Disease

Like many of you, I have suffered for quite a while with Lyme and the co-infections. I started educating myself years ago on these conditions and continue to this day. My background in science and my knowledge of medicine gives me a unique perspective and point of view. After many hours of insomnia (thanks babesia,) I have a theory that I want someone to disprove. If you disprove it, that means we learn something and learning is the ultimate goal. My theory is that ALL DISEASE IS CAUSED BY PATHOGENS. That's a pretty big statement but hear me out. We suffer from the toxic effects from the by-products of pathogens and their interactions with our immune system. Our elimination pathways get blocked or can't keep up with the workload and they deplete essential elements or substrates and we have sequelae because of this. That's one way disease is caused. The other is how a majority of disease is caused, through direct interference of DNA transcription which causes gene mutation. This has been shown in studies with viruses, I believe it can occur with any pathogen. The wild card in this is our immune response and how our immune system reacts to our environment. This is based simply on GI flora. GI flora is based on diet and genetics.

My Dad has stage 3B adenocarcinoma in both lungs. That's not a very good survival rate so I put him on a diet and to show solidarity, I went on the same diet. It was a vegan diet. In 3 weeks time, my immune system had improved tremendously, I dropped 14 lbs, and was as healthy as I could be considering I was sleeping 4 hours a night. My body changed and it started with my GI flora. That is the key to health and the more acidic the food, the worse it is for you. Eating non-acidic foods is what helped me the most and helped me come up with my theory. The GI tract is responsible for buffering the acid we eat and if it's buffering acid or has a high acid load, it's not growing the right flora. These symbiots are the key to long life and good health.

Here is a test for you to determine the status of your GI flora. Look at your feces. If your feces comes out in many small pellets like a deer, your GI flora is like it is supposed to be. You actually won't even have to wipe as nothing adheres to you. If it comes out compacted or like mud, your GI flora is far from where it needs to be. You will go through a roll of toilet paper quickly. To change for the better, simply change your diet away from acidic meats and processed foods. This will be difficult for many of you that have high die offs or toxic loads. The toxins cause the feces to be, for a lack of a better term, gross. I haven't found a probiotic better than Ortho Biotic, but I'm sure there are other good ones. Floragen3 is one I have recommended before.

Self awareness will benefit you greatly and I advise you to notice the little things. If you hurt today, what did you do yesterday to cause it? What did you eat yesterday to cause it? When is your system cycling from bad to worse or good to bad? Write it down if you have to but keep up with it. Knowledge of what is going on is the key to figuring out what you have and how to treat it.

Sorry for the rambling, but we all need to learn as much as we can about ourselves and our condition.

sknight said...
Quote: ".... If your feces comes out in many small pellets like a deer, your GI flora is like it is supposed to be. You actually won't even have to wipe....."



Hunter,

If you have a wife or a girlfriend (or both - ha).... do her a favor and wipe your butt, whether you think you need to or not...!

20-some years ago, I was in a relationship where I got numerous urinary tract infections per year... year after year, after year ! Each one requiring heavy doses of antibiotics. Which is likely how became so violently allergic to antibiotics.

Late in the relationship, I learned that the guy I was dating was one of those guys who thought he didn't need to wipe his butt. Which subsequently, left his "boy parts" covered in E. Coli... which left me with a UTI darn near every time we had sex. To say the least, I was NOT happy and the relationship ended. And guess what, I haven't had a UTI since.

As to the rest of your theory, I don't really have an opinion.

Just do us a favor and take the few seconds required to wipe your butt.

To the rest of the guys on the forum... please consider my post a "public service announcement". :p

I do, I was just using that as a reference. You don't know if you need to wipe unless you wipe and with consistently altering GI flora, you don't have a choice.

I would say rather than disease being caused by pathogens, disease is caused by the body not functioning well enough to handle those pathogens.

If you are pooping small pellets, then you are constipated - I've dealt with serious constipation (would go up to 17 - 20 days between bm's) all of my life up until 2 years ago when I finally got the help I needed. Stools need to be well formed - not pelleted, that says a person needs more fiber and more water for one thing. Although I must admit that I don't know much about Vegan's and their diets and how that affects that whole process. Maybe when you eat like that, that's what you get?

