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Winning the Battle with Fibromyalgia

Just a couple short years ago, I went through one of the darkest times in my life. I’ve never really written about it in full detail, but I feel like there are many other people out there who struggle with this that need to know there IS Hope! It doesn’t have to be this way forever.

After losing our son Hosea, experiencing a couple job losses, a move, and another pregnancy and birth, my body said, “All done!” It was bad enough to be walking through the deepest loss I could ever imagine when I found our one month old baby boy’s lifeless body in his baby bed, but now my body was manifesting all sorts of symptoms that left me pretty much dysfunctional in normal, daily life. With three other children to care for, a business to run, and a husband to love, I felt desperate for something to change!

It was immediately following the birth of our 4th child, Asher, that I started to experience unbelievable pain. I had pain from head to toe…so bad my hair even hurt. Light hurt. It was like the light penetrated through my body and would send shooting pain down my spine and through my skull. The pain was so intense that I lived in a constant state of nauseousness. I dreaded going to sleep at night because the sheets hurt and my pillow hurt. I would wake up in worse pain than when I laid down I felt so bad for my husband who patiently loved me through every morning episode of tears and working my feet to the floor to take the first painful step. The worst was waking up with a migraine after a full night’s sleep. I had somewhere between 15-20 days with a migraine every month. I would get one and it would last sometimes for 4-5 days. Nathan had to come pick me up from stores at times because I would have a migraine so bad that I couldn’t see straight.

I couldn’t believe what was happening. I was only 28. How in the world was I going to be able to take care of an infant, play with him on the floor as he got older, play basketball with him as he grew up? I lived scared to death that I would never be normal again. I braced myself every time the girls ran to hug me. The pain shot through my body as their little arms wrapped around my neck. What in the world was happening to me and would I ever feel better? I was 28 and felt like I was 90! Doing normal, every day things were impossible. Physically I was a wreck, and this wreaked havoc on me emotionally and mentally.

The label I received for all the pain was “Fibromyalgia.” This is basically what they tell you that you have when they can’t figure out what in the world is going on in your body.

It was at this all time low in my life, physically, emotionally, and mentally, that I started to ask God if He was a healer. Does He still really heal people today? This was a question I was desperate to have answered….and I needed a “yes.” I knew if He didn’t heal me, I wouldn’t make it much longer. I really and truly felt at times like I would die from the pain.

This was an important discovery for me on my journey with fibromyalgia: Fibromyalgia is really nothing more than a physical response of the body when you have had internal trauma (oftentimes suppressed) or intense stress or a long period of time. This is why a doctor can not just give you a pill to make it all go away. They can give you pills to MASK the pain but you will have to stay on it for the rest of your life. It doesn’t HEAL it or take it away because so much of this illness is an internal issue, I really believe. Others may have different experiences, but this is what my own personal experience was.

In my case, my physical body literally held on to the stress and trauma at the cellular level and it manifested in my body through pain, fatigue, and migraines. We are 3 part beings…body, soul, and spirit. And what is happening in one part most often effects the other two parts. We can’t separate or compartmentalize our lives. It all functions together as one. It’s like if you have a stressful day at work…what does your physical body do? It may respond with a headache or exhaustion. What does your spirit do? You tend to be on edge, easily explode, ect. It all works together.

Below is how God personally DID heal me. I’m not saying it will be this way for everyone! This is simply my story and the steps that I took toward healing of something that I never thought I’d recover from.

Healing for me was 3-Fold

1. Physical

If you struggle with fibromyalgia, start doing what you can in the physical immediately! This is the easiest one to attach because it simply involves adding in high powered nutrients that will combat the stress, fatigue, and pain. The other two parts may take more time to work through, so my philosophy was, “While I’m working out the stuff in my head and heart, I’m going to start feeding my body the right things so I can get somewhere!” My “magic” concoction was actually very simple and surprisingly effective!! I was desperate and would have eaten a cow if you told me that would help me. Thankfully, it was way easier than eating a cow.

