Health News. Lots of resources and information

Medicine is a service industry. You, as a consumer, have the right to get the service you request and pay for. This should be your attitude when you approach your doctor. On your first visit tell your doctor:

• that you want to try a new approach in the treatment of your allergies and that you are on the Metabolism-Balancing Program;

• that you will be starting the Anti-Candida Program shortly and you want Nystatin powder;

• if you are on cortisone and antihistamine drugs, that you want him/her to supervise your gradual withdrawal from them so that you can take the skin sensitivity test, cytotoxic food test and RAST test;

• that you want to be referred to a competent, allergist who does accurate work and who will, if required, mix up a desensitising vaccine to be taken orally.

If he/she does not agree to help, go to another doctor who is open-minded and willing to help you try a new approach. Shopping for a good doctor is no different to shopping around for a good plumber or painter. Unfortunately, some people seem to think they have no consumer rights in matters pertaining to doctors and must accept everything that is meted out to them. This is not so. Just as the plumber and painter are expected to provide the service requested, so is the doctor. Don’t be intimidated. It is your health and it is your responsibility to take care of it Experience has taught, me that this assertive approach invariably ensures you find the type of doctor and the help you arc looking for.

It is preferable that you consult a doctor who is familiar with the practice of clinical ecology. Many doctors are unfamiliar with this new science and will tell you that, allergies have nothing to do with your symptoms. Don’t fall for this one, but if your doctor wants to run additional tests, by all means go along with him/her. If you have not sought treatment for your symptoms, it is wise to let your doctor treat, you conventionally at first. Remember, although allergy is the greatest mimicker of disease, there could well be some other reason for your condition.

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If after four weeks on the Anti-Candida Program you’re not seeing a steady improvement, keep off the amines and salicylates and check yourself out for allergies, both food and inhalant. There are two ways of doing this.

1. The preferred way is to ask your doctor or naturopath to refer you to an allergy specialist for the skin sensitivity test, cytotoxic food test and the RAST test. You can then ask for a suitable anti-allergy program, or you can go on the Anti-Candida Program in this book, minus the foods you’re allergic to, if they’re known. Having these tests will necessitate breaking the program by going off all the vitamins, antihistamines and cortisone. Stay on the Ventolin inhaler and any other non-cortisone/non-antihistamine drug your doctor has prescribed for you. Eat as wide a variety of foods as possible before the tests but not those you suspect are detrimental to your health. List them instead and delete them from the program along with those foods that you show up allergic to. Use cortisone pullers again after the tests. The cytotoxic food lest is a very important one. Because it is a relatively new test not all allergists use if. If your allergist doesn’t perform this test you’ll have to go with the next option. The skin and RAST tests are not accurate for foods but must, still be taken to determine the inhalant allergies (grasses, dust, pollens, moulds, animal dander, dust mites). During this time the elimination food allergy testing technique may be used in lieu of the cytotoxic food test. Get your doctor’s or naturopath’s advice on this and have them supervise the testing procedure.

2. To do the food elimination test, stay on the Anti-Candida Program and eliminate one food every four to five days. Eliminate first any food you suspect may be causing your symptoms. If removing them does not help then work your way through the foods listed below. Keep eliminating the foods one at a time every four to five days until your symptoms disappear (or, in the case of skin complaints, significantly improve). When you are satisfied that your symptoms have sufficiently abated, work your way back t h rough I he list, adding one each of the eliminated foods every four to five days to see if any symptoms return. This back check is very important. You may eliminate the foods in whatever order you feel is appropriate for you, though you must keep a record of those you have eliminated.

The Anti-Candida Program by its very nature includes a restrictive diet. Any diet that restricts the spectrum of foods eaten naturally restricts the number of nutrients available for absorption. For this reason a sound tissue reserve of vitamins and minerals is to be built up on the Metabolism-Balancing Program before commencing the Anti-Candida/Anti-Allergy Program. Without this reserve you could become run down.

