Today would've been my Dad's 71st birthday had he not died a lingering undignified death from multiple myeloma 5 years ago just before his 66th birthday. This was the culmination of several years of events that began with "mini-strokes" and went through an operation to clear his carotid arteries and a triple bypass. But these events were many years in the making. He was a very active man joining the USArmy at 17 and traveling over a good part of the world taking in the local culture wherever he found himself. He was especially fond of the Far East. When we found ourselves, as a family, in Taiwan in the mid 1960s he moved us into a local neighborhood. We immersed ourselves in the local culture unlike the other Americans who thought they had been sent to Hell and couldn't wait to get back to the States. Dad fought in the jungles of Vietnam proud that he had served his country but at the same time dismayed at how his country had conducted itself in SE Asia. We moved to Alaska where he retired and became a farrier (horse shoer) despite a bad arm from being wounded in Vietnam. Over the years he became more sedentary and started to prefer the easy chair to a good walk through the woods. Always tall and slim he got the "gut" and during his last decade popped Rolaids like they were going out of style. And yes, his was a variation on the Standard American Diet. During the last few years I think that he was hampered even more in his search for health since his medical care was provided through the military instead of civilian healthcare. And it didn't help that he had an aversion to hospitals in general after being in one for so long at the end of his Vietnam duty. His health deteriorated until he could no longer take care of himself. In the end they could do nothing for my Dad than watch him die. I have since had the feeling that he was robbed of his health and life at too young of an age.
Lately when I look in the mirror I see his face looking back at me - it is uncanny how much I look like my Dad. He died way before his time but he lives on in me. Over the last few years I have been searching for a better way of health myself not just a quick fix after something goes wrong. Even before Dad died I was going to the doctor 2 or 3 times a year with variations on the same complaints - Mild pain/tenderness in the gut, odd rashes, overall lethargic feeling, disconnectedness with life, urinary discomfort/infections, etc. I was feeling too old for my years. They did tests, found nothing and sent me on my way usually with the feeling that I was a hypochondriac. They looked for kidney stones, Gallstones (none on the x-ray), ran me through the MRI twice, did blood, urine and stool tests - NADA! My doctor even suggested that I should see a psychiatrist but I knew that it was an organic problem. Last winter I had a physical that showed I was in the normal range for a guy my age (44) just that my cholesterol was high at 281 and liver enzymes were a bit high but nothing to worry about. Mentioning that my gut was still bothering me she said those magic words: perhaps its Irritable Bowel Syndrome. My doctor suggested more fiber in the diet and some exercise. At least she didn't want to set me up for cholesterol drugs yet. During a 3 month follow-up for the liver test I had a stuffy sinus and an odd rash on my hands. She decided I had allergies even though I'd never had them before and couldn't explain why now except that sometimes people get them when they get older. I left there with a prescription for Flonase and a steroid creme for the rash even though she couldn't identify it. Threw the steroid prescription away and got some tea tree oil - the rash was gone in 3 days. Tried the Flonase for a week until I couldn't stand the headache or taste in my mouth any more. Then I read the material that came with the stuff closer and decided that this wasn't for me. Nasal saline seemed to do the job just as well and as spring came the problem seemed to fade away.
By this time I'd about had it with conventional medicine and decided that it was time to take responsibility for myself beyond the occaissional vitamins. I had tried choelostrum, chlorella, aloe gel and a few other things with some success but nothing spectacular. One can't rely on a doctor that sees you for 10 minutes, only seems to hear half of what you have to say and talks to me like I just fell off the turnip truck. Time to put those internet search engines to work so I Googled IBS and started following links. This was when I found CureZone. The Liver Cleansing caught my eye because of the high liver enzyme reading and knowing that the liver had something to do with cholesterol regulation. I have to confess that at first I didn't pay much attention to anything else on the site and didn't even look at the forums. But I did download a copy of "The Amazing Liver Cleanse" by Andreas Moritz . This made sense to me. Since the expense was minimal and there was nothing there to hurt me I figured that it was worth a try. I think that my coworkers were wondering about my sudden thirst for apple juice. Saturday eve came and I downed the epson salt water (2x) and the olive oil and grapefruit juice vowing that if nothing happened that was the last time for that. Yuck! As I lay in bed I could feel stuff moving around and soon fell into a deep sleep. The next morning was amazing, I'd never seen anything of the like in the toilet bowl before. Lots of green stones and tan mush. Okay I might be on to something here. The next day I felt better than I had in a very long time.
Did another flush two weeks later and this time, besides stones and chaff, an amazing amount of bile was released too. Thought my backside would never stop burning! I timed a 3rd flush for the weekend before I was to see the doctor for a 6 month followup on the high cholesterol issue. I proudly walked in with my jar of stones and she promptly dismissed it. According to her it was just feces mixed with olive oil. Besides I'd had an x-ray a year ago and there were no gallstones. It was all a deception by internet hucksters preying on desperate people to trick them out of their money. When I mentioned that the information didn't cost me anything and the supplies cost less than $10 at the grocery store she changed the subject. Then when my cholesterol was now 179 without drugs she had no explanation for it. Her attitude and closed mindedness further strengthened my resolve to seek means beyond the mainstream to fix what was ailing me. Conventional medicine had been very little help in half a decade so why should I expect different now. Even though it never became my vocation I did get a bachelor's degree in zoology so I feel that I have a good background to make sense of all this.
