The Six Schizophrenias
My story of interest started in 1979. I had a wonderful job in electronics, except that the work week was 48 hrs and a cycle of 3 days on days (12 hrs), 3 days off, 3 days (12 hrs) at night, with 3 days off, then start over again. I excelled for over two yrs but the day/night cycle and other stress factors put me in the psychiatric ward. I lost my emotional control, had vertigo, confusion, and sounds were painfully loud. I resorted to using "ear defenders" like they use on the flight line and the gun range. I lost my job and returned home to my parents' house, an empty shell. The Prolixin did something more than nothing but after 18 months, I elected to stop because the side effects outweighed the benefits.
In 1981, I saw a "hippie" wearing blue jeans, a sweat shirt, tennis shoes, a very large pendant and long hair. He was on TV saying that he was a research scientist. I scoffed, thinking that this would be funny! With each sentence connected logically in a 30 minute sequence, I decided that I needed to reconsider my initial position. That "hippie" was Durk Pearson, co-author of "Life Extension: A Practical Scientific Approach."
I devoured the book for over six months straight! To further verify, I sought other authors of merit. I discovered two very valuable authors to my education. Dr. Michael Colgan wrote "Your Personal Vitamin Profile; Dr. Abram Hoffer wrote two books that I could find.
What I learned over the years, was that there is a nutritional foundation that is individual to each person, both by bio-individuality and by personal biome. By biome, I mean the individual's physical and mental environment. Physically, we endure local toxins and we ingest our chosen diet in addition to our genetic predispositions. Mentally, we have stress. The combination produces a need for individual compensations.
I was initially diagnosed "latent schizophrenic," 10 yrs after it was removed from the DSM. Later, I was diagnosed "undifferentiated schizophrenic." I see a Ph.D Psychologist, continuing for more than 12 yrs. He is a humanistic psychologist of 30+ yrs of practice. He has determined that he cannot give a specific label to my diagnosis except for one. Though I resemble some traits of schizophrenia, some traits of authism/Asperger's, and some similarity to bipolar disorder, for each, I fail the essential criteria. The ONLY diagnosis that truly fits is PTSD with anxiety disorder.
Now, back to orthomolecular and Dr. Hoffer: I found it quite ironic that a particular study done by Drs. Hoffer and Humphry Osmond, was done the same year I was born. The target element for treatment was nicotinic acid, commonly called B-3. Through experiences with other forms of B-3, I have discovered that I must have the acidic form.
My essential nutritional supplementation is C, Niacin, Zinc. Why do I need 500 mg doses (1.5 to 2 grams in practice) of Niacin 4 times per day? I suffered niacin deficiency, leading to one of 3 possible causes for the NEED, far in excess of the RDA of 18 mg. For those of you who do not know, there is a more practical and realistic definition for the FDA's RDA: the minimum dose of each nutrient for the purpose of keeping you "alive" and nothing about healthy and functional (touche!).
In addition, I discovered Dr. Karl Pfeiffer, and a book titled "The Six Schizophrenias." There were, at the time of writing, six different nutritional combinations to alleviate the symptoms labeled as schizophrenia.
My understanding of ORTHOMOLECULAR has grown to be the specific nutrients in appropriate quantity, whether select food/herbs or supplements or a combination, meet the individual needs. This also includes foods to avoid because they are detrimental. This includes allergies, additives, and too much sugar or salt.
The essence of my "diagnosis" is that I cannot handle stress. When I'm on my supplements, I endured double sifts in a convenience store, including the time that I was robbed at gunpoint and continued going to work, a multitude of crises and traumas, etc. I do counseling on "grass-roots common sense" level. I have seen death many times and assisted in many ways. How and why? Because I care, I do; because of my diet and supplements, my mind is stable through the crises.
I have a short list of friends and family that trust, as one calls me, "Dr. Einstein" knows the answer or can look it up. A list of friends sometimes drink too much. They call on me to bring "the blue bag," because they are needing relief. The blue bag is my bag of vitamin and mineral supplements. They also know that I have reference books on herbal medicine, the origin of pharmaceuticals. Sadly, the drug companies focused on a single element from the plant and ignored the natural balance of other substances that also potentiate the isolated substance.
