“Natural Healing” Section Overview
In Western society today, most people generally go to an M.D. to seek relief from health problems. Unfortunately in most cases, modern medicine actually does not cure the problem, it only masks the symptoms, and in some cases has side effects that require more medicines. There are, however, many natural remedies that can help the symptoms or even cure the problem. In this section, I explore many different types of natural healing available, as well as give numerous examples of how I have cured my health issues naturally. I hope you’ll “go natural” too.
The term “natural healing” means different things to different people. To some, it may seem like some strange thing that weird people believe in. To others, perhaps it means to just allow nature to heal us. For others, however, it is their way of life that has brought health back to them and keeps them well.
When men and women reach middle age, they sometimes begin to experience health problems. Perhaps minor issues they’ve had for a while become of a problem. Or, new issues pop up, from joint or muscle issues, to digestion, heart problems, etc.
For the last hundred years or so, people in Western society have tried generally to address these types of issues by going to an M.D. and seeking help.
These days, however, many people are looking to natural healing as an alternative to taking drugs and having surgery. Now, I’m not saying that standard medicine, technically known as “allopathic” medicine, is of no value. I am saying, however, that in some cases, you can heal yourself without drugs or surgery. Farther down the page you will read some of my experiences in this area.
In addition, A Johns Hopkins study released in May, 2016 revealed that errors made by medical practitioners are the third-leading cause of death in the country, accounting for 250,000 fatalities a year, right behind heart disease and cancer.
CAM: Complimentary Alternative Medicine
This term is the “official” name for natural healing, if you will.
You may have noticed that in the last year or two, natural healing, organic foods and vegan have become hot topics. I even got a flyer in the mail from a local pizza chain that had the word “Vegan” in large type near the top. Health is hot!
A page on Statista.com shows the results of a survey conducted in the United States in January 2017. Adults in the U.S. were asked if they believed in positive effects of some sorts of complementary alternative medicine. In total, 70% of respondents stated that they believed in positive effects from such medicines. That broke down to 78% of men believing in the effects and 62% of women. You can see the info here.
70%! That’s a huge number. So why are people turning more and more to alternative medicine? I believe there are a number of reasons.
One is that people are wary of taking prescription medications, with the many side effects they can have. Sometimes, people take a medication for one problem, and then they have to take another medication to deal with the side-effects of the first medication. I have known and heard of people taking 15 medications a day!
Another reason is that people are starting to wake up and believe that their bodies can get better and even heal if they are given the right nutrition, supplements, and care. Sometimes we also need assistance from healers such as herbalists, acupuncturists, bodyworkers and others.
In the following material, I will tell you about my natural healing experiences. This is because I want you to know that this experience is real, and to also see the types of natural healing that are available.
Examples of Alternative Healing Methods
On another Wikipedia page
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_forms_of_alternative_medicine) there is a list of some types of alternative medicine and healing.
On another site, it reads “The most popular forms of alternative medicine are Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Naturopathy, Yoga, Acupuncture, Acupressure, Shiatsu, Herbalism, Aromatherapy, Bach Flower Remedies, Diet therapy, Hydrotherapy and Reiki”.
Over the past 50 years, I myself have used Ayurveda, Danurveda, Homeopathy, Naturopathy, Yoga, Acupuncture, Moxibustion, Acupressure, Shiatsu, Reflexology, Herbalism, Meditation, Aromatherapy, Chiropractic, Bach Flower Remedies, Diet therapy, supplements, Reiki and others. Most of them have provided good results for me, and none of them have harmed me nor had side effects.
On my Website at GreatMiddleAge.com, I regularly put up new articles on ways to use natural healing to make yourself healthier, so be sure to go there from time to time and check them out. Of course, if you sign up for my newsletter, you’ll get lots of great info delivered to your inbox regularly. Click on this link now to get connected: https://greatmiddleage.com/newsletter/. Or you can always just click on the “Newsletter” link on GreatMiddleAge.com.