The popular misconception is that the Anti-Candida Program and Nystatin kills the yeasts. They don’t—they only weaken the Candida so that the white blood cells can easily kill them.

If you’re tired and run down on the Anti-Candida Program it is because: (a) you didn’t build up on the Metabolism-Balancing Program; or (b) you have overdone it workwise, exercisewise, socially or you have an infection, cold, or sore throat. Your white cells will be too tired to kill the weakened Candida. It gets worse. If you’re on the Anti-Candida Program while tired and overdoing it you’ll become even more run down (the Anti-Candida is not a high energy program) and your white cells even less efficient at killing the yeast. You will end up feeling worse than when you started the diet and often with a larger yeast colony as well, especially if in your run-down state you caught an infection and took antibiotics. This can also happen if you stay on the Anti-Candida Program for more than three months. Detractors of the Anti-Candida Program are invariably those who have fallen into one or all of the above traps.

Some of those who break the build-up and rest rule manage to remain symptom-free for a while on this regime only to see their symptoms return soon after going off it. This is not supposed to happen and shouldn’t if you’re properly built up before, and sufficiently rested during, the ninety days of the Candida-killing regime.

Do not confuse this with the elimination diet/challenge test regime used in some hospitals. This diagnostic procedure is potentially dangerous, for it places the patient on a very restrictive diet for four to six weeks. This lowers the immune vitality. Naturally, when the body, in this run down state, is challenged with concentrated food substances it reacts to practically all of them. The resultant diet is so restrictive that the body and immune system don’t pick up and although patients will be symptom-free for a while, eventually they become so run clown they begin reacting to the foods they are allowed to have. More foods are eliminated from the diet, malnutrition sets in, infections follow, as do the inevitable allergic reactions to the drug medications used to treat them. I’ve treated many refugees from this process. They’re not a pretty sight and so allergic by the time they seek my help it’s very hard to build/feed them back up to good health. Malnutrition is far more serious than allergy and is to be avoided all all costs.

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No, not if you are sensible and go onto the Metabolism-Balancing Program and supplements for the rest of your life once the Anti-Candida Program has been completed. So long as you limit your in-take of junk food to 5 per cent of total food intake, you will be quite QK.

Yes, if you go back to your old ways of eating too many refined, processed foods containing sugar and white Hour. If you overindulge in alcohol, cigarettes and take drugs. If you over-extend yourself at work, play and exercise, you will so lower your immune vitality as to predispose yourself to Candida infection again.

Some lifestyles include, by necessity, certain travel commitments, work commitments or social commitments connected to travel and work. The disruptions to everyday routine these commitments cause can mean periodic consumption of more junk food and alcohol than is desirable for keeping Candida at bay. The cumulative effects of these breaks in routine can mount up over time and cause the Candida symptoms to slowly return. If you are involved in this life mode make a point of going on the full Anti-Candida Program, with Nystatin, for one month every year. The best time to do it is at the beginning of each year, starting the week you return to work after the summer holidays. This will get you in good mental and physical shape for the year ahead and will give you the energy to take on all challenges. It will clean your system of any Candida plants that have grown over the previous year and especially as a result of the Christmas celebrations. It will get rid of that taste for alcohol and sweets that is so often the legacy of Christmas. It will set you up for another year on the Metabolism-Balancing Program and minimal junk food.

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Stress causes the release of the hormones adrenalin and cortisone from the adrenal glands. Adrenalin speeds up the metabolism of the body causing the cells to burn more glucose than normal. Cortisone, as mentioned, suppresses the power of the white blood cells to kill fungi, bacteria and viruses.

Over-work, over-commitment, over-exercising and over-socialising (with attendant late nights) are stresses sometimes encountered by Candida sufferers. These people think that because they are regularly taking Nystatin and sticking to the program, they can continue life at its normal frenetic pace and that everything will be fine. Not so.