In my internet research I also kept running across references to Candida overgrowth. The symptoms and circumstances rang true for me and I decided to give the program from Whole Approach a try. Even if I didn't have Candida it might help clean me out. Followed it for a month and also did another liver flush. By now it was summer and I was feeling pretty good so I got distracted by remodeling my bathroom. Something clicked when I saw the amount of mold and fungus in the wallboard and space behind the shower. To think I'd probably been breathing in a large amount of spores for the last 7 years and I knew from my reading that this could reak havoc with Candida overgrowth and other problems. I started to tie this into the undefinable health problems I'd been having. Ended up rebuilding most of that corner of the house to get rid of the mold (and take care of the shoddy 75year old workmanship).
But I was feeling quite well so I didn't think too much about all this until November when the usual winter blahs started to set in. Remembering that the Candida program seemed to help I got back into that and also did another liver flush. This seemed to pick me up and I started going back to the gym again - something I had not had the inclination to do for over a year. I figured the exercise and sauna would only help. I also started following the CureZone Forums with a passion. Knowing that there are other people going through similar experiences and finding solutions is quite comforting as well as informative. This got me thinking about my life and the various things that could've compromised my health. I read whatever I could get ahold of. Mid January after another Liver Flush I passed a large quantity of what appeared to be sheep liver flukes. Since these are mostly found in Asia I can only conclude that they have been with me since living in Taiwan in the mid-60s. Time to do Clarke's parasite cleanse: Wormwood , walnut hull and cloves with the addition of Co-Q10. Soon I expelled more flukes, ascarids and a number of other critters. Also expelled were cottony looking bits that seemed to be Candida colonies. Having a background in the sciences I find this all fascinating but I am quite glad to see them go. As I have seen other people say here I never knew looking in the toilet bowl could be so much fun.
All this has me becoming more of a believer. Usually by the end of January I'm feeling like crap and here I am feeling as good as in summer. And all this time I was thinking it was perhaps the rainy Seattle weather and SAD. On the first of February I started an 8 day master cleanse. (Unfortunately I couldn't go longer because of work obligations the following week.) It's not difficult and this from a guy who can't make it to lunch without a major growlfest in my gut. I think the hardest part is having to explain the lemonade drink to disbelieving coworkers while they are chowing down at lunch. I finished off the 8 days with another liver flush. For the most part I felt amazing during that week and expelled some nasty looking stuff. As with previous weeks there was some crummy feeling times that I am assuming were the result of die-off. As a word of caution though for those of you that decide to do the master cleanse: when they say to start back eating slowly they mean it. I did the fresh orange juice and later a whole orange. Then I made fresh vegetable soup. I never tasted anything so good in my life and ate 2 bowls instead of sipping broth and having a couple bites of vegetables like suggested. In the middle of the night I found out that was a BIG mistake. What an unpleasant way to wake up!
So today, a week later. I'm finishing up my 8th Liver Flush with still a good quantity of stones including a spherical one about 2cm across along with a few more fluke carcasses. Passed alot more bile than I did last week during the one at the end of the cleanse - perhaps since I didn't use apple juice that time to soften stuff up. Thought that this would be a good time to pass along my thoughts since I don't want to get too far from the bathroom.
So is all this worth it? An emphatic yes! My mind and sinuses are clearer than they have been in a long time. I have more energy and less patience to veg in front of the TV. I'm much easier to get along with and find myself singing and whistling often. The tenderness in my gut is all but gone. The thick white coating that has been on my tongue as long as I can remember sluffed off 2 days after I ended the Master-Cleanse with just a small remnant near the back now. (Funny thing is that over the years neither the doctor or dentist has ever mentioned anything about it.) My skin is unbelievably soft and supple (got a massage the other evening to get the lymph flowing and the therapist couldn't get over the change since last time). I feel as if I have a modicum of control over my health now. I'm disappointed that I haven't passed any of those big black ropes yet but perhaps the leathery bits and pieces and nasty moldy looking foul-smelling BMs were it. I'm fairly thin and have always passed food through in less than a day so maybe the build up wasn't as extensive as with some people but I'm still looking for them.
As to the future I'm continuing the Candida cleansing as I know that they can be stubborn little fungi with the double duty of further cleaning out 45 years of living. I've done 2 months of Bentonite and psyllium with probiotics and caprol, a fungicide. Will be switching off the caprol with grapefruit seed extract and then Kolorex. Will do another master cleanse around the spring equinox perhaps for 2 weeks this time. I'm going to continue to listen closer to my body and not rely on doctors so much. I'm also looking closer at what I eat and drink getting back to real food, phasing out overprocessed junk and trying to minimize man-made chemicals. I'm trying to tell friends about this without being pushy but they can be stubborn. I'm amazed at how much intellegent people still trust that the big corporations have their best interest at heart and think that doctors have all the answers.
My advice for what its worth: Try some of this stuff and get the gunk out of your body - it doesn't belong there but things like your gall bladder and thyroid do belong. Get some exercise - the lymph system is passive and needs the action of your body to move stuff along. Get a chlorine filter for you shower since the body can absorb more chlorine here than from your drinking water. Pink grapefruit tastes way better than the yellow kind. Listen to your body and if you don't understand what it's saying do some active research. Look to more than one source for you information and follow what seems to be right for you. Lots of other stuff too but I've prattled on for entirely too long.
Thank-you for indulging me here and thank-you for all the wonderful people here at CureZone, Here's hoping that medicine becomes more preventative oriented and saves the pharmaceuticals and scalpels as a last resort. No one should have to suffer through the kind of hell that my Dad did.

Jay