Editor’s Note: This is Part Three of a four-part series. Part 1 and Part 2 are instrumental in understanding this article.
MALIBU—My young, fit, healthy father was the strongest, most powerful man I have ever known. After joining Kaiser and getting an initial physical, he was prescribed statins and immediately suffered horrifying side effects.
For two years, doctors vehemently denied the cause was Lovastatin. It was not until another doctor diagnosed him with statin-induced myopathy, which mimicked the symptoms of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (a form of Parkinson’s), that the search for a statin cure began, a search that started and ended against professional medical advice.
With my dad’s rapidly declining health and time working against us, I studied his condition, refusing to accept defeat. He was far too young and I needed him. I continued to research every day after work, often studying into the wee-hours of the morning and keeping a daily video journal to record the progress of his walking, speech, ability to drink fluids, and his doctor’s appointments.
I scoured the Internet for an inkling of hope. I stumbled upon Ralda James, an Australian woman who claimed to have augmented her 12-year-old daughter’s recovery from brain damage with a special dietary recipe.
I contacted her as a journalist from Canyon News. Thrilled at the prospect of publicity and impressed that we were in Beverly Hills, she happily shared her story.
But when I attempted to get her recipe, she refused to disclose any details of the foods or supplements that saved her daughter’s life.
Out of desperation, I came clean, explaining my dad’s fading health and my theory that the information could save his life. He was the only family I had left. Though apologetic, she told me the Australian government was prohibiting her from sharing her research. Frustrated and shaken, I resolved to crack the code of James’ secret recipe.
I was left with but confirmed hope and the Internet to find the same miracle as James did.
For months, I dissected every detail from James’ interviews, supplementing her public articles with research about dietary means of restoring neurological health, specifically damage to the myelin sheath. She hadn’t sounded too bright in conversation, so I decided that if she had discovered a cure through internet research, so could I.
I quickly learned that there was a myriad of information as long as I used the proper search terms and didn’t get hung-up reading the horror stories so similar to ours.
For example, in one interview, James mentioned that she had changed her daughter’s diet to full-fat dairy, so I researched everything there was to know about dairy products and their effect on the brain.
By now, my father’s physical condition had deteriorated prolifically. He was wheelchair bound, legally blind, and could barely speak or swallow even thickened fluids. In three years, he had aged forty. He now needed full-time caregivers to move him and even bathe him. He couldn’t function without assistance.
And yet, he maintained mental clarity, managing to operate multi-million dollar businesses while making important decisions through his business managers. Figuring he had nothing to lose, he let go of his ambivalence about alternative treatment. I enlisted him as my research assistant. Together, we collaborated on our magic cocktail.
My biggest revelation was how to search for the cure. After learning how statins work, how they tear down the cholesterol in the brain, mostly within the myelin sheath which is made of 99 percent cholesterol, I googled topics such as: “How to repair the myelin sheath with food,” “How to reverse brain damage with natural supplements,” and “Effects of Lipitor on the myelin sheath.”
Every time I searched, I found more data and gained more understanding of the mystery behind the cholesterol scare. I was overwhelmed with information and words I couldn’t even pronounce, but I continued to take notes and ask questions.
Working through trial and error, I developed a list of supplements. But there was still more to learn.
Through my research, I came across Dr. Duane Graveline, a 23-year family physician who, in 1965, was selected as one of six astronauts to work on NASA’s Apollo program. Graveline was stricken with his own statin-induced neurological disease, in his case, Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS).
However, after a supplemental treatment regimen, his symptoms miraculously vanished. He went on to become a ground-breaking medical author against statin prescription.
Luckily, we had a connection with his good friend and fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin. I wrote Graveline an email to which he replied, giving me hope. I continued to communicate with him, a correspondence that eventually led to Dr. Graveline’s own weekly column in Canyon News.
Although his column was later canceled by advisors concerned with a decline in book sales, the former astronaut remained available to me for personal guidance.
As if we were VIP guests at the Disneyland candy store, the doctors continued prescribing unnecessary medications to my father. At first, it was a struggle with my dad, who was used to believing everything the doctors said.
They would hand him a prescription and we’d argue until agreeing upon on a natural replacement. Eventually, he would agree and toss the prescription. Then, we’d come to realize he didn’t need the medication to begin with.