MOST IMPORTANT TO ME: If you do not know personally, let me assure you that, from experience, orthomolecular is where the TRUTH is,and it does prove itself as healing. In case you are not aware, a doctor wrote a book in the 70's titled "Cured To Death!" He was ridiculed by his peers but he was not wrong. Don't forget the key word in "magic bullets," a slang term for drugs, is "Bullet." The health care industry is about profit for the most part. Wellness is about healing. Alopathic physicians are largely not about wellness, though the trend is slowly changing toward providing health. Our culture is more about quick answers, even if they only propogate more illness.
Because of my mother, who is 83 and rarely sick, I visit a doctor about once every 10 years just to prove to her that I'm still healthy. He recognizes and and accepts that I have my own way and it seems to be working.
For instance, about 10 years ago, my HDL/LDL ratio was on target, but he wasn't sure about my total cholesterol because he had never seen the total level to be that low before. Niacin is an anti-cholesteremic, meaning that my cholesterol is mobilized for use and elimination of the excess. Another instance, about 5 yrs ago or more, I went to the ER with a possible heart attack, suspecting that it was just anxiety (I have PTSD) but I wanted a second opinion because it hurt much worse than ever before. They kept me overnight and put me on the treadmill with a target rate of 142. I didn't even show a sign of shortness of breath until I hit 153 beats per minute. I was about 48 yrs old at the time.
I'm not Jack LaLane, but for my age, because of my modest achievements with orthomolecular nutrition and supplements, my mind is very sharp, my body is very resistant to illness, and I still find time once in a while to increase my knowledge of orthomolecular practices.
To quote Dr. Hoffer, "If four doctors cannot find the problem, it is probably nutritional." This applies to mental and physical impairments.
P.S. Mental illness? I reject the term: It is about nutritional imbalance- the "engine" cannot run correctly without the proper fuel, and the same applies to the body. Traumatic brain injury and severe bodily injuries do not apply, but almost all else does!
Dwight H. (Richmond, Indiana)
January 29/11
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OUT OF THE LABYRINTH
My first encounter with orthomolecular medicine was a very close one and it occurred in the summer of 1969. Six months before that encounter, I had been diagnosed as "schizoid type" by the psychiatrist who presided over my treatment in a local mental hospital. I had admitted myself into that hospital, suffering from what I thought was a "nervous breakdown". Years later, while reconstructing the incident, I was able to identify the idiot who had slipped a tab of LSD into my coffee while I wasn't looking. This explained the delusions and hallucinations I'd been "enjoying" while under the care of the psychiatrist at the mental hospital. However, it did not explain why I didn't "recover" in short order, as some of my friends had done after ingesting, smoking and sniffing as many street drugs as they could find. I kept getting these "flashbacks" as they are called. It was as if the LSD had found a home in me and didn't want to leave.
I began to wonder if I'd ever feel normal again. I even entertained the possibility that I had never been normal; that I'd been on the edge of "madness" most of my life; an existence punctuated by brief, unexplainable bouts of "sanity" sandwiched between long periods of emotional instability which in turn were accompanied by abnormal mental states.
These were some of the thoughts that were running through my head in the summer of 1969 as I languished in my father's lazyboy chair, lost in the pharmaceutical fog caused by the Chlorapromazine and Kemedrin that had been prescribed for me. My story most probably would have ended there, sprinkled with the appropriate adjectives usually used to describe unhappy endings. Probably my storyteller would have ended my tale with the hopeful assertion that "Perhaps, someday an even more effective drug will be developed by a brilliant pharmaceutical research scientist that will help Bill, and others like Bill, to cope better with the symptoms of the dreaded disease known as schizophrenia which as everyone knows, is unfortunately, incurable...so give generously".
However, my story was to take an unexpected turn. You see, as I lay there in the lazyboy, staring at the TV, trying to figure out how the Japanese could have put LSD in all the mandarin oranges, thereby rendering the population of North America helpless to resist their well-planned invasion, I became dimly aware that some doctor was being interviewed on a television news program. The doctor was explaining in very clear terms even I could understand, that after extensive clinical studies and careful scientific testing dating back to 1952, he had reached the conclusion that schizophrenia was really caused by a biochemical disorder that could be successfully treated by massive doses of vitamins. I can't remember exactly which of the words the doctor spoke that caused a light bulb to come on in my brain, but it might have been words such as "chemical" and "hallucinogen" and phrases like "massive doses of vitamin B3" that made me sit up. I called my mother into the room and together we watched and listened as Dr Abram Hoffer, a practicing psychiatrist in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, answered questions about mental illness as if it were something curable like scurvy or rickets! I remember thinking "what a 'crazy' idea!", but I was so eager to get out of my "chemical straitjacket" that I was ready to try anything. To put it another way, I was not "living better through chemistry"!
