Digestive Wellness: Strengthen the Immune System and Prevent Disease Through Healthy Digestion, Fourth Edition (123 page)

Take sitz baths.
Sitz baths are an old-fashioned remedy for hemorrhoids that are still in favor with the medical profession. Place three to four inches of warm water in the bathtub, and sit in it for 10 minutes several times daily. You can improve the results by adding 1/4 cup Epsom salts or healing herbs. Chamomile, chickweed, comfrey, mullein, plantain, witch hazel, and yarrow are all healing and soothing to mucous membranes. Most of these are weeds and may even be growing in your yard. (Comfrey is a very easy herb to grow; just put it in a place where it can spread. It helps with wound healing of any sort and is also soothing for colds and lung problems.) Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Steep 1 to 2 cups of fresh herbs or 1½ cups of dried herbs until cool; strain and add to bathwater.

Use horse chestnuts.
Horse chestnuts, also called buckeyes, help tone blood vessels, improve their elasticity, and reduce inflammation. They can also be used in a sitz bath. Chop up 2 cups of horse chestnuts, add to boiled water, strain, and add infusion to bathwater. Sit in the bath twice daily for 10 to 15 minutes. You can also take 500 mg of the bark orally three times daily. Horse chestnut salves are also available.

Use butcher’s broom.
Butcher’s broom helps strengthen blood vessels and improves circulation. Take 100 mg extract three times daily.

Take vitamin E.
Vitamin E helps bring oxygen to the tissues and promotes healing. You can use it topically or take it internally. Take 400 to 800 IU of d-alpha tocopherol and mixed tocopherols daily.

Take vitamin C and bioflavonoids.
Vitamin C and bioflavonoids increase capillary and blood vessel strength so that they don’t rupture easily. Bioflavonoids are also essential to collagen formation and elasticity of blood vessels. Berries of all types and cherries have high amounts of protective bioflavonoids. Take 500 to 2,000 mg vitamin C daily plus 100 to 1,000 mg bioflavonoids, which can usually be purchased in a single supplement.

Use dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO).
In the literature, there is one anecdotal study in which a physician used DMSO topically for hemorrhoids. By his report, a 70 percent solution of DMSO will dissolve blood-engorged hemorrhoids almost overnight. It may be worth trying.

“Disease bias means that we take health for granted, waiting to act when health is gone and disease emerges. Once we make this assumption, we can soon become so preoccupied that our horizon is filled with diseases to combat. Because disease looms so large, our sight is obscured to the possibilities of health.”

—Russell Jaffe, M.D.

Part V discusses how digestion is linked to issues you would never imagine, including arthritis of all types; autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, scleroderma, and Behcet’s disease; chronic fatigue syndrome; eczema; fibromyalgia; migraine headaches; obesity; psoriasis; schizophrenia; and women’s health issues. When looked at through the lens of the DIGIN model and balanced pH, there can be significant improvements in these conditions. (Asthma, autism, ADD, ADHD, and many other conditions have been included in
Digestive Wellness for Children.
)

For each health condition, I have provided general information about the disease, recommendations for functional laboratory testing, and healing options, with the most important ones discussed first. With careful investigation and patience, you may find the underlying conditions that influence how you feel. Many of the supplements and herbs can be found in combination products. You will note that although these health conditions are different, many of the healing options are the same. This goes back to the basic digestive principles presented in the DIGIN model and lifestyle changes from the first half of the book.

Of course, if at first you don’t find major improvement, keep working at it. You may not have found the best remedy or combination of therapies on the first try. Patience and perseverance bring the best results. It takes time to resolve chronic illnesses.

Arthritis refers to more than a hundred diseases that cause inflammation of the joints. The old-fashioned term for arthritis is rheumatism, and today physicians who specialize in arthritis are called rheumatologists. Arthritis affects 40 million Americans and accounts for 46 million medical visits per year. It affects about 15 percent of our population and 3 percent of those severely, but it is severe in 11 percent of people ages 65 and older.

The two most common types of arthritis are osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Other common types include psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, gout, Lyme disease, Reiter’s syndrome, lupus, and Sjögren’s syndrome. Each of these diseases has its own characteristics, but they all share the symptoms of pain and inflammation in joints.

There are many causes for arthritis: genetics, infections, physical injury, nutritional deficiencies, allergies, metabolic and immune disorders, stress, and environmental pollutants and toxins. Several types of arthritis have well-documented associations with faulty digestive function. Osteoarthritis responds well to dietary changes. Rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, lupus, Sjögren’s syndrome, and Reiter’s syndrome are all autoimmune conditions. As such, leaky gut probably plays a role, along with environment and genetics.

The current drugs of choice for mild to moderate arthritis pain are nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Although they may help with the pain, many NSAIDs also have a negative effect on the ability of cartilage to repair itself. They block our body’s ability to regenerate cartilage tissue by lowering the amounts of
healing prostaglandins, glycosaminoglycans, and hyaluronan, and by raising leukotriene levels. NSAIDs block the production of healing prostaglandins, which stimulate repair of the digestive lining. This causes increased intestinal permeability. (See
Chapter 4
for more information on NSAIDS and leaky gut.) Use of NSAIDs in children with rheumatoid arthritis showed that 75 percent had gastrointestinal problems caused by the drugs. And the more NSAIDs people take, the leakier the gut wall becomes; the leakier the gut, the more pain and inflammation follows, which sets up a continuously escalating problem. For rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune types of arthritis, disease-modifying anti-arthritic drugs, also called DMARDS, are used. There is a wide variety of these, and they all have significant long-term unwanted effects.

Use of natural therapies and dietary change for arthritis can reduce the need for such medications and their accompanying side effects. Natural therapies can be used to help relieve pain, reduce inflammation, help regenerate cartilage, and slow the disease process. These natural therapies can be astonishingly effective. Look to all aspects of the DIGIN model if you have arthritis of any type. Balancing these can be the key to resolving your pain.

The dietary connection between rheumatoid arthritis and food sensitivities was first noted by Michael Zeller in 1949 in
Annals of Allergy
. He found a direct cause and effect by adding and eliminating foods from the diet. He joined forces with Drs. Herbert Rinkel and Theron Randolph to publish a book called
Food Allergy
in 1951.

Theron Randolph, M.D., is the father of a field of medicine called clinical ecology, which studies how our environment affects health. He found that people with rheumatoid arthritis who were not reacting to foods had at least one sensitivity to an environmental chemical. Randolph sent questionnaires to more than 200 of his patients with osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis to assess how well treatments were working. Their responses showed that when they avoided food and environmental allergens, there was a significant reduction in arthritic symptoms. Randolph also felt that other types of arthritis, including Reiter’s syndrome, ankylosing spon-dylitis, and psoriatic arthritis, have an ecological basis.