IN LATE SEPTEMBER, I WAS AWARE OF FEELING ILL in a way which was not a usual one (by “usual” I mean feeling sick, feverish, headache and other precursory symptoms of a viral infection or tummy bug). This was instead a malaise which seemed to penetrate every cell of my body and even my mood, not to mention disturbing the flow of my sleep. Having had a daughter who’s had Type 1 Diabetes since she was less than 3 years old (she’s now 21, at university in the UK) and therefore knowing the symptoms of hyperglycaemia, I suspected Type 2 Diabetes looming — especially as my urination count was up. That didn’t surprise me. I’d allowed myself to gain far too much weight and become too carefree in my diet — eating a lot of sugary and processed foods. This was unusual because normally I’m meticulous about health and diet. But I had become sloppy and too blasé by far on this anglicised holiday sunshine isle with its cheap and easily obtainable Full English Breakfasts, Shreddies cereal, Blue Stilton and Wensleydale-with-cranberries cheeses, roast dinners, cheesecakes, apple pie or crumble and a sister living locally who loves food as much as I do!

I have always been a fan of medical self-care when possible and it IS possible. It’s not that I would never go to a doctor under any circumstances; but, if possible, I try not to get pulled into that allopathic system in doctors’ surgeries and hospitals which is basically prostituted out to the pharmaceutical corporations’ array of drugs and often unnecessary surgical procedures as first lines of attack. Consequently, I haven’t been to a doctor for almost 35 years. Doctors’ surgeries are over-subscribed enough as it is; with people turning up there with all sorts of ailments that they could easily treat themselves. But we have all been so brainwashed to believe that only the professionals can do it (and, let’s face it, they have a big financial incentive to take that line) that we happily submit to a system which does not understand the whole person and only treats symptoms.

Thus, over the last 35 years especially, I’ve treated myself for a host of ailments which many would think I was crazy to do so. I’ve performed surgery on myself, cutting out subcutaneous cysts, chopping off large skin tags, lancing serious infections with a scalpel, burning off melanomas with cryotherapeutic devices, etc. I actually enjoy performing operations — though there are challenges doing it onehandedly on oneself! 🙂 Also, one has to take great care to avoid possible infections, with all prior precautions being taken.

So as soon as I sensed a brush with Diabetes, I knew I had to take my blood sugar level. I went straight to a pharmacy and asked if they had a blood-testing kit (many carry one for itinerant diabetics) and could they take my blood sugar level as I was feeling unwell. Aarrrgghh! As soon as I saw the read-out my suspicions were confirmed. 10.1 mmoL. That was way too high for a pre-breakfast reading (which should be 4.9 – 5.6). I knew then what I had to do. No, not going running off to a hospital so the system could get hold of me and lace me with oral drugs or genetically-modified pig’s insulin! This was Type 2 not Type 1, so I knew that it could be controlled and turned around solely through an attentive health regime. I then set myself the goal of bringing my blood sugar level down to a consistently normal level within the next weeks. I had to turn Diabetes Type 2 right around — nullify it completely.

After I saw the blood-test reading at the end of September I also suspected my blood pressure was higher than it should be. So I obtained a blood pressure monitor for €15 from Carrefour and tested it. It was 143/85, which was too high, putting me in the pre-hypertension bracket. I also resolved to bring this down massively in the ensuing weeks.

So what did I do? Already, I haven’t smoked or drunk alcohol since I was around 21 years old, which is a good start for health. But I had to take big action to turn all this around. The first thing was to lose weight rapidly in as safe a way as possible. At the end of September, I was then 88 kilos heavy with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 26.3 and knew that those should ideally be 78 kilos maximum weight for my age/height and around 22 BMI. Second, I would banish all breads, pasta, rice, added sugar and processed foods from my diet, majoring completely on vegetables (especially greens like cabbage, spinach and broccoli, plus carrots and other roots), a variety of wholesome fruits, cottage cheese instead of hard cheeses, various legumes and beans, any kind of seaweed, plus an oily fish like salmon or mackerel at least three times per week. Third, I would introduce, first thing each morning, a glass of pH-balanced water with ½ teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate and the juice of one lemon or lime (don’t eat for one hour before or after this). Fourth, I would ensure I ate plenty of foods containing anti-oxidants (watercress #1, leeks, onions, garlic, pumpkin, mangoes, apricots, carrots, spinach, parsley, milk, nuts, legumes, red peppers, citrus fruits, apples, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, sesame seeds, bran, whole grains, tomatoes, tomato puree, pink grapefruit, watermelon, kiwi fruit, avocado, fish, etc.) and lavishly sprinkled on my meals lots of SuperHerbs and SuperSpices which have a powerful healing effect (e.g. basil, parsley, oregano, thyme, dill, garlic, turmeric, cayenne pepper, black pepper and paprika). I would also take a maximum of one teaspoon of cinnamon spice powder per day, which has been proven to have a favourable effect on Diabetes, lowering blood sugar (also helping to lose weight as it quenches the appetite). Fifth, I would take a vitamin/mineral supplement each day. Sixth, I would also create a mini-gymnasium on my terrace from cheaply obtained gear from Decathlon in order to work out, tone and turn fat into muscle and ensure I walked briskly for at least one full hour every day. (By “gymnasium” I don’t mean big machines but elastic stretching bands, a large inflatable ball, barbell weights and the kind of toning device you can see here: http://oferlandia.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/correas.jpg

Well it’s now two months later. So far, I have lost 10 kilos of weight and my BMI is 22.3. My blood pressure is now down to 107/68 and this morning — having obtained a blood sugar testing device of my own — for the first time since the reading at the pharmacy (I hadn’t dared do it since then but wanted to see a good reading on there first!), I did the standard hospital blood sugar test procedure to determine if Diabetes is present. This is done in two parts. Part 1 is taking a reading first thing, before breakfast. Part 2 is taking another reading two hours after a meal (which, in my case, was a breakfast bowl of yoghurt, milk, oat flakes, millet flakes, oat bran, linseeds and a banana). If the Islets of Langerhans — the hormone-producing cells in the pancreas which must function in order to control blood sugar, the malfunction of which is responsible for Diabetes — aren’t working, then the sugar introduced into the body through the ingestion of food in the meal would not be controlled and would show a much higher figure than the pre-breakfast reading. Before breakfast the reading was 5.4 mmol/L (millimoles per litre). A perfect reading. However, the reading two hours after breakfast was also 5.4 mmol/L — identical to the reading before breakfast. Result! Blood sugar health has been restored — THE NATURAL WAY!

By the way, I’m not sharing this as some kind of boast (actually, I’m rather ashamed that I let my health slide so much when I already know that my sensitivity is easily put out of kilter by junk food — which is 90% of what’s on sale in supermarkets). I’m sharing this to encourage you and help you see (if you don’t already do so) that medical self-care is possible and that even potentially or actually serious conditions can be at the very least contained and operated on, even banished. I must admit that reading books like the SAS Survival Handbook some decades ago (the SAS, Special Air Services, is a UK special forces unit) gave me many useful hints about wilderness self-reliance and personal first aid (now available as an Android app) and peaked my interest in medical self-care. But generally I just like to do things myself on many levels instead of following the herd and getting sucked into the system. If it CAN be self-treated, I will do it.

So there it is. There’s today’s good news for a change!

Nature’s Way is usually the best! 🙂 ❤

© 2015, Alan Morrison / The Diakrisis Project. All Rights Reserved. 
 
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]