A Multitude of Recoveries Through Alternative Mental Health Treatments
I am 76 years old, widowed twice in the last three years and a classic candidate for depression, but it didn't happen! My first wife was a phobic and was being medicated with everything the doctors could get a hold of. After a reaction to some of the drugs she was on, she was hospitalized and the first thing they did was get her off all medication. She went through withdrawal with all the classic signs. The medics could not determine what the problem was and after two months in the hospital, she was sent home. All the time she was in distress, I never left her side, consequently, I myself became ill. Our doctor, after a cursory check of my symptoms told me to come to his office for a checkup. This was August of '97. He told me I was suffering from depression, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, chronic fatigue, congestive heart failure and sleep deprivation problems. My weight had gotten to 328 pounds at that point. He informed me that he could 'give' me something. I said no way would I take the drugs he was recommending, I was going to research alternative medicine, with the hope I would benefit my wife and get her off all the dangerous drugs. The doctors gave my wife some new medications which I tried to fight but lost out since the wife supported the doctors approach. It took me a while but in February of '98 I found this company right here in Boise, Idaho, that was handling all the basic supplements and some compounds that they had developed themselves. I talked with them about my wifes' condition and, of course, volunteered to be a test subject since I was paralleling some of her problems. They supplied me with some of their products and I started taking them on February 12, 1998. I had immediate results, I was no longer depressed, my blood pressure was normal, my energy level skyrocketed and I was feeling great and looking forward to getting my wife on these products. She, in fact, saw how great my response was to these compounds and on March 16, 1998, she asked me if she could take these compounds herself. I told her yes, if the doctor agreed. That same day I called the doctor about her taking these compounds and he mentioned that we an appointment on Monday, March 23 to go over tests we had both taken and that I should not give her any until he checked them out. She died of a 'coumadin bleed' on Friday, March 20, she never got to take a single capsule. [Coumadin is a blood-thinning drug that has an occasional side effect of uncontrollable bleeding.] That was two weeks before we were to celebrate our 50th anniversary, I had to call 150 people that had accepted our invitation to our 50th and tell them to come for a funeral, not a wedding celebration. My family was amazed at how I held up under the strain, and that was due to the way these compounds worked on me - I should have broken down, but didn't. A year later, I met a lady so similar in character to my first wife, with almost all her traits, and 6 months after our meeting, we were married. My second wife was on an HMO program in New York and there sure was something lacking in that program because just 16 months into our marriage, she died after a gall bladder attack. The attending doctor here said that she had a diseased gall bladder for 10 or 12 years and nobody caught it. Now I should have become a basket case right then and there but I have been on these compounds steadily for 4 years next February 12, and I am sure I would not have survived otherwise