My TUDCA capsules arrived earlier this week and I’ve been downing them each morning with my green juice. It’s definitely a lot more enjoyable taking TUDCA this way because I wasn’t crazy about the taste of the powder, even buried in my kale, celery and cucumber juice. For more info on TUDCA, click here.
The next to-dos on my list are to undergo a comprehensive food allergy screening and start on a three-month supply of Orange Algae utilized in a clinical trial in Israel—both thanks to information provided by Dr. Andy Rosenfarb at Acupuncture Health.
First the food allergy screening. Since getting serious about healing my eyesight, I’ve been doing a lot of research into the role diet plays in disease. It turns out that food can actually make you REALLY SICK—as in cancer, heart disease, a variety of autoimmune diseases, and yes, eye disease. The reason is because lots of foods cause inflammation, which in turn causes poor digestion, which in turn causes toxins and debris to build up in your body and keeps nutrients from being absorbed. This, in turn, leads to all sorts of degenerative diseases. The wrong foods also mess with blood flow and circulation– which are critical to healthy eyesight.
If you want to learn more about the role of diet and lifestyle in disease, here are some great documentaries and resources:
- Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare: A powerful documentary about how changes in diet and lifestyle can reverse disease
- Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead : A great documentary about two guys who reversed their autoimmune disease through green juicing
- Kris Carr: Her story of successfully battling stage 4 cancer with diet is powerful and she now offers great recipes, books and information.
- Scientists Officially Link Processed Foods to Autoimmune Disease: This study Dr. Rosenfarb sent me shows a correlation between processed foods –which are packed with refined salt–and autoimmune diseases.
After describing my RP and general health history to Dr. Rosenfarb (no family history of RP but lots of family history with asthma and kidney disease – plus my own issues with low lung capacity, kidney infections and Vitamin D deficiency), he told me it sounded like my case reflected an autoimmune disorder. He advised that I get a comprehensive food allergy screening as soon as possible. He said that he advises all of his RP patients to get food allergy testing for the reasons I’ve described above and noted that in many cases, just changing up a person’s diet can significantly improve their health all the way around—-and can play a key role in vision preservation. He referred me to AlCat (www.alcat.com) which operates worldwide. The food allergy screening costs several hundred dollars and you pay more or less depending on the level of screening you order. Since I’m serious about this, I’m going for the Platinum comprehensive screening. My blood draw is scheduled for next week and I’ll report my findings once I receive my results.
Algae from Israel. I first heard about this algae last summer from a friend of mine who works for Foundation Fighting Blindness. She told me that a donor who suffers from RP has been taking the algae and had noticed a significant improvement in his night vision. I did an Internet search and asked about it at a local supplement store but couldn’t find a source so I stopped looking for it. But a couple of weeks ago, Dr. Rosenfarb mentioned the algae to me in an email and said he was in the process of sourcing it for his patients. Then, last week, I saw a post about the Algae on Facebook. The research is still evolving and so far, it appears to help less than forty percent of the patients tested. But for those patients, the results in terms of both increased night vision and peripheral vision were astounding.
Here are links to two separate articles on that study:
- Orange Algae May Treat Retinitis Pigmentosa, Night Blindness
- Algal Beta Carotene May Be Helpful in Retinitis Pigmentosa
- Where to Buy It – Click Here.
Dr. Rosenfarb spent a month sourcing the algae. It’s s expensive: about $450 for a 50-day supply. (It’s a little confusing because the website is in a different currency, but I’m just going to place my order and see what happens). If you are going to try the algae, Dr. Rosengarb recommends staying on it for 90 days, which was the length of the study in Israel. I asked him if he thought I should give it a try based on my RP health history. He said it was too early to determine which types of RP benefitted from the algae. But because it has low negative side affects (unless you are a smoker or have lung cancer), he strongly advised going for it.
“If it were me, I would start it yesterday,” he answered.
So I’m going for it. I figure I don’t have anything to lose but $900. And while money is tight for me, the potential benefits are so great that it’s worth sticking it on my credit card (right along with my food allergy testing costs).
I’ll keep you all posted. In the meantime, here’s to green juicing, eating healthy, doing daily acupressure and eye exercises, staying physically fit and enjoying life.
I would never have thought to link food allergies to other health problems. So interesting. I hope the test goes well and that cutting anything bad from your diet will be easy. Thank you for sharing all of this information, including your honesty about costs and budget. As you point out, health is the most important thing. As always, good luck and best wishes.