Category: Tips

Posted in ASD, detox, Lyme, PANDAS, PANS, Tips

Choose Detox Success

Posted on by Annie Eskeldson

Detox of ‘dis-ease’ is a necessary yet irksome process where healing makes us feel much worse before we feel better. This unfair turn-around taxes the body and emotions so deeply that waves of doubt and fear can easily overcome us. Choppy waters take our eyes off the prize; calling it quits look attractive, and our longed-for rescue boat sorrowfully drifts away in search of another sailor who might stay the stormy course.

We have navigated this crazy trail for two years with wild success and I want to help you overcome fear and doubt to achieve the same results. Yes, we had scary days, weeks, and months where the notorious towel nearly got tossed. We had tears, anxiety, and flares with over the top mental and physical distress.

But like a lighthouse in a dark and stormy sea, I chose to let every gain be a beacon to signal the way towards a dry land called Healing. Each tiny, one-at-a-time improvement in sleep or poop or pain reduction, tolerating previous food allergens, cognitive growth, a trigger that no longer caused flare, or a word from a non-verbal child was like a beacon of hope. I chose to hang onto each little light sliver for dear life, and vowed to press on for the next one.

My suggestions below may come across as ‘in your face’ and be a turn off, but they were necessary for us to recover. We had lost our ability to function as a family spiraling from home bound to bed bound. We were broke from multiple specialists and protocols, sleep deprived, exhausted with no support or respite system, and we were so battle weary and afraid as one of ours seemed to not have much time left. So, my face-the-music ideas are based on our very dramatic turn around. While sounding too transformational to some, they may be key to others who wanting to heal, no matter the cost.

Focus

Face book detox. It sounds paradoxical, but leaving my face book medical ‘support’ groups boosted our healing. I know, I know, it’s so supportive, right? Well, maybe not as supportive as you might think. I listed some behaviors that may sound familiar:

  • Cross checking doctor on FB after every appointment.
  • Changing doctor’s protocol based on the advice of strangers.
  • Always searching for the latest, greatest, magic supplement.
  • Buying supplements not knowing correct dosage or if genuine need exists.
  • Dealing with FB Admins who argue your success despite improvement.

Here are some other critical thoughts:

  • If any of the above behaviors proved successful, we’d be healed by now.
  • The behaviors I listed above feed fear and doubt, not healing.
  • The groups do not communicate the lowermost level of illness that asd, pans, pandas really is, but I’m here to tell you, it’s the bottom of the health barrel. This is not DIY. We need help.
  • Face book is addictive, invasive, and all that internet usage creates chaos internally, making infections worse.
  • Face book feeds the nature of now, but ASD, PANS, PANDAS, Lyme, and auto-immune problems do not heal that way. These require patience, dedication, persistence, life-style change, sacrifice, determination, and education.
  • We did not need IVIG, stem cell, fecal implant, any invasive procedure, testing, or conventional medicine despite having severe cases. FB feeds into the frenzy of parents demanding these types of expensive procedures.
  • The groups are information overload, not specific to anyone.
  • Biofeedback streamlined everything we needed and we tossed what we didn’t. We needed a whole lot less, not more.
  • After success under us, and getting our lives back, my message of healing is often argued (oddly in my (ex) favorite groups) so healing really isn’t the true goal of some some of these groups.

Take your Life Back

  • Grab a bestie in the trenches to call and text instead of using face book. Communicate in the real world by phone calls or meeting up. Ditching the keyboard has been a true support. Don’t have anyone like that? Sure you do! Pick a bestie from face book and change how you communicate.
  • Use your practitioner as your source of information, not face book. His/her fee includes communication with you. Your treatment is individualized to you. No group holds a candle to that!
  • Focus on the gains. Embrace each one and don’t let go until you see the next. Let the small gains be huge. They’ll get bigger but we have to crawl before we can walk. You’ll be running before you know it.
  • Focus on family. With your time freed from face book, interaction and engagement with family fosters healing on the emotional, developmental, and behavioral planes which feed into healing physiological health too.
  • Spend some time researching resources related to the issues you are facing. Books that really went the distance for us were from Dr. Andreas Moritz, Stephen Buhner, Dr. Joe Rozencwaig, and so many others. And of course, just going back to school put so many books and doctors before me to study.
  • Surround yourself with others who are kind, winning, and supportive. Ditch those who want to fight or argue with you, especially if it’s on face book.

