In 2000, I got taken in by an infomercial for website construction that ended up with an illegal contract, ruined finances, and ruined health after months of horrendous stress took its toll. I broke out in hives that eventually went from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet, which I thought was "just stress" until my arms and legs started swelling up. I didn't have much money and my naturopath is 200 miles away, so I had to feel like I was dying to make the trip. When I got there I looked like I'd been hit by an open hive of bees, along with many other symptoms. She took a drop of blood from my ear lobe, looked at it under a microscope with a camera attached and took a photo, after which she said two words.."adrenal insufficiency." Coincidentally she had a poster of adrenal deficient blood on her wall and my blood photo was a dead on match--magnified, it looks like a red and white checkerboard with rounds instead of squares. Adrenals and thyroid are closely attached and soon after the signs of low thyroid also manifested. My skin went to hell, my hair fell out and I gained the equivalent of a grandchild in weight.

The doctor (Dr. Leticia Watrous,N.D. in Spokane, WA) then gave me the O.G. Carroll food intolerance Test that tests for digestive/enzyme deficiency food problems rather than immune system allergies, even though I had been tested years before by her father, who was my original doctor. The test also shows the primary tissue salt deficiency which needs to be corrected. A new "allergy" showed up that had to be addressed as part of the healing process, which means avoided for the rest of my life.

Her various diagnosic procedures provided this information--when my adrenals crashed my kidneys were overworked and were now sodium deficient, which is something that usually happens with adrenal failure. Other organs had slowed down and become congested in the process, especially my liver--the cause of the hives, since they weren't filtering properly. (I had the worst hives I've ever heard of, which included the body type and facial type which causes your eyelids and lips to swell up, as well as closing up my throat several times). She also said I was deficient in calcium, B vitamins (which puts you at risk for coronary-artery disease), and that my stomach acid was weak, affecting all digestion, and my blood pressures was very high for the first time in my life.

The healing regimen was easy in some ways and difficult (almost impossible) in others.

*For the adrenals, and this is a MUST--Adrenal Protomorphogens, which are a part of the cell that heals it whether it is under or over-active. Hormone replacement will only cause further atrophy of the gland. They are only made by one lab in the world--Standard Processing Laboratories, and must be obtained from a health care provider. You can't get them in health food stores, but naturopaths and chiropracters can get them (no prescription needed). (I later added thryoid and pituitary protomorphogens.)

*Tissue (cell) salts: The food intolerance test showed which one was needed most, but you can get all 12-in-one in a product called Bio-Plasma (Schussler Homeopathic Tissue Salts) in many health food stores. They are very inexpensive and we use these just for normal health maintenance.

*B vitamins: never in pill form, although some sublingual types may absorb ok. She said to get them from using Brewer's or Nutritional yeast. I just add them to fruit slushies to kill the taste.

*Calcium: If you take calcium in "metalic mineral" form (pills) you risk arterial plaque, among other things. Things like carrot juice, deep green leafy vegetables, canned salmon and sardines provide organic forms of calcium that your body can absorb better. If you want to supplement with calcium itself, get the powdered form and take it like this--mix in a glass of very acid juice like cranberry, lemon, etc. to which either vit. C crystals or apple cidar vinegar has been added to disolve the stuff and keep it "in solution" in your body. Also, at night take one tablespoon of cod liver oil (I got the flavored kind and put it in unsweetened cranberry juice), and in the morning, take one tablespoon of cold-pressed peanut oil (not heat processed). These provide natural Vit. D (don't take D in supplements) and other nutrients that help calcium to metablolize when its NOT taken from food sources. Forget milk--calcium is "bio-unavailable" as soon as it is pasteurized and homogenized, and it actually uses up calcium it doesn't replace.

*Digestion: I took a LITTLE wine, digestive enzymes, papaya enzymes, and HCL (hydrochloric acid--which is stomoach acid), as well as pancreatic enzymes to help with protein metabolism. (not all at the same time)

*Kidneys: for my worn-out kidneys I was instructed to avoid animal proteins to give it a rest, and to treat it with sodium in the form of Celtic Sea Salt , taken with lots of spring water. (I've found something even better--Ocean Plasma--since then, that the doctor didn't know about.)

*Liver: I was ordered to do a 3-day fast to rest and detox my sick liver. Ha ha. It took me a year to get most of the way through one, and only then because I had to have oral surgery to remove a tooth, after which I slept for most of two days. I made it through the 3rd day, but needed to go until the next morning to make 3 whole days with NO FOOD (water only), which I didn't. I was about 12 hours short. Finally, the hives were reduced by half, but that was still pretty bad, so I went looking for more ways to detox my liver.

