October 9, 2001    PMS

GREETINGS AND SALUTATIONS from Arnold's Way!

Dances into the night
 Cry for pain.  Cry for glory
Sweat or sweet?  The answer is too much to bear.
The days grow shorter.  Bloating still arrives
 The women of today have to learn that feelings outside stem from what
goes inside
We clap!  We cheer!  A monthly period does not have to be this way


So begins this week's newsletter on PMS.  To even begin writing about this is a major step for me.  I am definitely out of my comfort zone.  Why would I start in the first place?  Ask Toby, my trustworthy assistant, partner in crime, and the person who transforms this newsletter off the handwritten page.  So when Toby suggested writing a letter on PMS, I don't ask why, but rather when do you want me to start?

To place things in proper perspective, let's start off with some statistics about what is labeled as PMS.  According to Dr. Northrup, "60% of women have enough symptoms to suffer from it."  Alternative Medicine defines PMS as, "a common hormone related condition of otherwise healthy women who for 10-14 days before menses experience a wide variety of symptoms."

Just to take a step back, if we research the same from a natural hygiene approach, the word symptom can be transposed to healing crisis.  As we study the headlines I stare in disbelieve.  "Bloody menstruation not universal." To all those women who suffer, take note.  To all those women who don't suffer, sit back, relax, and share the article.  T.C. Fry says in How to keep you Body Pure, "Females of the human and near-human species who live strictly in accord with natural requirement rarely, if ever, experience bloody menstruation."

Given these two distinct perspectives that are in direct contrast with each other, we look at the symptoms of PMS.  They include mood swings, headaches, bloating, depression, sugar craving, irritability, and weight gain.  These are all symptoms that women in this country have been led to believe is one of those monthly things they just have to live with.

Dr. Northrup, author of Women's Body, Women's Wisdom, contends that the underlying cause of PMS comes from the idea that, "We have all been socialized into thinking that menstruation is one of the most awful things we women have to up with.  Given the unity of the mind/body, if you have been brought up to believe this, it doesn't take a scholar to figure out why so many women suffer from a normal body function."

If I read her statement correctly, all those horrible symptoms are normal and women just have to live with them since they were raised that way.  I stop.  I scream.  I yell.  Not so.  It's not normal to suffer in quiet desperation.  In my opinion, these symptoms are woman-made and the body is jut taking a defensive measure to eliminate the toxins in anyway, anywhere, and anyhow.  T.C. Fry named bloodletting as a "female disease."  So, I raise the red flag and write the words I see written.  To all those that suffer, suffer no more, for bleeding shall not be considered the norm.

As we scan the book to support this bold, brash statement since most of my readers are women, I quote from the Sunfood Diet by David Wolfe who re-emphasizes T.C. Fry's statement.  He writes, "PMS is essentially the result of a toxic, cooked, animal food diet (especially now with all the hormones fed to farm animals).  The cleaner your body is by eating raw plant foods, the less PMS you will experience."  After several months to a year of eating raw plants, PMS symptoms will disappear."  Although these are men speaking (actually, writing), they are writing not for themselves but of universal truth, not from experience but of studying, living, and breathing their life existence on what works, what doesn't.

We look at this statement.  We sit in silence.  We are stunned.  Can 60% of all women be ready for a drastic change in their dietary habits?  I sit and wonder if this is true.  Would there be a need to go to a doctor?  As we research further, the Merck Manual 17th edition, which practically every doctor uses as a guideline defines PMS almost verbatim to the definition found in Alternative Medicine.  We read the symptoms, we read the treatment, and we make believe we are in a doctor's office.  Therein lies the conflict, for treatment given has no mention of a raw food diet.  Treatment is geared towards controlling symptoms from one month to the next not for eliminating all PMS symptoms.  There is no mention of disappearance.  There is no mention of raw food diet.  It's like one of those fake hopes that are like quick fixes and false dreams.  The medical community is a little afraid because they were not trained nutritionally.

