Exiting Pharma

How to be/stay healthy without drugs

When I was a chid, doctors were gods. We never questioned anything they said. When, in the early 60’s, our local clinic told my mom they had some new vaccines, she marched us all in to get them. I have searched and searched, and have never been able to find a “poison ivy” vaccine that was introduced in the 60’s, (this is the only one I remember specifically). One of those vaccines gave me severe asthma. The clinic then told my mom I would likely die from asthma. For the next seven years, I had to go get two shots every week for “allergies.” With 8 kids in my family, and only one car, my illness was a huge burden. Finding someone to take me to my weekly shots, my monthly ER visits, my days home from school (I missed most of 4th and 5th grade) took a huge toll on my mother’s limited resources.

I couldn’t sleep at night due to my inability to breathe while lying down. I remember the thing I thought about most often was why my body was so different from the sister I shared a room with. Why was her body healthy? Why was mine so sick? Night after night, I tried to understand what made us different. This led to deep self reflection and an inordinate amount of time in my imagination. As my asthma got worse, I was excused from phy-ed (terrible decision!) causing me to become even more enfeebled. Walking up a flight of stairs became a process of climbing, resting, climbing, resting, and sometimes collapsing at the top in tears. Being unable to participate in the activities of a free range tribe of 8 left me feeling isolated, alone and always looking at life from outside a glass window.

I continued to trust the medical profession and never considered that my body had its own wisdom and ability to heal. That all came to a screeching halt when I was 24. I had an IUD “installed” when I was 22. A year later, I began bleeding heavily and was in agonizing pain. I called my doctor (who had put it in) begging for relief. He said, “I’m not examining you if you’re bleeding. You’re just having a miscarriage. Go to bed and wait for it to pass.” Every day the pain grew worse until I was crying non stop. Finally, he said, “I’m passing the buck. Go see a GYN.” The GYN took one look at my (still bleeding) uterus and said, “It all has to come out.” The IUD had been traveling around my uterus, ripping it apart in the process.

The day before my hysterectomy, the transmission in my car blew up. My boyfriend broke up with me at the hospital. And I had just quit my job. I decided I didn’t want to come out of surgery alive and prepared myself to die. But my body had other ideas. I woke up and after 2 days I realized I wasn’t going to die. And that the loss of my uterus needed to mean something. So I pledged a vow to my body that from that day forward, I was going to take full responsibility for her. I began studying herbs. Back to Eden became my bible. I read everything I could find on Dr. John Kellogg, who was considered a quack, but many of his ideas are now accepted mainstream ideas. I searched and researched all the alternative/ancient healing methods I could find. And I experimented on myself. I found that certain foods triggered asthma attacks. I found that certain family situations would trigger attacks. I discovered I loved to dance, and the more I danced, the healthier I became. I joined a gym. I started eating only organic fruits and vegetables. I gave up meat for two decades. I went into therapy and began taking responsibility for more and more of my life, being less willing to hand off my personal power as the years went by.

At age 27, I began freelancing in the film and advertising business (I had been on staff for five years prior to that. The company I had quit right before my hysterectomy offered me a sweet deal to come back, and I did). As a freelancer, I was required to get my own health insurance. By that time, I had established a fairly good health routine and support system. I looked at the fact that insurance would not pay for anything preventative, or alternatives such as homeopathics, chiropractic, acupuncture, etc., and it didn’t make any sense to me. I could spend a fraction of that money on all the things that kept me healthy. So that was the choice I made, and I have never regretted it. (I do have catastrophic insurance.) My body has taught me how to stay healthy, and what to do if I injure myself. I’ve become the go-to person in my little community of what to do when a doctors visit is not in the best interest.

I will be 70 this year and while I am slowing down, I still feel vibrant and able to participate fully in the things I love. So I thought I would share some of what keeps me healthy and happy.

Home Pharmacy

These are the “must haves” in my kitchen pharmacy. I don’t take them every day, and many of them are for when I feel run down or that I might be fighting something. Next stack I’ll go through these one by one and explain how I use them synergistically to prevent illness and/or recover from seasonal detox. I highly recommend everyone stock up on as many of these as you can afford, particularly the Iver and HCQ. You can buy them now fairly inexpensively in the US (I’m sure somebody in the SS community will know how to get it).

I will also begin posting some of the body language I have learned, and how the body speaks to us through illness or pain to bring attention to emotional issues. You can see me walk an audience through this process here: (the audience participation begins about 21:00)

Thanks for reading!