Learning the Language of the Body

 I studied German in college and spent a year and a half living in Austria while a young adult.  Having an associates degree in international studies, I have thought a good deal about learning different languages.  Learning in the classroom is helpful, but nothing compares to immersion into a culture for learning a foreign language.  

How does this apply to health?  Our bodies try to communicate to us what we need to heal.  Our bodies are designed to heal themselves, but if we are sabotaging this process through toxic thoughts, toxic foods or environments, then they may become overwhelmed.  Often the messages our bodies send to communicate their needs to us are subtle at first, but they get louder and louder if we ignore them.  Learning to recognize the subtle messages can prevent bigger problems later on.  

Fevers, rashes, aches and pains are all messages our bodies use to communicate a need to our brains.  Often blisters, sore spots or dry skin on the feet are messages from reflex points trying to teach us that a certain organ or area of the body needs attention.  Listen to these messages.  Sit with them and try to figure out the translation.  

Books such as Heal Your Body by Louise Hay or Feelings Buried Alive Never Die by Karol Kuhn Truman are great resources to learn which physical symptoms might be associated with different emotions you have trapped in your body.  

Once you decipher the message, then you can work on letting go of the toxic emotions, thoughts or environmental factors creating the problem.  

Viewing your body as this intelligent tool that is so good about communicating its needs to you can help you love and appreciate your body and then be in a better mental state to love yourself and heal.

Just as in any conversation, it is important that we reciprocate communication.  Talk to your body.  Remind it that it is in a safe place.  Give your body permission to be at peace and be still.

Journaling

Some healing can only take place after we have addressed issues we have been avoiding.  In The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel Van Der Kolk says, "the object of writing is to write to yourself, to let your self know what you have been trying to avoid." (pg 245)

As you write, you may notice patterns and it will help you recognize how you need to change or how you are contributing to the problems in your life.  Write the facts and then write how you felt about them.  Tying emotions into the events will help you process the emotions.  It may surprise you what surfaces that you hadn't realized before from childhood trauma or otherwise.  Some details may seem unimportant, but when you pause long enough to notice the small details, you can realize how trauma is sometimes trapped in relation to things like colors, for example.  

Just this past year I found an example of how keeping a journal can help you recognize patterns in your life.  I had rapidly gained 10 pounds in a month and couldn't lose it.  I didn't know what had caused such rapid weight gain and after about 4 months of not being able to budge the scale, I went back to my journal to see what had happened in the month of February that had contributed to my weight gain that month.  I knew there were some obvious factors such as I don't exercise as much as I should in the winter, and it was a particularly brutal winter this year.  But in my journal I had documented about two funerals I attended in the same week and how sad the circumstances were in both cases.  I didn't realize how much those deaths had affected me until I went back and read my journal entry.  Acknowledging that I was taking on other's grief and doing too much emotional eating helped me get back on track and start to lose weight again.

Why Not Dairy and Eggs?

 I went to an allergist to have the full spectrum of allergies tested by pin-pricks on my back because I was hoping to identify what foods to avoid for a migraine free diet.  Unfortunately, the nurse informed me that despite every single prick being red and swollen, she didn't think I had any allergies.  She claimed I simply had sensitive skin and sent me on my way.

In reality, I believe I had so many histamines in my body from things I had eaten, which my body was reacting to, that it overwhelmed the allergy tests and made it useless.

Later I went to a dermatologist to try to figure out why I was growing small bumps on my chest.  One in particular was larger than a pea.  She took a biopsy and couldn't identify what was going on.  I was told the tissue wasn't cancerous but looked like it was just scar tissue forming for no reason.  I also had developed a painful rash in my private area and my ob/gyn couldn't figure out what was wrong there either.  He thought it was a yeast infection, but it certainly didn't respond to any treatments for yeast.  So I turned to "Dr. Google" and fed my questions to its search engine.  I came across 800+ comments about similar rashes which no doctor was able to help.  Then a few comments started popping up about how people had the same problem and found out it was caused by a food allergy.  I had suspected a dairy allergy, so I tried eliminating all dairy from my diet.  I found immediate relief from both the rash as well as all but the largest of the scar tissue spots.  

Everyone who struggles with migraines has different triggers.  That is part of what makes it so hard to treat.  In reality it's not like an allergy where every single time you eat one of your triggers, you get a headache.  Instead it is more like you pass a certain threshold of triggers your body can handle and then it sends you over the edge.  It makes it very hard to identify what foods to avoid when you can eat them regularly without any trouble, but when coupled with something else, such as hormone changes, it is detrimental.  

