Taking probiotics that help build a healthy gut and reduce “leaky gut syndrome” also help build a healthy nasal mucous. Rinsing your nasal passages with a saline solution by way of a Netti Pot is also very helpful in reestablishing a healthy nasal mucosa. Of course last, but not least, is the use of a superior grade probiotic like iFlora.

I know so many people in the same situation, suffering daily. The list includes my mother and sister – both are vegetarians. My mom has a headache everyday and is addicted to excedrin – a habit which gives such relief in the short term, but inflicts such cruel damage to the body and creates an addiction worse than the original problem. There are so many short term solutions to these headaches, so much so that an entire industry is built around the headache.

But why are these headaches occurring? That’s the important question! After searching for this illusive answer for the past 10 years, I have come to some very shocking information regarding diet, health, and my very sturdy, but yet fragile ecosystem that I inhabit.

My life with food, nutrition, guilt and the reality of life…

I guess the question I struggle with today is not what made a staunch vegan start to eat meat. That answer is simple – the quest to find a cure for my headaches. My question is still the same one I have had for the last 10 years. Why do I have headaches?

First, let me tell you a little about my life so far. For most of my life I have been almost exclusively a carnivore. Given the choice, I ate meat with no desire for any other dietary substance. I was raised in a household with a mother who loved chicken and a father who ate red meat. But strangely enough, my parents both became vegetarians when I was 14. It was an ethical decision for them. My parents were great – they let my sister and me make our own decisions about our dietary intake. So we ate meat.

As any troublesome teen, I rebelled and ate as much as I could get my hands on. More meat please… hold the veggies. I even worked in a BBQ restaurant; free meat all day long, everyday. I felt great. I smoked, drank, did drugs – you name it, I did it! I was young and nothing seemed like it could do any damage.

Then somewhere in college I found myself as a vegetarian. I was opposed to the way animals were treated and grown. It did not seem right that the animals suffered so, but I have always been on the border whether consuming flesh was right or wrong. After all, right and wrong are simply perceptions – we all have them – and they are no more than that – perceptions, and perceptions change with circumstance.

Because of this “perception” issue, my perceptions changed several times over the next few years. I was a vegetarian, then a carnivore, then a vegetarian, and so on… but I never really ate veggies when a carnivore or meat when a vegetarian. But what I had always been sure about was that, as a consumer, it was my responsibility to do what I felt right, and to uphold my ethical and moral beliefs with my decisions. My life was so easy then – eat meat and enjoy, no veggies required.

Then I met Sandi, my wife and owner of Eden Alley Vegetarian Cafe. She cooks so amazingly that I realized I could give up meat and not miss it. Her cooking is layers upon layers of flavors disguised as simple vegetarian food. Whole food nutrition that tasted better than anything I had ever encountered. So, I gave up meat without a doubt that I was moving in a healthier direction.

I stopped smoking somewhere in here too, and life was great! Running a vegetarian restaurant makes it easy to be vegetarian because there’s food I could eat everywhere around me, and great tasting food at that.

But I found that I missed the texture of meat – the chew. Then I discovered meat substitutes. The joy of processed foods that had a similar texture to meat. Textured vegetable protein and wheat gluten were constants in my diet. Oh the joy of the chew without the death and suffering of an animal.

Could life get any better? I was married to the hardest working, greatest woman I had ever met, helping to run an amazing restaurant.

Then the headaches started. Slowly at first, but with astounding pounding pressures that would leave me curled up on our bed wanting to die.

So, the search for the cure started. In my quest, with such excrutiating headaches that I wanted to crawl in a hole and die, I went to the one place that seemed they could help me – the Headache and Pain Center – it’s in the name. Well, I was told that the chances of finding the cause of my headaches was so low that I shouldn’t even bother. Their solution was to place me on antidepressants, but I wasn’t depressed. No matter, supposedly, they help headache sufferers too.

Even ten years ago I knew that this was the wrong approach for me. It did not answer the question as to why I had headaches. The headaches were obviously the symptom of something. What it was was the answer I was looking for – not just something to mask the pain of the message my body was sending me.

So, the quest continued. I started to look at everything I put into my body. What was the trigger for these awful pains that left me feeling less than the supercharged person I was without them?

As I was now, again, a vegetarian, helping to run a vegetarian restaurant, I was eating a typical vegetarian menu consisting of tofu, beans, rice, breads, eggs, dairy, etc. Then my doctor tells me I have high cholesterol. What, now that I am not eating meat? So, I started Lipitor to control my cholesterol. However, my headaches become more frequent. Even though my cholesterol is slightly lower, my doctor tells me my blood pressure is high. So, I am now taking a blood pressure lowering drug.

This was just great. I am not a big supporter of pharmacueticals and was not to happy taking these drugs… like my life depended on it! I have always believed that nature has the answer to our health, so taking prescription medication simply went against what I felt was right, but because my doctor said I really needed it, I took it. That was the start of the end of my trust for the medical community and what they perceive to be the truth of our biology.

I started switching doctors, looking for one that might have a clue about solutions to causes instead of masks for symptoms. I asked them all if the Lipitor could be contributing to my headaches and high blood pressure. They all said there has been nothing written about that. But I said, I have never had high blood pressure until I started on Lipitor. It did not make sense to me, and so I question authority – it’s just the nature of how I was raised, thankfully. Long story short, once I got off cholesterol lowering drugs, my blood pressure was fine and I had fewer headaches. But of course, there was no correlation!

