Book Review – Mind Over Medicine ~ Dr. Lissa Rankin
I have been on my own personal healing journey for almost 5 years. Diagnosed in 2008 with an autoimmune dis-ease called rheumatoid arthritis, I was told I would never heal and the best treatment was a cocktail of chemotherapy drugs to slow the progress of the disease. There was no attempt to diagnose potential root causes of the dis-ease, because most current thinking in the medical system is that we don’t know what causes these illnesses. A year and a half later, my hair started falling out and my rheumatologist said “I’m sorry, you’re the first person to ever lose their hair on this low of a drug dosage.” Hhmmm, my mind was racing. Why was I the first? Why was I different? Am I ultra-sensitive to these drugs?
Around the same time, I visited an “energy healer” at the urging of a friend. In one session, tailbone pain that I had been experiencing for over a year disappeared and has never returned. I couldn’t explain what had happened, but my belief system had certainly changed. There was a lot more going on in the body than what I was being told by the people in the health care system.
I have been researching about the body’s ability to heal itself and the mind-body connection in healing ever since. I have read every book I could get my hands on, digesting material like a sponge. I started writing a blog and sharing it with friends and family and whoever else I could get to read it. I was on a mission. I was somewhat frustrated with my experience with the healthcare system and I didn’t want to be the type to sit back and wait for others to solve the problem. I had to get involved somehow.
In 2012, I saw a TEDx talk from Dr. Lissa Rankin that shifted my beliefs a wee bit more, and gave me some encouragement. Here was another person who was on the same wave length. I wanted to reach out to her but I had limiting beliefs that she would be so inundated with messages after her TEDx talk that she wouldn’t even read my note. But I reached out anyway. I wrote about her in a blog, then I sent her an email. 15 minutes later, she commented on my blog post and 15 minutes after that, she responded to my email. Fast forward a year and I have now not only met Lissa but am working with her on a community project to heal the health care system (details to follow very soon).
Lissa’s book “Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself” is launching in early May, 2013 and I am privileged to have received a galley copy in advance. While I’m not surprised, I’m still giddy with delight as I turn the pages. The book is filled with scientific evidence to back each of her points, and is still a very easy read. She has an ability to provide the data in a logical and convincing fashion, while still encouraging the reader to come to his/her own conclusions, and ultimately write their own prescription using the method she outlines in the book.
I admit that I may be biased because our beliefs are so similar, but my thoughts are that the material in this book truly leads us to shift our thinking about how we look at our health and illness, and REMEMBER the body’s innate ability to help heal itself. It contains a wealth of information, as well as practical approaches for you to develop your own personal approach to your health and happiness. I would go so far as to suggest that this book should form part of a curriculum for students from early ages where subconscious beliefs and programming are first formed, right through to medical school. Anyone diagnosed with a health condition, anyone “worried” that they might be predisposed to a condition, or anyone simply looking to maintain their existing good health can benefit from reading this book.
Once we learn to use all of the resources at our disposal to create a healthy environment for our minds and bodies, we will not only experience more personal healing from the root causes of illness, it is my belief that we will see a radical drop in the prevalence of dis-ease in society as a whole.
Bravo Lissa, well done.
To order an advanced copy of the book and find out about other promotions, click here.
Written by Ken
Ken Jaques describes himself as a Health Care Evolutionary, Community Builder, and Speaker. True healing begins when we treat root causes instead of just masking symptoms. Diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in 2008, Ken has experienced many facets of the health care system. As “the only patient who ever lost their hair on this low of a dosage of chemotherapy” – as spoken by his rheumatologist – Ken has been on an amazing journal of self-discovery, a journey of true healing. In his blog, Ken shares stories of how his beliefs have changed over the past few years, and how they are still changing. Is it possible that our bodies can heal themselves? Do we really have to live without hope after we receive a chronic illness diagnosis? These are the types of questions that Ken encourages people to ask themselves as they embark on their own physical or emotional healing journey.
Ken is creating a platform to connect People, Patients, Practitioners, Partners and Promoters, enabling a collaborative effort to help shift the focus on health from I-llness to We-llness. Check out the pilot at www.myHealthyCommunity.ca.
“When ‘I’ is replaced with ‘we’, even I-llness becomes WE-llness” ~ Malcolm X
Ted, you haven’t told us what happened to your rheumatoid arthritis, a wee bit remiss given that what the tale is ail about and would definitely make it more interesting. Makes it look as if your hiding that it DIDN’T go away, just your pain in the butt.
ARTHRITIS.