The 60% of women channel their energies into treating PMS rather than curing it.  We read the treatment possibilities in the Merck Manual.  It suggests "using a diuretic (e.g., hydrocholorothiaside) starting just before symptoms begin."  (As a word of caution from the Manual, "Diuretics do not relieve all symptoms and may have no effect.")  To all women who suffer, the doctor' s next choice of treatment if symptoms persist would be another round of drug therapy.  The Merck Manual says, "Hormonal manipulation is effective," which translates to taking drugs forever from premenstrual to post-menopause to decrease PMS symptoms.  Where does it end?  As we continue to read the Merck Manual it lists oral contraceptives and progesterone by vaginal suppository as additional PMS treatments.  It continues with the hormone options then changes to tranquilizers, which, "may be used for irritability, nervousness, and lack of control."  These are the medical options for healing, for symptom relief, which need to be used forever.  I daresay there are also diet suggestions in the Merck Manual, which is to increase protein and decrease sugar.

The relationship between the consumption of sugar and PMS symptoms has long been recognized, but increasing protein?  I don't think so!  Sugar, for all intents and purposes, provides empty calories, having no nutritional value whatsoever.  The body has to release its valuable resources in order for it to be metabolized.  It is essentially a toxic material that if used continually will cause degeneration of our internal mechanism.  The average consumer eats 150 lbs a year.  The body has to rid itself of this.  The byproduct for women who continue their poor dietary choices is bloodletting, hence PMS, the disease that is plaguing the majority of today's women.

The Merck Manual is right in naming the obvious sugar connection.  Those who take care of their bodies such as female athletes, experience little or very little menstruation.  Their toxic wastes are continually being expelled during exercise.  Rebounding (i.e., the mini-trampoline) helps create a strong immune system.  In addition, women who go through a lengthy fast often have a little mucus discharge instead of bloody flow.  Keep in mind the body makes no mistakes.  There is a big difference between a bloody discharge and a mucus discharge.  While bloodletting is considered not only normal but also healthy in today's society, herein lies the cause, the reason for the existence of PMS.  T.C. Fry states, "The healthier the subject, the less pronounced the flow, and the shorter its duration.  Nature did not impose blood loss as a norm."

So we quietly go back to our studies.  I, a male, begin the long retreat back to the basics to try to create the flow of words that will generate successful elimination of PMS symptoms.

In my mind, drugs are not the answer as the Merck Manual so strongly believes.  In my mind, vitamins and herbs, although a step up from drug therapy should also be avoided, for these are pills designed to take our power away from us.  We are a gift of the universe.  We have all the tools within our natural resources, self, and nature to heal better than any pill. So we at Arnold's Way begin the research for finding truth for healing.

We sidestep the Merck Manual's idea of increasing protein.  That statement is based on hearsay, led by information supplied by the milk and meat industry, which has governed most of our nutritional information from early childhood.  So I, on a medical quest for truth, search elsewhere.  Dr. C. Samuel West states in The Golden Seven Plus One, "If the blood protein cannot be removed from the spaces around the cells by the lymphatic system they can cause our death within just a few hours."

Is there a contradiction here between whether to eat protein or not?  To answer this question we research further.  According to Douglass Graham author of Nutrition and Athletic Performance, "Protein is denatured at 161 degrees Fahrenheit.  Denatured, it is no longer of use to the body and cannot be renatured."  What does this mean if the established medical consensus is to increase consumption of protein in order to improve your immune system to help the body during PMS in addition to taking the medication they prescribed, for that too would help the symptoms?

Alternative Medicine prescribed nutritional supplement, and they too recommend dietary changes.  But the protein takes on a specific animal like fish.  Is there really a difference?  We begin to see why 60% of all women suffer.  In each medical field of expertise there is no mention of the word cure.  There is no mention that treatment of PMS can be accomplished by simply changing dietary habits (i.e., simply eating raw food).  So who are we to believe?  As we read further about protein in Nutritional and Athletic Performance the words come blaring out of its pages.  "When people consume heated food, the proteins within them are worse than of no use to the body. They are recognized as toxins to be eliminated."  This means that the body in its infinite wisdom, once any animal, fish, or dairy product has been heated, grilled, or pasteurized, moves to the elimination, fight stage.  It increases white blood cell count often 2 or 3 times just to neutralize these incoming toxins.

