Early in September an article claiming that women did not need a menstrual cycle circulated through multiple social media channels, so I am pretty sure you have seen it at one point or another. Because it was so incredibly off the mark I chose at first to let it go, but when the NYTimes included a reprint of the article from The Atlantic last week, I decided it was time to address this head on. While I honestly would rather be singing the praises of fall veggies to fill your fridge this week, it’s important to put that on pause and offer some honest counter arguments to this wildly popular article.

What the article says

In case you missed it or need a refresher, the article is titled; Women don’t need to have periods. Just on that statement alone I could fill a room with women from my practice who have suffered severe side effects, often for years, by buying into that line. All of whom I am absolutely certain would love to share their experiences that proved the opposite to be true.

The author, Alana Massey a writer from Brooklyn, has now gone 3 years without menstruating due to her use of a Mirena IUD. In the article she makes her case against the need to menstruate through quotes from an interesting array of professionals to support her argument. Through it all she sings the praises of the gains she has experienced and shares these opinions:

she was “inconvenienced and frankly resentful of the fact that I had to spend three to seven days per month bleeding. . .”

she didn’t “want the burden of buying tampons and avoiding wearing white.”

Believes that, “getting rid of women’s periods is a bonus that saves them time, money, pain, and stress, with no known medical downsides.”

Declares that “if they ever want their periods back, all they need to do is have the IUD or implant removed.”

She cites a study on the positive health effects of women using IUD’s from the New England Journal of Medicine. You would need to read the fine print of this study to see that the “health factors” accessed in the study included:

1. practical difficulties
2. social life
3. psychological health
4. physical health
5. work and daily routine
6. family life
7. relationships

While I will not argue all of these are part of a woman’s well-being, they are secondary to her physiological symptoms that I believe this study chose to ignore. Nowhere do they look at what the effects the IUD had on the rest of the body, very likely because conventional medicine on the whole does not see the body in this way, choosing instead to look at each organ as a separate entity.

Here how I see it

What I’ve learned is though the uterus is thought of as primarily a womb, it actually functions first as another pathway of elimination for women. Monthly cycles are an extra way for women’s bodies to clean. This means that:

1. You DO need your period and it should NOT be painful. Those painful symptoms are there to bring your attention to a deeper imbalance that likely began even before your menstrual cycles did. Read this post about what that imbalance looked like in your childhood. So this isn’t an either/or situation, it’s a clear cry from your body to fix the root of the problem.
2. Using hormonal birth control to suppress menstrual pain is only exacerbating the inflammation caused by a sluggish lymphatic system and less than optimal elimination organs. This post on painful periods explains how you’re just shifting symptoms this way.
3. Disruption of a regular cycle for any length of time will likely lead to overworked bowels and/or kidneys. This creates a build up of acidic wastes which will then produce any or all of these symptoms:

• Digestive disturbances (Bloating, flatulence, acid reflux)
• Changes in bowel movements (less than the optimal two a day, loose frequent stools)
• Increase need to urinate or sense of an oncoming UTI
• Nighttime urination
• Skin disturbances (acne and/or eczema)
• Painful breast swelling
• Sleep disturbances
• Lower back pain
• Irritability, Increased Anxiety, or Depressive Symptoms
  This post on inflammation and infertility discusses the approach I use in my practice.

4. Finally, don’t forget there is a huge pharmaceutical industry out there whose livelihood depends on the sale of birth control devices that will ease your pain or stop your period. It’s an unfortunate fact that much of the research we rely on for our health information is funded by the pharmaceutical industry. This is not cynicism, this is the truth and we can no longer risk our health and that of the next generation because of our naiveté. The greatest source of truth is to listen to your body and recognize its natural healing capabilities. Learning to listen and taking proactive steps that work WITH our body’s innate ability to clean and heal, we can have it all—painless periods and a body in harmony.

This is a topic very near and dear to my heart. I have two grown daughters who I have coached through this approach and I work primarily with women’s fertility on a daily basis in my practice. I see day in and out the mis-service done to women and their bodies by conventional medicine, advice that does not take into account the integrated functions of the body, and highly accepted and promoted prescription birth control that is dangerous in the long run.

After removing the IUD or discontinuing the use of any hormonal birth control, a full body detox is in order to restore a regular cycle, and address menstrual pain, endometriosis, and all inflammatory conditions at their source. In my office this is accomplished by applying the Living Well 4, utilizing the therapies of Gemmotherapy, Homeopathy and a Plant-Based Diet to ease the body into harmony. The length of the process is dependent on how long the birth control methods were in place, inherited traits, and commitment to the protocols.

I’d love to hear from women who have personally experienced the negative side of eliminating a monthly menstrual flow. I’m hoping, too, that women who have worked with me to heal their menstrual symptoms and harmonize their bodies will share their experiences.

I hope I’ve given you pause to question this No Periods movement at least a bit more. I know much of what I say here is counter to what’s being reported from these generally reliable sources, but I feel very strongly that there are better, healthier ways for you and your loved ones.

Please do share your questions or experiences in the comments section and read what others have to say. Together we can start a broader conversation about this underexamined women’s issue.

The value of removing dairy from our family diet honestly never registered on my radar for the first twelve years of my post cancer health journey. Then, in the summer of 2013, I paid a visit to the busy family practice clinic of my mentor, and now dear friend, Dr. Sorina Soescu.

In addition to our vegetarian diet, the widespread research on inflammatory diets and cancer prompted my family to eliminate gluten containing grains in 2009. Assuming at that point we had resolved all of our food related symptoms I put our daily eating habits on auto pilot. That is until the big AHA moment or should I say moments, associated with my first ever experience of a raw diet.