So what was causing these headaches still? Soy? As a vegetarian, I was ingesting a lot of this stuff. I confirmed it time and time again in my many trials. Eating tofu made my head split open. Thus, I felt the answer to my painful life was found, but it was only the beginning.

Then I found Dr. David, and now, after one visit to Dr. David for NAET, no headache! No headache, what kind of magic is this?

Does it really matter what’s behind it if it works? To me it does. I love learning and understanding. So, I have bought all the books about this written by the founder of NAET, Dr. Devi Nambudripad and am loving the read. My first was “Say Goodbye To Headaches” of course.

So here is NAET in a nutshell – Greg’s nut shell of a brain.

My body knows what it needs, and what it doesn’t, what bothers it and what helps it. So, Dr. David just asked the right questions and used muscle checking – a method that has been used for centuries – to get the answer.

In my first visit, he checked for the most common 18 allergens and digestive disorders known to this system. Of these, I tested positive for 11 of them.

Currently, my body cannot process protein from any other source than cow. Luckily, that’s what I’ve been eating as of the last few weeks – 100% grass fed, no grain. My body had already figured that one out – but nice to see the proof.

My body is unable to assimilate a whole heap load of nutrients from the foods I have been eating as a vegan. The doctor believes, and stated his proof, that a vegan diet is not sustainable for more than a few years for the majority of people. He did say a small percentage of people thrive on being vegan, but apparently not me. He used to be a vegan, coincidentally. He stated that a vegan diet is one of the best things you can do for your body. It is the greatest cleanse and does wonders, but once it is done cleansing, it can have bad effects if continued – and that is seen in my world for sure. Of course, this is his opinion based on the facts he sees – no offense meant to anyone.

So what exactly caused my myriad of headaches for the last 10 years, a really bad vegetarian diet? Well, an overly dominant excess of soy and gluten proteins in the form of “meat substitutes” that made up my diet for the first few years after I turned vegetarian, has given me a “leaky gut“. This allows proteins to escape my gut into the rest of my body. My immune system, which is in perfect shape, sees these proteins as enemies and tries to destroy them and sends the alarm message out – a headache.

I had been a carnivore, so in my early days as a vegetarian, I really missed the chew of meat. Fake meats were everywhere at the health food store. Soy and gluten proteins masquerading as meat solved the chew issue for me, so I ate them to excess. Couple that bad diet with cheese and dairy – a truly crappy vegetarian diet – how could I not have allergy issues? Unfortunately, at the time, I had no idea about a balanced diet in the vegetarian realm.

Of course, many years ago I learned the dangers of a diet completely based on “isolated” proteins, which were stripped from their natural home in the soy-bean and the wheat and grains, and have thus moved away from that predominance, but the damage had been done.

So what now? Currently, I stay on a limited diet consisting of 100% grass-fed cow, egg, and most vegetables and fruits. As my NAET treatments continue, I will go through some different phases, but ultimately, my body will be cured of most, if not all, of its allergies, and of course, my headaches.

And what will my diet consist of then? What will my body say it is supposed to be eating? Stay tuned…

So my beliefs of right and wrong, left and right, up and down – my unique perspective on life – have been my guiding light, my beacon in the night. These beliefs have determined my diet; a diet I have turned into a lifestyle. I mean really, what I eat has taken over what I am. Ok sure, one way we humans differentiate between animals is their diet: this one’s an herbivore, carnivore, or what’s this – an omnivore.

Well, that’s me now for the first time in my life – an omnivore. I’ve spent time as a carnivore, then an herbivore, guess this makes sense. Is there really nothing more to me, that is more important, in determining who and what I am than my diet? Really, I mean my diet.

Now, thanks to NAET, I have the entire rainbow of foods to choose from without the fear of the headache. Wow, gotta’ choose wisely.

We’ve heard the saying all our life: “you are what you eat,” but it doesn’t seem that many people really ever consider this to be true. I mean consciously we would all probably agree with this statement, but in reality very few people actually live as such. I sure found this to be true. Crap in crap out.

I was ruining my body. Now Dr. David and Betsy have given me the chance for a whole new life, without fear. Thank you both for giving me a second chance to understand my body’s needs, not just my philosophical desires.

• Slows aging by repairing connective tissue, e.g., ligaments & tendons;
• Boosts immune system;
• Useful treating colds, ear infections, infections in general; and
• Relieves sore muscles and joints.

Ascorbate-C is the Vitamin C supplement recommended in Dr. David’s Basic Self-Help Program for infants and children up to age 11.

One teaspoon (5 gm) supplies: 2000 mg Vitamin C (Calcium Ascorbate), 1450 mg Rose Hips, 1000 mg Acerola, 500 mg Lemon Bioflavonoids, 25 mg Rutin, 25 mg Hesperidin, 230 mg Calcium (from Calcium Ascorbate).

4 oz. powder – Retail Price: $24.00 – Your Price: $12.00

For more on Ascorbate-C see:

• Why You Need To Supplement Your Diet

Order Ascorbate-C Powder Now!