Women have an added advantage if these toxins cannot be eliminated or neutralized right away.  The body's intelligence once a month, to create the purest of environments for off-spring, will rid the body of the toxic overload caused by the saturated fat, the sugar, the coffee, the white bread, the chocolate, and all other processed foods that the body sees as toxic.  The process starts every month.  Fourteen days before menses, the elimination crisis can look like mood swings created by all these toxins being removed, upsetting the hormonal balance.  Headaches appear due to the upsurge of the toxins in the blood that eventually travel to the brain.  All these toxins traveling in such great amounts during the cleansing has to create both depression and irritability.

The mind-body connection is in a healing process.  The body's intelligence, by the natural law of survival, demands excellence in its purest form.  We as a people are powerless to create any other circumstances.

Instead of denouncing PMS as a monthly suffering syndrome, we should rejoice in shared harmonic joy.  A women's body needs to be in the purest form, free from all debris in order to conceive the best possible offspring.  Hence cleansing, and for this to occur, hence PMS symptoms.

So we start the path to purity toward cleansing toward reading why bloodletting is a female disease and why mucus discharge is a sign of health.

We start to read how a woman's goal should be monthly mucus discharge and that's it.  Although I am a man writing about this I am married with three daughters, and I have many women cousins, friends, and acquaintances.  Am I not responsible for their well being?  So I share my information with love not arrogance.  The world we live in works in a symbiotic relationship. What hurts one eventually hurts all of us.

So I research more finding the text that would explain what would it take in order to be pure.  In the Sunfood Diet David Wolfe states, "When the body is totally purified menstruation will be minimal."  Hallelujah!  It continues, "After several months to a year of eating raw plant food, PMS symptoms will disappear."

Using this as a basis we then grab God's Way to Ultimate Health by Dr. George Malkamus who devotes 7 pages to PMS.  Believe it or not, the word PMS wasn't even a thought until 1931, and it did not become part of medical terminology until 1953.  In less than 50 years it has become by far the number one problem that is facing the American woman today.  In trying to keep the word 'disappear' as the ultimate goal, let's review foods to avoid and foods to eat.

Foods to avoid:
1) Animal products:  This includes fish, chicken, milk, cheese, eggs as well as soy products.  It states in God's Way to Ultimate Health, "Meat is the most dangerous substance we can put into our bodies."
2) Sugar:  This, besides immobilizing our immune system, also causes the pancreas to malfunction, which leads to mood swings and hypoglycemia.  The average woman consumes 150 lbs of sugar a year.  The average soda contains 10 teaspoons of processed sugar.  Processed sugar is found in everything. It's a mainstay of the typical American diet.  Let's rid the overuse infiltrator from our daily dietary habits.
3) Table salt:  This is highly processed.  Almost 83 minerals are processed out of it.  It is a factor in high blood pressure and water retention.  Eat fruits and vegetables since they contain natural sodium plus live enzyme nutrients.
4) White flour:  This ingredient contains zero fiber, zero nutrients, and zero enzymes.  As kids we are fed flour and water to make glue as meals, as desserts, and as lies so we may grow.  As an adult we eat bread, and it's a factor in many problems we face today.  To change we have to be of change. I stand my ground.
5) Caffeine:  Give it up.  Besides the fact that more caffeine leads to more bone loss, it causes many other problems including bladder and stomach cancer, high blood pressure, increased heart rate, and aggravation of diabetes.
6) Tobacco:  Need I say more?
7) Alcohol:  Refer to number 6.
(The last two are no brainers.  The side effects have been well publicized.)

We switch from what to avoid to what to do.  Keep in mind that as this applies to PMS it also applies to any other man-made disease.  In my opinion, all diseases are caused by the same thing.  Toxemia.  As well as all cured by the same reasoning.