It was a difficult transition, but we learned to say “No!” to prescription medication. Everything had a side effect and it wasn’t resolving the issues, it was creating more of them.
We found alternative solutions for everything. Dealing with the medical professionals was a hassle. I had to learn to be a bully to them. They were persuasive and adamant about medicating constantly.
After learning of their “compensation” from pharmaceuticals, it gave me a clearer vision as to the financial dynamics behind the training of health care practitioners.
It seemed that no matter what hospital we went to or what doctor we saw, they were all under a spell, almost as if we were part of some sci-fi flick where the doctors had been programmed and brain-washed.
It was surreal, walking in time after time, dealing with the same push to give a pneumonia shot, a flu shot, or whatever other crazy vaccinations they were pushing.
At one point, UCLA told me that they had to discharge him from the hospital if they couldn’t medicate him. He was in critical discomfort from the brain damage and they had to “justify his stay” by medicating him while performing tests.
This didn’t make any sense to me. So they need to medicate to pay their bills? Meanwhile, they refuse to accept his natural supplements even when being taken off of them so clearly reversed his progress?
I continued to be a vocal advocate for my dad. Once hushed by him, I now had his thumbs-up and his support.
As we were on the path of natural recovery and my dad regained his strength, it came to mind that in spite of the almost daily interaction with medical professionals, no one had inquired about his cholesterol, not once!
It was time for me to ask.
His primary care physician said, “Those haven’t been checked in quite a while.”
“Why not?”
When he first started at Kaiser, they insisted that they test his cholesterol at least ever six weeks. Otherwise, he was at risk of having a stroke.
They also sent frequent letters starting out with, “Your cholesterol at your last test was 218 and this is very dangerous. I’d like to up your lovastatin to 40mg per day.”
It was like a form letter with my dad’s name on it and his cholesterol number.
Now, all of a sudden, they don’t care to test his numbers? He can’t speak, run, play sports or even drive a car and they don’t care that his cholesterol might be wacked out?
Yet, when he was healthy, slightly elevated cholesterol meant possible stroke or even death?
After many unanswered requests, I demanded to know. They assured me it wasn’t necessary because he was unable to take statins.
I explained, there are other ways of lowering cholesterol. But why the sudden lack of concern?
They told me I had to pay cash for the test, and I did.
Reading the results, I was happy, shocked, and mortified all at the same time. His cholesterol levels were perfect.
I asked for the last read-out to compare when he was on statins, but they didn’t want to share that without a proper release of records. Since my father could no longer speak, they insisted I had to go down and fill out loads of paper work to get this number.
So, we went through the entire process only to find that his cholesterol levels while on statins had remained high, around 230, and at his last test, after two years of statin treatment, he was around 220.
Now, with no medication, it was around 190.
So he’s med-free, taking natural supplements, eating healthy, and recovering from the brain damage created by Lovastatin and now his cholesterol and all his numbers were perfect
But the doctors were uninterested.
I argued, “You’re telling me that now his cholesterol is perfect. Then why don’t others do what he’s doing, rejecting all medications and seeking alternative remedies?”
He had no response except, “Can I do anything else for you?”
I said, “No, you go eat your lunch by Corner Bakery downstairs, which has been funded by the same blood money that stole my father’s health, and don’t worry about a thing. I’ll wheel my father out of here, taking 5-10 minutes to get him into the car and cry through the night while I sit awake researching ways to fix what you did, wondering why my father trusted you over me.”
The doctor seemed unphased, numb to my situation. Was he really aware of what these drugs were doing? And is he aware that the free catered lunch was paid for by Merck is a bribery to push their drugs?
Our devised cocktail of supplements began working wonders. We saw him go from complete and total inability to function to now doing eight minutes on the stair-master without assistance.
His vision went from 20/400 with the strongest lens possible (legally blind) to 20/50 without any lens in just five weeks. He was now able to swallow a glass of water without any thickener. It was evident that these natural supplements alone were restoring his brain damage back to normal.
He wasn’t quite the fierce rugby player of his adolescence, but a certain fire reignited within him that filled us both with energy. We were hopeful and on the road to recovery! It was nothing short of a miracle. We found a cure against medical advice.