If you have a health problem, start out by looking for the cause. It could be in your diet, in something you do (eat the wrong foods) or don’t do (you don’t exercise or maybe get poor sleep).
Let me give you an example. Last December, I started having a problem waking up around 2 a.m., and not being able to fall asleep for several hours. The first night, I figured it was just too much thinking, but when it happened a second night, I started to search for clues, as a detective would. I thought of things like 1) going to bed too early; 2) watching action YouTube’s close to bedtime, etc., but nothing clicked.
And then, it occurred to me that I had been trying out some vegan chocolate ice cream that I had discovered at the health food store. I haven’t eaten ice cream for years, but it was the Holidays, so I decided to splurge. It was very tasty, and I would have a few scoops a bit before bed. As you may know, chocolate has a component called “theobromine” in it, and it is a mild stimulant. It’s not as strong as caffeine, but it has a similar effect.
The next evening, I did not have any chocolate ice cream, and slept just fine. If I were following a traditional approach, I might have gone to my doctor and asked for sleeping pills, which can have many side effects, including feeling drowsy the next day. So, be a detective, and your life will get better naturally!
About four years ago, I twisted my lower back and developed an excruciating pain in my left leg. It was so bad that I would cry out in pain every time I moved. Sleeping was nearly impossible. I went to a chiropractor, but got no relief (although I have had good results with chiropractic for other issues). I tried to get in to see a physical therapist, but there was a five day wait to get in and I couldn’t stand that.
I decided to give acupuncture a try. I went to see a local O.M.D. (Oriental Medical Doctor), in the hopes he could help me. I spent about an hour in his office during which time he used acupuncture needles on me, as well as other therapies such as cupping. When I left his office, to be honest, I didn’t feel that much better.
That night, I laid down to try to get some sleep. After about a half hour, I moved to try to make my body more comfortable, and felt a movement in my lower back on the left side. Immediately, the pain left my leg. I was totally amazed, and hopeful that my situation had been cleared up. And cleared up, it was. That pain was gone, and never came back, although I was aware of some numbness in my leg in that area for more than one year.
Tea Tree Plant (Melaleuca alternifolia)
A few years ago, I started having sores on my head. They were like big mosquito bites. I would, of course, scratch them, and then they’d scab over until I scratched them again. At any one time, I would have up to 10 or 15 of them in various stages. In about 2 weeks they’d finally dry up and heal, but they weren’t fun, I can tell you. Luckily, my hair covered them, but I felt sorry for my barber.
Over the course of a year or so, I went to three skin doctors, but none of them could tell me what caused them or how to prevent them. The best they could come up with was some medication to put on the sores to make them heal faster. This was not acceptable to me, as my goal is total health, not just surviving.
I tried different medicated shampoos from the drug store, but they didn’t help. Then, I decided to try a tea tree oil shampoo from Trader Joe’s called “Tea Tree Tingle”. Wonderfully, it worked! I still occasionally have a few small ones that I hardly notice. Hopefully they’ll all go away some day.
One day a few years ago I felt a strange sensation in my heart. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it went away by itself and I didn’t feel it again for a few months. Then it started happening more frequently.
I became concerned, and so I went to a cardiologist (heart doctor). Luckily I was having this issue when I went to see him, and so he was able to put me on an EKG device. It turned out that I was experiencing what is called “atrial flutter”, in which the heart speeds up by itself, that is, not as a result of exercise or even stress. It is very similar to atrial fibrillation, but not quite as severe. He gave me a prescription for a medication called Metoprolol in the 25mg strength, which I could take if the flutter occurred.
When the flutter happened, my heart would be beating about 150 BPM (Beats Per Minute), and I felt very uncomfortable. Luckily, it usually only lasted about an hour and then it went away. It wasn’t caused by stress, as sometimes I would wake up at night with my heart beating fast. Unfortunately, as the months progressed, it came back more frequently and for longer periods of time, sometimes lasting as long as 24 hours.