I had very bad osteo-arthritis about 15 years ago as diagnosed by a local GP. Got prescribed an NSAID anti inflammatory. Three days and it didn’t work any more. Anyway I knew what to do, treat it as gout as I reckon that all forms of arthritis, including RA start out as gout, even though it is SUPPOSED to be an auto immune disease. A crystal of uric acic precipitates out in the joint because 1.it is COLDER than surrounding tissue, as the joint is not as well vascularised and because it has a lower pH due to lactic acid building up in the joint as it doesn’t receive as much oxygen, for the same reason. (anaerobic fermentation.)
A macrophage grabs the crystal and it enters the cytoplasm of the cell and binds to the membrane of a lysosome, a bag full of so called acid hydrolases, enzymes which break down cell debri, including viruses etc. The ‘garbage bags’ of the cell. Now crystals in a joint are NOT supposed to form and the macrophage cannot deal with it and the crystal ruptures the lysosome membrane causing the acid hydrolases to spew into the cell an kill it. With its pumps now switched off the cell swells up and bursts, so called necrotic cell death.
The acids inside the cell pour into the joint therefore lowering the pH even more plus there is whole lot of cell debri now in the joint which elicits an inflammatory reaction. (When a cell dies by APOPTOSIS or programmed cell suicide everything in the cell is completely broken down to individual molecules, amino acids, fatty acids, nucleic acids etc. by those same ACID HYDROLASES, molecules which can be RYCYCLED by surrounding cells. Nothing ANTIGENIC, ie nothing big enough to elicit an immune response and thus an inflammatory response.)
So more crystals precipitate out due to the further lowered pH, more dead macrophages, even lower pH in cascade and the joint begins to heat up as more blood flows through it. This heating then slows or stops the cascade. Uric acid, the breakdown product of PURINE DNA, is not well handled by the human physiology and as it is mostly concentrated in meat, shell fish, it would seem to indicate that man is not even an omnivore, but a herbivore. A carnivore had a much shorter intestine.
Now to the RA. It is supposed to be caused by cells lining the synovial (joint) cavity being attacked by cells of the immune system. But is it? Or are these cells injured by the hostile environment created by the GOUT so that all the cells of the immune system are doing is removing dead and injured cells. Why the ‘attack’ is supposed to be inappropriate is because these cells express what are called MHC-2 (master histocompatability complex-2) receptors which are normally only expressed by APC’s (antigen presentation cells) of the immune system. Normal body cells express MHC-1 when infected by a virus, say and this triggers a T8 killer cell to knock it off. An MHC-2 triggers a T4 cell response which in turn triggers maybe apoptosis or a killer cell response.
Now under the electron microscope it is impossible to tell the difference between normal cells being inappropriately clobbered by immune cells or sick and dead cells being removed by same immune system. I put this question to researchers I knew at the Lorne Genome and Cancer conferences I used to attend, and they admitted that you couldn’t tell the difference as the specimen has to be freeze fractured in liquid nitrogen and coated with a metal oxide in preparation for microscopy. Dawkins dogma says that everything has to attack every other bloody thing hence the presumption of cells under attack..
This same thing applies to ALL auto-immune diseases, MS, Diabetes 1 etc. With MS and Diabetes I believe that these cells, beta cells of the pancreas and Schwann cells in the brain are killed and injured by big swings in blood glucose (reactive hypoglycaemia) caused by eating refined sugar, when combined with liver pathology and the same thing could apply to RA.
Anyway to make a short story long, I cut right back on the meat, made Kombucha tea and drank it, and got plenty of sun on me for vitamin D and my incurable osteo-arthritis was completely cured. Kombucha tea is supposed to contain glucuronic acid which conjugates or binds to uric acid and makes it more water soluble for elimination in the urine. At a urine pH of 8, slightly alkaline, 4 times more uric acid is cleared into the kidney’s nephron than at a pH of 6, slightly acidic.
This was 14 years ago. When I backslid about 6 months ago and the arthritis came back I discovered STINGING NETTLE, applied topically (ouch) and the pain is gone in about 10 minutes. It’s a powerful analgesic. It also CURES, when combined with the other stuff.
KOMBUCHA. I had gouty arthrisis (to give it it’s full name) on Boxing day about eighteen years ago so bad I could hardly stand up. All the booze and the meat on Xmas day. A friend brought me a glass of Kombucha a couple of times during the day, my introduction to it. Next day I walked about 12 miles up and down some pretty steep slopes without ANY discomfort. Pure MAGIC. Takes about a fortnight to brew.
Ken,
I was wondering if you have tried the Kombucha yet as I love a bit of positive feedback, naturally.