It is my understanding that toxins and heavy metals place a burden on the vis that prevents it from working properly.  Have you seen any other therapies work as well at restoring balance/health?  Have you seen improvements with hydrotherapy and nutritional support alone?  How do you treat a patient with a toxic burden?

You have some fine teachers down there in the desert, and I do not know what is taught there, or there as opposed to any other of our colleges.  My comments are in answer to your question, and have nothing to do with your curriculum, which, again, I do not know.

 

In the first place, your concept of the VIS is not the same as mine.  Heavy metals do not place a burden upon the Vis Medicatrix Naturae.  They place a burden upon the health, upon the body, upon enzyme systems, etc.  The Vis is the inherent wisdom and tendency of the body to heal itself, which is not changed, I think, by the burden, but continues to act as it always has.  It acts to maximize health regardless of the circumstances, but those circumstances are part of what determine the health.  In my experience, we do not need IV Chelation to increase the basis for health or to stimulate or support the acting of the Vis Medicatrix.  Faced with a mercury burden, for example, I do something like this:

 

One Captomer (oral DMSA from Thorne) daily for 3 days.

One Chlorella capsule tid.

One tablespoonful Cilantro daily.

Two capsules (Thorne) Heavy Metal Support twice daily for the three days of DMSA, and one capsule daily on non-DMSA days

Two charcoal tablets tid.

Homeopathic mercurius sol. 30c, tid 

Kidney tonic during the 3 days and for a week following the DMSA.

At least one tablespoonful soluble fiber (eg, oat bran), daily.

 

The DMSA is taken only for 3 days.  It is stopped for 3 weeks, then repeated for 3 days.  This is done for the duration of the treatment.

 

In addition, the patient is exercising, sweating in some fashion, and doing constitutional hydrotherapy. 

 

As I said, I have laboratory evidence of total removal of plaqueing from dietary changes, hydrotherapy, exercise, homeopathy, botanicals.  But my experience is not unique.  Dr. McDougal published on this, as have others.  One can generally see a significant reduction in chest pain in three weeks of dietary change and hydrotherapy, with "appropriate" exercise. alone!

 

I don't like IV therapy.  I occasionally send people to Dr. Osborne or Dr. Raffety for IV therapy, either because the patient wants it or because I think it might help them.  I have seen IV vitamin C do wonders in some advanced cancer cases, extending life and reducing symptoms.  I think it should be part of our prerogative as physicians, but I do not want to do it.  If there is a safer alternative, I do not want to introduce substances directly into the blood, bypassing the body's wisdom ( the wisdom of the Vis) as to what belongs in its blood.

 

To me, the therapeutic order gives us a map to follow to "restore balance/health".  First, try to understand why the person is ill.  There is a psycho/spiritual component, and we can address this in various ways, including with homeopathy as well as with words and prayer.  Among the reasons people are ill is diet and digestion, almost always.  So I begin here.  Diet, digestion, talking, an"etiologic" remedy to address the current presentation of spiritual disturbance if I can find one.  I give them a different diet.  I generally use the old Carroll test to make one of my determinations in this regard, but Dr. Morstein, who is smarter then I am, uses IgG/IgE Elisa testing.  This is to determine food reactivity.  Dr. Kruzel uses in-depth Blood Type dietary determination, and he is also smarter than I.

 

I treat the patient with daily constitutional hydrotherapy, to stimulate repair and detoxification.  I often use weekly acupuncture for the same purpose, to help stimulate and restore energetic and circulatory balance to the patient.  This is how I stimulate the self-healing mechanisms - the second aspect of the therapsutic order.

 

I use botanicals and glandulars, and sometimes specific homeopathic remedies (sometimes called "drainage" remedies) to stimulate and support repair and restoration of organs and tissues.

 

I use various forms of manipulation and physiotherapy to address structure.

 

In my experience, this is usually enough to restore the health of my patients, especially those suffering from chronic illness.  Acute illness is usually much simpler.

 

I just do not see the necessity of IV Chelation to detoxify or to restore, and certainly consider it a high force intervention, not a 1st or 2nd level intervention vis a vis the therapeutic order.  It is a 6th or 7th level intervention.

 

Jared Zeff, ND

Salmon Creek, WA