First Hand Experience

Being away from home and family no doubt heightened the awareness of my experiences. My only focus of the time was the cases presented in Dr. Soescu’s practice and the spiritual, mental, and physical experiences of eating a raw fruit meal each morning. Because my hosts stayed raw all day until dinner, so did I and after a few short days this is what I noticed:

· Morning energy like never before

· The absence of post nasal drainage

· The absence of an afternoon dip in energy

· The absence of bloating

· Deeper sleep

· Optimized bowel elimination

Now, there is no doubt in my mind that these results were due to the combined effect of a raw meal to start my day and the lack of dairy products. This article however, is just about ditching dairy and you can read more about fruit for breakfast here.

Having struggled with sinusitis my entire life, I honestly thought I had been symptom free for years until I woke up the first morning in Romania without sinus drainage. I’m sharing this not because it’s such a dramatic outcome, but actually because it seems rather benign and that’s the point. I had lived with symptoms on a daily basis that didn’t even register because they had become so normal. Could that be true for you? Joachim, my husband, refers to this as the fish/water phenomena. Ask a fish how the water is and your answer will be, “what water?”

Makes you wonder what “water” you swim in day after day that is accepted but not acknowledged. It could very well be that the inflammatory responses you are living with or have accepted could be improved in the absence of dairy in your diet.

The Whys

And this brings me back to the purpose of this blog and three reasons why I’d like you to consider ditching dairy.

1. The evidence proves dairy consumption contributes to many chronic symptoms, here are a few:

Milk and Adolescent Acne

Milk and Chronic Disease

Milk and Prostate Cancer

2. You will feel better! It’s remarkable how much discomfort we are willing to tolerate in order to maintain our lifestyle and how much energy we gain from resolving them.

3. Environmentally, the dairy industry takes a huge toll on our planet. Here’s two studies that everyone needs to read:

The dairy industry’s impact in California

Yale Environment report on Wisconsin dairy farms.

Getting Started

Back to my revelation in Romania. While I certainly caught my family by surprise when I returned ready to make this big shift in our diet, they did get on board for the following reasons:

· First to support my personal health journey

· Then the research they read was more than convincing

· Once the change was made they experienced their own benefits of resolved symptoms

Maybe going cold turkey as my family did in August 2013 is a bit daunting. How about trying this step by step approach offered by Dr. Oz? Oz’s 28 day challenge calls for the removal of one dairy food type from your diet each week. And for you cheese addicts out there, you can hang on to it until week four.

Some of my clients have found success with eliminating dairy products by the meal. Beginning each day with my suggested all fruit breakfast provides you with a head start. Then, for a week or two focus on lunch, becoming aware of where it sneaks into your diet. Dinner does require more effort as you will be rethinking family favorites. I suggest attempting one new recipe a week and possibly do that on the weekend when you can allow yourself more time.

So what do you say? The new year is the perfect opportunity to take on a new challenge and the return on your investment is substantial.

In my practice I prescribe a Plant-Based Diet as part of the Living Well 4™, a four stage healing process that integrates the three therapies of Gemmotherapy, Homeopathy, and a Plant-Based Diet. The past four weeks my posts have highlighted each of the four stages in healing and the general protocols used. In the next few posts I’d like to support your shift to a Plant-Based Diet by sharing changes we made in my own home.

Eating more raw fruits and vegetables is a super important component of a Plant-Based Diet. The benefits from consuming more raw fruits and vegetables include:

• Alkalizing the body’s pH
• Activation of the lymphatic cleansing
• Improved digestion
• Decreased inflammation

All of this is important because a body that uses the lymphatic system to clean and eliminate optimally can heal itself. Your daily goal should be to eat a portion of raw salad before each cooked meal. So that means a lot of salads! To do that with enthusiasm it is important to have lots of options, a set of staples that are always on hand and a recipe-free plan to assemble some smash hits. Keep in mind good salad construction is all about simplicity and nourishing whole food ingredients.

Ready to get started?  I’d like to share my go-to building blocks to assemble endless salad combinations that we never grow weary of. Here’s how I break salad making down in my kitchen:

Bases & Textures

• All varieties of Baby Leaf Greens: Spinach, Kale, Spring Lettuces, Arugula, etc
• Torn whole leaves: Butter, Romaine, Red Curly, Endive, Frisee, Romaine
• Chopped: Kales, Romaine
• Grated: Root Veggies, Kohlrabi, and firm fruits such as apples
• Julienne: Carrots, Beets, Kohlrabi, Celeriac, Jicama

Add-ins

• Seeds: raw or dry toasted Hemp, Flax, Sesame, Pumpkin, Sunflower
• Nuts: Walnut, Cashew, Hazelnut, Macadamia, Pistachio, Almonds, Filbert
• Dried Fruits: Raisins (Golden, Black and Sultanas), Dates, Figs, Cherries, Cranberries, Goji, Plums
• Fresh Fruits: thin slices of all varieties of Apple or Pear, Asian Pear, Peaches or Plums, Mango, Papaya

Dressings

Choose one of the following Consistencies—Vinaigrette, Nut Based or Creamy

Base: Olive Oil, Nut Oil, Tahini, Walnuts, Almonds (Almond Butter), Cashews (Cashew Butter), Vegan Mayo, Dijon Mustard, Avocados

Citrus or Acid:  fresh squeezed Lemon,Lime, Orange or Grapefruit, Apple Cider Vinegar, Tamari Sauce, Mustard, Miso paste

Sweetener: Dates, Maple Syrup, Honey

Herbs and Spices: Green Onions, Garlic, Shallots, Cilantro, Basil, Parsley, Mint, Tarragon, Thyme, Pink Himalayan Salt, Fresh Ground Pepper

More on eating a Plant-Based Diet

So is eating a Plant-Based Diet the same as being Vegan? Actually no, eating Plant-Based means consuming a diet that includes 80% or more whole foods from plants. The remaining 20% can be animal protein and small amounts of processed foods. It is important to distinguish Plant-Based eating from a Vegan diet because the difference lies in the core purpose. The goal of Plant-Based eating is just that, to consume as many whole food, plant based, nutrient dense foods as possible. While the medical community that promotes a Plant-Based Diet does not promote consuming animal protein they make an allowance for it. For my clients I suggest that the main source of protein is consumed with the evening meal as it will take the most energy of all your foods to digest, making you sleepy at a logical time of the day. Want do the experts have to say about the benefits of Plant-Based Eating? Here are a few recent studies:

Plant Based Diets VS. Diabetes

Plant Based Diets VS. Cancer

Plant Based Diets VS. Auto Immune Diseases

This post concludes a four part series on the healing process we refer to as the Living Well 4™ in my practice. These four stages became clear to me while conducting a yearlong collaboration with my European colleagues involving over one hundred cases in which the three therapies (Gemmotherapy, Homeopathy and a Plant-Based Diet) were applied.

