Our Path to Healing:
It turns out my girl is literally one in a million, impacted by a rare condition that affects cellular nerve and muscle function. My own research led me to this diagnosis long before the doctors, and I discovered that doctors are extremely reluctant to even consider rare conditions. I still find this baffling considering 30 million Americans have rare conditions, with over 7,000 rare conditions identified. In fact, the statistics for having a rare disorder are the same as for being left handed; a one in ten chance.
My daughter was first hospitalized at age 9 with sudden leg paralysis, which seemed to be triggered by medication. For the two years that followed she seemed fine, although we noticed her energy when playing soccer began to decline. Then she was hit with a series of attacks, some affecting her hands and others affecting her legs, at which point she was disregarded as having Psychosomatic Conversion Disorder. I knew this was a completely asinine misdiagnosis. I also knew it was going to make it much more difficult to get to the truth. As I anticipated, this baseless diagnosis, born of ignorance, arrogance, and faulty tests, caused a barrier to care for my daughter in the years that followed. Unfortunately, this is often the reaction when the patient is a pre-teen or teenage female, in spite of the reality that many medical conditions first present during puberty.
After being seen by literally dozens of specialists, my daughter was ultimately medically abandoned because her condition was considered so "rare". Fortunately, I was eventually directed through a Facebook medical group to a medical professor out of state. He is a Pediatric Internist familiar with both Hypokalemic Periodic Paralysis and Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which were the two rare conditions I had grown to suspect. After four and half years of suffering, she was finally clinical diagnosed with both of those conditions at age thirteen. That doctor also determined she has Dysautonomia, Mast Cell Activation Disorder, and chronic migraines. My daughter was seen the following day by another medical professor at the university, a Pediatric Neurologist that specializes in migraines. She independently diagnosed the same list of conditions. Both doctors felt that my daughter had, in fact, inherited much of this from me and was simply more impacted by the conditions that I am.
After having nothing diagnosed by dozens of specialists over the course of four and a half years, everything was diagnosed by two specialists independently in just two days time. The relief was stunning!
The Clouds Parted:
Among my many frustrations with the medical industry is their limited approach and dependence on the prescription pad. I realize that in many instances medication is absolutely necessary. However, I believe the primary focus should be on determining and treating the root cause whenever possible, not just trying to manage symptoms and slow decline with pharmaceuticals.
In focusing on the root cause, I have been blown away by what I have learned. It is so rudimentary, every one of us is impacted by it, and yet nearly 80% of doctors learn nothing about it in medical schools. ...The power of real nutrition on bodily function and it's impact on chronic illness and disease.
The bottom line was that my child had unhealthy cells that weren't functioning properly. Our family already ate an extremely healthy diet with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables and very little processed foods because my daughter and I can't tolerate artificial sweeteners and preservatives. As I learned more about the impact of nutrition, we also greatly reduced the amount of gluten and sugar in our daily diet and reduced our passive exposure to toxins. However, that simply wasn't enough. The reality is that produce has become so nutritionally depleted that recommended daily servings had to be doubled. The updated recommendation is to eat a minimum of ten servings of fresh fruits and vegetables a day to avoid chronic illness and premature death. Scientists from Imperial College London reached this conclusion after analyzing 95 separate nutritional studies on fruit and vegetable intake. For reference, a serving is a fist sized amount. So, how many servings do you average? Even making a serious intentional effort, five servings is about the most my family was consuming daily.
It may sound crazy simple, but it turns out food really is the best medicine!
Can you guess what put the majority of my daughter's symptoms into remission? Yes, flooding her body daily with natural macronutrients, micronutrients, and phytonutrients from a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.
How Did We Do It?
So how did I get a sickly teenager to eat that much produce daily? It started with my daughter realizing she felt better when she ate protein. This is because a high protein diet helps to stabilize the Glycemic Index. You see, when glucose goes up, potassium goes down proportionately, and slight shifts in serum potassium trigger profound weakness and paralysis in people with Periodic Paralysis. So I set out to find a protein shake for my daughter, but not one with whey because whey and dairy increase inflammation in the body. It had to be plant based, low sugar but no artificial sweeteners due to her digestive intolerance, ...and of course taste good so my daughter would actually drink it. After trial and error, I found a very tasty protein shake that happens to be the ONLY plant protein powder to ever receive a perfect PDCAAS score for highest quality protein. That essentially means it is the most bio-available, so your body will absorb the nutrients even if your digestive tract struggles to digest.