My daily regimen included:

Vitalizer (the foundational nutrients EVERYONE needs in a handy 30 day pack)
Protein (I used Cinch)
Vivix (This was big for me! Reverses aging at the cellular level. This disease causes cell deterioration and pre-mature aging of cells, causing all the symptoms. Vivix is proven to reverse the 4 key mechanisms of cellular aging. I noticed a huge difference)

As I learned more, I discovered that B and C are the Stress Vitamins (they help protect your body from Stress reactions, but are used up quickly under stress). I was VERY deficient in both due to lots of stress and major trauma. Some may not need this extra boost, but I did. I started taking 15 Sustained Release C (3, 5 x a day) and 10 B Complex (2, 5 x a day) and that was it. I became a NEW person!! The solution for me was SO simple!!! My body just wasn’t getting enough of the vitamins that would protect me from the terrible effects of stress (stress releases cortisol which is highly destructive to the body).

Start small and work up, or go all in like I did if you’re desperate. You are guaranteed to feel better!

2. Spiritual

During this journey, I really began to understand that the “tongue has the power of life and death.” I’d spent a lifetime speaking, believing, and thinking so many negative thoughts that my brain (and body) were toxic as a result. I’d been speaking death over myself…almost literally. This little truth was so freeing to me and as I changed my speech, thoughts, and beliefs, I began to see the positive results even in my physical body!

Another aspect that brought much healing to me was that I started to choose to believe God DID actually heal people. I grew up in an environment that really didn’t believe these things, but I had seen a friend healed of Muscular Dystrophy, a deaf man’s ears opened, and enough other occurrences with my own two eyes that I’d be crazy not to believe! (looking back, I believe the reason I’d never seen this before was because I didn’t believe. I’d made up my mind about what God does and doesn’t do and therefore missed out on a huge part of who He is!!)

3. Emotional

The body oftentimes will manifest the state of the soul. Ever heard the old proverb, “Bitterness rots the bones.” ?? Bitterness and unforgiveness have been scientifically proven to cause diseases such as arthritis and even cancer. Unforgiveness is a poison that corrodes the person who holds onto it, not the one whom we are angry with. I’m sure most of us know that our bitterness always hurts us more than it hurts the other person.

This was so true in my own life. I had much anger that I’d held on to for years from childhood stuff that had happened out of my control. And, I hate to say, I had a lot of anger and unforgiveness towards God that I also had to work through.

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I am so happy to say that I have been healed completely of Fibromyalgia. I traveled to Bora Bora, NYC, Atlantis, Bahamas, California twice, Philadelphia, Florida, Dallas, St. Louis, and other places this year. Traveling used to kick my butt and take me out of the game for days. But this past year I traveled 25 out of the 52 weekends of the year and lived to tell about it pain free!

I still take my daily Vitalizer, Vivix, and Protein. If I’m speaking, have a stressful day at work or with kids, or just am running out of steam, I increase the amount of B-Complex and Sustained Release C that I have to combat the effects of the stress. It works every time! I’ve learned to carry B and C in my purse at all times.

I’m not sure if this will help anyone else who is walking through something similar, or if this was just for my own good to get all this out tonight, but I pray that someone can find Hope that life doesn’t have to be full of chronic pain. DON’T receive the Doctor’s diagnosis. YOU can change the situation with the 3 steps I listed above. It’s amazing how much of a role each one of us plays in our own healing and well-being.

I heard a disturbing, but true statistic from the Surgeon General: 93% of hospitalizations are self-induced. Stress being the number one reason for sickness and disease.

I’ve personally experienced this and have a strong desire to see people set free from the awful grip that stress , trauma, and other self-destructive behaviors can have on us.

I hope this helps someone else find natural relief for what Drs say has no solution and for what I thought I’d never see gone from my life!!! I’m happy to say IT’S GONE! Please let me know if you or someone you know struggles with this! I’d love to hear from you.

Side Note:

As I mentioned, my fibromyalgia caused me to have terrible migraines. The B and C helped tremendously with my migraines, but if I ever get a migraine, I’ve learned a great “trick” to take the migraine away immediately. I take another Vitalizer strip, drink a huge glass of water, stop what I’m doing completely for a few minutes to close my eyes, and it works like magic within 10-15 minutes!!! It has worked every time!!! So take your Vitalizer in the morning, and then carry an additional strip!! It’s a couple buck “fix”, but SO worth it rather than popping Excedrin or some other prescription drug for migraines that, for me, were typically stress related, causing my body to deplete vital nutrients, leaving me feeling horrible. I’ve learned how to stop the cycle.

Health, Men & Women

Severe Arthritis Plan

From a nutritionist friend:

“One of the key natural supplements for our Severe Arthritis Plan, is Pain Relief complex and you should take per day.

