August 2012 • Avoiding Rx

30Aug 2012 by Marjorie No Comments

The disaster of my first alterna-doc experience

When I first realized that nutritional deficiencies cause health problems, I had a brilliant idea: I should get tested for nutritional deficiencies! The problem was that in 1999 none of the traditional doctors I had seen believed in deficiencies or that gluten played any part in health problems for people who tested negative for celiac, as I had. My mother, ahead of her time as usual, had been visiting a local alternative medicine practice for a few years, and mentioned that they gave a huge panel of blood and other tests to all new patients. The founders of this practice, three M.D.s, had impressive credentials and had all worked for decades at high-profile medical institutions. Sadly, the doctor I saw was not one of them. Because of my experience with…

Another weird deficiency symptom: oversensitive hearing

nutritional therapy, The Weird

Over the past 10 years I've discovered that when my magnesium gets really low I develop an annoying sensitivity to noise. It took me a few years to put it together after the first time it happened. In that case it eventually resolved by itself, but not before I spent several months plotting the demise of an upstairs neighbor. During my last attempts to improve my vitamin D3 status with 15,000 IU a day, I experienced it again. Vitamin D supplements in big enough doses can affect your levels of the B vitamins, calcium, magnesium, and for me, vitamin K. And probably something else I'm forgetting at the moment. After a few weeks at this dose, the sensitivity to noise seemed to spring up in a matter of hours. I…

Two months using an Earthing sheet

self-experiment

Updated 09/04/12: Martin Zucker, a co-author of the book mentioned here, has offered a suggestion for improving my experience with the Earthing appliances. See comments. For about two months I've been using an Earthing sheet, which was invented by Clinton Ober to lower the electrical current on the body to what it would be if you were standing barefoot on the ground. Ober's theory is that since we evolved that way, our bodies are optimized at that current, and messing with it can cause health problems. What with all the power lines, cell phone towers, wi-fi, appliances and electronics we use now, we're exposed to much more current than we were 40 years ago. Using a splitter and a voltmeter from the hardware store you can compare your body's voltage…