You know that engine light in your car?
How do you feel when it pops on?
Do you get that “oh my gosh, I gotta do something” feeling? That sense of urgency?
And isn’t it almost always on a weekend when no mechanics are available?
This happened recently so it is still very real in my mind. I tried to drive as little as necessary hoping I would make it until Monday to get to the car service.
Of course, I imagined all kinds of things that could be wrong – just a month before, there had been a fuel cap light that came on — I didn’t even know what that was– never had that before. And that turned out to be a fuel line leak costing lots of bucks.
So this new engine light staring me in the face was very concerning and bringing up all kinds of speculation for me – not good speculation either.
What does this have to do with your health? Just hang with me on this…I’ll explain.
After the car issue, my body provided me with an “engine warning light” experience. And it was PAINFUL!
I woke up on a Saturday morning, of course, with the big toe on my right foot, in the joint area, hugely inflamed, red hot with fever, painful as all get-out, and frankly impossible to walk on without wincing and limping.
Panic set in – this was new to me – and I felt that sense of urgency and was totally clueless about the cause. I looked for a bug bite mark – none. I checked for infection sites –none obvious to me.
Frustrating, painful, and I could not imagine what I should do. All-day I tried various things – putting CM cream laced with trauma oil on it –slight reduction in pain but in a few hours the full throbbing was back. I tried soaking it in salts and essential oils – no relief. I will spare you the continuous fruitless things I tried but eventually on the 2nd morning, as it still was flashing “warning” signs and pain to me, it popped in my mind to Google the word “gout” – I had never had it but it was somewhere in the recesses of my mind as a possibility.
Sure enough – there it was, in living color, exactly the description of my toe joint plus the description of the pain, red hot feeling and look plus fever warmth to it. Of course, I wanted to know 2 things – what caused it and what to do about it.
Their descriptions all agreed it was a form of inflammatory arthritis related to high levels of uric acid in the blood. The acid can form needle-like crystals in a joint and cause sudden, severe episodes of pain, tenderness, redness, warmth, and swelling.
OK, fine – got it – I don’t even know what uric acid is– but what do I DO about it? Turns out knowing what it was really was not as big for me at that moment as knowing what to DO about it.
And don’t let go of the car analogy yet – knowing the cause is pretty important, but we have an overwhelming need to DO something about it.
Of course, I checked what Google had as the options – yep, consistently they all recommended the same – NSAIDs like Ibuprofen, Corticosteroids such as prednisone and a full list of pharmaceuticals – all with a purpose of reducing the uric acid levels. Remember this point.
First, after 20+ years of using Ibuprofen to mask or cover the pain of my arthritic thumb joints, before Youngevity and later learning what damage that does to one’s liver, I didn’t want to go down that road. Besides, Google is not my trusted authority on my health. OK, so who do I really trust? Who has helped me in the past? That is where I am going to search.
Dr. Wallach’s book Dead Doctors Don’t Lie accurately identified gout I was experiencing and he listed some advised actions, but I needed more detail. My next stop was with a self-described “cheerleader” for Youngevity (and Dr. Wallach) – that would be Dr. Peter Glidden. And thank heavens, I am a subscriber to his website but this information is summarized in his book. My experience with him is that he accurately and helpfully details the situation plus gives specific protocols using products I recognize and understand.
Plus he is in agreement with Dr. Wallach on the premise that our body knows how to fix itself, it wants to fix itself and it is always trying to fix itself – so we need to give it what it needs and stop putting in the bad stuff.
I went to his site, viewed his excellent video on “Gout” and actually had on hand the essential oil he recommended – Juniper Berry – who knew? And went to the store to get the homeopathic “Belladonna” pellets and the specific Black Cherry concentrate. I had relief within 30 minutes of putting these to work as he detailed. Wanna know how much I love Dr. Glidden? Yeah.
But here is my point – and the analogy to the “engine warning light”. While Dr. Glidden’s initial protocol was to stop the immediate pain, he explained that the true underlying cause is a digestive problem that I must address – and he had great help on that – a specific protocol for the support and improvement of the function of my digestive tract.
He also explained in more detail than I can give you here that uric acid in the bloodstream is the natural course of things and it is one of the most powerful antioxidants in the blood quenching the flames of inflammation and essential for good health.
There does need to be a balance in the uric acid and as Dr. Glidden pointed out, this is not a diatribe against pharmaceuticals; thank God for novocaine. It is not the drug, it is how it is used.
Essentially, taking the NSAIDs or steroids or other pharmaceuticals would be like cutting my car’s wires to the engine warning light. It would make it go off and quit flashing at me reducing my urgency feeling….but it would not take care of the underlying problem that caused the light to come on in the first place and would continue to not be addressed. The end result is the true cause is not identified or addressed – not a good idea.
I hope this has been helpful in making you think about who you trust to help you identify what to do when your “engine warning light” comes on – and prepare for not just cutting the wires but getting down to the root cause and addressing that. And if you want the link to Dr. Glidden’s website information, I have added it below.
This is Candy McCune, your guide. Please, scroll down and leave me a comment.
https://glidden.healthcare?share_key=pwp_2rXowWK6lSEGGsSwKuyc
This is Candy McCune, your Guide to Better Health, and remember Education Empowers you to Engage Better Health!
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