However, this is not a pain drug. The main ingredient is boswellia, which is the modern botanical name for what the Bible calls “frankincense.” Jesus was given frankincense (Pain Relief Complex ) by the Magi prophetically in anticipation of the pain that he was to endure.

Pain Relief is a daily supplement, which when taken consistently, reduces your experience and inclination to chronic pain (that is, ongoing pain). It is not a drug, and you cannot overdose on it.

But understand that for acute pain (that is, immediate pain), you can’t look at it as taking 1 or 2, like you would Tylenol. You’ll be disappointed in the results, because that’s not how Pain Relief works.

I’ve found that the critical mass for acute pain relief requires taking 6 Pain Relief at one time. Usually, if you’ve got an injury, a severe headache, severe cramps, or any other immediate acute pain, if you take 6 Pain Relief at one time, you will see improvement within 15 minutes. But if the pain is severe and you don’t see improvement by the 15 minute point, immediately take another 6 at one time.

There is no limit to how much you can take, since you can’t overdose on it. But there is a limit to how much your body can absorb at one time, so I would not take more than 6 at one time — wait 15 minutes and take another 6, and so forth until you get relief.

This is a natural pain reliever that works with your body, not against it. Acetaminophen/Tylenol, on the other hand, is the most toxic drug available over the counter without a prescription today. Research confirms that at over 60% of all patients hospitalized with acute liver failure are a direct result of acetaminophen/Tylenol use.

All that said, why just deal with the symptoms of arthritis when you CAN eliminate it from the body by getting at the root cause. If a doctor tells your mother that she must resign herself to just living with arthritis for the rest of her life, it just shows how little he knows about it.

My Severe Arthritis Plan deals with the overt symptoms, but it also gets at the root cause. It requires a commitment to follow it exactly as written for at least 6 months, because this is about how long it takes for the body to cycle out a significant level of the damaged cell tissue and generate a significant level of new healthier cell tissue. AND it requires understanding the “healing crisis” that begins when you start the plan and that you may feel worse for a few weeks before you turn the corner and begin to feel better — in the same way as when you cut your hand and it feels worse for a few days while the healing process gets under way before it begins to feel better.

Following the Severe Arthritis Plan is pricey — but doctors and drugs are also pricey, and what they do will only mask the pain while poisoning your liver.”

Health, Men & Women

Candida…How to Get Rid of it Naturally

It’s amazing how many people we come into contact with daily that have so many symptoms of candida but don’t realize it or are mis-diagnosed. Candida is a yeastlike fungi that causes things like chronic acne, athletes foot, vaginal yeast infections, chronic ear infection, sinus infections, low energy and more.

I hope this information from a trusted nutrition friend can help those find an answer who have tried everything and have not seen it work!!! This natural approach can help the body repair itself. Vitamins and minerals don’t “heal” the body, rather they supply the body with necessary nutrients for it to heal itself!

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99% of the time, candida infestation is the result of taking antibiotics.

Under normal conditions, candida, which is all around us and on everything we touch, is kept out and kept under control by your immune system and especially the good bacteria in your body.

When one takes antibiotics, it turns off your own immune system and kills the good bacteria — giving candida the opportunity to move in and take over. When it moves in, it usually becomes totally pervasive, affecting every organ and area of the body, though the most overt symptoms make it appear highly localized.

In women, it often shows up in chronic vaginal yeast infections and bladder/urinary tract infections. In men, prostate infections and bladder infections. But these are just the visible tip of the ice berg. Women and men rarely exhibit these overt vaginal, bladder, or prostate infections unless they have an underlying pervasive candida infestation that has spread across the mucous membranes throughout their entire body.

Then they go to the doctor for yeast infection or prostate infection and the doctor gives them more antibiotics, which is the absolute worst thing to do.

Candida is essentially like mold growing deep inside your body.

Candida yeast is a plant, which means it does not move around looking for food like an animal. It embeds itself in one place and puts down roots that grab hold and penetrate deep into the tissue, holding on tight — just like some weed in your lawn might do. It releases enzymes and toxic juices that dissolve and digest whatever is around it, which it can then absorb as food. It can form chains of cells that penetrate ever deeper into the mucosal membrane tissue, sucking at the blood in those tissues to get at the glucose in the blood.