Understand

  • Dealing with infections like parasites, pathogens, retro-virus, metals, biotoxins, or having a leaky gut, food allergens, inflammation, and reactions to everything means we are literally swirling the toilet drain of health.
  • Drs Judy Mikovitz and Klinghardt call this AIDS minor. Grasp the level of illness with which we are dealing.
  • Know that you will not be healed in a few days, a couple of weeks, or maybe several months. It may even take a couple of years. Re-read the first two bullet points.
  • Healing naturally does not imply healing alone, cheaply, or quickly.
  • There is Good News! you will see gains all along which keep you motivated to fight and they will get bigger and better with invested time.
  • Focus on the gains you see each day. I said this above, but I’m saying it differently here. You are going to continue to have flares. Repeat, you are going to continue to have flares, but ( a really big but), they are going to gradually reduce in strength and frequency, and the triggers will begin to become easier to identify, manage, and then gradually disappear.
  • Focus on the time you spend not in flares. Maybe you experienced a flare today, but it lasted 10 minutes instead of 4 hours. Woah! That’s awesome! Maybe you experienced a flare today, but because you have peeled back so many layers, you know the exact cause and can squash it in minutes. Wow! That’s amazing! Focus on the positive.
  • Peeling back those ‘layers’ reveals underlying causes of issues so that they, too, can be solved, permanently.
  • The annoying cliche ‘it’s a marathon, not a sprint’ is an irritating truth you’ll have to decide to consciously live each day, maybe on a minute by minute basis for awhile.
  • Know that each layer may reveal new problems sending us backwards for a short time. It’s a healing pattern you’ll identify better down the road. But each uncovering, at the root, brings new solutions and new level of gains!

Changes in Diet

  • Buy Organic. It’s not a personal attack on your cooking, shopping, or on how much you love your family; It’s just a fact Jack: Detox is expensive, hard work. You are removing toxins and infections underlying dis-ease. You are wasting every cent and second if you are eating toxins at the same time you’re trying to eliminate them.
  • Eat Raw and Organic. This doesn’t mean you can’t ever cook or bake, but 80% of your diet should be raw, organic vegetables and fruits. Processed food contains almost zero of the nutrition our cells need to heal. You like the right tools? Give your cells the right tools, they’ll get the job done!
  • Remove gluten, dairy, soy, sugar, GMO corn, plus any allergens or foods that may cause reaction such as high oxalates, thiols, phenols or salicylates. These foods are inflaming to the body, soy is estrogenic, all corn is GMO unless specified organic, gluten molecules are so similar to thyroid hormone that some doctors believe it may be tricking the thyroid straight into hypothyroidism, and sugar, plainly put, is the devil.
  • Gluten free means buy raw veggies, fruits, and meats. It does not mean buy packages of processed foodstuffs labeled ‘gluten free.’ Those are commonly devoid of nutrition and full of sugar. Avoid the aisles at the g store and stay on the perimeter instead.
  • Drink filtered water. I use two different filters. One is a Zero Water filter which gets out all Total Dissolved Solids and glyphosate. This is a great filter if you have kidney issues. I also have an alkaline filter from EHM. This filter takes out the bad stuff and puts back in the good minerals to keep water alkaline. If you have kidney problems, this is not a filter you should use. If you can afford a whole house system, this is the way to go. The heat from showers and baths open the pores and a fairly large percentage of toxins in water can get into our bodies while bathing.
  • Stop using your microwave and especially don’t microwave using plastic! Don’t eat with plastic utensils. I asked Dr. Moore for a detox tip he would give the general public, and this was it.
  • Research the organs and foods that support them. For example, through detox, we had liver, kidney, bladder, gut, gall bladder issues and so as we seemed to systematically move through each organ, it occurred to me to add foods good for each particular organ and conversely, keep away from foods that would irritate. It’s very easy to research this topic.
  • Research eating for your blood type. You might be shocked to learn that blood type can be an indicator of foods your body can and can’t handle.
  • Research proper food combining. I have a link to a free book by Dr. Shelton in the post directly below this one.