I thus began my search for a natural cure for this malady. I read on a page by Dr. Mercola that magnesium could help, so I bought some magnesium tablets, but they gave me diarrhea, so I had to get some other pills with magnesium and calcium. To my joy, the flutter went away, but after about 3 or 4 months, it came back again. I was discouraged, as I’d thought I had the cure, but I couldn’t give up.
So I continued my search. Then I looked into Chinese medicine, and got some herbal pills, but they just helped for a while and then stopped.
I next tried one acupuncture treatment, but still no luck, although more treatments may have helped, as my OMD was able to cure his flutter, but I couldn’t afford more treatments.
Then I found a great site online (www.earthclinic.com ) that suggested blackstrap molasses to help the problem. It tasted pretty-bad, but I took it anyway. It did appear to help my sleep, but not my heart. So I went back to the EarthClinic site and did some more reading. Based on what I read, I decided to try apple cider vinegar. It helped for a few days, but then the flutter came back.
In the meantime, my cardiologist had me on 25mg of Metoprolol twice a day, as I was having flutter most days, although usually for only an hour or so, although sometimes I could have several incidents a day, and they could last for a few hours. I felt really strange during the sessions, and was tired afterwards, and had to lie down.
The other thing my heart doctor suggested is called a “catheter ablation”. In this procedure, thin, flexible wires called catheters are inserted into a vein, typically in the groin or neck, and threaded up into the heart. There is an electrode at the tip of the wires. The electrode sends out radio waves that create heat. This heat destroys the heart tissue that causes atrial fibrillation. Another option is to use freezing cold to destroy the heart tissue.
And…even though a catheter ablation can stop atrial flutter or atrial fibrillation, my heart doctor never mentioned that this “cure” may only last for a few years. Also, it does not stop cardiac arrhythmia’s such as skipped beats, etc., which I usually experienced. Not a pleasant thing.
I am not dissing medical doctors nor hospitals, but anything invasive into the body has possible negative effects. A Johns Hopkins study released in May, 2016 revealed that errors made by medical practitioners are the third-leading cause of death in the country, accounting for 250,000 fatalities a year, right behind heart disease and cancer. I’m not going down that road if I can help it.
A few days ago, I went back to earthclinic.com to read more about cures for arrhythmia (http://www.earthclinic.com/cures/arrhythmia.html ). Somehow, I wound up at this page http://www.earthclinic.com/remedies/transdermal-magnesium-therapy.html On this page, a lady in Vancouver wrote about using a solution of magnesium chloride as a healing agent for her arrhythmia. So, I went to my local health food store and bought some magnesium chloride solution.
That evening, my heart started to flutter and speed up to 150+BPM. I took out the oil, took off my shirt, and rubbed it on my chest, right over my heart. To my delight and amazement, within about 3-4 minutes, my heart slowed back down, and went into a normal beat. I was pretty-happy, although due to my previous experiences of remedies working for a few days and stopping, I was “cautiously optimistic”.
I tried this therapy for several days in a row, spraying the oil on my chest and stomach and leaving it on for about 20 minutes, after which I rinsed it off. And, like the lady in Canada, I had no incidents of atrial flutter for 4 days. But then they came back.
So I kept on looking.
Think about this. I could have given up, figured my doctor knew more than I do, and just accept that I’d have this condition for the rest of my life. I could have also started taking Coumadin, a blood thinner, as he had suggested, with all of its side effects, and for the rest of my life. But I didn’t.
Pico-ionic magnesium? Huh?
The next thing I tried out was “pico-ionic magnesium”.
On the site, they write “It’s picometer-sized which means it’s absorbed 100% at the cellular level, so your cells have immediate access to usable magnesium.” So…I ordered it to see what happened.