Paradoxically, one of the greatest stresses can be the very program that is designed to starve the Candida. The big problem with the anti-allergy and anti-candida programs is that, by their very nature, they are food restrictive. By restricting the number of food types on a given program you restrict the quantity and the spectrum of nutrients in the diet.

Because white blood cells require an on-going and large supply of many different nutrients, their vitality can be lowered if restrictive programs are adhered to for too long. This is why a high potency broad spectrum vitamin and mineral formula (with the six essential minerals—calcium, magnesium, potassium, zinc, iron and manganese, plus hydrochloric acid to facilitate absorption) must be taken in tablet form by those on an anti-candida program. However, a vitamin and mineral supplement is not fully absorbed by those who are stressed through over-work, over-exercise, over-socialising or negative attitudes.

The initial Anti-Candida Program with its absence of natural sugars (fruit, honey, milk, yoghurt, etc.) is very food restrictive. Because a body under stress burns more glucose than normal, the foods eaten must provide that body with a ready source of glucose.

A shortage of glucose means the body becomes even more stressed and fatigue, light-headedness, depression and even fainting spells can develop. Depression and fainting spells usually lead to a craving for something sweet which invariably leads to a breaking of the program. This sometimes causes a flaring up of the condition being treated.

In any case, highly stressed people often show no improvement in their condition, despite the Nystatin and the program. When this happens they understandably become more stressed.

Highly stressed people have reduced digestive capacity. This means that the fresh, unrefined foods in the Anti-Candida Program, which are generally digested and converted to glucose more slowly than refined foods, take them even longer to digest and absorb. Yet rapid digestion and absorption of food, especially glucose, is what highly stressed people need the most.

The glucose depletion problem is aggravated in stressed people if some form of carbohydrate food (bread, brown rice or potato) is not eaten in the middle of the day. My experience with the overworked, over-exercised, over-socialised types is that they are frequently too busy to organise a substantial meal in the middle of the day and usually grab a salad on the run. Most of these salads turn out to be only rabbit food, without a substantial protein (meat, fish, poultry, egg) or carbohydrate food. Consequently, by mid-afternoon, they are feeling weak, faint, depressed and crave something sweet.

Within eight weeks these people are complaining that they are still retaining fluid, their acne is only slightly better, as is their eczema, their headaches and their asthma. And as far as they are concerned Candida albicans is definitely not the root of their problem.

Once they realise that they have to cut clown on their workload, social life and sporting activities they invariably get good results–their skin clears, fluid (weight) falls, and headaches and asthma attacks disappear. To find out if stress is a problem for you. This is important if you’re one of those highly motivated, enthusiastic, hard-charger types who enjoy their work, work long hours and are always on the go. Often these types are under stress without realising it.

Anti-candida treatment gives across the board results. Meaning that when the Candida infection is contained, all the symptoms disappear. If they don’t then stress is frequently involved. For instance, if your sinusitis, skin complaint and asthma go but your abdomen remains distended and/or you’re still tired or you catch a cold or ‘flu while on the program, you’re stressed and in need of rest.

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Cortisone suppresses the power of the white blood cells to kill viruses, fungi and bacteria. The white blood cells are the mainstays of the body’s defence against infection. They swim through the bloodstream and into the tissue spaces like tiny amoeba, killing foreign bodies on contact. They also produce protein antibodies to neutralise foreign substances.

White blood cells work against the attempts of progesterone to change the chemistry of the mucous membranes to favour Candida growth, by producing and sending protein antibodies to the membranes. The increased number of protein antibodies in the membranes changes their chemistry, yet again, rendering them infertile for Candida growth.

Because Candida yeast infections can produce inflammatory conditions such as eczema, psoriasis, asthma, arthritis and systemic lupus, cortisone creams and pills are often prescribed to Candida sufferers. Like antibiotics, they only treat the symptoms. As a potent anti-inflammatory agent cortisone does this very efficiently, but it also suppresses the white blood cells’ ability to produce antibodies to line the wall of the intestine. Ultimately cortisone, like antibiotics, increases the size of the Candida colony.

