33. From My Readers — Part III

The other day I headed out for a walk at 10:00 a.m. Already the heat from the sun was intense; the humidity, suffocating. It made me feel weak. Once again I was glad for what I have learned about the need for extra salt in hot weather (see “Beating the Heat,” article #30). I made a mental note to have another half teaspoon in a glass of diluted juice when I got back to the house.

As I walked, the heat brought to mind a brief encounter at the Farmers’ Market last week. A woman came by my table to say hello. Her name is Joan. 

“What are you doing here today?” I asked. “You were here last week.” 

Joan comes to our market every three or four weeks with her Nuskin scanner, a device that is able to measure the level of antioxidants in your body. At $10 for this service, it is an inexpensive peek into how your body is doing nutritionally. If your antioxidants are low, she will show you her nutritional products. But I digress. 

Joan explained that she’d driven all the way down from St. Albert just to pick up an order of fresh, chemical-free vegetables from our local Hutterites. Joan introduced me to her friend, who told me that Joan had forwarded “Beating the Heat” to her. 

“My son had sunstroke a couple of days ago,” the friend said. “I gave him a half-teaspoon of sea salt in some water, and it really helped him. Thank you.” 

Incidents like this are what make writing this column a privilege. How wonderful to know that a simple remedy has made a huge difference to someone, I thought as I walked along. 

My stream of thought was interrupted as I spotted someone approaching from up ahead. It was a neighbour, just returning from his own daily constitutional. As we greeted each other, he mentioned that he had been reading some of my columns in the paper. Within minutes we were deep into a discussion on iodine. (Read: I was deep into a monologue on iodine.) 

This man, around my age, told me that he is using about $800-worth of prescription drugs every three months: a blood thinner that is upsetting his stomach, one of those muscle-wasting statins for cholesterol, something for high blood pressure, and I don’t know what else. He has also been diagnosed as type-II diabetic. Determined to get off these expensive meds with their scary side-effects, he has recently begun to see a naturopath, who has told him that 30% of his recovery will be from supplements but 70% will only be by his own initiative with exercise. So he is out walking, with serious intent, almost every day. 

I was able to tell him some things about iodine that I have not yet touched on in my writings: it is a natural blood thinner; it will lower cholesterol; it can get people off (or at least reduce) their diabetes meds. As for high blood pressure, I suggested that he look into how sea salt can normalize it. 

“I don’t use salt at all,” he said. 

I cited as an illustration a 79-year-old acquaintance, a quintuple by-pass survivor, who now, since he began to add sea salt to his food, has achieved his lowest blood pressure ever. 

My neighbour then bent down and folded his sock over to show me the indentation it had made in his puffy ankle. “Sea salt helps edema too,” I told him. (See Blog #30.) I promised to print him off a number of my articles that were pertinent to his issues, as he doesn’t use the internet, and then we went on our separate ways. 

Another reader, Karen, has evidently heard enough of my ravings to begin looking into some iodine for herself. She writes this: 

Last week I checked at both our local health food store and one of the pharmacies as to what iodine products they sold. The pharmacist informed me, “We have too much salt in our diet already, so we don’t sell iodine.” The health food store also doesn’t sell iodine—though they do have kelp products for thyroid support. I see there’s room for some work here!

If you’re thinking the pharmacist’s statement doesn’t make sense, you’re absolutely right. And yes, kelp is rich in iodine, but it will not deliver the doses I talk about. I checked seven different brands of kelp supplements. Their dosages range from the RDA to three times the RDA. By comparison, I was taking 80 times the RDA when I tested deficient in April. I currently take 240 times the recommended daily allowance, every day.

32. The Faith Factor

32. The Faith Factor

 

Over the years I’ve found many things that have helped my health. Our bodies are all a little different, so what helps me might not help you. But then again, our bodies, generally speaking, are all made according to the same design, so what helps me very likely will help you—you might just need more or less of a certain nutrient than I do. We all seem to have our “weakest link”: under great duress, I might have anxiety, you might get an upset stomach or even an ulcer, and someone else might have a stiff, painful neck or a migraine headache. But we all need the same raw materials—various vitamins and elements—to fuel these high-performance machines that we call our bodies. 

However, there is another variable that may affect whether the same remedy benefits you as does me, and that is what I’ll call the faith factor. Every time I’ve found a new kind of health-help, it has been subsequent to asking God to help me with a particular problem, because that’s just the way I live. He tells me not to worry about anything, but just to bring all my concerns to Him. So I do. Of course, you might say I can’t prove that this had anything to do with an effective answer coming my way. But I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m just saying: it works for me. 

I remember how 20 years ago, as I was heading into a nervous breakdown, I was unable to sleep most nights. The awful fatigue that resulted made it so difficult to deal with four small children. One night as I lay awake, still sleepless at three o’clock in the morning, the Lord spoke distinctly to my heart: “Nance, you need calcium.” I went and bought some the next day and I’ve hardly ever been without it since. If for some reason I go without calcium for a few days, I once again have difficulty sleeping. (I have since discovered, first hand, that there are other reasons for insomnia as well.) 

The very first article in this blog tells how God led me to iodine, ever since which I’ve been telling everyone about our need for this vital nutrient. Iodine has changed my life, very much for the better. But there is this other factor: when I first bought iodine and took the first dose, I also asked God to bless it to my body. Who can ever say how much this prayer contributed to the miraculous improvement that iodine has worked in my body? 