The first stage, opening elimination, is the stage most often disregarded when applying natural protocols. I find this stage to be a critical and often-missed aspect in unsolved cases. If elimination organs and processes are not optimized first, the chronic inflammation just shifts locations within the body. Initial symptoms may clear, but other symptoms inevitably arise surrounding this shifting inflammation. In the Stage One post I shared what I look for in my clients elimination process and how Gemmotherapy and the start of a Plant-Based Diet can initiate improvements.

The second stage, cleaning and fortifying organs involves engaging the lymphatic system to clean the body from the head downward. I shared the case of young Jenni and how important it was to begin the cleaning process with her head as that was where the root of her menstrual symptoms existed. When lymphatic stagnation is present in the head it often impacts the function of the pituitary gland which was exactly the case with Jenni.

In the third stage we focus more on the overworked organs that have been compensating for poor elimination and a sluggish lymphatic system. In this post I shared the story of young Thomas who had chronic asthma induced by weather changes. Cleaning the build-up from poor elimination and engaging the help of his lymphatic system cleared his symptoms to the point that he no longer needed an emergency inhaler.

Having arrived now at stage four it is important to understand this is not the end but rather the beginning of living with a body in harmony, something most of us have never experienced as adults. Some have come to believe that this is not even possible. The length of time it takes to reach this stage is very dependent on the lifestyle led during the process. I have found that most successful cases follow a 60/40 rule. Sixty percent of a successful process comes from adhering to dietary changes and compliance to protocols and about 40% relies on precise Gemmotherapy and Homeopathy selections. For those who have accepted their personal role and followed the protocols, it’s time to settle into a routine that is sustainable and supports continued health through whole food, daily exercise, fulfilling relationships and meeting your life’s purpose.

The Gemmotherapy extracts used to keep the body in harmony will provide continuous, gentle support to inherited organ weaknesses or those that may have been caused by long term use of harsh pharmaceutical medicines, surgery, or exposure to environmental toxins.

The Plant-Based Diet continues. It is vitally important to understand that returning to former eating patterns will produce setbacks even at this fourth stage.

Homeopathy may or may not be needed at this stage. I have clients who utilize this aspect and others who don’t. Either way, acute states that arise may require intermittent remedies.

You will know that your protocol for this stage is working if your immune response is strong and effective and you continue to be free of secondary symptoms. Because we are energetic bodies that are influenced by external and internal circumstances, life will present the need for some protocol adjustments and likely occasional support for acute or newly arising symptoms.

So, having reviewed the four stages of healing in their entirety, the next question is, “To what degree would you like to heal?” Your answer to that dictates how closely you will need to follow the protocols and lifestyle changes outlined. If you have decided you want to be symptom free and are committed to the process I have a program for you and would be delighted to support your journey.

I also recognize that health is a continuum and if you have decided there are symptoms you are willing to live with in exchange for not making some of the proposed lifestyle changes, then let’s find a protocol to at least support your body as it makes compensations.

In my practice and research I have come to identify four stage of healing that the body moves through when using natural remedies to heal the root of the problem. I refer to this process as The Living Well 4™. The three therapies I use work together to engage the body’s natural ability to clean, eliminate and heal. The synchronized effect of eating a plant-based diet, taking Gemmotherapy extracts and a homeopathic remedy is exactly what I have found to provide the most powerful and effective cure.

I’ve thought a lot lately about how different the experience can be for individuals when healing in this manner and with very different end results than they are used to. I think it’s worthwhile explaining that before moving on to what happens in stage three.

In a conventional or allopathic approach, a medication is used in order to stop a symptom with results usually occuring within hours or days. While some medications can stop life threatening symptoms, they don’t heal the cause. Though your experience of the problem has changed, all medications generally do is suppress symptoms and shift the burden on to other organs and organ systems. This is really important to understand—changing your experience doesn’t equal healing. In the short term, relief may be found, but in the long term the natural process of the body is interrupted and over time that causes an entirely new set of symptoms. This is why many individuals who start down the path to address their symptoms end up on multiple prescriptions.

When following protocols for The Living Well 4™, the secondary symptoms (sinusitis, skin conditions, headaches, sleep disturbances, etc.) that drove you to seek help will not be the first to heal. What gets fixed first is your body’s ability to eliminate. That comes as a surprise to most people, however, it is fundamental when we plan to use the body’s natural cleaning and healing functions. This approach may seem to bring around symptom relief more slowly, but when seen through the lens of harmonizing the body, the results are long-lasting.

We move to stage three of the process when secondary symptoms produced by poor elimination have been healed or greatly reduced during stage two. At this point the Gemmotherapy extracts shift to a more organ specific protocol. In stage three we often see organs take a new lease on life once they have been relieved of the burden of compensating for a body that hasn’t been properly cleaning. I’ll give you an example of this with a case of asthma in a young boy named Thomas.

Thomas’ mom brought him to me because she was searching for a natural answer to the night time emergency inhaler he had been prescribed 18 months ago. Thomas, now 6, had always had sinus discharge, some times worse than others, but what was most disturbing to his parents was the spasmodic coughing he would have at bedtime. This was particularly worse when there were sudden changes in temperature which happened often in the fall and spring.