Miscellaneous Paradigm Changing Ideas

  • Don’t worry about all the things you may be missing. They’ll be there when you’re healthy. I know how much it hurts and how few understand. It’s a hardness born out of love and survival in PANS/PANDAS/ASD/Lyme parents. Try to let go, focus on healing, and life will be easier when there is health.
  • Consider homeschooling until kids are well. Most of us have PTSD from what we are going through, but we are passing that to teachers and other students when we send our flaring kids to school. I guess you can demand IEPs or special school plans, but bottom line, these kids are sick. I can’t imagine recovering my kids if they were gone all day. Their diets and toxin exposure must be kept in order and there is NO way I’d put that responsibility on anyone other than myself.
  • Learn about herbs.
  • Learn about homeopathy.
  • Get rid of internet. I use the hot spot on my cell when internet is needed, otherwise, it’s off. It’s definitely contributed to healing.

Stay the course, get in the know, ditch the bad, keep the good, find a good friend and stay in contact, focus on the gains, read our Bibles, depend on the Lord. Healing is just over the next wave. If we can do it at our house, anyone can do it. If you ever need support, I’ll throw you a life preserver.

If this sounds like an overwhelming list, contact me at New Leaf Holistic. I’ll help you keep it all together.

Posted in detox, Tips

Detox Drop

Posted on by Annie Eskeldson

Every detox journey is individual but I hope our experience offers a ball park idea of what to expect. Detox was more difficult and costly, and further prolonged than I ever expected. Yet it was far more healing and curative than I ever comprehended. So, if you’re ready to dig in, this honest, raw rundown may help pave the road.

Do you need Detox? We had substantial symptoms we were dealing with. If you have even one of these and you are looking to heal, possibly cure, then detox may be your answer. The sooner the better. Walking was difficult and getting out of bed wasn’t always possible. Going outside to play for ten minutes would cause exhaustion that lasted for days. We could not poop, had severe food allergies, hypothyroidism, chronic fatigue, leaky gut, and severe eczema. The kidneys and liver were not working and the blood was full of bacteria. We had headbanging from auto-immune encephalitis, PANS, severe ASD symptoms, non-verbal, and incontinence. Four years with an MD/PhD MAPS doctor left us sicker than when we started and yielded a pitiful 20 points off our ATEC score. We also dealt with PANDAS symptoms like rage, aggression, debilitating OCD usurping hours of the day, and auditory hallucinations. Flares would come out of nowhere, multiple times a week, and we ‘tip-toed on egg-shells” attempting to fend off triggers. We had metal toxicity, retro-viral infections and Lyme plus many co-infections. After our ordeal, I believe most disease is rooted in toxins and retro-viruses and detox is the way to heal.

Detox is Hard. This is a relative statement and compared to all that we were dealing with, detox was better than helplessly standing by. If you are not severe or chronic, detox will still be difficult because of die off or herxing. You will have die off whether you use artificial drugs (antibiotics) or herbs, but artificial drugs will further the damage you already have because the body doesn’t recognize synthesized ingredients as healing and your control is limited. You can’t start an antibiotic, pull back if needed, and titrate back up because you would build up a resistance. That is not a problem for herbs making them more flexible to work with. And from the experiences I read, it seems many doctors prescribing antibiotics for say, strep infections, have little knowledge about detox, required nutrition, organ support, or binders necessary to bring on a level of comfort through detox in the first place. In my opinion, this is the key reason that those treating PANDAS with synthetic antibiotics are suffering so bad: you are killing pathogens but not mopping up the toxins they leave behind causing a horrible increase in symptoms. This reflects poorly on the doctors who simply don’t know better.

Detox Requires the Right Doctor. The standard, conventional doctor is going to be outside of his pharma box on this one. Let’s face it, they are trained to sell drugs which toxify us. Why would we go there to detox? It doesn’t even make sense. Find a functional doctor, a holistic doctor – we see a chiro/kinesiologist who is very skilled at detox and Lyme literate as well. You’re not really looking for someone who wants to just kill parasites, although that is part of it, you want someone who understands healing, supporting, and regenerating the organs, the immune system, and cleaning up the entire bodily environment as parts of detoxing. It all needs to go together in a careful balance.

