SECTION I
Potential Yeast Syndrome Carried Within Us
1
Yeast Disease Arising from Modern Technology
Do you want finally to have a diagnosis made that connects your various disparate symptoms--distressing patterns of illness which you''ve been experiencing for too long--problems that are not really psychosomatic after all but have actual organic causes?
Are you a victim of vaginal discharge, itching, constipation, excess "gas," abdominal discomfort, headaches, fatigue, diminished sex drive, irritable personality, memory deterioration, lost self-esteem, acne, asthma, and other such troubles?
Would you like to stop suffering with cystitis, bladder inflammation with overly frequent urgency to pass urine--accompanied each time by severe burning that''s so awful it has you dreading the next episode of urgency?
Do you have a persistent cramping pain in the lower abdomen after the bladder has been emptied, a condition exceedingly common among women?
Is it your wish to get rid of jock itch, athlete''s foot, brittle and brown toenails or fingernails, rectal tickling or irritation, skin rashes, white-coated tongue, blurred vision, sinusitis, types of allergic reactions, chemical intolerances to foods and inhalants and water impurities, any one of which could be the bane of your existence?
Are you the concerned parent of a child who is hyperactive, autistic, who gets and keeps colds one after the other or has repeated earaches, experiences continuous nose congestion, stays restless and grumpy, displays tantrums, or seems addicted to sweets and other carbohydrates?
Are you interested in knowing of a safe, effective, tested, legal, nonsurgical treatment which can eliminate diarrhea, chronic belly pains, inflammation, ulceration, and malabsorption in your gut, even possibly conditions known as colitis, enteritis, ileitis, or Crohn''s disease?
Would you want your family physician to know all about a comfortable but complicated series of corrections for your numerous and variable health difficulties and assist you to follow a lifestyle that could improve the quality of your existence, perhaps adding twenty to thirty years more to the time you have to live?
Might you be dubious if an informed person told you that some allergists, immunologists, gastroenterologists, psychiatrists, endocrinologists, internists, and other medical specialists refuse to recognize and have no knowledge of a proven underlying diagnosis for your health problems--and an effective treatment program--despite an informed estimate that at least 80 million Americans (three-fifths of them women, one-fifth each men and children) also join you as victims?
If you have the need for appropriate treatment with a particular remedial program, would you feel frustrated and angered at not being informed of the existence of such therapy, so that you might live more comfortably?
Do you believe that you''re alone in your wandering from doctor to doctor, seeking either a cure for or the control of your illness problem?
You are not alone! Many thousands of other victims of nonspecific, undiagnosed illness syndromes have responded to questions such as these, and have then found permanent relief.
THE CASE OF ABBY RAE BENNETT
Born December 20, 1948, Abby Rae Bennett is a teacher in Lake Charles, Louisiana. She won the outstanding teacher award in her school for 1981. Her husband, S.M, "Sam" Bennett, Jr., is a successful insurance agent. On June 1, 1983, Mrs. Bennett visited the offices of John Parks Trowbridge, M.D., of Humble (a suburb of Houston), Texas, requesting assistance with her longstanding ill health.
For a long time the woman had suffered with anorexia and bulimia. She dropped from 170 to 140 pounds before her marriage to Sam. Her menstrual flow stopped completely when food binging alternating with forced vomiting brought her weight down to 115 pounds. For six years she had failed to have any menstrual periods, a condition known as amenorrhea. In 1979 an endocrinologist declared that Mrs. Bennett''s amenorrhea was correlated with the anorexia and bulimia. Standing five feet, two and one half inches in stocking feet, the patient now weighed just 102 pounds.
Sniffling nose congestion, "up and down" energy levels, constant fatigue, and addictlike food cravings were additional troubles for Mrs. Bennett, according to the extensive patient history form she filled in. She also described multiple digestive complaints, including stool color changes, watery stools with a foul odor, and lower bowel gas. She invariably suffered with an upset stomach after eating greasy foods as well as abdominal pain, bloating from any food intake, increased pulse rate after meals, and a coated tongue. There were also obvious sugar-handling problems such as hunger between meals, irritability and moodiness just before meals, shaking and dizziness with delayed meals. All of this was combined with frequent melancholia, the repeated onset of the "blues," and nervousness. Remarking that her "get up and go had got up and gone," she also reported traditional low thyroid (hypothyroid) complaints. Further, Mrs. Bennett had joint stiffness, watery eyes, poor circulation in the hands and feet, sensitivity to cold, keyed up feelings, easy exhaustion, brown spots on the skin, and weak nails, and she commonly developed "goosebumps."
The patient''s litany of disorders illustrates the uncharacteristic illness patterns that Dr. Trowbridge proceeded to evaluate. After a series of clinical and laboratory examinations, Mrs. Bennett was found to have a satisfactory chemical profile. Nothing significant in her tests suggested the true source of the numerous abnormalities. Cytotoxic testing--one method of checking for cell poisoning by environmental agents--did reveal allergic reactions or chemical intolerances to twenty-seven different foods. Her hair mineral analysis showed a pattern typically found in people with hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). She had a number of mineral deficiencies as well as receding gums. Attributing her irritable bowel symptoms to recent home stresses, she explained that she and her husband were trying desperately to meet the qualifications to adopt a baby.
The doctor prescribed relief-giving medication and nutritional supplementation and advised other simple remedies for these diverse difficulties. Until he could sufficiently define her underlying problem, the true reason for all of these signs and symptoms, he was treating empirically (based on his observations).
Dr. Trowbridge consulted with Mrs. Bennett bimonthly thereafter, but no spectacular improvement occurred in her condition. She retained all of the same troubles, reported that four nose bleeds had spontaneously come on at different times, and her underarm lymph glands had become swollen and tender.
At her visit on December 12, 1983, Mrs. Bennett described several weeks of intense sugar cravings that had caused her to gobble down many refined carbohydrates--candy, cake, bread--and she was experiencing constipation that she attributed to a mostly dairy diet, including lots of ice cream. In their discussion Dr. Trowbridge drew out the critical fact that the teacher was feeling severe discomfort from the mildew in her classroom, which had accumulated as a result of tornado and hurricane flooding that had affected their area of Louisiana and Texas in the late summer and early fall of 1983. Her nasal congestion was worse than ever.
With a clinical supposition that this mildew from fungal microorganisms was contributing to her problems, Dr. Trowbridge started his patient on an antifungal (anti-Candida) treatment program. When Mrs. Bennett returned for consultation three weeks later, she reported an easing of her constipation, a lessening of the sniffles, and lots more energy. She also asked to eliminate the thyroid medicine, which had been required to lessen her fatigue. Dr. Trowbridge added more antiyeast medication, Lactobacillus acidophilus powder (the friendly culture from which yogurt is made), and aged garlic extract and recommended a reduced carbohydrate diet to counteract the worsening mildew situation in which she worked.
She reported gradual improvement at each bimonthly visit. By August 1984, Mrs. Bennett had experienced her first menstrual period in seven years. It lasted five days. It was a harbinger of her return to near normal health and significant because she and her husband had just learned that they did not yet qualify to adopt a baby.
During the months that followed the woman reported the steady reduction of her discomforts. Her sexual desire returned strongly. Her breasts swelled at her regular menstrual cycles, just as they had done when she was in her early twenties.
In October 1985, Mrs. Bennett stated that she remained happy with the treatment she had received to rid her body of various yeast-related illnesses and to restore balance to her biochemical functioning. Poor health was almost entirely gone, and the remaining symptoms were easily controlled by continuation of her diet, supplemental nutrients, a small amount of antiyeast medication, and other activities that had become part of her lifestyle.
