Hi Florie,
I'm sorry to hear you're in so much pain at the moment....
Please, please be careful of this chiropractor. I understand that you know something is wrong with you and that having a regular doc dismiss your pain and your worries because your blood tests are ok may be deeply upsetting and might make you put your faith and your trust in people practicing alternative medicine and I am not in any way judging you or anyone who chooses to go to chiropractors or herbologists or gurus whilst seeking pain relief and a chance to go back to their old self.
BUT: Before I was diagnosed with lupus and right after my first optic neuritis episode when the focus was on MS and docs wanted me to be admitted into hospital for spinal taps and MRIs and a bunch of other things I felt I should not even know of at 20 I sat down with my mum one evening and convinced her to take me to this alternative doctor who has an excellent reputation here. Appointments with him were really hard to make, the waiting list to see him was about 6-7 months long but amazingly so a family friend had made an appointment for that week that she was forced to cancel due to a work thing and so I went in her place. I was ecstatic. I met with the doctor, who was an actual internist too, on top of his "alternative" qualifications and he stroke me as confident, someone who knew exactly what he was talking about, someone who had seen what I had before and cured it with great success and I guess basically someone I could put my fears and trust in and that could listen and help.
He did this biofield testing with metal instruments he placed under my feet and with electrodes on my ears and palms (and very correctly "saw" that I had had asthma problems as a child), he did food allergy testing in exactly the way you describe and told me I was allergic to gluten, red meat, honey, tomatoes, anything fried, copper, wool and a bunch of other things. He sent me to his wife for further food allergy testing with crystals where I was told I was allergic to about 70 other foods, gave me a leaflet on the blood type diet and of course told me that I had multiple chemical sensitivities (if that sounds at all familiar to you by now) and that I had severe toxin accumulation in my body from two courses of antibiotics I had been given when I was four years old for tonsilitis etc etc. I have TMJ too, major troubles with my teeth from it, and so he did this laser treatment with a red laser beam being pointed at my cheek for about 2-3 minutes. I was convinced the treatment had cured my TMJ (until I broke a tooth in my sleep a couple of months later and finally went to get a mouthguard from the dentist). Most importantly he gave me an endless list of supplements and meds to take and, knowing what I know today, I am deeply embarassed to admit I took them all religiously.
I drank water filled with a powder meant to cleanse my liver of all the toxins (had to drink 4 or more liters of this a day), took magnesium pills, vitamin b12 injections, vitamin c injections, a tonic herbal supplement and a bunch of herbs either in pills or teas that I've never even heard of and don't really want to hear of again. I felt ok for a while, I really did. But by the second week of all this I started getting incredibly strong tummy pains and couldn't eat at all as even the sight of food made me nauseous. My mum, my family, my regular internist, they all wanted me to stop but I was so petrified of the possibility of being chronically ill and of the possibility of being "crippled" as you say that I was willing to go through any kind of torture if it meant having a shot at being healthy once more. Looking back at it, I think it's normal human behaviour. Maybe we have to go through a period of denial and disbelief to get to acceptance of who we are and what we have. At least I know I did.
To end my alternative medicine tale, I was admitted into hospital pretty soon after the tummy pains started and gave a list of everything I was taking to my regular doctors. They somehow managed to be incredibly understanding of what I'd done and sat down with me for hours explaining the nature of the immune system and immune system disorders and why and how these things can't be cured at the moment but that they can be controlled.
I have a disability from lupus and aps. That is a fact. No alternative medicine in the world could have changed that. That is also a fact. It's just how my disease progressed and how it responded or didn't respond to meds. However my lupus, my aps they're under excellent control at the moment and I can live a perfectly normal life without pains and fatigue and flares. For as long as this bout of good health lasts of course. I think one of the hardest things to realize is that lupus is chronic, that it will be there by your side forever no matter what you do to get rid of it. I hated lupus and aps for some time and don't get me wrong I still get really wildly mad at both disorders when they're causing me troubles, but I like to think lupus and aps are part of who I am if that makes sense. That doesn't mean I have to like them all the time or be grateful for them or anything (quite the opposite at times actually), but it does mean that I've accepted I have two chronic incurable diseases. They can be managed and one's quality of life with them can be good but unfortunately I cannot will them away no matter how hard I try.
I went back to that alternative doctor of mine a couple of years ago on steroids, plaquenil and cellcept as I wanted to see if, when I wasn't so desperate to believe in him, I would see the things he did a little bit differently. I went through the biofield testing again and he told me that the treatments I'd been on had increased my toxic load and when I questioned this toxic load theory a bit he had the audacity to tell me that "people have the ilnesses the deserve" (how I didn't punch him at that I'll never know....! :lol: ) and then re-did the allergy testing. It was then that I noticed that when he wanted something to be deemed an allergen for me, (i.e. when he tried pushing my arm down and I had to resist etc etc) he would place two fingers (instead of the one he placed on substances he didn't think were allergens) on my arm, one further back than the other one and push with a lot more force.
I'm not saying that going off wheat and mayo will necessarily hurt you, but please be careful of this chiropractor. These peoples' statements regarding your health, what you should eat and what supplements you should take tend to escalate slowly, so just please be careful of what comes next. :worried:
Now your GP situation doesn't sound ideal at all. Is there another GP practice you can go to? Somewhere where you'll be able to see the same GP each time? It might be an idea to look for another GP. In the meantime, if you have a rheumatologist you trust I think you should go back to him, sit down with him and have a serious discussion about your joint pain and how to get better disease control. Maybe you can even discuss going back on plaquenil with your rheumy. I understand that the chiropractor is your only source of help for the moment and I do think that is a big part of the problem; having medical sources of help like a GP and/or rheumatologist you trust will help you getter much better disease control so that your pains and joints can improve as much as possible.
Do let us know how you're getting on!
:flowery:
Zoi