In that moment, my story somehow escaped its sad ending and headed off in the direction of a new and brighter future with its storyteller running to catch up. I'm still running, but I've long since caught up and now I'm in the lead. I still take large doses of vitamin B3 and C along with an assortment of other nutrients added to a sensible diet. This year I attended the 35th Annual Conference on Nutritional Medicine Today and was able again to shake the hand of the man who had changed my life and shown me the way out of the labyrinth of mental illness. Thanks again Dr. Hoffer. I'll be sending you a copy of my latest album through the mail. On it you will find a song entitled "Little Green Pills", co-written by myself and Carlene Hope, criticizing current psychiatric practice and lamenting the sad fact that after more than fifty years since your discovery, too many of us still haven't had the good fortune to encounter orthomolecular medicine as I did. That song was written for and is dedicated to you Dr. Hoffer, and in fact most probably would not exist without your pioneering work and steadfast spirit. Someday, the whole human family will know and appreciate what you have done for it, and medicine will have another hero to honour. Until then I salute you as the man who put me on the path you discovered way back in 1952; the path that led me out of the labyrinth.
Bill Houston
August 15/06
http://www.billhouston.ca/index.php
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Freedom Beyond Hopelessness
I was 11 years old and at the top of my world. I was very small for my age and throughout life to this point it was a real plus for me as my peers in which I had gone to school with since beginning kindergarten, treated me as if I were a novelty. I was then in sixth grade an had just lost a bid for a run for School President. That didn’t phase me as everything else seemed to be on track as I was looking forward to and determined to find my way to the field of medicine. I had a great affinity for animals and I could see my future in veterinary medicine. Aside from my Father procrastinating and leaving all of us children waiting for long periods of time my home environment appeared quite normal to me. My Father worked as a commercial artist. My Mother was basically a stay at home Mom with four children to care for and occasionally she would help my Father with his business. As a young child I didn’t observe any major conflicts between my parents, however, I also observed very little affection between them. But I was young and involved with all the various everyday facets of my 1950s’ childhood, such as long extended hiking and exploration, game playing with friends ,i.e. roller skating, hopscotch, jump rope, jacks, marbles, etc. I learned early on that the piano I aspired to learn or the horse or lamb I would have loved to have were out of the question as one thing that was very clear was that we didn’t have money for extras like that. I knew that such luxuries as those would need to come from my own doing later in life. I generally felt happy with my life and expressed that. I was known as Little Miss Sunshine to some of the neighbors. Up until that point in time I had a vague memory of my Mother leaving home for a short period of time, when I was about 3 years old, but I never knew why.
In the midst of riding high in sixth grade and looking forward, my older brother , younger sister and I, (my older sister had already proceeded to get married and was on her own) were told by my Father that our Mother was needing to go away to be in a hospital for a short period of time. I sure didn’t understand the need for my Mother to go away as in my young mind I wasn’t aware of anything wrong with her. She always seemed to be there for us and o-k to me. What was this all about? Upon the day of her leaving I had no idea that my remaining childhood would be void of a Mother’s love and support and that my whole world was falling apart.
Five years had gone by before my Mother was finally released from the hospital in which I came to realize was a mental institution. I still didn’t realize the magnitude of her problems only that she was allowed to take and attempt to rear one of her children, which turned out to be my youngest sister who was about 13 at the time. As a teenager I was exposed to extensive paternal abuse and neglect and by the time I was a young adult I knew that my promising career in medicine needed to give way to other more demanding responsibilities. After my Mother was out of the mental institution, she was able to re-train and amp up her office skills and after her required year of probation from the institution she landed a job as a Dictaphone typist for the Los Angeles court system. She and my Father divorced shortly after her discharge. Due to my own poor health and leanings toward depression, with the gentle encouragement of my Brother, I started to explore preventative healthcare and natural healing. As a result of the benefits, I became very interested in the field of Herbology and Nutrition and studied everything I could find on those topics. I never lived with my Mother after age 11, however, I sensed that irrespective of her job and caring for my Sister I had felt that she still had underlying problems.
