Setting The Stage

Getting rid of a chronic illness is the first half of ridding oneself of disease. However, that’s where most people stop.

A chronic disease is one that is long lasting or recurrent. It is often defined as lasting longer than three months or one that has developed over a period of time.

The immediate concern is to rid your body of the disease. That’s a loaded statement but not the concern of this post.

I regard ridding your body of the immediate cause of concern as just the first half of the total process. What is the “second half”?

The “Second Half”

As I studied chronic illness, I understood a very simple, logical framework of disease and healing. If you get a chronic illness, one that took some time to develop, it means that your body’s immune system broke down over time. Therefore, you need to 1) find out the causes that broke down the immune system, 2) remove those causes, and 3) build up the immune system again.

This process is what I call the “second half” of recovering from chronic illness. Without going through these steps, your chances of having some sort of recurrence of the same or another chronic illness is much greater than by going through this “second half” of the process.

Keep in mind that my terminology of the “second half” is conceptual. It is not intended to describe an amount of time or effort that each part takes. It is simply intended to recognize that there are two overall parts to a complete healing process.

The Three Points

My “Three Point Plan” refers to the execution steps I conceptualized for the “second half” of the healing process.

Step One: Discover the causes that broke down my immune system. I learned of many evaluative tests that conventional medicine wasn’t using. These tests provided much better and more complete information about the health of my entire body and all its organs. I made a list of all the tests that I wanted to have done. These tests reveal what is often referred to in Alternative Medicine as the "biological terrain" of one’s body.

They included such tests as the EAV, Electro Acupuncture According to Voll, (also referred to as EDS, Electro Dermal Screening), Hair Mineral Analysis, Darkfield Microscopy (also referred to as Live Cell Analysis), Biological Terrain Assessment, and many, many others.

These tests and numerous others are described in “An Alternative Medicine Definitive Guide to Cancer” by W. John Diamond, M.D. and W. Lee Cowden, M.D. I consider this book to be the single most important reference for anyone who has or has had cancer. Although, as the name states, it is specifically targeted at cancer, it provides an excellent overview for any chronic illness in how to view one’s health and healing process.

For a much broader perspective of Alternative Medicine, another excellent reference is the “Alternative Medicine: A Definitive Guide” presented by Burton Goldberg.

Step Two: I made a list of preventive actions that I wanted to take including a variety of nutritional support. Although this step will come out of the results of the evaluative tests in Step One, I still made a list of nutritional support that I wanted to use. This step helped me to become familiar with the vast variety of support that is available yet not utilized by conventional medicine to build our bodies.

Step Three: I made a list of Alternative Medicine therapies that I would use if cancer should return. I wanted to be prepared ahead of time.

Of course I hope you never hear these words, “you have cancer”, however if someone ever said them to me again, I wanted to be knowledgeable and prepared as to what I would do. Once someone says those words, or some other seriously chronic illness, my experience, which I know is extremely typical, is that your mind goes into a “fog.” From then on, it is hard to think straight. It is especially near impossible to think about “alternative treatments” outside of the conventional mainstream.

Well, that’s my Three Point Plan For Healing. I hope it’s given you some insight into your own healing processes.

Immune System

Illness develops because one’s immune system is weakened. This is indisputable yet often not acknowledged. Alternative Medicine is based upon this premise.

The disease itself represents a large "red warning sign" that a person has sustained immune system deterioration for some time. To eliminate illness, your immune system needs to be revitalized. Alternative Medicine uses therapies and remedies that allow your body to restore its own immune system. Only your own immune system will rid your body of illness.

Though "Five Primary Causes Of Weakened Immune Systems" would more accurately title this article, it doesn’t have the same allure as the word "Illness." So where does illness really begin?

A single vulnerability in one’s immune system creates favorable conditions for a vast array of diseases. More commonly, many factors attack the immune system over time.

While symptoms are not immediately recognizable, the slow deterioration of the immune system leads to chronic illness that isn’t linked to one specific cause. Unlike most conventional medicine that often focuses on a narrowly specified area of the body, alternative medicine examines the whole person as a means to discover the clues necessary for proper therapy.

Five Primary Factors

Five primary causative factors of immune system deterioration are: Heavy Metal Toxicity, Parasites, Food Allergies, Poor Diet and Nutrition, and Dental Problems. This article specifically addresses Heavy Metal Toxicity. Other factors are addressed in other articles.

Heavy metal toxicity is among the most disregarded destroyers of immune systems and therefore causes of illness. It stems from air pollution, water pollution, and pesticides, insecticides, and fungicides found in food. Dental amalgams, or silver-mercury fillings, are another primary source of heavy metal toxicity.

Toxic Mercury: Unperceived Degeneration

Mercury is a major neuro-toxic substance. It is one of the most widespread forms of heavy metal toxicity. So called "silver" tooth fillings or "amalgams" are typically at least 50% mercury plus silver, tin, and copper, and possibly other metals.

For more information on the health effects of mercury amalgams, see the web site for DAMS, Dental Amalgam Mercury Syndrome at www.dams.cc. (The web site isn’t fancy but the content is well documented.)

The effects of mercury toxicity are subtle and accumulate over time. Other common heavy metal toxicities are lead, aluminum, cadmium, nickel, tin, copper, and arsenic.

Heavy metal toxicities have been associated with a vast range of "illnesses" including chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, ADD/ADHD, autism, thyroid problems, depression, insomnia, anxiety, excessive salivation, ringing in the ears, neuropathy, osteoporosis, memory loss, irritability, moodiness, headaches, intestinal problems, muscle weakness, unexplainable cardiovascular problems, and many others.

Symptoms vs. Illnesses

Although the above are routinely labeled "illnesses" by conventional medicine, alternative medicine views these as "symptoms" indicative of an imbalanced condition of the body. As "symptoms" they’re a collection of conditions that can be eliminated through proper nutrition, detoxification, drainage remedies and appropriate chelation therapy for specific heavy metal exposures.

Tissue hair mineral analysis is a simple and non-invasive means to measure heavy metal toxicity. Chelating agents can also be used to discover hidden heavy metal toxicity.

With the goal of long-term good health, rather than merely attempting to cover up or stop an immediate illness, nutrition therapy and chelation treatments provide a gradual and rewarding recovery from heavy metal toxicity.

If you, or anyone you know, feel chronically "unwell" with multiple vague complaints, you probably won’t fit into a standard medical classification. If your doctor reports that everything is fine – but you know you aren’t "fine" – you may want to seek out an alternative medicine practitioner who understands these five destroyers of immune systems.

If you need a recommendation, I strongly recommend Dr. Simon Yu, M.D., as you know if you’ve read "Ed Mass – Alternative Medicine Background" in the sidebar. Check out his web site at preventionandhealing.com.