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Money worries affect many people from time to time and your ability to cope with your cancer will not be helped if you are suffering the additional stress of wondering how you will pay your bills. This can place relationships under further strain at a time when solidarity is so important, and probably the worst course of action is to avoid the issue altogether. Both you and your wife or partner and family may be fully aware of potential problems without wanting to voice your fears and fuel an already stressful situation.

The only constructive solution is to talk to those who can help -particularly the social workers at your hospital (if there are none at your hospital, ask your GP for a referral). If you are already experiencing problems paying your bills, do contact the organizations in question and explain your circumstances. It will often be possible to negotiate a solution or compromise, but you will have to take the first step. It may be tempting to ignore your financial commitments in the hope that they will somehow disappear – but this is rarely the case. It may feel particularly harsh, but with some help and your own resolve, reasonable solutions can often be found

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If you have a job, you need to think carefully about whether you can continue to work. It may be that the decision is clear-cut and you know that you will be out of action for a period of weeks or months. In many cases though, it is impossible to predict in advance how you will react to your treatment, however well-informed you are about its side-effects. You might find that you can work part-time, perhaps a few days each week or a few hours each day. You may feel perfectly well and strong enough to work one day and exhausted the next.

It is sensible to start by asking your doctor’s opinion about whether you are fit to work. Although it is difficult in many circumstances for a doctor to give a definitive answer, their advice will be useful when you discuss the issue with your employer. You may be advised to ease yourself back to work gently and to ensure you take sick leave if you are feeling low, or to start by working part-time. Alternatively, your doctor may advise you to stop working

until your treatment is completed or until you are physically stronger.

The next step is to talk to your employer to make sure no misunderstandings arise about whether or not you will be at work (or ask somebody to talk to your employer on your behalf). You may be unable to guarantee from day to day when you can work, and it is important that this is fully understood. It is even more important that you are not in a state of worry about work commitments – you need your energy for yourself.

For those fortunate to be in some form of paid work, perhaps the most critical decision is exactly what to do with this activity which has previously, probably, dominated your waking existence. The decision will vary dramatically between individuals -employed, self-employed, attitude of employer, full-time, part-time, etc – but for me the key decision was surprisingly easy. We were running a chartered accountancy practice which I had established some seven years earlier and there was never any doubt in either of our minds that we both had to stop working and use all energies available on the cancer. I think we both knew that this would, of course, make us much poorer – although I am not certain we then realized the full extent and link between illness and poverty – but that there was absolutely no alternative.

I was so, so lucky in one key aspect. I had formed a wonderful friendship and mutual professional support with a friend who ran a similar practice in Devon. Without a second thought, he came to see us and worked flat out for a fortnight to sell the business as quickly and profitably as possible. The end result was that within a fortnight of C-day and with the truly heroic efforts of my friend (and his wife ‘holding the fort’ at home) and the goodwill and integrity of the purchaser, the business was sold and we faced a future with a dramatically reduced income! Except that we had the time to deal with the cancer.

I know that this situation will only apply precisely to a very limited number of people, and that the level of horsetrading between employee and employer and the trade-off between income and time will be much more complex for most. All I would stress is that for us it was a great liberation to be free of the tyranny of time and resources which our work ate up. All efforts had to go into facing the cancer.

If you do decide or have to give up work, even for a relatively short time, you will obviously need to consider the financial implications. Money – or a lack of it – is one of the most common sources of stress. Anxieties about how to pay the mortgage next month or where the money for the electricity bill or the children’s school uniforms is coming from are the last thing you need – but at the same time are issues which can’t be avoided. If you do not have any other source of income, you need advice at an early stage about any benefits you are entitled to claim and whether you will be able to manage. These benefits are covered in more detail in Chapter 8. You may also feel great bitterness that your cancer has forced you into this position and created yet further problems. Your family might find this hard to accept too, resenting the situation while not wanting to add to your worries. Do get advice if you need it – a social worker will be available at your hospital who has experience of these issues. He or she can guide you through the system and save you time and energy.