When I was 27, my Mother was about to turn 60 and ready to retire. She became concerned about her finances. Before long she was seeing a psychiatrist who prescribed medication which she was taking, without benefit. By this time I had studied and experienced the positive effects of Natural Medicine with myself and others and with the support of my Brother, I made a real effort to convince my Mother to take a different approach, as her history had proven to us that multiple courses of EST (Electro shock therapy) and drug therapy had given her little hope in the past. After various attempts to open new therapeutic avenues, her mind set was too rigid to break through and she proceeded to follow the advice of her psychiatrist. By this she was loosing her grip on reality, full of fear and hopelessness. Her psychiatrist realized that his treatment protocol was ineffective. We pleaded for him to not give her EST, as it never helped in the past so he proceeded to hospitalize her and treat her with a 3 week protocol of Prolixin, Valium and Thorazine in concentrates via injection. Before the end of the protocol she became the worst patient in the long term facility to which she was transferred to midstream, due to finances. I knew that in her state of craziness and extreme dehydration that she wouldn’t last much longer. During the next several hours that followed I decided to take my Mother out of the facility one way or another even if it landed me in jail. Otherwise I was certain she would quickly die in there. Shortly before I proceeded to do this I received a phone call stating that my Mother had been rushed back to the original hospital via ambulance, severely dehydrated and left in a catatonic state, in ICU for the next couple weeks. It was unsure whether she would survive. In the midst of all this it was clear that it was up to me to take responsibility for her life and I was compelled and determined to find the means and way to help her. In the process of my search, in a very roundabout way I was able to contact an Orthomolecular Psychiatrist in San Diego, where we lived. They were even more sparse in the 70s. Now I felt we were on the right track but would she survive to try a different approach. Now she could not eat, or speak, and how was I going to make these adjustments for her. If she made it through this I sure didn’t feel comfortable for her to be under the care of the same psychiatrist who almost killed her. She did make it through and I was trying everything possible to transfer her case to the new psychiatrist, however, I found out I was powerless. I felt time was of the essence, as she was so depleted and needed so much support that she wasn’t receiving. I found in order to have any say over her healthcare that I needed to go to court, state my case and become her conservator, which I did. Like a Mother Hen with a Baby Chick under wing we began the initial steps to her healing. It was a 3 year journey. She became my full-time job. We reached deep into her psyche to find out all the components needed for her to regain her health. It was a complete lifestyle change with the inclusion of proper nutrition, mega vitamin therapy, botanical therapy, colonic therapy, spiritual psychology, are some of the therapies we worked with. In spite of her fixed belief that she was beyond hope, she over came the label of Paranoid Schizophrenic she had lived with for 35 years and lived her remaining 16 years free of mental/emotional entrapments. She became very functional, enjoyed the rest of her life and became the Grandmother that my Daughter and her other grandchildren never knew they had.
This is a very brief description of one individual’s process of healing. I will follow this up when time permits with a very detailed compilation of the entire process. This is something I felt the need to do for the last 29 years. My Mothers mental/emotional problems have had such a profound effect on my life I feel inclined to tell this story and perhaps in doing so it may reduce and/or resolve the mental anguish of others.
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How IVC and Other Vitamins Conquered My Problems
I came to The Center in September 2001. At the age of 46, I was in terrible shape. I had anxiety, depression, memory loss, tinnitus, severe and frequent panic attacks in addition to Hepatitis C, cardiac arrhythmias and nicotine addiction. My liver enzymes were over 600 when the normal range was 0 to 40 which indicated how active my hepatitis C actually was.
After the initial evaluation, Dr. Riordan ordered laboratory testing for me. When I came back in three weeks to see Mavis Schultz, one of the nurses at The Center, she gave me the results of my tests. She started me on intravenous vitamin C (IVC) infusions as well as vitamin B2, Tri amino Sorb, EmergenC packets, and Evening Primrose oil to cover my low levels on my test results. She also started me on Zinc because of a high pyrroles level, Prodophilus for elevated indican level and also alpha lipoic acid. In November, 2001, I began seeing Dr.Hunninghake and continue to see him today. Dr. Hunninghake increased my intravenous vitamin C to 25 grams along with Magnesium. These infusions were given twice a week. This continued until June 2003 when it was reduced to once a week. By this time I was doing very well.