Thomas’ mother confirmed my suspicion that he often skipped days between bowel movements and then he was frequently constipated. Here’s what I suggested for Thomas and why:

In stage one I prescribed European Blueberry Gemmotherapy extract and an all fruit breakfast to begin opening his bowels and supporting his kidneys. Before cleaning his lungs and healing their response Thomas needed optimized elimination. At the two week point Thomas’ mom reported he was having a bowel movement every morning with much more ease and by three weeks was having two daily. At that time I also gave Thomas Lithy to use in the place of his inhaler for the nighttime cough. This dose could be repeated every 15 minutes. While they found some success with the Lithy, on one occasion Thomas’ mother resorted to the inhaler to calm his cough. With his elimination now working well it was time to move on.

In stage two I added European Alder to begin lymphatic cleaning, Black Currant to decrease inflammation and support his adrenal glands through this cleaning process, and continued with the Blueberry that supported bowel and kidney function. Each evening he would take a dose of Lithy after dinner and then use it as needed if the cough began. To decrease the continuing sinusitis I suggested the elimination of all dairy consumption and prescribed a constitutional homeopathic remedy. After one month the cough was no longer occurring and they had not used the inhaler for six weeks. With acute episodes of the cough no longer occurring we could begin optimizing organ function in the next stage.

In stage three Thomas continued eating his all fruit breakfast, took a monthly dose of homeopathic remedy and a Gemmotherapy protocol that would clean his lungs while supporting adrenals and liver function. This next Gemmotherapy protocol included a morning dose of Black Currant and an evening dose of Hazel to optimize organ function and keep his symptoms from reoccurring.

Stage three Gemmotherapy extracts are all organ-specific and clean and fortify more deeply than any of the Gemmotherapy extracts used in stage one and stage two. The work in stage three is like a final ascent when hiking. It is the last necessary push to get to a destination. The end goal in applying these three therapies over the four stages is to reach the point of harmonizing the body. This is not an end per se, but gets us to a point of discovering what support is still needed due to genetic weakness, the removal of an organ, or deep damage from chemotherapy or radiation. Be sure to check back next week when I wrap up this series by discussing how to harmonize the body in stage four.

Last week I shared Stage One of the Living Well 4 and described the basic protocol used to open elimination. The importance of opening elimination first became imminently clear in a two year international collaboration with European physicians using Gemmotherapy and Homeopathy as their primary therapies and a study of over 100 of my own cases. I believe that the skipping of this step is exactly what keeps most modern natural approaches from having higher success rates. When elimination is not optimized before treatment begins, then all good therapies can do is rearrange or relocate the inflammation that is causing the symptoms or condition. While this rearrangement may temporarily relieve symptoms, they eventually return or other areas flare. It can also manifest as a cycle of improvement followed by a setback during treatment. This point is very important because this is exactly the reason individuals who could benefit greatly from a natural approach walk away frustrated. That is why I believe Gemmotherapy has so much to offer practitioners and their clients in a variety of therapies from acupuncture to chiropractic work.

On to Cleaning and Fortifying Organs, Stage Two. Once the goals of opening elimination have been met we can begin using different Gemmotherapy extracts to clean the body, generally from the head down. Now that even science acknowledges the head to toe connection of all organs through the lymphatic system it has given my method of activating and engaging the lymphatic system even greater validation. Just as skipping the first step of opening elimination derails natural healing, so too will skipping the cleaning of the stagnant lymph from the head. Here is a great example of this.

Jenni had an erratic menstrual cycle since her early teens. As she approached college the length between her periods became even longer, often having a menses every two to three months at best. I began working with Jenni as the Living Well 4 was in its early stages of development so I knew enough to start her out with a Gemmotherapy protocol to open elimination. Jenni also took on the task of cleaning up her diet and quickly adopted a plant based, dairy free plan for herself. After two months of taking Gemmotherapy and making dietary changes her bowels and kidneys were cleaning optimally, but there had been only a slight shift to her menstrual cycle.

So Jenni’s first protocol in Stage Two included Gemmotherapy extracts that would support lymphatic drainage of the head. The protocol included European Blueberry, Dog Rose and Black Currant. In the evening I supported her liver with Hedge Maple, but Hazel would also be a good choice.

The reason I addressed the head first in Jenni’s case is because this is home to the pituitary gland, responsible for so many functions that impact fertility and the menstrual cycle. If there had been, as I suspected, considerable lymphatic stagnation in the head over time, cleaning that area could stimulate healthy function of the pituitary.

Since Jenni had already made significant changes to her diet in Stage One there were no further steps for her to take except to continue her good work. Because Stage Two also includes the work of homeopathy, I looked for a remedy to support her remaining symptoms with the Polarity Analysis process. While I isolated a very good constitutional remedy I decided to wait a month and first use daily doses of Pituitary Nosode until her cycle came closer to 28-30 days. That turned out to be a good call. Within two weeks of the new protocol Jenni began her menses. Since that time she continued with a 28-30 day cycle and after two cycles I stopped the nosode and began the constitutional remedy. Had I begun cleaning and fortifying Jenni’s reproductive organs first instead of her head, the home of the pituitary gland, I would have missed the root of the problem and we would have lost months of work without making real progress. Jenni’s case is just one example of many that have proven to me this is an effective and efficient process for healing. The recent science that links  lymphatic stagnation in the head to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, depression, etc. has presented a real case for activating that cleaning system as a prevention as well as utilizing it for a cure.

Protocols for Stage Two: Cleaning and Fortifying organs include these therapies:

1. Lymphatic system and organ specific Gemmotherapy extracts
2. An all fruit breakfast and the elimination of all dairy products
3. Homeopathic remedy selected by Polarity Analysis (with the occasional use of a nosode remedy first)

The older a client and the more chronic symptoms the longer this process will take.  Symptoms will dissipate during the course of treatment and eventually will be eliminated in order of newest symptoms disappearing first and others following back to the most long standing issues.