The bulk of candida will be in the intestine, but if the good bacteria that keeps it in check is killed off by antibiotics, the candida begins to gradually spread in the damp, dark environs of the body up and out through all the mucous membranes of the body — much like mold spreads in some damp, dark corner of your basement — even up into your hair and under your finger and toe nails.

Because candida thrives in a damp, dark environment, it is most overtly experienced in the mouth (thrush), the vagina and enclosed areas of the female genitals, and throughout the urinary tract.

But the pervasive nature of the infestation shows up in chronic ear and nasal infections, chronic acne, chronic low energy, low output by organs (such as thyroid, adrenal, pancreas, etc.) that are full of the toxins generated by candida, chronic allergies (the candida yeast spews out a continuous array of allergens into the body that keep the immune system tied up [much like mold emits allergens]), leaky gut syndrome, male impotence, brain dullness/fog, poor memory, chronic genital itching for both men and women, hypersensitivity to chemicals and mold, depression, ADD, etc., etc.

Because it is so pervasive, it is tough to get rid of and requires a radical commitment for a focused period of time. You must literally go to war against this invading army — not with the artificial weapons of humanistic medicine that only cover the symptoms, but with the very powerful Creator-given forces of your own immune system.

You’ve Got To:

1) Radically feed and restore balance to the immune system:

(“Bomb it!” and keep bombing it with every immune building thing you can throw at it — especially lots of Vita-C, Formula I, NutriFeron, and lots of B-Complex), with added support from natural antifungals like Garlic and Cat’s Claw (an ingredient in Joint Health Complex), and Shaklee Defend & Resist to stimulate the overall activity of the immune system. See our “Infection Bomb” sheet for instructions on exactly how to do this.

2) Radically rebuild the good bacteria culture of the body

Take more than one OptiFlora pearl a day if you can! More like 6 per day — 1 capsule every 2 hours as part of the “Infection Bomb” for a period of time.

3) Starve the candida

Which thrives on sugar and fermenting garbage in your system.

– Radically eliminate most sugars from the diet for 6 months or so, and

– Use Shaklee Herb-Lax daily to clean the sludge and garbage out and keep it cleaned out.

Note that these steps are NOT primarily attacking the candida (with the exception of the Garlic, which does directly attack the candida). These steps are aggressively supplying, building, and deploying your own Creator-given immune system troops to go after the candida and eliminate it.

You’ve got to make a commitment to follow a radical anti-candida program for usually 6 months, possibly more, depending on the severity of the infestation.

The kill off of the yeast produces a lot of gas and bloating (the candida cell actually releases methane gas when it dies) and flu-like symptoms (candida also releases lots of enzymes and toxins into the bloodstream when it dies, which flow around to the whole body making you feel generally bad and achy just like as if you had the flu).

So once you start an anti-candida program, if you feel really bad and have lots of gas, that’s a good sign that good things are happening!

Anyone who is looking for the quick fix or the magic bullet on this one will be sorely disappointed. There is none. The doctor certainly doesn’t have one. Because the cell structure of candida is actually very similar to that of our own bodies, any strong anti-fungal drugs that aggressively kill the candida may have dangerous side-effects. Some drugs that are prescribed don’t actually kill it out; they just stunt its growth in hope the immune system will finish the job.

[Note #1: The whole idea of candida infestation is controversial in conventional medical circles, with many denying its existence and thus never diagnosing it. There have even been instances of MDs having their medical licenses revoked for diagnosing and treating Candidiasis. But it has gradually gained wider and wider acceptance over the last 25 years.]

[Note #2: Because of Note #1, most doctors don’t understand candida infestation, and thus may prescribe antibiotics — which may temporarily suppress the overt symptoms, but virtually guarantee that those symptoms will return with a vengeance.

And the doctors frequently give completely mythical advice, such as “don’t eat anything with yeast in it” — an example of absolute nutritional ignorance gone to seed! Things made with yeast do NOT actually have any living yeast organisms in them, and therefore it is a complete physical impossibility for things made with yeast to promote yeast infestation for that reason. (One exception might be home-brewed beer, which probably has live yeast in it, but also would be bad because of the alcohol, which the body converts to sugar, thus feeding the candida.) In the case of bread made with yeast, it should be avoided because the high carb/sugar content that will feed the candida, NOT because yeast was used to make the bread rise (and was then killed completely by the baking process). Because they’ve been told this by doctors, people will stop taking B-Complex, which is actually one of the most powerful tools in the nutritional arsenal against candida infestation.

Stan

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