The Center has done me great, even though I had been told before coming to The Center that there was nothing that could be done to improve my hepatitis C. The IVC and lipoic acid got me to where I could function as a salesman and assistant manager. Before coming to The Center, I could not function at either because of the panic attacks and the hepatitis C. I recently walked 36 holes of golf carrying my golf bag. My golf partners call me grandpa, but I beat them regularly.
I am not sure what has gotten me to this point—the IVC’s, the colonics I am doing outside The Center, my vitamins, my nutrients or the combination of all of these.
But I know that when I come to The Center, the doctors listen to me, not like the other doctors, they do listen to me. They also respond to my questions and ideas.
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Cancer Free
Dear Dr. Lawton,
We would be nothing less than honored. Please give them our phone number. In our estimation Heather is till cancer free. We has a scare with this hip plate fracture and Dana Farber is still being cautious, which is fine, but as far as we are concerned, Heather had a positive area on pet scan in October of 2003 in the right renal fossa. We saw you directly after that and low and behold it simply disappeared, on the January scan. The people at Dana Farber couldn’t believe it then and I suspect they would like for us to have been proven wrong now in a way. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think anyone really wants to see Heather ill, but there is definitely a real us verses them mentally within the conventional medical community. I still believe that both Conventional wisdom and alternative wisdom need to work in concert with one another. Conventional medicine has a lot to offer in term of diagnostic scanning in this vein, I am impressed, but after that, all they typically have to offer is burn, cut and poison {Radiation, surgery, and chemo.} None of which is very appealing to me. I suppose in a strange kind of way we are lucky that renal cell does not respond to burn or poison, so we were left in a unique situation of needing to seek an alternative treatment to support adjunct their only treatment of surgery. This is where you guys come in. We were so impressed because collectively everyone at The Bright Spot Center is M.D. qualified and a research scientist analysis also. There is not a one of you who has not been through the rigors of so called traditional training prior to your critical analysis of substances like Vitamin C in use of cancer treatment. The only difference is you do not have the blessings of major drug companies because they make no money off of you and as we all know the major drug companies run and finance the medical community. The other thing I like about your system is that your treatments, and I do mean collective treatments not just limited to vitamin C, work in perfect harmony with the human body and all its major organs. You guys take the approach that all the bodily systems are interdependent on one another and work in concert with each other. Whatever treatment you give, if it is good for one organ, it is good for all the rest too. What is not used by the body is excreted, what is used is absorbed. Whereas in conventional medicine, they take the cruise missile approach, they seek and destroy the sick part, but the other organs of the body may or may not get damaged by the fall out, the shrapnel. You know its "We got the tumor out but the radiation damaged your bladder and the chemo. adversely affected your liver function permanently." Tough toss up, really. I can't say that if Heather's had been a Wilms tumor instead of renal cell, that I wouldn’t have gone with the chemo, which reportedly has a 98% success rate, but I sure know that we would have made the trip to Kansas as well, no doubt. You must, simply must do battle with cancer all fronts, you cannot take a single minded approach you could miss so much that’s out there if you do.
Finally, it is my MOST SINCERE HOPE that you share this e-mail with the family in question before you have them call us. This will give them some food for thought before we talk. Please give my best regard to Dr.Riordan and Dr.Jackson and all the wonderful nurses over there. Can’t thank you enough. Sorry about the lack of phone call’s, it is just hard to nail down a time; we are so busy over here. Other than an accidental growth plate fracture, Heather continues to look the picture of Vitality and Health.
Thanks,
Mary Smith*
(*) Name has been changed to protect patient's privacy.
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Strangest Headaches
For about three years I had the strangest headaches. At first, it was a dull ache in the back of my head that became excruciatingly painful if I coughed, sneezed, or even cleared my throat.
I made an appointment to see my family doctor, fearing that it might be a brain tumor and, happily, it wasn't. After seeing another G.P., I was sent to an ear, nose, and throat specialist who ran some tests but found nothing out of the ordinary.