When the majority of chronic symptoms have been eliminated, it will be time to move on to Stage Three to Optimizing Organ Function. As each organ begins to actually perform its job well then the organ systems must re-establish communication and compensations the body had made it the past are no longer necessary. This can be quite a shift for the body—especially for some adults—but is an easy transition for children because the compensations are not so deeply established. Be sure to check in next Friday when I will share the Stage Three protocols in detail.

Regardless of your list of symptoms, the road map to natural healing will always begins with optimizing elimination. Optimizing Elimination is Stage One in the path to restoring immunity that I teach my clients and practitioners.

Why is this true?

When your physical body’s ability to clean is compromised, your natural ability to heal (immunity) is also compromised. This is particularly clear in babies and children but equally true for adults.

We know a lot about the body and its workings, but the function of elimination is often overlooked as a likely root-cause of symptoms. Learning more about how your body cleans will bring your awareness to what might not be working for you.Noticing and taking action before chronic symptoms develop, is essential for your health now and in years to come.

Before we discuss what might compromise the body’s ability to clean, let’s look at some of the key players. While there is a complex system of excretory organs for this purpose, we are going to simply look at the organs and systems directly involved in producing and eliminating urine and stool.

How does a body clean?

First, let’s consider how the body cleans from the food we digest.

As food passes through the mouth it enters the pharynx. Important to note is that the pharynx plays a vital role for both the digestive system and the respiratory system. It is a passageway for both air and food. Because of the physical connection present between the two systems, inflammation or mucus produced in one can easily pass to the other through the pharynx.

The esophagus is a long muscular tube that pushes food into the stomach. Important to note here is the ring shaped muscle at the opening of the stomach. This ring is called the lower esophageal sphincter (LES). When digestion/elimination process is compromised in any way, this muscle may not have the ability to hold back digestive acids and and reflux occurs.

Using acids and enzymes to break down food, the stomach acts as a mixer and grinder turning the consistency to liquid or paste.Taking acid blockers to suppress reflux changes this perfect balance and adversely affects the absorption of nutrients that will occur in the digestion process next.

Workings of the Small Intestine

Further on, the small intestine is responsible for breaking down the paste/liquid from the stomach using enzymes produced by the pancreas and bile from the liver (stored in the gallbladder). This is where the nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream, and the remaining waste moves on. The small intestine also relies on a healthy population of bacterial microbes to prevent pathogens in food from taking hold and supports the immune response. An imbalance of the bacterial microbes will result in a lowered immune response and greater susceptibility to foodborne illnesses.

Finally, the undigested waste is moved to the large intestines (bowel or colon) which is the storage organ for the undigested waste products. Parts of the large intestine take on the responsibility of absorption of leftover vitamins, water, and salt. When the large intestine is full, stool should pass through into the rectum to be emptied. When this doesn’t happen on a regular basis, the entire interrelated system can be adversely affected leading to a variety of disruptions.

Metabolic waste

Digesting food is only part of the body’s cleaning process. There are also waste by-products from tissue cleansing and regeneration that are continually produced, managed by the lymphatic and circulatory systems. These fluids are referred to as metabolic waste. The lymphatic and circulatory systems perform interrelated tasks delivering the waste to the liver where it is filtered and then transported to the kidneys through the circulatory system.

Serving a multi-functional role is the liver, responsible for breaking down toxic substances, chemicals, pharmaceutical medications, and byproducts of the body’s own metabolic process, such as ammonia, into urea. This urea moves on to the kidneys, eventually becoming urine.

Then there is the urinary system, filtering and removing the liquid waste. The urinary system and large intestine, also called the bowel, have their own interactive communication system, signaling one to take over in the work of reducing acidic waste when the other is at its limit.

The ureter, bladder, and urethra team together to move the waste fluid from the kidneys, store it, and discharge it as urine.

Adrenal glands

Playing an accessory but critical role in keeping the body clean are the adrenal glands. The adrenals sit on top of the kidneys and are made up of two parts, the medulla and the cortex, each with its own function. The medulla secretes the hormone adrenaline, which helps the body adjust during high stress situations by increasing heart rate and speeding up blood flow. The cortex produces cortisol, which reduces inflammation within the body. The role of the cortex is of particular interest here as the resolving of inflammation is critical in the cleaning process.

As you can see, keeping the body clean along with the production of urine and stool requires an entire system. Every organ is critical and if one is not performing optimally, the others will be directly affected and must compensate. When this happens, the perfect system loses its effectiveness and its ability to remove waste products is greatly reduced.

Symptoms to note

An important sign that your elimination is not optimized are symptoms of the body cleaning through alternate exits. These exits are utilized when, over time, the buildup of waste product creates an inflammatory state and the body needs to look for other ways to clean. The most common of these tend to be eyes, nose, ears, lungs, and skin and, in women of menstruating age, the uterus/vagina.

Here are some common symptoms that indicate your body is cleaning through emergency exits:

•Eye(s): discharge

•Ear(s): discharge, drainage, blockage, itchiness,

•Sinus(es): congestion, drainage

•Bronchial/Lungs: cough, croup, bronchial spasms, obstructed breathing

•Skin: acne, eczema, canker sores, cold sores, fever blisters, mouth or gum sores, rashes

•Genital: yeast overgrowth, warts

•Vagina: discharge, yeast, heavy menstrual flow or cramping (if a menstruating female)

•Anus: discharge, mucus, burning, itching, rash

So given this cleaning process, what is optimal bowel elimination?

•Bowels: 2-3 formed movements spread throughout the day;

•Urination: no night time urination and daytime frequency every 2-3 hours;

•Uterus: (for women who are fertile) 27-29 day cycle, bleeding 4-5 days that does not start and stop, pain free or minor discomfort only, no mid cycle spotting.

How do I improve mine?

So what therapies do I use during Stage One to open elimination?
1.I ask clients to begin to increase the raw plant-based items in their diets, starting with an all-fruit cleansing meal for breakfast to jump start lymphatic activity and elimination.