When my adrenals crashed a year ago, I did not ask God to heal them. This was quite conscious; quite deliberate. I could see that the way I was used to running my life was out of control and that some things needed to change. If God had miraculously healed my adrenals, I probably would have just jumped right back into the fray in all the ways with which I was familiar. I knew that I had some things to learn, and that I was only going to really learn them if it was a long, slow road. 

A miracle is great, but sometimes it’s not the best thing, because we’re less likely to retain the lessons that come hand in hand with the trial. The other good thing about the long, slow road to natural healing (as compared to a miracle) is that we have many useful things to share with other people about our journey after we reach a particular milestone. 

A few months ago, I felt that it was time to begin praying for the restoration of my adrenals. So on the days when I spend a bit of serious time in prayer, I often think to reach around behind and place both hands above my waist in the general location of my adrenals. And then I say, “I speak restoration and wholeness to these adrenal glands in the name of Jesus.” I then might do the same thing to my thyroid gland and also address my entire endocrine system, and then my body in general. 

“Be not wise in your own eyes,” say the Scriptures. “Fear the Lord and depart from evil, and it shall be health to all your body and strength to your bones” (Proverbs 3:7-8). So I sometimes declare “health to all my body and strength to my bones.” The neat thing is—even if you are not a believer, you can do this. God is kind to all, even to the “ungrateful and wicked,” according to Jesus (Luke 6:35), so not a single one of us is disqualified. “I will never turn anyone away who comes to me,” He said (John 6:37). So ask Him for wisdom, direction, and healing. The “faith factor” may be the thing that makes the difference.

 

31. From My Readers — Part II

A reader named Jo Anne has evidently had her life turned around by supplementing with iodine. She writes the following letter: 

I began taking iodine two years ago and, like you, I have been amazed at the improvements in my health. Iodine is [important] for the health of the connective tissue in the body. I can now climb stairs without leg pain; walk on the balls of my feet without pain. I can climb stairs without gasping for air at the top ..., because my lungs now expand big enough to take in the air I need. 

My flexibility has improved overall. I can reach down and wash my feet in the shower. Reaching my feet before was so stiff and painful, I would be in a sweat just to put on a pair of socks. 

I have been cold- and flu-free for two years [since beginning to use iodine]. Most people don’t realize that we [are supposed to] have a tiny bit of iodine in our saliva. It’s there to protect us from bacteria and viruses. It’s also there for the health of our teeth and gums. A common symptom of deficiency is catching every bug going around, [plus] dental cavities. 

I have had fibrocystic breast disease almost from the day I went into puberty. I was never told, all those years, that iodine was a standard/old-fashioned cure for this condition. There were days when my breasts were so tender and painful, I couldn’t stand to be hugged even gently. Three months after starting the iodine, I began to experience the feeling of needle-like pains in my breasts; after a self-examination I found that all the lumps were gone. The pains only lasted two days, and I am still lump-free today. 

It turns out that mammary glands actually need more iodine than the thyroid does. Scientists know that fibrocystic breast disease is a precursor for breast cancer, so why aren’t more women being told about iodine? Could it be because the big drug companies can’t make money on it, because it already has a patent? [Iodine cannot be patented, as it is a naturally occurring element.] It’s these companies that supply most of the research that our doctors are taught in school. The treatment of cancer is a billion-dollar industry, so no surprise that we never hear about iodine from our doctors. 

My eyesight has improved. I bought new glasses because the old ones were too strong. What a change! I usually have to get them made stronger. Iodine is an aid to the function of every gland in the body. Edgar Casey called it 'Oil for the Machine of the Glands.' My insulin resistance is gone. I’m no longer on a roller-coaster ride when it comes to my energy levels throughout the day. “I can eat whatever I like; it makes little difference. It was a great Christmas present, last, when I got through the festivities eating squares, turkey, gravy, etc., and did not crash even once. I take three drops of Lugol’s iodine in a small glass of orange juice. The citric acid in the juice has a reaction with the iodine and makes it tasteless, colorless and odorless. 

It was accidentally running across a video on YouTube, “Iodine. Why We Need It and Why We Can’t Live Without It” by Dr. David Brownstein, that saved my life.

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Another reader, Leila, commented on my use of Lugol’s on suspicious-looking skin spots (#16: Scared About Skin Cancer):

Hi, Nancy, I’m doing this too. I found decolorized iodine online—while it doesn't stain the skin, it does stain clothing, countertops, etc., plus it has alcohol in it which smells terrible, so I only use it in areas that show. I have/had several strange lumps and bumps on my back, so I got my husband to paint them every night and cover with a band-aid— sure enough, one dropped off after only a week! He's going to try it on his skin tags. I'm also using it on my scalp to combat psoriasis; seems to be working fairly well so far.

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About a month ago, I myself suddenly had four pinkish spots show up on the side of my face, the largest being half an inch across. Immediately I started applying Lugol’s. After two weeks, I figured that I’d better get a doctor’s opinion. Nothing to worry about, he said; a biopsy was not necessary. Well, what’s going on then that these spots sting like crazy when the iodine goes on? The integrity of the skin is obviously broken down. For now, I’ll apply Lugol’s twice a day, and I’m booking another appointment for a second opinion. I'll keep you posted.