I took the ReMag for 3 days, but at a very-low dosage to start with, per the instructions. Even so, I had only one flutter episode in 3 days, and it was only for less than 10 minutes. But, like many other treatments, after a couple of weeks, the flutter returned. So I increased the dosage, and then my heart started beating too slowly. Time to search again.
The next thing I tried was a supplement called Jigsaw Magnesium with SRT. It is a magnesium supplement that is claimed to be released slowly all day long, although I later found out that the pills only dissolve about 50%. I started taking 2 tablets in the morning and in the evening, and in almost a week, I had only had 2 short flutter incidents.
But then the flutter returned.
What to do???
Finally give up?
Come on…you know I’m not giving up. :o)
But I was kind of at the end of my rope. I had tried so many things with no long-term success. I had been “disappointed” so many time with “failures”. But, I just view a “failure” as another possibility I tried and leading to me trying something else.
As I wrote elsewhere on this site, Thomas Edison tried more than 10,000 materials in his effort to find the right one for the filament in his electric light bulb, which, as you know, he finally found, and lit up the lives of millions of people for more than a century.
Harlan Sanders, the KFC founder, lived in his car at age 67, traveling around the country trying to get restaurant owners to pay him for his recipe. He was turned down by 1,008 restaurants before he got his first sale, and the rest is history, with more than 5,000 locations in the U.S. Would you have given up after 100 “failures”? 500? 1,000?
So, a few days later, I got the inspiration to try EFT (more info on EFT below). Now, I do EFT every morning as part of my morning ritual, and I have been doing so for more than 10 years. And I have tried EFT for this problem, but haven’t had success.
But I had the inspiration to try just tapping on my collarbone points, slowly, and for 100 taps.
So, whenever I felt some flutter coming on, I did the slow tapping for 100 times. That worked for 10 days. I had some flutter on a few days that lasted about an hour, but on other days there was either no flutter or else it only lasted maybe 15 minutes or less. What’s important here is that my health keeps getting better, and I foresee the possibility that my flutter may one day be gone and never return. But, until that day, I’ll keep trying.
Here’s an update: as of July, 2018, my heart condition is basically cleared up completely as long as I don’t aggravate it. By this I mean I can’t use any stimulants like coffee, or even dark chocolate . When I have tried them to see if they would give me more energy, the flutter came back, but usually only for an hour or so.
The lesson is obvious: Don’t give up. Don’t accept anybody’s negative story about how you will always be sick. I have read a case of a person with pancreatic cancer (one of the worst) who was cured without any medication through using EFT. Read the story by clicking here.
Keep looking until you find health.
One issue I have had problems with for years is mild asthma. It’s never been serious, mainly just a tightness in my throat, but nonetheless irritating. I was lucky enough to live in the Central California coastal hills for 7 years, and it all but went away. But then I had to move back into the city, and it came back due to the poor air quality.
I was having to use a rescue inhaler 5-6 times a day, when it should only be used 1-2 times a week. Then my M.D. gave me a prescription drug, which cleared up the asthma immediately. I was supposed to take it once a day, but after a few days, I decided to try taking it every 2 days, which worked. Then, I went to every 3 days for a week or so.
As of now, it has been 30 days since I have used this medication. A few times a day (even right now) my throat tightens up and gets a bit sore. But what I have found out is that if I just wait a bit, the symptoms will go away. I will say that it’s possible that I will need to use this medication again, due to environmental conditions, etc., but I will only use it as needed.
Let me be clear that I am not saying to not take your medication, especially if you have a serious medical condition. In my case, the only possible bad effect would be a tight throat, so I was willing to give it a try. You have to use your own discretion, and maybe ask your health care provider (M.D., etc.) if it is OK to try cutting down on your medication, then ask your alternative healer (OMD, TCM practitioner) if they have something you can use to help your situation. Do keep in mind that they are legally liable if they say to cut back and then you have a problem, so they usually take a conservative approach.