2.I also suggest a Gemmotherapy protocol that is individualized according to one’s current elimination, level of vitality, and state of inflammation.

Wouldn’t you like this to be the year that you resolved your seasonal allergies? Or possibly it’s that painful menses that gets in your way each month or chronic headaches? Whatever the symptom, the very reason you struggle with it is because the organs and systems designed to resolve it are not functioning at their best. This poor function directly impacts your immunity, your body’s ability to distinguish self from nonself.

Throughout the early years of my trainings and clinical practice I discovered that immunity can begin to restore and symptoms can be resolved when these two steps are followed:

1. Optimize Elimination, specifically bowel and kidney function
2. Clean and Fortify Organs, engaging with the lymphatic and circulatory systems

These steps are best achieved with a plant-based diet and an individualized Gemmotherapy protocol based to support the organs that will be doing the work.

What I have discovered after the first 100 cases testing my method was that individuals who did not make the needed shift in their daily diet, continued to deal with symptoms.

Let’s look at it this way. There is not a parent I know who can’t identify with the never ending chore of decluttering the house. You get things just where you want them, and then in come all those people you love, with all your heart, leaving a trail of their “stuff” right through what you tidied up. Urgh! Now you’ve got to start the chore of cleaning all over again!

The same is true in your body. You make all the effort to clean and support healing of your symptoms by taking Gemmotherapy and homeopathic protocols and yet on a daily basis add to the “clutter” by eating foods that cause inflammation—even in small amounts as a treat! Not only does this keep your body in a constant state of inflammation it is exhausting as well. Imagine what you could do with all of that extra energy!

What your body wants is a diet that compliments and supports its natural ability to clean, eliminate and heal itself. This is a built-in process you come into this world with—you don’t even need to upgrade, you just have to take care to work with the amazing body you have.

Your body is a great communicator and those symptoms that get you down are just an example of it telling you some changes are needed. Sure, you can choose to ignore the symptoms or suppress them with medication, but the inflammation doesn’t go away.

You get to choose whether you listen now and take care or wait until the inflammation becomes chronic and the effects lead to a diagnosis.

.

I’ve written many posts about the very simple symptoms that are commonly ignored or suppressed that should be alarms to you that your body is not happy with what you are feeding it. Here’s one example of the symptoms often seen in children and here’s another of those in adults. If you see your symptoms listed, then it is about what you are eating and it’s time to make a change. Here’s some inspiration to get you started.

Is it going to be easy? No, actually not to begin with. We live in a loud world with a lot of money spent to sell you products that are going to keep you inflamed, keep you dealing with symptoms, and keep you from living the life you were born to live.

But, you don’t have to change everything at once, because it will be overwhelming. Changing the way you eat is like learning a whole new language, one word or phrase at a time until eventually you are fluent, or almost! Change your breakfast and stay with that until you can’t even remember what a breakfast taco tasted like, which by the way, you can eat for lunch, or better yet, dinner—just hold the cheese.

Over the course of the next few weeks, while I revisit and update past blog posts, I’ll take you through the process of making the appropriate shifts. Until then, load up on your fruit for breakfast and Increase the veggies you eat throughout the day!

Last week I explained how chronic symptoms will appear at particular stages in one’s lifetime when the basic functions of cleaning, eliminating and healing are compromised. I called on parents to be aware and responsive to very simple symptoms that appear in their baby or young child, one of those in particular is constipation. By parent’s responding EARLY the healing process is EASY! Taking care of simple constipation early in life can prevent a host of chronic problems from developing. The longer the body must compensate for its inability to clean, the more serious the symptoms become over time and the longer and more complicated the healing process.

Over the years in my practice it has become very apparent that the body moves through specific stages in order to completely heal—where symptoms no longer occur and the inflammation is not just relocated. Skipping steps isn’t an option if a lasting cure is desired. Last summer I began working with this idea and shared a blog post on the Stages of Healing. Since that time the process has matured and there is good news. Last year I saw that there were five stages of healing and now it seems there are only four—so there is one step less for your body!

These four stages have now become my core methodology and I am pleased to now begin sharing it with my clients and other like-minded practitioners. Just last May in Timisoara, Romania I had the honor of sharing The Living Well 4™ Methodology to two hundred physicians and pharmacists who believe in the body’s self healing capabilities and are looking for a treatment path to restore it.

I am pleased to share with you the Living Well 4™ in graphic form! Below you will see each stage of cleaning and what, based on my clinical practice, works best to support each stage—A Plant-Based Diet, Gemmotherapy and Homeopathy. Your awareness and understanding of each stage should help you chart your own healing progress. Your care and attention to your protocols is what will gauge your progress.

So, how do you know where you are in this process? It’s all dependent on the symptoms your body is producing. Here’s a simple outline to explain.

You are at Stage One if your elimination is not optimized, meaning you are not having two formed, easily passed bowel movements daily, and/or you are regularly waking at night to urinate.

You are at Stage Two if elimination has been optimized but you are having menstrual symptoms, bloating, skin conditions, headaches, painful inflammation anywhere in the body, sleep disturbances, or anxiety.

You are at Stage Three if elimination has been optimized and most of your symptoms mentioned in Stage Two have healed or are greatly reduced.

You are at Stage Four when your elimination is optimized, symptoms are healed and you need light support to manage inherited organ weaknesses or damage done by pharmaceuticals or physical injury.

Ready to start cleaning your body so it can heal naturally? I’d love to be your guide.  Check back next week and I will share the key starting point to the Living Well 4™—a plant-based diet.

Last week I shared a story that depicts the classic pharmaceutical treatment spiral that is quite commonplace in women’s healthcare. Since writing that I have received numerous inquiries from women who have stories that are, truthfully, heartbreaking. Following the advice of their ob/gyn physicians and believing they were helping their symptoms by taking hormonal birth control, these women are now in a state of aggravated symptoms and struggling to conceive. The message I have reiterated in each of these posts—Menstrual Symptoms What’s Normal?, The Root of Infertility, Could this be your Daughter?, Painful Periods, Stop the Suppression—is that suppressing menstrual symptoms is not, and never will be, the right answer.

