Personal Update 01/19/12

Ok….so a lot has gone on since my last post. The life of a Tarlovian changes all the time when trying to discover the cure…mine sure does anyway. After my first Prolozone Therapy treatment I was sore but mostly traumatized from the procedure. It hurt. I did not want to go back and get my next one. In fact I had such extreme anxiety about it the second time that I literally had one of those moments where you totally freak out on your husband for no good reason. For the second treatment he added a shot into the center of my lower spine area, along with the two on each side of my sacrum. This time around the pain of injection was less, but my flare up from it lasted 10 days. By flare up, I mean I am not able to stand or walk for too much longer than 5 to 10 minutes. Luckily I work from home.
Either way, at this point I was becoming fearful of continuing on with the therapy. I am always so scared that I might try something that makes me worse or that I can’t reverse with clean eating. That is a big, big deal to me because the fact that I can alleviate my symptoms through food has been the one thing that has pulled me out of depression and given me hope; even if everything else fails I can still count on food. It was out of this intense fear that when I went in for my third treatment I couldn’t do it. I had another episode where I freaked out in the waiting room and by the time I got in to see the doctor I was numb. I told him that I couldn’t do the treatment, it didn’t feel right. He said he had no other treatment plan for me and that he felt that is what I needed. Long story short, we broke up. Not in a bad way, a good one actually. To be honest I feel totally relieved to not have to go back. Don’t get me wrong, he is an amazing doctor and he really knows his shit, but I just wanted to go back to doing it on my own. I learned a ton from seeing him and it definitely improved my life. Because of that I feel more capable of self-healing. Truth be told, we were teetering with running out of money anyway. Over the past 5 months that I had been seeing him, Damon and I had spent close to $8,000!!!! As you can imagine, I haven’t gotten to buy or use anything name brand for quite a while. After we left the doctor office Damon drove me straight to Old Navy to buy me a shirt and make me feel better about getting dumped.

Here’s what Dr. Battle believes:

My condition, compounded with my limited movement, has caused my sacroiliac joints to greatly and damagingly degrade. The Prolozone Therapy is given to help rebuild up lost or damaged tendons and strengthen the area, which in turn supports your entire upper body. As a result you take the pressure off of your sacrum, ideally eliminating pain and allowing the area to have proper circulation for healing.

I believe he is absolutely right. I just couldn’t continue to put myself through that with the shots. Over the years one of the things I have learned the hard way is that your mind lies, but your body never does. I figured if my body was this opposed to the treatments then I had to follow it. Perhaps one day I will change my mind, but for now I would like to take a shot at it myself, no pun intended. So, here is what my plan is:

My years of research tell me that I am able to rebuild the area without help from injections. The key is then to build up the muscle around the area to alleviate pressure, increase circulation, improve alignment, and stabilize my spine. As I am doing this I will consume my best diet yet so that all of the nutrients can easily get circulated through the damaged areas and my healing can take place.
Exercise has always been one of the things I have not been consistent with. Mainly because one day I will do it and I am fine the next it will put me down for the count. I think my problem is that I have been trying to exercise like I use to exercise and obviously that can’t happen. This time around I have developed a plan of light stretches and low rep muscle building exercises, spread throughout the day. Currently I am doing:

Stretches- 3 times a day

Exercise- 2 times day (including Supermans, hip extensions, squats, lunges; to start 1 rep of 10 each)

I have been exercising like this for a couple of days and I do feel more supported already, which is helping more than I thought. I guess the key was to exercise correctly (aka stopping when the pain starts)…go figure.

Another HUGE addition I have made is to incorporate Turmeric Tea into my day. I recently watched Healthy Living by Dr. Andrew Weil and he highly recommended this. On one of his visits to one of the healthiest places on Earth, Okinawa, he discovered that they drink copious amounts of turmeric tea all day and have the longest life spans. The idea is that turmeric is a mega anti-inflammatory, inflammation being the cause of all diseases (in my opinion). Therefore, suck down a bunch of turmeric tea and double your chances of being healthy. I bought some organic turmeric from Whole Foods and began drinking tons of the stuff daily. So far this stuff works better than any pain pill I have ever tried. The recipe:

Turmeric Tea

2 ts fresh grated organic turmeric
1 ts. Fresh grated organic ginger (can use lessor more if want)
8 cups spring water
2-3 Tb agave nectar
Lemon (optional)

Bring water to a boil, add in turmeric and ginger. Simmer for 10 minutes. Strain into container. Add agave and stir. Serve cold or with ice. I drink the total amount throughout one day.

In conclusion, my plan is to eat really, really good and suck down tons of anti-inflammatory tea. As my pain subsides (still having a bit of a flare up from the treatment) I will slowly, and I mean slowly, add in more exercise. I am going to give this route a good 6 to 8 weeks before I am willing to go forward with another outside source. It’s funny, I wear this silver bracelet that means the world to me and inscribed on the top is ‘believe in yourself’. The one irrefutable thing that I have discovered during my years of uphill battles with this damn disease, is that my body is truly capable of miracles…I just have to believe it. Think about it, every story we have ever heard about someone having a miraculous healing or beating the odds involves a patient that believed 1000% that they would, even though the doctors all disagreed. That is the goal here. This journey has already made me believe in myself so much that things have completely changed in all other areas of my life. Now, I just need to turn my belief in myself completely towards my health and let the miracles come.