For many of us, work occupies a significant proportion of our waking hours and an important position in our lives. It often dominates almost to the extent of defining who we are – when we are introduced to someone, one of the first topics of conversation is frequently, ‘Do you work?’ or ‘What do you do for a living?’ Even though you will be preoccupied with your cancer and treatment, giving up work can leave a void in your life. If you are at home, you will need to find ways of staving off the inevitable boredom, and making sure you don’t miss out on the social contact which work naturally provides. If it is physically possible, you might prefer to continue working at a reduced level to preserve some sense of normality in your life. Different people have different priorities and you, in consultation with your doctors, will need to decide what is right for you.

One man in his 30s being treated for stomach cancer who was employed by a bank continued to work whenever he could throughout his chemotherapy, with prearranged time off for his hospital treatment every three weeks. He felt that this would prevent him from ‘climbing the walls’ at home. He wasn’t always well enough to go to work, but preferred to do so whenever possible. Another in similar circumstances felt he needed to give up work for the duration of his treatment and convalescence, in order to concentrate solely on fighting his cancer. The decision might be made for you by your state of health or the nature of your job, but if not, try to decide what is best for you and not what other people expect of you.

If much of your life has revolved around work, it can be hard to conceive of such a dramatic change to your routine, let alone to admit that you are not always physically able to manage your job. In telling your employer and colleagues, you may fear that their perception of your capabilities will be affected or that they may not be entirely sympathetic about your cancer. Perhaps you feel determined to continue working at all costs, simply to prove that you can, or feel that you must from a sense of insecurity about your career prospects in the future.

The best policy is honesty with your employer. If your doctors have advised you that you will need time off for treatment, either occasional days or more prolonged periods, don’t imply that you will not need any sick leave. If your case is less clear-cut and you may need odd days off, make this clear. It will be easier for you and your colleagues to plan around your likely absences if you are explicit with them about what to expect. How you and they will cope with this will depend very much on the nature of your work. Maybe a colleague can cover for you on an ad hoc basis when necessary. If your work doesn’t allow for that, some careful forward planning of your workload will be needed, which will require you to be as open with your colleagues as possible. There is usually a means of resolving this, either by using temporary staff, delegating elsewhere or reallocating some of your work. Losing touch and getting left behind might be a fear – but perhaps you can arrange with colleagues to keep you up-to-date if you are absent for any length of time.

When you are not fully fit, even a job which is not physically demanding can leave you exhausted at the end of the day. Frustrating though it may be, this is a time when you must put yourself first and not the demands (or perceived demands) of your job. If you insist on working against medical advice or your better judgement just to prove that you can, you will find it even harder to maintain your physical strength – and you need it for yourself above all else.

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After the initial shock of your diagnosis has receded, you may begin to feel the pressures of making it easier for other people to talk to you and come to terms with your cancer. It is natural for all of us to feel upset at hearing bad news and worrying about how to react, and you may find that you play down your situation to ease other people’s concern and distress. You may find yourself reassuring your family and friends that, for example, you are not in any pain or discomfort, that treatment is considered very effective or that you are receiving very high quality care in an excellent hospital. Your conversations might give the impression that you are feeling much more positive and upbeat than you actually feel, even if your situation is very serious. People obviously prefer to hear good news (although not as much as you!), and the pressure to assure them that you are feeling ‘fine’ in spite of everything can be emotionally tiring.

In many cases, you will also have to take the lead in talking about your cancer and treatment, as people can be reticent about asking for details, however much they want to know all that is happening to you. Most of us are very ignorant about cancer and its treatments until someone close to us is affected, and therefore we simply don’t know what questions to ask or how to start talking. Describing your cancer or talking about how your treatment works can be very beneficial in prompting questions. For example, most people who have not had contact with chemotherapy or radiotherapy find it impossible to visualize how the treatment is given, and are also unlikely to know what it is. They will probably feel too embarrassed to ask you such a basic question, so describing how it is administered and what it ‘looks like’ can help them to understand more about what you are going through.

However much you take pleasure in talking to your family and friends, don’t underestimate how emotionally tiring it can be to chat about your cancer. Remember that there will be times when you don’t feel like talking, and a hug or watching TV or listening to music or just sitting quietly with your companion is all you can manage. You don’t have to ‘entertain’ people, even if you do feel some responsibility to do so.

Feeling a need to be ‘strong’ for the benefit of others can be draining too. There will be times when you exaggerate how well you feel or how much energy you have so that others will worry less. After a gathering of friends or a family meal, for example, you may find you are exhausted from the effort of keeping up a strong front. You might look forward to a visit from a friend and feel you must be positive and cheerful so that they can enjoy the visit too, and aren’t left with an image of you as tired and unwell. We naturally want to feel that our family and friends enjoy our company, so we make a particular effort to be a good companion. Just don’t overdo it!

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Depending on the type and stage of your cancer, your diagnosis may have been made very quickly following a referral by your GP to your local hospital, or you may have undergone a series of tests lasting some weeks before a firm diagnosis is reached. In both cases, you will have been through an extremely stressful experience and have been thrust into a medical world with which you are likely to be completely unfamiliar.

Studies have shown that men are less likely than women to visit their GP when they fall ill. As a result, you may have had infrequent contact with doctors in the past, and be unaccustomed to discussing and managing ill-health and dealing with the medical profession. In spite of this, you not only have to cope with the news of your cancer diagnosis, but also learn about your disease, learn your way around the unfamiliar territory of hospitals and clinics, learn how to talk to unfamiliar doctors about even the most intimate and distressing aspects of your illness, learn about your proposed treatment, learn a new vocabulary of medical terms and jargon … It would be a lot to ask of any person in normal circumstances, and yet it is a process which you have to come to terms with in a very short time.

This sounds extremely daunting and the learning curve is a steep one, but there are simple ways in which you can begin to feel more involved in the management of your cancer rather than falling prey to the passivity which many male (and female) patients fear. The key to this is communication with your medical team.

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The group of leukaemias is divided into categories depending on where they originate and whether they are fast or slow growing. They all affect the cells which are produced in the bone marrow

(and/or the lymph nodes) which then form the red and white blood cells. There are four main types of leukaemia:

chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) is a slow growing cancer of one type of white cell, the lymphocytes;

chronic granulocytic (or myeloid) leukaemia (CGL or CML) is a slow growing cancer of another type of white cell, the granulocytes;

acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) is a faster growing cancer of the lymphocytes;

acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is a faster growing cancer of the granulocytes.

The lymphocytes and granulocytes are different types of white cell whose purpose is to help the body to fight infection. If your white cells are not working efficiently, then your body will have difficulty fighting off infections. The more acute forms of leukaemia produce very immature white cells which can be identified in the bloodstream.

It is important to be aware that the words ‘chronic’ and ‘acute’ refer to how quickly the cancer grows, not to how ‘bad’ the cancer is. Chronic types tend to affect adults more than children, and acute types children more than adults.

Chronic leukaemias may produce no symptoms at all for some time, as they are slow growing. All of the leukaemias are likely to be diagnosed by a blood test and possibly a bone marrow sample, with additional tests such as X-rays and scans to check whether any other organs are affected.

Chemotherapy is the mainstay of treatment in leukaemias. The type varies from simple tablets up to and including a requirement for bone marrow transplantation in some cases. Bone marrow transplantation is a very gruelling treatment, however, and your general medical condition will be important in deciding whether the benefits of the treatment outweigh the risks. Additionally, in some cases, chemicals need to be injected around the spinal cord and radiotherapy given to the brain.

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