A few months ago, I noticed a painful sensation in the region of my prostate gland. As usual, I ignored it for a week or more to see if it would go away by itself. Then I was worried a bit, as prostate cancer occurs in about 6% of men over 70. But I still had faith in my body’s ability to heal itself.
Then, one day, while I was in my office/workout room, I glanced over at my AirDyne exercise bike. And what did I see? The front of the seat was pointing upward, which would make it press against my prostate when I rode the bike. I couldn’t believe my eyes! I have no idea how it got that way, and I have been riding that bike a lot, but somehow it got skewed, or finally my prostate rebelled. 😉
In any case, I adjusted the seat to a neutral position, where the front doesn’t put any pressure on the prostate and voila! The pain went away in a couple of days.
So my point is, as in other examples I have given in this section, to “be a detective”. Look for things in your life that may be causing a problem.
Indigestion? – What have you eaten recently?
Irritable and/or can’t sleep? – Coffee? Monster drink? New supplement?
Got body pain? – New activity? New furniture at home or work? Recently carried something heavy? Don’t give up or look for a pill to help, or even surgery. How about seeing a physical therapist? Let’s say you have shoulder pain. Maybe you just have weak muscles there and the therapist can give you exercises to clear up that pain.
Go online and search for your problem and see what other people have to say. Check out https://www.earthclinic.com/ .
If you think about it, these days it’s as though you have a team of thousands of healers waiting to help you for free. Through the “magic” of the Internet, you can research health issues and look for possible cures. From scientific papers to blogs, there will likely be a lot of possibilities. Then, see if one particular cure is suggested by multiple sources, and give it a try. If it doesn’t work, try something else. Don’t give up. You only “fail” if you give up.
My protocol is the search the Internet (Google, etc.) for a phrase such as “natural cures for cardiac arrhythmia”. I did this only a few days ago, and found a lot of info. Some sites were only promotions for their product, so beware of their suggestions. If you’re going to try out a supplement, try to get one with a 30-day refund guarantee. Or, buy the product at your local health food store. Some stores will allow you to return a product if it doesn’t work for you, as long as you haven’t used too much up, usually less than 50% used. You’ll also find other sites which will be truly helpful, with medical studies shown, etc.
The best site I found for my problem was at https://www.earthclinic.com. It had lots of information and a forum of sorts, where people put up their experiences with different natural cures, and how well they worked.
So go online and keep trying. Some “cures” may not work, but be OK with that because that’s part of the process. If you discover something that clears up your problems, then the investment is well worth it. So, don’t ever give up, keep trying and you should at least have an improvement, if not a cure.
Besides getting healing from someone else, you can help to heal yourself. One way is by being aware of your actions and attitudes.
Let me tell you an experience I recently had that relates to being aware of actions. Starting a few months ago, maybe once a week I’d have pain in my ankles, mainly the right one. Sometimes it was so bad that I would have to limp and avoid putting weight on it. What was strange was that it was not after some exercise or activity that I could figure out.
Then, one day, I realized that when I was sitting at my desk, I was crossing my ankles, and even resting the tops of my feet on the legs of my office chair. Wow! I couldn’t believe that I had been causing it myself. Of course, I immediately stopped doing that, although I had to be aware of it for a while, and I have not had ankle pain since then.
I have had some issues on and off with shoulder pain for many years. I’ve even had physical therapy, with some success. For the past few months, I have had some pain in my right shoulder. It didn’t bother me all the time, but I couldn’t sleep on that side, and when I worked out, I had to modify some exercises to avoid pain there.
A few weeks ago, I bought a Webcam so I could do videos for this Website. When I set it up, I was amazed to see that my right shoulder was higher than my left one. Upon some observation, I learned that I have been sitting off to the left side a lot, as that’s how I slide into my desk, as the right side of my desk is against the wall. I was thus lifting my right shoulder in order to use the keyboard.
