When Kelly first met with me in my office, she spoke calmly and described her long history of an inability to sleep.
Needless to say, her level of energy suffered greatly. She tended to be quite irritable, but only because she was so deficient in resting and restoring her vitality.
Simply put, our batteries need recharging overnight by good quality sleep. Kelly had tried everything she could find. Yet nothing was of any significant benefit.
On her own she had tried vitamins, minerals, herbs, and every other known natural remedy, all without success. She had been given prescription medication, which also failed to help.
Stuck in a Vicious Cycle
It would only make sense that Kelly was stuck in the state we call “fight, flight, or freeze.”
It is in that state that our capacity to absorb and assimilate essential nutrients can become severely compromised. One of the majorly important minerals in our chemistry is magnesium, and our stores of it often become depleted from stress.
So therein is created a catch-22 in which magnesium and others are especially needed, yet they cannot make their way into the cells because of the body having shifted away from a state of rest and digest and into a priority to survive whatever seems to be a threat.
IV Therapy to the Rescue
This is the type of situation in which infusing essential nutrients into the bloodstream can make a dramatic impact. It certainly did for Kelly.
After two or three infusions of minerals with generous amounts of magnesium, her nutrient levels were restored, her sleep returned to normal, and she escaped from the vicious cycle, no longer needing any form of sleep aid.
A Serious Health Challenge These Days
A fairly recent entry onto the list of currently serious illnesses is chronic Lyme disease, characterized by symptoms of fatigue, headaches, joint and muscle pain, and skin rash.
One of the characteristics of chronic Lyme is the occurrence of flare-ups, in which symptoms become acutely severe.
Another common issue is known as the Jarisch-Herxheimer (“Herx”), or die-off, reaction, which is another type of acute worsening of symptoms. It results from the sudden release of bacterial toxins when many of those infectious agents are rapidly killed off. This is most commonly seen when strong antibiotics are used.
Rallying Our Forces Against Chronic Lyme Disease
When first meeting her, I found Lauren’s case of chronic Lyme to be fairly typical.
She suffered from bouts of fatigue, intermittent fevers, and muscle and joint pain. Yet her very first intravenous treatment infused her not only with some key vitamins and minerals, but also with some much needed hope. She was surprised at the immediate benefit she felt.
While this was the start of a gradual course of improvement, it was not without some flare-ups and die-off reactions.
Wisdom from the Most Basic Biology
As we now know, there are times when some of the simplest elements common to our normal body chemistry, when infused intravenously, may play a significant role in helping with a major compromise in our functioning.
In this case, the unexpected remedy is something that is likely found in most households: baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate. As is common knowledge, bicarbonate is an alkaline agent, the opposite of an acid.
The key fact here is that a chronic infectious and inflammatory picture like chronic Lyme puts the body into an acidic state, which would likely parallel the severity of the symptoms. Any contribution to the restoring of normal body chemistry may throw a wrench into the disease machine.
A Second Blast from Our Nutrient Arsenal
It was during a particularly severe die-off reaction that Lauren came seeking our help.
This proved to be another opportunity for progress. It was a major step forward when we administered a bicarbonate infusion.
She reported immediate relief from her body pain, headache, and nausea. She said it is the only thing that “stopped the Herx in its tracks.”
The Dilemma of Stress plus Chronic Illness
You may have noticed that when you are acutely ill, your appetite tends to drop. You not only feel fatigued, but you often lose your interest in eating.
Well, there is wisdom in this, as you may already know. When your body is in a weakened state and trying to muster all its remaining forces to combat disease, it doesn’t want to spend its precious energy breaking down and digesting food.
In the short term, this is a good strategy, as brief periods of fasting are known to be beneficial in many illness states, especially in well-fed societies like our own.
And yet, what happens when the illness is chronic? What about the basic needs of our cells to perform their functions, especially the needs of the cells of the immune system?