*Liver Detox: My chiropracter had a program designed by Standard Labs that was a semi-fast with supporting supplements and a protein-type shake for detoxing, so I did that and got some more improvement.

I knew I had to push it further, so I did some research that led to Hulda Clark 's regimens, which were just a case of good research on her part because these protocols go way back in time to early natural healers. She advised at least the parasite cleanse first, so I went through the whole procedure. I bought the herbs in bulk (from herbalcom.com) and stuffed capsules to save money and went through the whole protocol. On the day I took the most herbs, pain I'd had in my neck and one shoulder for over 15 years suddenly stopped and has never returned. I'd like to have the $1000's back I've paid chiropracters to treat the condition, so it did something quite amazing. Then I did the liver-gallbladder flush and removed HUNDREDS of stones. The hives went away overnight and never returned. I've done about 10 so far, and the last two got no stones whatsoever, but I will keep up the process every few months. This also stopped gall bladder attacks I'd been having. My brother and father had their removed. I'm keeping mine.

I wanted to keep the detoxing going, so I got a product from the health food store called Ultimate Cleanse that uses two types of supplements, one a combination of herbs and the other fiber and REALLY cleans you out.

I also supplemented with milk thistle, which is almost a specific for liver and gallbladder detoxing, dandilion root, and licorish root (DGL), DR. Jordan's Garden of Life products--Perfect Food, digestive enzymes, and probiotics. He also has products for inflammation and the immune system, but these things get pretty expensive, so it isn't usually all at once.. Dr.David Williams has the best and cheapest pro-biotics on his website.

*Stress: I found that we adrenal people remain hypersensitive to stress and that it has to be handled carefully, so I've done whatever I had to do to avoid undue stress, but I found something that actually programs the brain with new pathways for positive thinking, based on scientific discoveries about 30 years ago involving certain musical tones that affect mental states, along with positive self-suggestions. These were on a 3-CD program which requires 20 minutes a day, for 21 or 22 straight days without miss. You listen to them in an alternating pattern to start with on earphones, in a comfortable position with your eyes covered. I had to do them at night because they just knock me out and put me in the deepest sleep (after all that insomnia) imaginable, during which they still work. When I finished the program, I felt different--just dialed down a notch and more peaceful and laid back. Then I checked my blood pressure on a hunch, that had remained too high, and found it to be 120 over 80--about as perfect as you can get. http://www.u-cure.com The set is expensive but I got them almost half price for having joined Kevin Trudeau 's website for one single month. (he didn't have anything on it at the time.)

*pH: the last major malingering symptom along with chronic fatigue and hypoglycemia was an acidic pH that I couldn't get to budge in spite of the alkaline-forming diet I continued on, tons of lemon and lime juice, and everything else they tell you to do. My pH tested out below 6 instead of a healthy 7.4. It didn't even register on my testing strips. Also, even though I sleep better at night now, I didn't want to be conking out during the day with the fatigue and hypoglycemia...when I made possibly the most miraculous find yet. I'm a natural health researcher with a website http://www.truthquest2.com with a lot of material on it already, but I'm always looking for newer and better natural healing products and protocols. In the course of research I paid to join a site (forbiddenmedicine.com) and found a report on something I'd never heard of before, The Marine Treatment, based on the work of French physiologist Rene Quinton around 1900, who proved that diluted seawater is virtually identical to blood plasma, to the point of being interchangeable. It has all of the known minerals in organic form, as well as other living properties they don't even understand that can support life at the cellular level. In fact, you can put living cells in it and they will live and replicate. They found that it remineralizes the body, balances electrolytes, and NORMALIZES pH.

I copied the report onto my website without realizing the author was someone else. I almost got nailed for plagarism, but worked it out and kept up a correspondence with the original author, who is a retired naturopath in Quebec, Canada. I lent him my U-Cure CD's, and he reciprocated by sending me bottled seawater, which has only just recently become available in North America. The harvesting methods are complex, so it's not like you go out and drink it up from the sea (too bad). http://www.oceanplasma.org (go look at the photos if nothing else--just click on the home page photo)

I only had 2 week's worth, but in that time my pH slowly started creeping up so that it now registers on testing strips, my adrenal-related conjunctivitis is clearing up enough to allow me to work on the computer and read more than 10 minutes at a time, muscle pain has lessoned, and I haven't had one hypoglycemic crash since I started. In fact, I probably overdid it because it's the first thing I've ever used that gave me a natural energy boost. It also stopped the food binging that was making everything worse. Needless to say, I just ordered several liters--I'm hooked. If I had known about Ocean Plasma, I would have used it instead of salt, and it might have speeded up the whole process.

Sorry this is so long, but the account on my website along with related subjects is far longer and not even up to date. Hope this helps.