Cases Beyond The Remedy Of Fasting

Categories: Fasting
Sources: How And When To Be Your Own Doctor

Occasionally, very ill people have a liver that has become so

degenerated it cannot sustain the burden of detoxification. This

organ is as vital to survival as the brain, heart and lungs. We can

get along with only one kidney, we can live with no spleen, with no

gallbladder, with only small parts of the stomach and intestines,

but we can not survive without a liver for more than a day or so.

The liver is the most activ organ in the body during

detoxification. To reach an understanding of detoxification, it

helps to know just what the liver does for us on an ongoing basis.



The liver is a powerful chemical filter where blood is refined and

purified. The liver passes this cleansed blood out through the

superior vena cava, directly to the heart. The blood is then pumped

into general and systemic circulation, where it reaches all parts of

the body, delivering nutrition and oxygen at a cellular level. On

its return flow, a large proportion of the depleted blood is

collected by the gastric, splenic and superior and inferior

mesenteric veins that converge to form the large portal vein which

enters the liver. Thus a massive flow of waste from all the cells of

the body is constantly flowing into the liver. The huge hepatic

artery also enters the liver to supply oxygen and nutrients with

which to sustain the liver cells themselves.



The liver is constantly at work refining the blood. It is

synthesizing, purifying, renovating, washing, filtering, separating,

and detoxifying. It works day and night without stopping. Many

toxins are broken down by enzymes and their component parts are

efficiently reused in various parts of the body. Some impurities are

filtered out and held back from the general circulation. These

debris are collected and stored in the gall bladder, which is a

little sack appended to the liver. After a meal, the contents of the

gall bladder (bile) are discharged into the duodenum, the upper part

of the small intestine just beyond the stomach. This bile also

contains digestive enzymes produced by the liver that permit the

breakdown of fatty foods in the small intestine.



Sometimes a large flow of bile finds its way into the stomach by

pressure or is sucked into the stomach by vomiting. Excessive

biliary secretion and excretion can also result from overeating,

which overcrowds the area. Sometimes colonics or massage can also

stimulate a massive flow of bile. Extremely bitter and irritating,

when bile gets into the stomach the person either vomits or wishes

they could. And after vomiting and experiencing the taste of bile,

wishes they hadn't.



When no food at all enters the system, the blood keeps right on

passing through the liver/filter just as it does when we are eating.

When the liver does not have to take care of toxins generated by the

current food intake, each passage through the liver results in a

cleaner blood stream, with the debris decreasing in quantity,

viscosity, and toxicity, until the blood becomes normalized. During

fasting, debris from the gall bladder still pass through the small

intestine and into the large intestine. However, if the bowels do

not move the toxins in the bile are readsorbed into the blood stream

and get recirculated in an endless loop. This toxic recycling makes

a faster feel just terrible, like they had a flu or worse!



The bowels rarely move while fasting. During fasting only enemas or

colonics permit elimination from the large intestine. If done

effectively and frequently, enemas will greatly add to the well

being and comfort of the faster. Many times when a faster seems to

be retracing or experiencing a sudden onset of acute discomfort or

symptoms, these can be almost immediately relieved by an enema or

colonic.



A person with major liver degeneration inevitably dies, with or

without fasting, with or without traditional medicine. Significantly

impaired kidney function can also bring about this same result.

Mercifully, death while fasting is usually accomplished relatively

free of pain, clear of mind and with dignity. That often can not be

said of death in a hospital. There are much worse experiences than

death.



Fasting is not a cure-all. There are some conditions that are beyond

the ability of the body to heal. Ultimately, old age gets us all.



Dr. Linda Hazzard, one of the greats of natural hygiene, who

practiced Osteopathic medicine in the 1920s, had a useful way of

categorizing conditions that respond well to fasting. These she

labeled "acute conditions," and "chronic degenerative conditions." A

third classification, "chronic conditions with organic damage," does

not respond to fasting. Acute conditions, are usually inflammations

or infections with irritated tissue, with swelling, redness, and

often copious secretions of mucous and pus, such as colds, flu, a

first time case of pneumonia, inflamed joints as in the early stages

of arthritis, etc. These acute conditions usually remedy in one to

three weeks of fasting. Acute conditions are excellent candidates

for self-doctoring. Chronic degenerative conditions are more serious

and the patient usually requires supervision. These include

conditions such as cancer, aids, chronic arthritis, chronic

pneumonia, emphysema and asthma. Chronic degenerative conditions

usually respond within a month to three months of fasting. The

fasting should be broken up into two or three sessions if the

condition has not been relieved in one stint of supervised fasting.

Each successive fast will produce some improvement and if a light,

largely raw-food diet is adhered to between fasts the patient should

not worsen and should be fairly comfortable between fastings.



If there has been major functional damage to an organ as a result of

any of these degenerative conditions, healing will not be complete,

or may be impossible. By organic damage, I mean that a vital part of

the body has ceased to function due to some degenerative process,

injury, or surgery--so badly damaged that the cells that make up the

organ can not be replaced.



I once had a twenty five year old man come to my spa to die in peace

because he had been through enough diagnostic procedures in three

hospitals to know that his liver was beyond repair. He had been

working on an apple farm in between terms at university when he was

poisoned several times with insecticide from an aerial spray on the

whole orchard. He absorbed so much insecticide that his liver

incurred massive organic damage.



When he came to me his body had reached the point where it was

incapable of digesting, and because of lack of liver function, it

was incapable of healing while fasting, a condition in which death

is a certainty. He was a Buddhist, did not fear death and did not

want to be kept alive in agony or in prolonged unconsciousness by

any extraordinary means, nor did he want to die with tubes in every

orifice. I was honored to be a supportive participant in his

passing. He died fasting, in peace, and without pain, with a clear

mind that allowed him to consciously prepare for the experience. He

was not in a state of denial or fear, and made no frantic attempts

to escape the inevitable. He went quietly into that still dark night

with a tranquil demeanor and a slight smile.



Fortunately, in my many years of practice I had the pleasure of

seeing the majority of the people totally regain their health or at

least greatly improve it by means of the fasting and healing diets.

Many cancer patients watched with amazement as their tumors

disappeared before their eyes, many arthritics regained their

function, serious skin conditions such as psoriasis disappeared,

mental conditions improved, addictions vanished, fatigue was

replaced by energy, and fat dissolved revealing the hidden sculpture

beneath. I will talk more about procedures and the particular

reasons bodies develop specific conditions in later chapters.