When explaining the crucial role menstruation plays in womens’ health in my office recently, I gave this example: we could not even imagine a health practice that would suppress bowel movements when they are irregular. Why then have we accepted that as a standard treatment for menstrual cycles?

While there is much more to be said on this topic of fertility, I will be closing out this series by making a case for detoxing the body rather than following the conventional treatment for infertility.

Making a Case for Detox vs. IVF for Infertility

If you or a close friend or family member have gone through IVF you know it’s a difficult, emotionally charged and expensive process. Because there are success stories, it has become the  accepted “conventional” approach. What I’ve learned from the women who come to my office, however, is that IVF is just the last step along a long trail of pharmaceutical treatments that started for most of the women when they took their first hormonal birth control pill or had an IUD implanted.

I believe the actual approach to fertility should be to first re-balance the body until the menses occurs every 28-30 days and with little to no discomfort. This change alone signifies a healthy body with a high fertility rate. It’s important to know that fertility rates decline as the body’s elimination routes are compromised and wastes build up in the system. The uterus can’t serve its purpose as a womb when the body is using it to help clean accumulated wastes the bowels and kidneys did not eliminate. Adding hormonal birth control to lessen or stop monthly flow creates even more havoc.

What if you are ready for a baby but your body is not? The best thing you can do is to get your body ready by helping it to clean out the build up of wastes created by years of meds and a less than perfect diet. The state your body is in when you conceive affects not only your pregnancy but the long term health of the child you are carrying. So cleaning up the system not only impacts your health and your fertility, it has positive consequences for your children throughout their lifetime.

So now that we’re talking about a much greater and longer impact than just a 9 month pregnancy, let’s look at some of the details of a typical process.

Joan came into my office a few months back looking for answers to why she was struggling to get pregnant. Like many of my clients, she had followed the conventional medical treatment of hormonal birth control to suppress the pain, irregularity and additional symptoms of her menstrual cycle during her late teens and twenties. Now in her 30’s and thinking about starting a family, her body isn’t really up to the task. Those painful periods in her teens were the body’s way of saying “Pay attention. Something is wrong here.” What was wrong was inflammation caused by diet and difficulty eliminating wastes, but she was told to treat it by suppressing the pain.

The original problem was that her bowels and kidneys were not efficiently eliminating the wastes. Her uterus tried to take up the slack, but also got bogged down and inflamed, which then caused the secondary symptoms of cramping and heavy flow. This means that Joan’s reproductive organs have been mired in all that build up of stagnant lymphatic fluid, which, by the way, is acid. It seems fairly clear that doesn’t lead to healthy organ tissue by any means. Unhealthy organ tissue means that organs simply cannot perform their function. Think of it if like a dirty air filter in your air conditioner.  Every smart AC technician will tell you a clean filter optimizes function and a dirty one makes the ac work twice as hard. To solve this problem you wouldn’t boost the power of your AC you would just clean the filter, right? Same is true for your reproductive organs.

If Joan had sought conventional help to get pregnant she would have been treated with medications to stimulate the function of the organs that are tired, dirty and sluggish. If the first level of treatment is unsuccessful there are stronger medications and more refined procedures all optimized to push unhealthy organs to perform in ways they have tried to make clear they are not up to. It’s a testament to the inherent strength of our organs that the IVF approach actually yields a success rate of over 50% nationally.

Beyond my concern for mothers is an interest in a healthy fetus and child. When the pharmaceutical treatment is successful, we then have a baby developing in a less than optimal environment. Conventional medicine rarely discusses that problem. The rate of premature deliveries of IVF babies doubles that of naturally conceived babies and for some very obvious reasons. On top of that, the increased health struggles faced over the lifetime of an infant who arrives prematurely are significant. While medical science has advanced in the area of neonatal care, much of this is completely avoidable if mom is in a healthy state at the beginning of the pregnancy.

Here’s what I propose:

1. Get yourself familiar with how the body cleans and heals itself.
2. Begin a clear plan supervised by your health practitioner that features a clean, plant-based diet, gemmotherapy and works on these four steps:
   •  Opening your elimination organs
   •  Cleaning and restore organ tissues
   •  Optimizing organ function
   •  Supporting your body’s ability to harmonize
3. When your bowel and kidney elimination and menstrual cycle is regulated, then consider getting pregnant.

Do I guarantee success? No I don’t because I do believe there is more at play in bringing forth life than just your physical state, but I do guarantee that you will have a clean, healthy, harmonized body if you see your way through the entire process. You will be in a better space to make decisions that will be wise and informed for all involved.

Please check back in next week. I will revisit and update a post from last summer that depicts what happens over the course of your life when your body does not clean and eliminate efficiently.

Last month I began a series of posts regarding the connection between menstrual symptoms, birth control and infertility. The last post I shared was about a young lady in her teens that sought me out for help with long, painful periods followed by days of discharge. I shared how these symptoms were actually signs of a deeper imbalance and her body’s way to compensate for stressed bowels and kidneys. My protocol for her paired the elimination of dairy (due to its inflammatory nature) with Gemmotherapy to support her bowel and kidney elimination.

This young lady was fortunate to find an alternative that addressed the root of the problem rather than a conventional approach of symptom suppression. For most women, their conventional (allopathic) physicians or nurse practitioners will recommend the one tool they have—some form of hormonal birth control. The “regulation” that occurs with this method is actually just suppression of the symptoms that signal weakness in the kidneys and bowels. Whether the symptoms continue or not, the underlying condition rages onward and three things occur:

1. Inflammation increases in the reproductive organs impacting fertility later in life.
2. Undue pressure is put on the kidneys and bowels to clean the body resulting in aggravated symptoms such as frequent UTI’s, staph, constipation, loose frequent stools, acid reflux and bloating.
3. Built-up lymphatic waste that is not eliminated creates secondary symptoms such as acne, hair thinning, headaches, weight gain, sleep disturbances and anxiety, just to name a few.