I do completely agree with the thought that so much of this can be controlled by diet - not cure us once we are really ill, but it can sure play a big part in our getting healthy again! They are even figuring out that with really good nutrition, cancer can be fought without the use of chemo drugs and such for many.

I commented about my diet in another thread yesterday, and while fixing breakfast this morning realized that I hadn't really said what I needed to (going back to post another reply soon!) - a lot of my food is medicinal. I eat to heal. Breakfast is designed for fiber, controlling any glucose jumps, promoting good gut flora, and for helping ease cognitive issues (mainly brain fog type of things). Same with my other meals. They get 'designed' around what my needs are during any given week.

And I completely agree with this statement:
"Self awareness will benefit you greatly and I advise you to notice the little things. If you hurt today, what did you do yesterday to cause it? What did you eat yesterday to cause it? When is your system cycling from bad to worse or good to bad? Write it down if you have to but keep up with it. Knowledge of what is going on is the key to figuring out what you have and how to treat it."

Anyway, that just my very personal opinion.

Interesting discussion! As long as this stays civil, I wouldn't mind seeing what others think and what their research shows.

As for the constipation issues - having lived with it most of my life and being lied to about what constipation really is, I've done a lot of research, not to mention my own personal experiences. As you said -"When I do well, feces look one way. When I feel bad, they look another."

Also, as I said, I have no clue what being Vegan (or almost) does for the intestines or bm's.

Structural issues in the body can also lead to constipation. In fact, structural issues can lead to a cascade of issues that compromise the immune system.

After my daughter's immune system strengthened after receiving Oral System Balancing she doesn't even catch a common cold any more.

I also agree with a lot of what Georgia Hunter has said. However I feel that his statement "My theory is that ALL DISEASE IS CAUSED BY PATHOGENS" is a bit of an overstatement compared to what the actual reality is. I agree that pathogens are usually a factor in most diseases, but I also fell that there is a fundamental root cause that has not been addressed. I tend to view the out-of-control presence of pathogens as more of a symptom than a root cause of an illness. I have come to this conclusion after considering the opinions of people such as Jernigan, Klinghardt, Rau, Buhner, and many other lesser known but competent figures in healthcare.

If a person finds that he/she is undergoing an endless cycle of treatments to feeling better, and then relapses, isn't it possible that some fundamental issue is being neglected? My opinion is that killing the pathogens is the easiest part. How to restore the immune system is a bit more difficult. A lot of people on this forum would agree with me.

Georgia Hunter- I intend to purchase that book, as I am always eager to learn new things. Thanks for your posts and the book suggestion!

Don

Traveler, you wrote:

As for the constipation issues - having lived with it most of my life and being lied to about what constipation really is...

Can you give more info on what you meant by "what constipation really is"? Or point to a source of info that I can read?

Thanks.

Georgia Hunter,

You are right- we are closer in opinion than what I thought. Thanks for the clarification. I definitely agree with most of what you have stated!

I specifically agree with the implications that you are making. Those with Lyme and coinfections would benefit immensely if they maximize their GI tract health. Flora and PH are huge issues, and could make all the difference for many.

Thanks for the great series of posts. I am so happy for you that your health situation has greatly improved!

Don

A Saccharomyces boulardii supplement might help as well. Kefir contains yeasts for those that can drink milk products.

I have not read the book Super Immunity by Dr Joel Fuhrman, but checked out his website. The premise of his diet/life style looks interesting, but his use (sale) of unfermented legume products in the form of pasta makes me a little wary.

Loren Cordain's position (The Paleo Diet) on the ingestion of legumes/grains, is that the phytates and lectins they contain damage the intestinal barrier. In this youtube series he explains his reasoning (and the experimental evidence) behind the usefullness of a paleolithic type diet in relation to treatment of MS and autoimmune disease:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ_xZMuEf0U

There are 7 parts to the series, this is the 4th.