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Be Still My Beating Heart
Be Still My Beating Heart. Well, at least slow down a little, please. Just because your heart is racing and you are having chest pains doesn’t mean there is something wrong with your heart. Believe me I have learned this statement to be true. Since December 3, 2009 I have been to an emergency room, a walk in clinic, an acupuncture physician, a Meridian Stress Assessor, a Naturopath, a Homeopath, a Body Talk Practitioner, and my new “western medical doctor.” I actually found a doctor who takes people who don’t have health insurance, gives them a break on the price of their visit and believes in natural healing, all extremely important to this uninsured Natural Healthcare Advocate!
The $3000.00 visit to the emergency room was the most expensive and the most frustrating 3 hours I have endured in the past few months and offered no answers as to what is making my heart race, but, at least they didn’t refuse to treat me! The following weeks showed me the majority of physicians in the phone book would not see me because I do not have health insurance, even when I offered to prepay them. I won’t go into the problems with our health care system, or I normally call it, our disease care system, but the incidents I have experienced in the past few months has shown me how absolutely sickening our medical system is.
Back to that night at the beginning of December. I began having chest pains, strange tingling sensations, warm waves of nausea, tightness in my jaw, a racing pulse and knew my blood pressure was not normal. I tried deep breathing as I had done with similar sensations I experienced when I was bitten by the brown recluse spider in 2008 but after over an hour I wasn’t feeling any better. I’d learned back in 2008 that I could get my vital signs checked at a local fire station for free. My partner and I climbed into his vehicle and headed the few blocks to the fire station where the technician told me my blood pressure was 155/90 and my pulse was 125bpm. My BP is normally 90/60 and my resting pulse is normally 60bpm so we headed for the emergency room at the local hospital. Three hours and three thousand dollars later I was told my potassium level was a little low, I was slightly anemic and my blood pressure wasn’t high enough to warrant a pill to lower it so I should eat more bananas. I looked at the doctor and explained I wouldn’t have taken the pill to lower my blood pressure because that was a symptom something else was going on and I wanted to find out what was causing my discomfort. He wished me luck and went on to his next patient. By the way, when you get a bill from a hospital you can call and negotiate a lower price. Why don't they just charge the lower price to begin with?
Fortunately being a Natural Healthcare Advocate I have several friends and many contacts in the health care industry. I began contacting them and asking questions and the symptoms didn’t return for awhile. I didn’t realize at the time but looking back at that period I was working physically hard and soaking in an Epsom Salt Bath every night to soothe my aching body. I had a rash after each bath, so I believed something was detoxing, and now recognize the racing pulse didn’t return until after the work was complete and I wasn’t taking the nightly baths anymore. Yes, I am doing them daily again but the symptoms aren't going away. New Year’s Day was the beginning of a New Year and nearly daily discomfort. Everyone I spoke with agreed there are many things which could be causing my heart to race; an insufficient amount of water absorbed, imbalance of minerals, anemic blood, problems in the digestive system, and hyperthyroidism among the possibilities.
Figuring out what was causing my discomfort has not only been time consuming but cash guzzling as well. I have had blood tests, urine tests, frequency tests and visited nearly every form of health care professional there is. I fortunately had one of my “episodes” while in my western medicine doctor’s office so they hooked me up to their EKG machine immediately. After reading the report my PA smiled and exclaimed, “You have the heart of an athlete.” Good thing as it was certainly working overtime these days. Over the next few weeks the series of tests he did showed the mineral levels in my blood were in the proper range, the TSH and T4 levels from my thyroid were normal, my blood cells were not anemic and my glucose levels confirmed I was not diabetic. The doctor also told me he wished he could have my abnormally low cholesterol level! I am not sure what I had hoped the western medical profession would find; something which explained what was happening to me would have been nice. It was great to find out my body appears to be in excellent condition so it can continue to operate despite whatever is causing the extreme and most unpleasant symptoms.
The most revealing of all the tests performed came from my friend, Lynn Deen, a Meridian Stress Assessor. She has a specialized computer with two copper anodes attached; one of which acts as a ground which I hold in one of my hands while she uses the pointer tool anode to touch acupuncture points on my other hand. The computer program knows what frequencies indicate healthy pancreas cells, healthy gall bladder cells, healthy heart cells etc. The program also contains the frequencies of thousands of viruses, parasites, bacteria, etc. After 2 hours of testing she found my gall bladder, my liver, my pancreas, my adrenals and my parathyroid were stressed, that the brown recluse spider venom was still in my body and that I had an extreme allergy to sugar along with a couple of viruses. She gave me remedies (143 of them) in the form of water infused with the frequencies necessary to eliminate my problems. As I write this at the end February I am thankful the chest pains and tightness of jaw have not returned but I still expereince dry mouth, dizziness, confusion, numbness, tingling in my limbs and a racing pulse (only about 85bpm) almost every day.
I even contacted a couple of freinds who are medical intuits (they use pendulums over a chart to diagnose) and they came back with some interesting findings. One said I had been eating too much raw food and that I had an overabundance of silver in my system. I have been consuming cilantro to help eliminate the silver (which I had been taking for an ear infection) and I throw my salads in the frying pan before I eat them now. Everyone agrees if my digestive system is working overtime to digest foods my heart would race because all my blood would go to my digestive system while it is working. My heart likes to have it’s share of oxygen and when it feels starved it beats faster to get what it wants. The western medical doctor suggested I go on a prescription called Reglan which he said would increase the efficiency of my stomach’s digestion. I researched it on the Internet and after reading the potential side effects I decided to just stick to the digestive enzymes I have been taking.
When I showed the bottle to my doctor he said, “Hmmm, pancreas in a bottle.” The doctor at the walk in clinic was the most disturbing of all the practitioners. This skinny guy with a big gut and a bad tattoo began suggesting prescriptions for every symptom I listed. If I had been someone who believed in western medicine’s prescriptions I’d have come out of the building with a handful of paper to cover up every symptom I had and heaven only knows whether I would be alive to write this article. Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe western medicine has it’s place. In 2008 when a red line started up my arm indicating the natural antibiotic wasn’t working on the brown recluse spider bite I rushed to the local clinic for the most powerful antibiotics they could give me. I also took a probiotic at the same time because one thing my digestive system needs is the good live bacteria to help it digest food. The thing that troubles me about many western medical doctors is their swiftness to prescribe medicines to cover up symptoms. I believe, like many holistic practitioners; if your body has a fever it is trying to burn something out, if it has a rash it is trying to get rid of something that doesn’t belong there and if your heart is racing, well, it’s trying to tell you something…
Another thing that has come to my attention which troubles me is I cannot go to a lab and have a blood test done without a doctor’s prescription. Why not? If I want to self diagnose and treat myself with herbs or other tried and proven remedies for say, hyperthyroidism, why can’t I? Is the system afraid I may be able to heal myself so they don’t get my money? Of course, writing this article is causing my pulse to elevate so I am going to publish it up on my website and then relax and drink some lemon balm tea, do some meditation, practice a little Jin Shin Jyutsu and read some more in the book, Life Beyond 100 written by my friend, C. Norm Shealy, M.D., Ph.D., world famous neurosurgeon, co-founder of the American Holistic Medical Association and wonderful a teacher. I should probably email him and thank him for his suggestion to practice autogenic training (which has definitely helped) and let him know I am still alive and still believing I will eventually regain my vibrant good health.
Blessings,
Diane
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