Things to include:
1) Raw food:  Eat at least 75-85% raw on a daily basis.  The Hallelujah diet as promoted in God's Way also recommends barley green as a raw food super food.  See Rick or Arnold for further information.
2) Exercise:  I can't emphasize that this author's favorite exercise is rebounding, which I do 4-6 times a week for approximately 40-60 minutes each time.  Not to brag, but to brag, I haven't aged in 10 years since I started doing this daily routine.  See Arnold for further information.
3) Sunshine:  It produces vitamin D.  It is essential to physical and mental fitness.  "Sunshine helps resolve all diseases."  It's one of those things you have to create time for.
4) Relax:  Reduce stress and go with the flow.  I know it's easier said than done, but as people change their diet this state of relaxation becomes a natural outcome.
5) Love:  Love yourself with all your heart, with all your might since primarily we are all children of God to be nourished, to be enjoyed, to go peacefully amongst the trees as flowers would fly gently into the midnight air.

As I began so I end.  This was started Thursday morning and finished Thursday night. A 12-hour stretch of reaching out beyond my comfort zone to research, to write, and to understand about a healing crisis that was totally unfamiliar to me.  So I give thanks to Toby for giving me this assignment.  I give thanks to my wife for allowing me these 12 hours to write this, not in total peace since I had to do my daily chore of making dinner, going shopping, washing dishes, taking care of my grandson, but no cleaning.  So in between all these moments was my free time.  I researched, I wrote, I understood.

To all women who have PMS symptoms, follow the program and your symptoms will disappear.

I thank you for your time.
 Arnold

Next week's topic: School Lunches

References:
God's Way to Ultimate Health by George Malkamus
Merck Manual 17th Edition
Alternative Medicine by Burton Goldberg
Lick the Sugar Habit by Nancy Appleton, Ph.D.
Sunfood Diet Success System by David Wolfe
Nutrition and Athletic Performance by Douglass N. Graham, D.C.
Does Sunshine Cause Cancer? By Dr. Bernard Zoulack, D.C
How to Keep Your Body Pure by George S. Weger, M.D., Dr. Herbert Shelton,
T.C. Fry, Mereward Carrington
Woman's Body Woman's Wisdom, Dr. Christine Northrup

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Upcoming events at Arnold's Way


Free introduction class on the Way of Wisdom on Oct 17th and 24th at 6:30pm at Arnold's Way.  Call Arnold for more details (215-483-2266).

Dinner buffet lecture at Arnold's Way catered by B.I. chef extraordinaire of raw food with guest speaker Paul "the durian king" Nison the most visible raw food promoter in the world.  Time: 6:30-9:30pm.  Date: Saturday November
3. Cost is $35.  Reservations are required by Oct 7.  Call 215-483-2266.
Register Early!!

Guest lecturer Brian Clement will be coming October 26 at 6:30pm.  Possible last week potluck meal.  Stay tuned!

Arnold's Way presents: 2nd Tuesday Raw Lecture Series Tuesday October 9th - 6:30pm
Barbara Cap shares her story about Lyme Disease and how she became symptom-free in 4 months after she went on an 80% raw diet.

Tuesday November 13th - 6:30pm
Dan Goodman will talk about his story about MS.

Arnold gives a breakfast lecture on raw food and healing every Saturday morning at the store from 8: 15 to 9:45.  It's free and there's free breakfast.  But please pre-register.

On the last Saturday of every month, Arnold gives a free raw food preparation course from 8:15 to 9:45 at the store.  Learn how to make pizza, chili, pies, soups, cookies and more in 7 minutes or less.

There's a raw food Pot Luck dinner on the last Wednesday of the month at the store beginning at 6pm.  Bring a raw food dish or pay $7. No pre-registration required.

Greenwood has 2 pot luck dinners each month, on the second and fourth Saturdays, from 2-5 p.m.  Call Tom for more info at (610) 623-5656.

Loreta Vainius is sponsoring a Living Food support group.  (610) 648-0241