Re: Dry fasting (sorry in advance)

Hi Anne,

Earlier I mentioned that I thought there was a clinic in Russia that does prolonged dry fasting. And I vaguely remember reading that patients there have done 30-day dry fasts, but I've tried searching and can't find any info (in English, at least) to substantiate that, so maybe my memory is off, and even if someone did claim that, it could have been an unfounded rumor. Sorry to get your hopes up.

But I found a link on fastingconnection.com to a clinic that reportedly does dry fasting, and since you're lucky enough to know Russian (I'm very jealous!), you can read their website, and maybe call/e-mail them to ask what they do:
http://www.filonov.net/


The owner Dr. Filonov also wrote an e-book on dry fasting in Russian:
http://www.fastingconnection.com/forum/dry-fasting/4069-qdry-medical-fasting-...


There's also a Russian doctor named Vlad De Vladimir Etkin who does (or used to do) dry fasting, runs a fasting retreat, and writes books. Here's his website:
http://naturopathy.mylivepage.ru/image/512/14384


And Vlad also wrote a lot of info on dry fasting in this thread on fastingconnection.com, where you can find links he posted to other relevant websites in Russian and Ukrainian:
http://www.fastingconnection.com/forum/dry-fasting/4130-dr-vlads-dry-fast-dia...


I just looked through that thread and I saw that he tried to hold his hands over trees and draw energy from them to keep up his strength, so apparently he practices Chinese chi kung (qigong), which is cool. (Chi kung is rumored to make it possible to fast for many years.) He believes that dry fasting for a long time is not safe. If you want you could try asking him what he knows about that (his best language is Russian).

Here's another thread on fastingconnection.com in which he posted:
http://www.fastingconnection.com/forum/dry-fasting/4036-dry-fasting-cycle-5-d...


Also, I personally don't actually have any special knowledge about dry fasting. As you've probably discovered, the Internet has very little info on dry fasting, mainly because people aren't trying it due to fear of dehydration, harsher symptoms, and the extreme discomfort of thirst (you can always rinse your mouth with water though, and maybe swallow a tiny bit). Information on dry fasting seems to be mainly in ancient history, and at the moment I'm not quite motivated enough to search through old dusty scrolls written in ancient languages for info. :/ And some of this info is in religious texts, which people tend to not trust if they don't believe in that particular religion.

However, I basically believe that Water Fasting and dry fasting are mostly the same thing. Dry fasting just works quicker because your stomach, intestines, and kidneys don't have to work hard to process all the water you'd otherwise be drinking. So when I read info on water fasting, I take it to be applicable to dry fasting as well.

Herbert Shelton saw that his patients did a lot better when they only drank as much water as they felt like, instead of trying to force down large amounts. His conclusion was: the less water the better, so only drink as much water as you need. The thing is, who really knows how much water you need? Shelton guessed that you need whatever amount will satisfy your thirst. This was a conservative guess. Being a physician with a clinic, he had the responsibility to keep his patients safe and maximize their chances of healing their diseases. So he probably didn't want to toy around and use his patients to experiment with a 40-day dry fast. But since I am convinced that a 40-day dry fast is possible, I take his conclusion of "the less water the better" to mean zero water is the best.

Of course, whether a 40-day dry fast is safe is debatable. Maybe modern humans are too full of toxins to safely dry fast, or it's rumored that dry fasting isn't safe if you have kidney problems, etc. But the bottom line is that hardly anyone is trying it, so no one really knows. The only way to find out is to test it. So if you're a pioneer and you can stand the extreme discomfort of thirst, I say go for it. Plenty of people have done it for 7 days to (I think) 14 days (reports are on fastingconnection.com), so I don't consider that risky at all. Even Shelton's book said that a basketball player dry fasted for (I think) 16 days for some competition in the early 1900s. I suspect that very prolonged dry fasting requires getting water through your skin, so bathing in unsalted (possibly unchlorinated) water is a good idea.

But to conclude, it's much better to Water Fast for 40 days than to dry fast for 4 days and give up because it was too painful. So just go ahead and do whatever works for you.

You're welcome,

Love,

afflicted Tweet