Adding this plant-based protein shake daily was immediately beneficial, but only half of the solution. I actually stumbled upon the other half without realizing just how impactful it would prove to be. The company that manufactures that top rated protein shake, Juice Plus+, also happens to manufacture an incredibly beneficial fresh fruit and vegetable whole-food concentrate. This was definitely not the synthetically isolated vitamin supplements that line the shelves at your local drugstore, but in fact the most researched nutrition product in the world. I just thought the added nutrition would be good to boost my daughter's immune system, which it has been. What I didn't realize was how much of a boost this would give her at the cellular level. Thanks to the company's very generous Children's Study, kids can receive a free supply for four years when accompanied by an adult order. It was that offer that convinced me to give it a try.
After three and a half months of plant-based protein shakes and concentrated fruit and vegetable gummies daily, along with a regular healthy diet, my daughter's previously debilitating symptoms were predominantly... GONE!
An independent study conducted by the University of Newcastle in Australia, utilizing the Juice Plus+ concentrated fruits and vegetables, proved that after just 8 weeks of daily consumption the expression of over 1600 genes were positively altered. This meant genetic abnormalities became less problematic, and proves that Juice Plus provides a substantial nutrigenomic benefit. For you science minded folks who are curious, the study's findings specifically included the gene for AMPK cell signaling pathways. The body needs AMPK to produce ATP, and ATP produces all cellular energy in the body, including mitochondria and cellular gating functions. It is quite literally a miracle of nature.
Of course, there is unfortunately no miracle cure for all ailments and obviously no guarantee of the positive health impact the nutrients found in concentrated fruits and vegetables might have on a given individual or specific condition. If you have a per-existing health condition, you may want to check with your doctor before adding Juice Plus+. However, regardless of how you choose to achieve the goal of consuming the recommended 10 or more servings of fruits and vegetables every day, science has proven time and time again that boosting nutritional intake greatly improves health and longevity. Quite honestly, Juice Plus+ is the only way my family is able to consistently reach the recommended 10 or more servings of fruits and vegetables every day, and we have definitely reaped some major health benefits as a result.
I highly recommend giving Juice Plus+ a try, along with eating a healthy, unprocessed diet that includes lots of fresh, ripe fruits and vegetables, plenty of water, and staying physically active. I would love to help you and your family reclaim healthy! Feel free to contact to order or to ask any questions you might have.
Copyright © 2017
It turns out my girl is literally one in a million, impacted by a rare condition that affects cellular nerve and muscle function. My own research led me to this diagnosis long before the doctors, and I discovered that doctors are extremely reluctant to even consider rare conditions. I still find this baffling considering 30 million Americans have rare conditions, with over 7,000 rare conditions identified. In fact, the statistics for having a rare disorder are the same as for being left handed; a one in ten chance.
My daughter was first hospitalized at age 9 with sudden leg paralysis, which seemed to be triggered by medication. For the two years that followed she seemed fine, although we noticed her energy when playing soccer began to decline. Then she was hit with a series of attacks, some affecting her hands and others affecting her legs, at which point she was disregarded as having Psychosomatic Conversion Disorder. I knew this was a completely asinine misdiagnosis. I also knew it was going to make it much more difficult to get to the truth. As I anticipated, this baseless diagnosis, born of ignorance, arrogance, and faulty tests, caused a barrier to care for my daughter in the years that followed. Unfortunately, this is often the reaction when the patient is a pre-teen or teenage female, in spite of the reality that many medical conditions first present during puberty.
After being seen by literally dozens of specialists, my daughter was ultimately medically abandoned because her condition was considered so "rare". Fortunately, I was eventually directed through a Facebook medical group to a medical professor out of state. He is a Pediatric Internist familiar with both Hypokalemic Periodic Paralysis and Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which were the two rare conditions I had grown to suspect. After four and half years of suffering, she was finally clinical diagnosed with both of those conditions at age thirteen. That doctor also determined she has Dysautonomia, Mast Cell Activation Disorder, and chronic migraines. My daughter was seen the following day by another medical professor at the university, a Pediatric Neurologist that specializes in migraines. She independently diagnosed the same list of conditions. Both doctors felt that my daughter had, in fact, inherited much of this from me and was simply more impacted by the conditions that I am.
After having nothing diagnosed by dozens of specialists over the course of four and a half years, everything was diagnosed by two specialists independently in just two days time. The relief was stunning!
The Clouds Parted:
Among my many frustrations with the medical industry is their limited approach and dependence on the prescription pad. I realize that in many instances medication is absolutely necessary. However, I believe the primary focus should be on determining and treating the root cause whenever possible, not just trying to manage symptoms and slow decline with pharmaceuticals.