I then began to make an effort to always sit squarely on my chair, and also to avoid lifting my right shoulder. As a result, the pain in my right shoulder has dropped by about 60-70%, and it no longer makes a clicking/grinding sound when I rotate it. In addition, I am using a heavier kettlebell weight for an exercise that uses the shoulders (the halo).
I know that “pain is a healer” sounds crazy, but pain is an indication that something is wrong. It’s great we have this, or we would really be in trouble. This applies to all areas of our life, including emotional pain. In many cases, if you don’t resolve the issue, the pain will increase. On other instances, we may get used to the pain and try to ignore it, but in reality, we are living a crippled life. It’s like you had a 20-pound backpack to carry and got used to it, but once you removed it, you felt so much lighter and had more energy.
Back in the 1980’s, I took a 6-month course to become certified as a Bach Remedy counselor. During the course, the teacher said “We become ill so that in our journey to wellness we address and heal issues we otherwise would not have”.
Just yesterday, I spoke with a guy who works at a local store. He was saying how he had to go into the doctor’s office for some tests and how he hated that because they might find something wrong. I replied that I am always happy to find out there’s something wrong. He looked at me as if I were crazy, and asked incredulously why I felt that way. My response was that if I find something wrong, then I can fix it and feel so much better. P.S. About a year later, after seeing this guy dozens of times, I finally convinced him to go to the doctor. The next time I saw him he was elated! He had gone to the doctor and found out that…he had nothing wrong! Ever since then, he’s always happy when I see him.
So if you have pain in your life, greet it as a messenger, and look to see why it is there and how to relieve it.
To me, the core issue is not what alternative healing therapies are available, but what can be done to avoid needing to use them.
To start with, I would suggest that you keep your diet as clean as possible, and that you take care of your body including getting enough sleep, and enough exercise. Even though we don’t normally think about these activities as part of “natural healing”, in fact they really are. If you’re eating junk food, getting poor sleep and not getting exercise then you’re not giving your body what it needs to heal itself.
The next step is to use natural products to support your health. I know the term “natural” is overused a lot today, so I’d better explain what I mean. I believe that everyone should take a vitamin supplement. I’m aware that there have been lots of studies that say vitamins are not needed. But then again, there are studies that say that they are beneficial. I would agree that if you have a perfect diet, and are getting the 9 servings of fruits and vegetables every day which is recommended in the Dietary Guidelines, and they are all pesticide and herbicide free, and were raised in organic fertile soil with all of the required minerals, etc., as well as a perfect balance of fiber, complex carbohydrates, protein etc. that you don’t need vitamins.
But are you eating like that? Probably not. To me, vitamins and supplements are like insurance. In the event that your body is not getting enough of some nutrient, or it’s not utilizing some nutrient efficiently, then the supplement will help take up the slack. Personally, I strongly suggest using “whole food” or “food-grown” supplements. The supplements provided by Garden of Life or New Chapter are pretty-good, but the best ones are from Whole Earth and Sea, and they are the only ones I will take. You can usually find them at your local health food store or online.
My belief is that by living a “natural” lifestyle, you will avoid the need for these therapies to remedy illness, although most of them are valuable to keep you in great health. What I mean by a natural lifestyle is having a good diet, eating whole foods including grains, vegetables, fruits etc. It also includes sufficient activity with your body including muscular-skeletal movements such as weight training, as well as cardio-pulmonary activity such as using an exercise bicycle or similar activities.
In addition, we need to address other areas of our lives. In the 1960’s the term “holistic” started to be used a lot. And what it means is that we need to have “health” in all areas of our lives, including mental health, emotional health, sexual health, etc. If we’re living in an abusive relationship, working at a job we hate, or living in an unhealthy environment, then were not going to have true health.
That’s why in this course I have many different sections so that you can address many areas of your life to keep yourself happy and healthy. I hope you’ll explore them.
Now on to the Good Nutrition section, your next step in creating a great middle age!
