In order to save MCSrs some of the grief and near-death experience I went through, in Mexico, I feel it's necessary at this point to tell this story which could be the stuff of a 60 Minutes expose on not only bad medicine but on an extremely poor medical understanding of MCS.
In March of 2004, I decided, after much research of clinics throughout North America, and because of my parents' misplaced disbelief in Dr. Rea of Texas, to go to a clinic called Sanoviv, in Rosarita, Mexico, to save my life. The clinic was housed in Levi Strauss's beautiful mansion, in the Baja of Mexico, overlooking the stunning ocean. My doctor in British Columbia had suggested this clinic, and although I had a dream one night to head to Hippocrates instead (a renowned raw food health centre in Florida), I didn't heed my intuition and followed the suggestion to go to Sanoviv. Oddly enough, it looked exactly as in my dream.
With my medical background from studying at veterinary school in Canada, my journalism skills, and because I’d heard great things about Usana Vitamins (which owns Sanoviv) and needed a place that provide colonics plus IVs, I weighed out my options and followed his advice.
I had severe environmental illness (multiple chemical sensitivity), heavy metal poisoning, and was declared, after live blood cell microscopy and other tests at the clinic, the most toxic patient Sanoviv had ever seen (said my assigned doctor there)
Within the first couple of days at Sanoviv, after spending $10,000 of my parents' hard earned dollars for about a week at Sanoviv, I looked forward to medical care which would match the ranks of Johns Hopkins, the Mayo Clinic or Hippocrates.
As my lead levels were way off the chart, I was having severe panic attacks and needed proper, immediate care.
There were fine people I encountered, such as the wonderful colonic therapist, Yvonne, in the spa, an incredible psychologist and meditation teacher, but then there was the other side.
There were several breaches of professionalism I saw regarding other patients…I just have room to include mine in this post. Here are the basics of what happened to me (and I did write several letters to the President of Sanoviv, but received no reply):....
-The intake doctor wouldn’t take, look at, or pass along the fat medical I brought from home to help the Sanoviv doctors do the standard: understand a patient's history, and they told me that “Sanoviv’s doctors are the best in the world" and "We don’t have to look at your Canadian test results." My doctor and the head doctor wouldn't look at it either.
-Because of my severe hypoglycemia and low blood sugar ,I needed extra protein and when m assigned doctor kindly asked the kitchen a few times to do this, they steadfastly refused from Day 1 to carry though with his request, telling me that it was up to the nutritionist to decide (a second, older and wiser nutritionist candidly informed me one night that I shouldn’t even be there but should be building my body instead of breaking it down).
-Dr. Caruba kindly informed me, in the IV room, several nights later, that the latter nutritionist was right and I should heed her advice and leave.
-On about Day 3, because my assigned doctor thought my panic attacks were indicative of schizophrenia, he called in a young psychiatrist. After just a half hour of listening to me (a very toxic person having panic attacks), she declared me Paranoid Schizophrenic!
-Dr. Vasquez, the head doctor, then set up a meeting in a closed, windowless, white room, where we sat in a circle with my resident doctor and the psychologist (which all patients are assigned); Vasquez told me to take the schizophrenic drugs and when I said I wouldn’t, he literally yelled at me that "if I didn’t do this I’d be thrown out," and told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about. that I was "an imbecile", and that "I better listen to him." My doctor told me he wouldn’t be at all surprised if I wrote a letter of complaint.
-Aside from the mental abuse I endured, paranoid schizophrenic is a very serious label to give someone. So, my doctor provided me with schizophrenic tranquilizers, Zyprexa, which he said I must take or they’d send me home. I pretended to swallow them so that my parents wouldn't think they'd wasted their money. (Ironically, the first doctor I ever saw for my symptoms, in Toronto, also thought I had schizophrenia! It seems to be a fall-back label for a crazy environmental disease doctors don't understand!)
- Fortunately, I had seen a renowned psychiatrist, Dr. Abram Hoffer, in Canada, as he specialized in vitamin therapy for various illnesses. Mine was brain fog and feeling I was losing my mind with MCS, but he assured me I wasn't schizophrenic.
-In the l950’s , not only did he discover high doses of niacin cured schizophrenics, but he founded the Canadian Schizophrenia Foundation, the Huxley Institute of Biosocial Research, the International Schizophrenia Foundation, and more.
-I’d seen Dr. Hoffer (who had cured Margot Kidder) one month prior, and he’d me non-schizophrenic (only the HOD Diagnostic Test can accurately diagnose schizophrenia).
-In a meeting arranged by Vasquez, and attended by my doctor and the psychologist as well, Vasquez proceeded to remind me that they didn’t have to listen to any of my doctors, that "ours are the best in the world", and with his face almost pressed against mine, proceeded to yell at me and threaten me regarding the drugs he threatened I must take. Later, my doctor and the psychologist admitted to me their abhorrence.
-Against my adult wishes and privacy rights, my parents were phoned and misinformed that I was paranoid schizophrenic (my mother was then about to commit me to the Clarke Institute (Canada’s major mental hospital). Mind you, I went there as an outpatient upon my return to reassure myself and my mother that I was okay, and the head psych there also confirmed I wasn't schizophrenic.
-I quickly phoned Dr. Hoffer who faxed Sanoviv a letter confirming I was NOT schizophrenic.
-In the meantime, other patients there were shocked at how I was being treated and told me I should leave. I didn’t though because I’d spent the money and was, for some reason, more afraid of my parents' reaction to my bad choice in clincs!
-However, I was becoming severely depleted with mineral loss from diarrhea, and lack of nutrition Then, I was given a sauna (although told by the top doctors in environmental medicine that I should not yet have), a long warm seaweed wrap, and not told to drink extra water.
-The next day, I awoke with severe dehydration, drank 5 litres of water, and may have had a herxheimer reaction (something the clinic vowed I would never get there).the world looked as if it was outside of a large bubble and I was in the fishbowl. A friend told me it’s similar to a bad LSD trip.
-Patients who witnessed this told me my face looked swollen and that I looked severely different. Breast cancer patients were taking care of me instead of your doctors. In the afternoon, I secretly made a desperate, clandestine phone call to my naturopath in Canada who told me to go on an electrolyte IV immediately.
-The lab, completely freaked out by now as to what happened to me, heeded my request (I didn’t tell them it was the naturopath’s request since they wouldn't listen to my Canadian doctors--and told me they didn't need to believe Hoffer either!) and put me on an electrolyte IV. After an hour, my world reverted to almost normal.
-I say almost because I was taken off a bit too early, heard and felt a huge “bang” in my head, and awoke the next morning with a huge headache and a swollen face with numbness that still hasn’t gone away. My brain function has also not been the same after that.
-On the way to the airport, I gave a note and gift, in an envelope, to the driver to give to the person who had helped me most—the colonic therapist—and when I called her days later I found out it was never given to her.
_________________
There may be good clinics down south, but be aware of the glitzy ones.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment