Part 13 (1/2)

Partic.i.p.ant No. 5, forty-four years old Pre-Study Complaints *Trouble sleeping; wakes up two to three times each night with physical discomfort.

* Numb fingers on left hand for last four months; carpal tunnel syndrome. Numb fingers on left hand for last four months; carpal tunnel syndrome.

*Bad cramps, breast tenderness, mood swings, weight gain, painful heavy periods, and uterine fibroids for many years.

*Hot flashes at night (or maybe night sweats).

*History of anxiety attacks.

End of Study Feedback *”Gradually sleeping better”

*”Two episodes of waking up between 4:30 and 5:30a.m. with anxiety that subsides by early afternoon.

*”Less numbness in hand and fingers, especially at night; not needing to wear a brace at night.”

*”Menstrual periods not as severe; cramps not as strong.”

*”Feeling better physically and emotionally.”

TWO STORIES OF RELIEF FROM MENSTRUAL AND MENOPAUSAL MISERY.

Amanda Ward, N.D., thirty, Encinitas, California, naturopathic doctor: ”I started Earthing myself and had phenomenal results. My sleep was deeper. When I would become run down, I would wrap myself up in a grounding sheet and recover quickly. However, the most dramatic effect was on my own menstrual issues. I used to have horrific PMS with heavy periods and severe cramping and pain. Nothing I tried was helping me much, even though I have a lot of tools at my disposal as a health pract.i.tioner. At times the situation would be debilitating enough so that I had to stay at home. ”I started Earthing myself and had phenomenal results. My sleep was deeper. When I would become run down, I would wrap myself up in a grounding sheet and recover quickly. However, the most dramatic effect was on my own menstrual issues. I used to have horrific PMS with heavy periods and severe cramping and pain. Nothing I tried was helping me much, even though I have a lot of tools at my disposal as a health pract.i.tioner. At times the situation would be debilitating enough so that I had to stay at home.

”After about two months of Earthing, I started to notice an improvement. Then every month my periods would become a little better. In about a year, my menstrual difficulties completely resolved. Now, I might get a bit of irritability, but all the physical symptoms are gone.

”As I began to see the improvements in my own life, I began recommending Earthing to patients. I do a lot of hormone balancing and nutrition to support women's health issues. I use a broad array of methods, so it is hard to say exactly which treatment is helping the most. However, patients have told me that they feel more balanced with Earthing than they do on the other programs alone. My clinical impression is that women who do the Earthing along with bioidentical hormones definitely seem to have a superior experience. There is a lot of synergy here. Hormonal imbalances are so prevalent, and Earthing seems to be such a simple and profound tool to smooth out those imbalances.

”I have seen particularly good results with perimenopause and menopause, with reduction of symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, and irritability.

”Some of the mothers in my practice have told me that they have used Earthing sheets and helped their kids recover faster from cold and flu symptoms. I've heard this feedback even from women whose children have weaker immune systems and tend to be sick frequently. The mothers will take the grounding sheet they themselves use and wrap up the kids in it when they are watching TV. If the kids sleep grounded, I've heard, they sleep a lot better.”

Dale Teplitz, M.A., fifty-five, San Diego, California, health researcher: ”Ever since my periods began at age thirteen, and until I was forty-five, I suffered routinely with severe PMS and menstrual symptoms. In the week prior to each period, I experienced gradually increasing water retention, food cravings, headaches, and weight gain. I was irritable. My skin was itchy and uncomfortable. My body ached and felt painful to the touch. For several nights prior to every period, I could not sleep. Over the years, I took diuretics to help with the water retention and sleeping pills for those difficult nights. ”Ever since my periods began at age thirteen, and until I was forty-five, I suffered routinely with severe PMS and menstrual symptoms. In the week prior to each period, I experienced gradually increasing water retention, food cravings, headaches, and weight gain. I was irritable. My skin was itchy and uncomfortable. My body ached and felt painful to the touch. For several nights prior to every period, I could not sleep. Over the years, I took diuretics to help with the water retention and sleeping pills for those difficult nights.

”PMS also affected my personality and relations.h.i.+ps; I had emotional ups and downs, anxiety, and often felt depressed. Medication left me feeling emotionally numb.

”Once my period began, the PMS symptoms would go away to be replaced by severe cramps and heavy bleeding. The pain and fatigue often prevented me from working. I lived on anti-inflammatories during this time, which disturbed my digestion.

”At the age of forty-five, I started sleeping grounded. One month later, all the PMS symptoms went away: the cramps, fatigue, bloating, irritability, cravings, sleeplessness, headaches, weight gain, and depression. I was astounded. After thirty-two years, they stopped suddenly. In one stroke, I was able to eliminate the sleeping pills, diuretics, anti-inflammatories, and other medications. I was free of symptoms, and I felt like a new person.

”Two years later, I entered menopause, at around the same age my mother had. I was feeling a bit anxious about what might lie ahead because I had heard horror stories from other women. It seemed that those who had a lot of PMS issues had the most difficulty going through menopause.

”To my surprise, I sailed into menopause effortlessly. I had a gradual decrease in the frequency and duration of periods until they eventually disappeared. I did not experience sleeplessness or hot flashes (other than mild and brief hot flashes, which I determined were related to certain foods or red wine) or any of the other hormonal-type mood swings all my friends reported. Some of my friends have had menopause symptoms for more than ten years now, well into their sixties.

”Another thing that amazes me is that when I was in my early forties, I had been diagnosed with osteopenia, a condition in which bone density is below normal and may lead to osteoporosis. For several years in a row, I had a dual energy x-ray absorptionmetry scan, or DEXA scan, that showed decreased density of my thigh and ankle bones. When I was tested again at age forty-eight, after sleeping grounded for three years, the osteopenia was gone. I was tested again at fifty-two, and it was still gone! My bone density looked great.

”I am convinced that Earthing took away my symptoms of PMS, cramps, and menopause. I doubt that indigenous women who live directly on the Earth are troubled with symptoms of hormone imbalance. I can't imagine how much better my life would have been if I had learned about Earthing thirty years sooner, but n.o.body knew about it then. So I consider myself lucky to have heard about it at all. I could have continued suffering much longer.”

”I HAVE MY HEALTH BACK”

Elizabeth Hughes, Ph.D., fifty-three, Palm Springs, California, former corporate executive: ”At age twenty-one, I developed fever, sore throat, muscle soreness, headaches, swollen glands, and fatigue. My doctor thought I had a case of mononucleosis, a viral condition that frequently strikes young adults. I spent a lot of time in bed and out of commission for the next twenty-five or so years, with one variation or another of some sickness. It seemed to me that my doctors used different names for the s.h.i.+fting symptoms according to whatever mystery disease was in vogue at the time: things like chronic fatigue, Epstein-Barr virus, fibromyalgia, and Ramsay Hunt syndrome. One doctor thought I had MS. I didn't. ”At age twenty-one, I developed fever, sore throat, muscle soreness, headaches, swollen glands, and fatigue. My doctor thought I had a case of mononucleosis, a viral condition that frequently strikes young adults. I spent a lot of time in bed and out of commission for the next twenty-five or so years, with one variation or another of some sickness. It seemed to me that my doctors used different names for the s.h.i.+fting symptoms according to whatever mystery disease was in vogue at the time: things like chronic fatigue, Epstein-Barr virus, fibromyalgia, and Ramsay Hunt syndrome. One doctor thought I had MS. I didn't.

”I was stuck in a system where doctors have great intentions but few explanations about how you got sick and very little to heal you with. A few doctors said it was all in my head and offered antidepressants and psychotherapy. Early on a team of six interns reviewed my case and said they didn't know what was wrong even though my symptoms were obvious.

”Many chemicals made me sick. For a long time, I couldn't set foot in a hairdresser's salon or department store. New synthetic fabrics, carpets, outga.s.sing solvents, and volatile compounds were a problem.

”I did all I could to get well. When conventional treatments failed, I tried the alternatives. I drank 16 ounces of wheat gra.s.s juice daily to detoxify myself. I ate pure organic uncooked food. I had my amalgam fillings removed to get rid of mercury in my body. I got some temporary relief from all these things, but nothing lasting or really substantial.

”Despite ongoing health issues, I managed to earn a Ph.D. in psychology and work in corporate America at a very high level. When I got very sick, I just had to go on disability and drop out for a while.

”I was always searching for an answer, but I could not find it. I even joined support groups with other women who had the same kind of complaints. It was so bad and so hopeless for some of those women that they committed suicide.

”If I had the money back that I spent on all this, on doctors and healers, I would be rich. After some temporary relief from one thing or another, I would go back to work so I could earn enough money to pay for treating the next episode.

”In 2005, I went to the emergency room with sharp pain in my ear. The doctor thought I might be developing Ramsay Hunt syndrome, a condition that produces severe pain, facial paralysis, herpetic blisters, loss of taste, and vertigo. The cause is thought to be the same virus behind s.h.i.+ngles. They shot me up with something for the pain and gave me antidepressants. The relief was temporary.

”Shortly after that episode, I met Clint Ober and got grounded. Within six weeks I was a new person. I was amazed. Shocked is actually a better word. There was no more pain in my body. My symptoms of mononucleosis, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, or whatever was plaguing me were gone. I also didn't suffer anymore with tender, painful b.r.e.a.s.t.s, something always present during menstruation. The hot flashes I was beginning to experience with increasing frequency as I entered menopause subsided and then disappeared. I have my health back and without any medication.”

REGULARITY RETURNS TO RUNNER.

Amenorrhea and irregular periods are fairly common among high-intensity runners and dancers, activities that emphasize leanness. The experience below of one runner, a former state high-school champion, raises the possibility that Earthing may improve menstrual irregularities among physically active girls and women.

Brianna Anderson-Gregg, twenty-three, Springfield, Oregon, long-distance runner: ”My periods used to be very irregular. I would frequently miss a month. ”My periods used to be very irregular. I would frequently miss a month.

”After I started sleeping grounded, my periods normalized and I don't think I have missed a month since. That's probably about two years now. I never really thought about it, but then I realized at one point I had become regular.

”All the girls I have run and trained with for a long time have had at least a situation where they miss once in a while. One of them didn't have her period until she was out of high school and took a break from running.”

RETURN TO DANCING AFTER CHILDBIRTH, KNEE PAIN.

Olivia Biera, thirty, Los Angeles, California, healing arts business consultant: ”I've been involved for years professionally as a traditional Aztec dancer, performing at festivals and historical locations. This is very vigorous dancing, very lower-body intensive. After having my daughter in 2005, I was anxious to get back into it, but I didn't have the same flexibility and muscularity that I had had before. I think I pushed myself too hard trying to come back and did something to my right knee that caused chronic inflammation. An MRI showed no tear, just deep inflammation. The knee was like one big swollen balloon that hurt badly. It was difficult to walk up stairs. Driving and carrying my baby made it worse. In addition, my right hip was also giving me a lot of trouble after childbirth. ”I've been involved for years professionally as a traditional Aztec dancer, performing at festivals and historical locations. This is very vigorous dancing, very lower-body intensive. After having my daughter in 2005, I was anxious to get back into it, but I didn't have the same flexibility and muscularity that I had had before. I think I pushed myself too hard trying to come back and did something to my right knee that caused chronic inflammation. An MRI showed no tear, just deep inflammation. The knee was like one big swollen balloon that hurt badly. It was difficult to walk up stairs. Driving and carrying my baby made it worse. In addition, my right hip was also giving me a lot of trouble after childbirth.

”I had to do something. Ma.s.sage and other therapies I tried weren't working. It was almost impossible to stretch. At one point in 2007, I was two weeks away from explorative knee surgery. That's when I started sleeping and working grounded. I immediately noticed an ability to sleep through the pain. From one week to the next, the inflammation began to go down. After about six weeks, it was 30 to 40 percent less-and that was without icing. I was so busy in my work that when I would get home to my little girl, I just didn't have time or energy to ice the knee as I should. I no longer needed to sleep with a pillow between my legs to ease the pain. The pain was just slowly slipping away. I never had that surgery.

”After about a year, the knee and hip were about 90 percent normal, and I was able to start dancing again. And a few more months later, everything was 100 percent.

”Perhaps the biggest surprise is what happened to my nicotine craving. No matter how many good health practices I followed, like yoga and good diet, I couldn't kick the craving. I'd been smoking for thirteen years when I became pregnant. I quit. It's not that I smoked a lot, but at the end of my workday I had a craving for cigarettes that would drive me nuts. I would smoke one cigarette and then maybe another cigarette. After six weeks, the craving was gone, and I haven't smoked since.

”I also experienced a definite release of emotional stresses. At the time I started grounding, I had a lot going on in my life. I definitely noticed right off the bat a sense of rejuvenation and emotional 'grounding.' I was grounded physically and that grounded me emotionally and even spiritually, in the sense of being connected to the Earth.