I learned that a gentleman at my church was a fellow migraine suffer and he shared with me that his were managed quite well as long as he didn't eat wheat, dairy, chocolate or eggs.  I had experimented with eliminating all but eggs from that list, so I thought I would try that next.  

I could not believe how much better I felt after eliminating eggs from my diet.  I had been feeling really low on energy for several months at this point.  My heart would race just from climbing a flight of stairs and I had to plan out my day so that I didn't do laundry and grocery shopping in the same day because it was just too much for me to carry laundry baskets and push a grocery cart in one day.

While eliminating dairy did help my skin problems, the progress was a little slower than eliminating eggs, which gave an immediate boost to my energy levels.  It was much easier to adhere to this strict diet knowing that it was helping me so much.  My body was so much healthier that I was able to get pregnant that month, after years of thinking I wasn't healthy enough to carry another pregnancy full term.

It was years later after, lots of study and having reintroduced eggs into my diet, that I learned why eggs affected me so much.  I spent about a year visiting a chiropractor who used Nambudrapad's Allergy Elimination Technique (NAET) to overcome my food sensitivities.  The headaches actually got worse during the year I was being treated for them, because my body was detoxing.  But after that year, I went back down to 1 migraine a month (hormone related) and was able to eat dairy and eggs again.  However, I do try to eat better now so that I don't develop those symptoms again.  Eggs block insulin, according to Dr. Joel Fuhrman.  Eggs are fine to eat on their own because they don't have a glycemic index.  However, if you pair them with sugar in pastries or breakfast foods like crepes, they will block insulin right when your body needs it most and then you won't feel well.  

There is a time and a place for most foods, but it's important to learn how they interact with other foods and your body's needs.  Dairy is really important for growth in children because it increases insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1).  However, in adults, we are done growing and don't need to increase our IGF-1.  In fact, there is a correlation in Scandinavian countries who consume a lot of dairy and higher breast cancer cases.  Too much calcium and vitamin D, both found in milk, can deplete magnesium levels too.  So if you're drinking a lot of milk, make sure to take a magnesium supplement.  Magnesium is responsible for at least 600 enzymatic processes in the body and is required for six out of eight steps in the Krebs cycle for your body to make energy.

Natural Cancer Protocol

 A webinar created by Nick Polizzi brought to my attention a cancer protocol Dr. Gonzalez invented based on the research of Dr. John Beard100 years ago.  Dr. Linda Isaacs, partners with the late Dr. Gonzalez, runs the Gonzalez Isaacs Institute in New York City and has cured 100s of patients of cancer.

The protocol includes taking 150-200 pills a day and using coffee enemas 2-4 times a day.  This may feel extreme, or unnecessary, but the coffee enemas are necessary to detox the body.  Those who skipped this part of the protocol never do well.

The recommended diet depends on your body's personal needs.  Some require vegetarian, others actually need meat to thrive.  There are at least 50 different diets recommended based on a hair analysis.

But the really interesting science behind this is the use of pancreatic enzymes from New Zealand pigs.  Dr. Beard was an embryologist and professor at the University of Edinburgh.  He noticed that cancer cells act very similar to trophoblasts, which are cells formed at the early stages of a placenta.  The difference between cancer cells and the trophoblasts is that cancer cells keep multiplying and trying to create their own blood supply, whereas the trophoblasts stop once the placenta has what it needs to protect the baby.  Beard hypothesized that the trigger for these cells to stop was the production of pancreatic enzymes.  Babies make these enzymes 2 months earlier than they need to process food, so it seemed very possible that the role they played was to stop the trophoblasts from taking over.  

The Gonzalez protocol uses pancreatic enzymes to trigger the cancer cells to stop reproducing and trying to take over the body.  This has been very effective when coupled with proper diet and the detoxing of coffee enemas.  Sometimes tumors disappear, other times they calcify and become harmless, but in most cases, people are healed without having to resort to surgery, chemotherapy or radiation.

Why Not Pain Meds?

 I have struggled with migraines for as long as I can remember.  I'm not sure how young I was when they first started, but they have definitely been a part of my life since puberty.  That was over 30 years ago, so eliminating them has been a big focus of my life.  

I distinctly remember my dad saying to me once, about 20 years ago, "You must be an expert on headaches by now."  And it hit me that I should be an expert, but I wasn't.  I was only an expert sufferer, I didn't really understand why I was suffering or how to fix it.  That was a turning point for me in researching and learning all I could to try to solve the problem, not just endure it.