Chronic Stress as Smoldering Illness
Significant levels of stress are well known to shift our body chemistry into the state we now call “fight, flight, or freeze.” The last of those three options has a hidden and very important meaning.
Not only might we halt in our tracks when stunned by a shocking event, but it is also our digestive functioning that becomes invariably compromised. The otherwise ongoing delivery of vital nutrients to our cells is put on hold while our attention and energy are directed toward whatever serious situation we are facing.
As mentioned above, this is natural, normal, and not a problem for a brief period. Yet when our lives have taken a turn into a long-term challenge, it is only a matter of time before the integrity of body chemistry and immune function begin to suffer from lack of vital nutrients.
The Glorious Marriage of Medical Technology and Nutritional Science
The intravenous route is nothing all that new in the history of medicine. It has long been useful for administering drugs like antibiotics and steroids for serious states of illness, as well as giving simple fluids both to maintain hydration and to reverse serious states of dehydration.
Yet the relatively recent blossoming of the discipline of nutritional medicine has now, to our great good fortune, introduced a wide variety of vital nutrient formulas intravenously. In bypassing a poorly functioning system of digestion and absorption, the most fundamental needs of cells can be met, sometimes with dramatic benefits.
And far beyond that, the science of infusing health-promoting substances directly into the bloodstream has continued to evolve to the point that now we have specific formulas to address a wide variety of medical conditions. Some of the formulas are very simple; others contain a complex array of nutrients.
Far Too Unknown in the IV Therapy World
As is clear from the examples above, there is great potential in using the intravenous route to administer substances that are natural parts of our body chemistry.
Yet of all the options for IV therapy, one stands out as not only very powerful, but even more natural than all the others. What could that be? Your own highly purified and energized blood!
This treatment is known as Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation, or UBI. In the technique, an ounce or two of your blood is drawn, mixed with normal saline, passed through a specialized machine that blasts it with ultraviolet light, and then infused right back into a vein.
The impact of infusing your own highly energized, purified blood is an immediate stimulation of your immune system. While it may be helpful in a variety of diseases, this form of therapy has shown itself to be particularly effective in virus infections like Epstein-Barr and Hepatitis C.
And Yet Another IV Powerhouse
Many of us have heard of ozone as part of air pollution. Or as the ozone layer that encircles the earth. In many industries ozone is used as a disinfectant because of how unmatched it is in effectively killing microbial contaminants.
So what we now know is that this special molecule, which is a kind of super oxygen, is certainly unhealthy to breathe, but can be greatly beneficial when administered to the body in other ways. Not only is it effective against infectious agents, but it also has a potent oxygenating effect.
The combination of flooding the system with oxygen and destroying viral, bacterial, and fungal agents is of tremendous benefit in most, if not all, chronic conditions. Cancer, autoimmune illness, chronic infections, and any situation where the immune system is struggling are perfect candidates for this type of intervention.
Like ultraviolet blood irradiation, intravenous ozone therapy is generally without risk or side effect. It is possible for patients to feel tired for a short period after the treatment. This would be due to the healing changes taking place in the body, which are then followed by a greater level of vitality and immune strength.
We often combine ultraviolet blood irradiation and ozone, and may even follow them with other IV treatments. These are all compatible with each other, and the administering of them back-to-back provides benefits to different aspects of body chemistry and immune function simultaneously.
Just the Tip of a Diverse Iceberg
The above stories illustrate how the simplest of intravenous formulas can make a difference in a chronic condition that no oral medication or supplement can.
Besides basic minerals like magnesium and key body chemistry agents like sodium bicarbonate, we now have a whole host of IV preparations at our disposal for helping to tackle a wide variety of medical challenges. We see impressive changes from using IV formulas that include vitamin C and others, minerals, amino acids, hydrogen peroxide, DMSO, EDTA, glutathione, and more.
Of course, the intravenous route is not usually our first choice as a strategy for addressing any particular condition, yet it always remains a serious consideration as part of the most effective program to undo an illness process.
Might it be the missing link in the success of your program of recovery?