As you can see, when one problem such as irregular menses is “solved” through symptom suppression, a multitude of additional symptoms actually occur. Even more worrisome: these additional symptoms are seldom seen as related to the original prescription and then are treated individually to no avail. This begins a ridiculous downward treatment spiral that has become the story for so many of today’s young women in the U.S.

Here’s another story for you. Helen was approaching 30 and tired of struggling with anxiety, sleep difficulties, exhaustion, acne and weight gain. She is a beautiful, bright professional, in a committed relationship, not yet ready for a child, who believes she should feel better than she does on a day-to-day basis.

Helen experienced horrific periods as a teen, waking in the night to excruciating pain, heavy flow to the point she felt uncomfortable leaving the house and menses that would go on 7-9 days each month. Like the majority of her peers, she found her way to the OB/GYN who treated her with the one tool available in conventional medicine—hormonal birth control—to suppress her symptoms. Like “magic” the symptoms became a thing of the past. Her flow shortened, the pain decreased by 50%, and she no longer dreaded that “time of the month.” Life moved on for Helen to art school where she began to notice her anxiety creeping up to the point she struggled with falling asleep each night and had panic attacks during the day. When she returned to her physician it was suggested she begin treatment with antidepressants.

Can you see where this is going? This is exactly the treatment spiral I referred to and I can speak to it on both a professional and personal level. Helen’s story is not so far off from my own journey. Unfortunately for me, it took a cancer diagnosis to get me on anther treatment track. Professionally I see this day in and day out.

Let me share with you the steps to rebalance Helen’s elimination. By the time I met Helen she had discontinued the anti-depressants on her own.

1. Dietary changes supported by Gemmotherapy protocol to optimize elimination from the bowels and kidneys.
2. After 30 days, discontinued use of birth control pills.
3. A daily homeopathic protocol to reduce cramping along with the next level Gemmotherapy protocol to engage the lymphatic system to clean the body.

What Helen experienced was a first menstrual cycle similar to what she had as a teen then a steady improvement each subsequent month. As we move through the four stages of healing her body we will see what organs may need continued support due to inherited genetic weakness.

Using my methodology is optimal for teens, but it is never too late. Unwinding this process for women in their late 20’s and early 30’s is something I do frequently in my office. While it is important to note that the rebalancing process is absolutely possible no matter how deep into the conventional cycle one is, it takes commitment to a clean diet and patience with your body as it begins to self regulate.

Next week I will wrap up this series on Gemmotherapy and fertility by sharing information on the steps I use to increase fertility for women desiring a child and how my approach compares to conventional treatment.

There has been some very exciting news in the science world this past month regarding the brain and lymphatic system. This is huge for health practitioners such as myself who practice a holistic methodology based on supporting the body’s natural ability to clean and heal itself. The new discovery of a tangible, proven connection between the body’s primary cleaning system and the brain takes these natural methodologies to the next level.

Over the past few years there has been a steady flow of discoveries regarding the relationship between the gut and the brain, understanding the impact of gut flora on how the brain functions, and how this all impacts chronic symptoms. Now we know there is actually direct communication between the brain, through the lymphatic system, to digestive organs and finally the body’s organs of elimination. These new findings put a completely new spin on preventing and healing many life altering chronic diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Autism, ADHD, Depression, Anxiety, Dementia, and so much more.

Very cool science, but what does this mean for you? Well, it means your lymphatic system is much more important than you realized and it certainly needs more care and support than most people have provided up to this point. It also means that chronic symptoms experienced in the head are really connected to imbalances in the rest of your body.

It’s quite a challenge for many of my clients to understand what sinusitis has to do with their diet and gut or why migraines are related to weak kidneys. This new discovery proves it really is all connected! To use a simple analogy, this is why a closure of I35 in Austin could affect traffic flow in San Marcos and Dallas. When the cities are connected by the same highway there are going to be some corollary effects. While your body is a series of complex highways, the one pathway for cleaning out garbage is your lymphatic system, and if it is not functioning at any point along the way there are going to be symptoms from the deposits of waste fluids. Some basics regarding the lymphatic system’s cleaning process can be found on my blog article, Lymphatic System 101.

At about the same time I also wrote a post about the cisterns in your head that are like mini-septic tanks. Over your lifetime they fill up and keep your head in a state of acidosis. Chronic sinusitis, tinnitus or ear problems of any kind, premature graying of hair, thinning of hair, balding, headaches, migraines and tics are just some of the possible negative effects of this state. These are not symptoms to ignore—they are signs your cisterns are full and need cleaning!

In my experience I honestly don’t know anything that cleans and fortifies the lymphatic system to the same degree as a plant-based alkalizing diet and Gemmotherapy. In fact, there are more Gemmotherapy extracts for lymphatic cleansing than any other organ system. There are even Gemmotherapy extracts for cleaning the lymphatic system in specific parts of the body beginning with the head!

With this new knowledge, it’s easy to imagine what the impact over a lifetime of acidosis of the head may lead to. It seems just a matter of time until clear links will be made to degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. These findings are very likely to rally pharmaceutical companies to make new drugs, but you have another option. You can use this information along with what you already know about a whole food, plant-based diet that is affirmed by a growing number of mainstream physicians such as Mark Hyman, Thomas Campbell, Joel Furman , Neal Barnard. Start supporting your lymphatic system now knowing you are truly cleaning your body from head to toe—or better yet, from brain to bowel!

Next week I will return to where I left off before my travels to Europe on the topic of infertility. I will share the story of a young woman’s experience of coming off a hormonal birth control method she used since her teens in order to suppress her extreme menstrual symptoms. You will see how—together with dietary changes, Homeopathy and Gemmotherapy—we rebalanced her elimination systems and healed those painful weeks she lived with each month.