Detox is a Commitment. Depending on the severity of infections and toxins, this process could take several months to years. While that may seem discouraging try to understand that parasites, biotoxins, retro-viruses, and other pathogens have taken up residence, built their own ecosystem inside you, and intertwined their existence with yours. If you have debilitating symptoms, then they are most likely systemic meaning they could be everywhere in your body. The structure they live and function in is called ‘biofilm’ which will all need to be torn down and removed. Parasites employ other parasites, they network with other pathogens, they feed off the metals in your body, they manipulate the yeast overgrowth that you can’t get rid of and retro-virus infections can switch genes off and on, undermining the entire detox process. Undoing this microcosm is not going to happen over the proverbial moon phase. As much as we want to, we can’t go after these things with a blow torch. First of all, the body is accustomed to working, however improperly, amidst the infections. Obviously you can’t go on like this, but it will take time to turn this dysfunctional ship around. Second, chronic and systemic infections mean the immune system is already compromised beyond the ability to handle die off and the blow back from the parasites would be unbearable. You’re working for balance here, not total annihilation. Think of nature. Good weeds live side by side with bad weeds all the time in our yards. There is balance. Just the same, while an herbal detox does kill pathogens, the real goal is to heal the environment so that the immune system can keep the pathogens in check on it’s own. That’s what occurs in healthy people. Third, since infections are extreme, the organs must be healed, strengthened, and supported. Without them working, you can’t detox. You can try, but you’ll have a hot mess. When you’re this far down, there will be times where focus is on strengthening the organs and you’re barely detoxing, but that is the careful dance that the right doctor can orchestrate.

Detox is an Investment. For a severe state, detox will run about $4000 per patient the first year. This is approximate, but this is the average across patients at our house. The second year should be considerably less, and so forth since functional doctors actually heal their patients and send them off to live life instead of making them patients for life. Further reducing cost over time is that less supplements are needed as healing occurs. Sounds expensive, and it is, at first, but considering we now have PANS, PANDAS, ASD, Lyme and co’s, and tons of auto-immune problems either healed or almost healed, it’s worth every penny. You get what you pay for. I believe the cost of healing those with ASD, PANS, PANDAS, Lyme, etc is a tremendous savings over the cost of life-long care. For example, one of my family members was incontinent well past the years he should be. Healing has allowed him to be potty-trained saving me about $200/month in diapers. That’s $2400/year and will probably pay for his second year of detox. See how my investment paid off?

Detox Requires Diet Changes. You cannot detox without changing your diet otherwise you’re flushing money straight down the toilet. Detox is hard and expensive work getting the yuck out, why put more in through our mouths? Diet is really not rocket science, thankfully. Eat organic meats, lower glycemic vegetables, fruits sparingly, and filtered water. Ditch everything else. A convenient guide is the AIP alongside removal of food allergens. You’ll be shutting off the supply of sugar, yeast, gluten, dairy, soy, and the glyphosate feeding those hungry parasites. You’ll stop the inflammation that is making you miserable and these foods will help you detox faster plus you’ll shed pounds (if needed), effortlessly.

Detox Requires Research. Talk to your doctor about resources, authors, and subjects related to what the two of you are trying to accomplish. You are a team. Our doctor has offered fresh ideas, mind-blowing perspective, and a strong confidence to fall back on when the going gets tough. He takes the time to educate and equip me with the tools I need to be successful. You will be the one putting in all the hard work at home and of course the hard earned cash so get in the know as much as you can. Ask questions. Doctors don’t know the answers to everything, but a good doctor is always seeking and will be happy to learn and teach. Resources I like are: our own doctor, Dr. Moore, Dr. Klinghardt, Dr. Judy Mikovits, Stephen H. Buhner, and Dr. Jay Davidson. There are so many others. I’ll add them as I think of them.

Don’t Detox Alone. The infections are worse than you know, herxing will be harder than you imagined, and detox will take longer than you planned. Please see a functional doctor educated in detox to guide you. I had long suspected a parasite issue and tried killing them via internet research, but herx happened, leaving me in a stupor. Was I doing the right thing? Should I continue? Should I stop? Is this reaction from allergies, a cold, or herx? The moon phase is over, are we done? See, I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. But our doctor did and he’s walked with us all along the way. We’ve used dosages I would’ve never tried on my own, used top quality products I never knew existed, and his kinesiology has been able to tell me exactly what is happening in our bodies, even that of someone who is non-verbal. I understand my kids, their behaviors, and how to help them so much better now.

What are the Gains? No more thyroid meds, adding back in previous food allergens, regular bowel movements, control of PANS flares, potty training, huge increase in cognitive ability, huge increase in non-verbal communication, attempts at speaking, eczema dramatically improved, 75 point drop in ATEC score (after 1 year), regular sleep for everyone, no more PANDAS flares and triggers are all gone, auditory hallucinations are gone. I’ll add more as they happen. We are 18 months in and we are still detoxing. Currently we are working on retro-viruses and detoxing some co-infections of Lyme.