But then my problem became much worse. If I bent down to pick up the cat or lift anything, it would send shooting pains from the back of my neck, up to one temple and then straight across my forehead to the other temple, until my head felt as though it was being attacked from all sides. One movement such as picking up a piece of paper off the floor meant a pounding headache which would usually last about four hours or more. It was agony. Lying down didn't do much good because the pressure of the pillow under my head was too much to take. I had to sleep on a little "Bucky" pillow that wrapped around my neck, taking the pressure off the back of my head. But even that hurt because it was so close to the painful area.
The pain was with me most of the time but became even worse if I coughed, sneezed, or cleared my throat because all three of these actions caused pressure way down in my auditory tubes inside my head. Even laughing hurt and I don't know how many times I had to ask my husband not to make me laugh any more—it just hurt too much.
Seeing my G.P. again, we thought maybe it could be a problem with the muscles in my neck due to carrying a book bag with way too many books in it (I was a teacher). So she sent me to six weeks of physical therapy, twice weekly. While they were able to take out a few kinks and my headaches did seem improved, they soon returned. After seeing a chiropractor, I next tried two sessions of acupuncture. It, too, helped a little at first.
But still without relief, I saw a neurologist who had X-rays taken. When nothing showed up, he ordered a CT Scan, which also came up clear. An MRI was the only test yet to take but, because of the wires implanted in my middle ears, I didn't want to take a chance on having them pulled out by the strong magnetism of the MRI. So my neurologist said he could find nothing wrong with me and that there was nothing else he could do for me. I was beginning to feel that doctors were seeing it as some kind of psychological problem, a need for attention or something. I figured their chart on me probably said it was all in my head, (sorry about the bad pun.)
A month later, still living my life in pain, I took my sixteen-year-old son, Aaron, to see Dr. Abram Hoffer in Victoria, B.C. to discuss pyroluria. Within, I'd say, three minutes of meeting Aaron, Dr. Hoffer stated that he could tell by the dark circles under his eyes that he had allergies, most likely to dairy.
Since I have the same dark circles under my eyes, and I know how common a dairy allergy is in people with pyroluria, I figured I was probably allergic, too, even though I didn't want to admit it to myself, it was depressing even thinking about taking cheese and milk out of my diet because I had them every single day of my life, easily drinking three glasses of milk at least twice a day. Frequently, milk was the meal. I've just never been a good eater.
Somehow, I managed to cut out about ninety-five percent of the dairy I had been consuming and just kept cheating a little here and there when it looked too good to pass up.
Soon, I started noticing that my headaches were still there but were a little milder and the only times my auditory tubes filled up and started ringing was after succumbing to a piece of cheese or a little cream in my coffee. After about four months of minor, but frequent, cheating, I finally cut out the last five percent of dairy altogether.
About a month later, Aaron and I decided to go wild and ordered a pizza. What harm could it do? With the new cheese-stuffed crust, the pizza was so delicious but, still, I had only one (big) slice.
Within about two hours, my headache was suddenly back full-strength. It felt "like a baseball-sized swelling in the back of my head where I imagine the auditory tubes must come together or something. With such a horrible pain in my head, I couldn't sleep most of the night and the next night wasn't any better, it took a full three days for the pain to finally stop. It was clear to me, at that point that, whether I liked it or not, I was allergic to dairy.
All together, my insurance company and I spent around $4,000.00 for something that Dr. Hoffer figured out within minutes by just looking at us. And besides, being free of the pain was just a nice side effect of discussing pyroluria with him.
I love how orthomolecular medicine works! In my experience, it has always caused this kind of cascading effect where one good thing leads to another. It is just the opposite of prescription drugs where side effects call for more drugs and you find yourself just chasing your tail in endless circles of ill health.
Now, when I cough, sneeze, or bend over, that area in my head is still a little tender sometimes but I wouldn't call it painful, it just lets me know it's still there. My guess is that I'm still getting a little hidden dairy in some of the foods I'm eating and I need to start reading labels better.
I may never again be able to have dairy but, now, the thought is only mildly depressing. I know I can handle it and I will never again have to suffer for years with that particular, needless pain. And I am so grateful to Dr. Hoffer that Aaron, at such a young age, is learning how to manage his health issues the orthomolecular way. It's just so sensible.
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