At first simply taking ibuprofen would help me cope with headaches and often even eliminate them.  But my body soon grew accustomed to this drug and it stopped working for me.  When I finally saw a doctor and was diagnosed with migraines in my 20's, she gave me hope saying that "often when women get pregnant, their migraines stop."  This thrilled me because I was ready and hoping to have children, but I was also worried how I would be able to handle pregnancy without being able to take any medications for migraines.

In the meantime, I was prescribed Imitrex (one of several triptans available for migraine treatment).  It worked wonders at first and I was so relieved to have something I could count on to stop a migraine in its tracks.  But when I did get pregnant, I couldn't take anything for the pain and it was more severe than I had ever experienced, thanks to the extra hormone changes my body was going through.

Once I was no longer pregnant or nursing, I returned to using triptans, but the longer I used Imitrex, the more my body grew accustomed to this drug as well.  Soon I was having more than 2 headaches a week (and taking triptans more often than this leads to rebound headaches.)  I was having to take larger doses as time went on as well.  By year 6 or 7 of using Imitrex I was on 4 times the amount that worked when I first started using it and I was in pain about 15 days out of the month, while only being able to use Imitrex for 4-6 of those days.  Things were definitely deteriorating rapidly and I was not at all happy with my quality of life.  

I had also tried a preventative drug. (I've forgotten the name of it now.) But after only a month on this drug I was scared at how much it changed my personality.  I realized I had quickly become depressed and didn't even feel like the same person anymore.  I went back to the doctor and gave him this feedback, to which he was not at all surprised and said that is a common side effect.  I was shocked that he had failed to mention this possibility to me before having me take the medicine.  

I distinctly remember my husband opening up the medication paperwork explaining the side effects of Imitrex and telling me that a noted side effect was muscle tension.  The very thing causing migraines for me in the first place.  I made a decision that day that I was done using Imitrex and stopped cold turkey. It was a hard adjustment, but I was already having so much pain on days where I couldn't take anything more that it didn't make too much of a difference.  Slowly, as my body overcame the addiction to this medication, the migraine days decreased.

Then I started focusing on what I could learn about preventing them naturally.  I went to a chiropractor who adjusted my top vertebrae, the atlas vertebrae, and that helped tremendously.  I was still getting hormonal migraines and dealing with a few other triggers, but it gave me hope.

I started noticing a pattern that my emotions could set off a migraine, such as if I got angry at my husband.  Frustration was a big trigger for me.  Learning to calm myself down and not get carried away by strong emotions was key to preventing migraines.  I couldn't stuff the frustration down inside myself, I had to acknowledge it, but be proactive in recognizing what was in my control and what wasn't, then letting go of the things I couldn't control.

A friend of mine managed her migraines with diet and mentioned how she had to be very careful to never eat sugar without first having some protein.  This was another big stepping stone for me on my path to becoming migraine free.  Once I became more conscious of my glycemic index and managed my blood sugar levels better, I no longer had migraines except for right before or during menstruation.  Recognizing food intolerances helped even more.  

Even though it is challenging to have a migraine and not be able to take anything to relieve the pain, my quality of life is SO MUCH better now than when I was using pain medications.  Being out of commission 1-2 days a month instead of 15 or more is much more manageable.

In addition to the reduction in pain, I wasn't flooding my body with toxins.  Ibuprofen is very damaging to your colon and imitrex was giving me all kinds of muscle pain in my shoulders and neck.  The side effects just didn't outweigh the benefits for me.

What's In A Name?

 I started Macht Health, LLC because I wanted to empower others to create a healthy life.  Society has grown accustomed to putting the responsibility of health on hospitals and doctors, but our current health care system is not truly health care, it is disease management.  Too often the drugs or surgeries meant to heal people have so many side effects that they end up causing a downward spiral of more problems instead of healing.  

Our bodies were divinely created to be able to heal themselves if we give them the tools they need to do so.  What are these tools?  Good nutrition, good sleep, good exercise, and good emotions.  Both physical and emotional toxins are unavoidable in this day and age, but we can consciously work on eliminating toxins to help our bodies and souls heal.  

That is the meaning of Macht Health.  In German, the noun Macht means power, as a verb (macht), it means he/she creates.  I hope this blog helps you feel empowered to take responsibility for your own health and create a life you love.