In focusing on the root cause, I have been blown away by what I have learned. It is so rudimentary, every one of us is impacted by it, and yet nearly 80% of doctors learn nothing about it in medical schools. ...The power of real nutrition on bodily function and it's impact on chronic illness and disease.
The bottom line was that my child had unhealthy cells that weren't functioning properly. Our family already ate an extremely healthy diet with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables and very little processed foods because my daughter and I can't tolerate artificial sweeteners and preservatives. As I learned more about the impact of nutrition, we also greatly reduced the amount of gluten and sugar in our daily diet and reduced our passive exposure to toxins. However, that simply wasn't enough. The reality is that produce has become so nutritionally depleted that recommended daily servings had to be doubled. The updated recommendation is to eat a minimum of ten servings of fresh fruits and vegetables a day to avoid chronic illness and premature death. Scientists from Imperial College London reached this conclusion after analyzing 95 separate nutritional studies on fruit and vegetable intake. For reference, a serving is a fist sized amount. So, how many servings do you average? Even making a serious intentional effort, five servings is about the most my family was consuming daily.
It may sound crazy simple, but it turns out food really is the best medicine!
Can you guess what put the majority of my daughter's symptoms into remission? Yes, flooding her body daily with natural macronutrients, micronutrients, and phytonutrients from a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.
How Did We Do It?
So how did I get a sickly teenager to eat that much produce daily? It started with my daughter realizing she felt better when she ate protein. This is because a high protein diet helps to stabilize the Glycemic Index. You see, when glucose goes up, potassium goes down proportionately, and slight shifts in serum potassium trigger profound weakness and paralysis in people with Periodic Paralysis. So I set out to find a protein shake for my daughter, but not one with whey because whey and dairy increase inflammation in the body. It had to be plant based, low sugar but no artificial sweeteners due to her digestive intolerance, ...and of course taste good so my daughter would actually drink it. After trial and error, I found a very tasty protein shake that happens to be the ONLY plant protein powder to ever receive a perfect PDCAAS score for highest quality protein. That essentially means it is the most bio-available, so your body will absorb the nutrients even if your digestive tract struggles to digest.
Adding this plant-based protein shake daily was immediately beneficial, but only half of the solution. I actually stumbled upon the other half without realizing just how impactful it would prove to be. The company that manufactures that top rated protein shake, Juice Plus+, also happens to manufacture an incredibly beneficial fresh fruit and vegetable whole-food concentrate. This was definitely not the synthetically isolated vitamin supplements that line the shelves at your local drugstore, but in fact the most researched nutrition product in the world. I just thought the added nutrition would be good to boost my daughter's immune system, which it has been. What I didn't realize was how much of a boost this would give her at the cellular level. Thanks to the company's very generous Children's Study, kids can receive a free supply for four years when accompanied by an adult order. It was that offer that convinced me to give it a try.
After three and a half months of plant-based protein shakes and concentrated fruit and vegetable gummies daily, along with a regular healthy diet, my daughter's previously debilitating symptoms were predominantly... GONE!
An independent study conducted by the University of Newcastle in Australia, utilizing the Juice Plus+ concentrated fruits and vegetables, proved that after just 8 weeks of daily consumption the expression of over 1600 genes were positively altered. This meant genetic abnormalities became less problematic, and proves that Juice Plus provides a substantial nutrigenomic benefit. For you science minded folks who are curious, the study's findings specifically included the gene for AMPK cell signaling pathways. The body needs AMPK to produce ATP, and ATP produces all cellular energy in the body, including mitochondria and cellular gating functions. It is quite literally a miracle of nature.
Of course, there is unfortunately no miracle cure for all ailments and obviously no guarantee of the positive health impact the nutrients found in concentrated fruits and vegetables might have on a given individual or specific condition. If you have a per-existing health condition, you may want to check with your doctor before adding Juice Plus+. However, regardless of how you choose to achieve the goal of consuming the recommended 10 or more servings of fruits and vegetables every day, science has proven time and time again that boosting nutritional intake greatly improves health and longevity. Quite honestly, Juice Plus+ is the only way my family is able to consistently reach the recommended 10 or more servings of fruits and vegetables every day, and we have definitely reaped some major health benefits as a result.
I highly recommend giving Juice Plus+ a try, along with eating a healthy, unprocessed diet that includes lots of fresh, ripe fruits and vegetables, plenty of water, and staying physically active. I would love to help you and your family reclaim healthy! Feel free to contact to order or to ask any questions you might have.
Copyright © 2017
