Monday, August 12, 2013

My life is becoming a series of doctor visits . . .

This has been a busy week of health practitioner visits.  First was a long drive down to Olympia to visit my naturopath, David Lerner (well, he's not a naturopath, really, more of an acupuncturist/herbalist).  He put me on eleven more things, on top of the 14 I was already on, so now I'm on about 25 different supplements!  I think I am going to start calling him my supplement manager, because that's what he does, mainly.  But he really knows his stuff, I'm seeing improvement in my sleep and energy already from adding melatonin and DHEA.

Then I met via Skype with Miriam, a nutritionist who specializes in the ketogenic diet for cancer patients.  That's all she consults on, so she really knows a lot about it.  I definitely need someone to supervise this.  It is going to be even more restrictive than I had initially thought, very limited amounts of protein and calories allowed.  We're going to ease in slowly, revamping one meal a week, otherwise it's too big a shock to the system and can mess up your thyroid.  I've only just gotten my thyroid sorted out after 27 years of difficulty, so certainly don't want that to happen.

Then today I saw my endocrinologist for the twice-yearly checkup, and she is thrilled with the way I've managed to get my thyroid almost totally sorted out using natural means, after 27 years of being on medication, which I am now off!  The numbers are perfect now and it feels so much better not to be on any form of thyroid med.  I know they say it's better to take it, but I sort of feel it was part of the problem, rather than the solution.  (What I did:  rub coconut oil into it every day [seriously], and take iodine for the past two years.  Then very very very slowly, over two years, wean down and off the Armour Thyroid.  I also do a little massage maneuver on it daily that I read about in a Donna Eden energy medicine book.) 

She has been wanting to do surgery to remove this thyroid for awhile, and actually can't believe I've done this via natural means and once said she wanted to write a paper on me.  I told her today to hold off until I can figure out how to get rid of the M-spike as well [the myeloma blood protein], and she said then she will write a whole book about me!  She's just joking, I'm sure — these very traditional doctors can't believe it when alternative stuff actually works.  Oh, and my "supplement manager" has advised a rather expensive herbal concoction that supports the thyroid, I'm sure that is helping also.

The endo is also very supportive about doing the Zometa infusion (the bone strengthening drug I have to have an IV infusion of soon).  (She has an extremely bubbly and excitable and upbeat personality -- I walked in there today feeling sort of depressed for no good reason and kind of bounced out feeling like I could conquer the world.)  So I guess I need to bite the bullet and have that . . . it's a fine balance between using regular medicine and the natural approaches.  I gather this is completely necessary if I don't want holes in my bones, which are forming otherwise.  So I'll post on that when I get it done, in about 10 days time.

Meanwhile, I get to go to the Loreena McKennitt concert outdoors in Seattle this week, as a well deserved R&R from all this medical stuff.  Yay!  She sings like an angel from heaven.

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