By Nicole Azzopardi, author of The Alchemy Cookbook

We tried everything to help our little girl who seemed to be in pain and distress from birth.

Complications at her birth led to an emergency caesarean for which I am very grateful for and most probably saved both of our lives.

However, within days of being discharged from hospital my caesarean wound had become seriously infected and I was given five days of IV antibiotics, followed by two weeks of oral antibiotics.

I noticed after that first breastfeed that my little one had somehow been affected by the antibiotics in my milk, despite being reassured by doctors that treatment would not affect the milk. She screamed and screamed, seemed very colicky and had great difficulty sleeping and settling.

At just three weeks old our daughter had a herniated navel from screaming. She was clearly in agony. I told everyone in the health profession I could, but no one could help us. I was told this was very common behaviour of an infant.

So alone, we struggled on, severely sleep deprived, our baby projectile vomited, her poos were loose and green, she barely slept, had severe colic, her eyes seemed so wide. None of the parenting tricks and tips that were kindly shared with us seemed to work.

At six months we started solid foods as per government guidelines. The usual weaning food of ground white rice made our little girl so constipated that she screamed the house down. A litany of unsuitable nutritional advice followed and I took it all on. Desperate and frightened and sleep deprived.

We spent months on paediatric waiting lists. We went through three paediatricians with limited relief and every alternative healing modality imaginable.

At 11 months old our daughter was diagnosed anaphylactic to egg, nut and sesame. Thankfully, this finally gave us, and the medical world, some clues and direction about the appropriate course of action.

Yay! Finally people were realising that I wasn’t crazy! Our baby needed help as I had been telling them all along. Avoiding these foods in my breast milk helped our daughter instantly and enormously.

However, while we followed a traditional Mediterranean wholefood diet, we also became aware that Stevie was highly sensitive to the naturally occurring chemicals in fresh foods. The salycilates, amines, glutamates found in fruits and vegetables were all identified as affecting her ability to sleep and her mood.

By the time Stevie was 14 months old she had become oppositional, aggressive – would be awake for hours in the night. The so-called night terrors escalated. We gave paracetamol and ibuprofen almost every night thinking she had to be in pain.

We had no idea how to help our little girl.

Recognising a gut in distress

A few months later our daughter’s tantrums had become longer and more frequent.

Putting my journalist’s hat on, I discussed research with one of the authors of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital diet and were able to implement their recommendations of a short-term elimination diet to identify Stevie’s ability to digest amines, glutamates – food chemicals.

Working with our dietician, we again saw a dramatic change in behaviour. We knew limiting certain foods were related to her seeming much better. We were managing, she was coping better but we had not yet learned how to help our daughter heal.

At 14 months old, Stevie was weaned. I was six months pregnant with her sister Josephine and I just couldn’t do it anymore. The third paediatrician we saw recommended Stevie be put on Elecare. I tried to give it to her but she was repelled by the taste. Looking back, I am so grateful we never went down this path.

However despite ours and the medical world’s best efforts, our little girl deteriorated in the most frightening way.

Still around the age of 14 months old, she began to display autistic-like traits and would lie rigid on the floor screaming and kicking her legs, pulling at her lips, no eye contact, could not speak to us. Food items had to be placed on separate plates of specific colour. She incessantly watched one television program.

She began to say, “Don’t look at me. Don’t touch me.” She would zone out for a minute or two at a time unreachable to me in that time which I now understand could have been mini seizures.

She could not stand the feeling of clothes on her skin. There was only one dress she could wear. We didn’t go anywhere as she couldn’t stand the feeling of the seat belt on her skin. We stopped visiting people and people stopped visiting us.

Despite my mother having chemotherapy and radiation treatment for cancer where she lived an hour and a half away, we barely visited her as I knew Stevie was too distressed by the travel.

Loud noises terrified her. Use of the stick mixer or our food processor caused her to run to her bedroom, holding her ears and shutting the door.

She smashed her little head on the ground. At one point I remember her doing it on a concrete footpath without even seeming to feel it. I felt sick to my stomach watching it. I felt totally helpless.

The night screaming would happen three or four times a night for about 40 minutes at a time. Meltdowns happened many times in the day and she was very fixed on things. I learned the difference between a two-year old tantrum and this kind of meltdown. The length and the frequency of this behaviour throughout the day made me wonder and worry increasingly about our daughter’s neurological development.

At its peak, my partner James had to leave his job. He worked some overnight shifts. We had our little Josephine being woken up through the night by Stevie’s screaming as well.

Quite truthfully, I dreaded the days. I was frightened at night. I can honestly say it was truly the most horrible experience I have ever known in my life.

The difference between food allergy and food intolerance

In addition, Stevie seemed to be hungry all the time and could never get enough food. People external to us immediately assumed she was going through a growth spurt but this behaviour became extreme.

As recommended by our dietitian, I would feed her a variety of whole foods, meat, veg, fruits, seed-like grains, legumes soaked and sprouted – all freshly made from scratch – but she would eat to bursting point. Despite our best efforts, her stomach still looked malnourished, she was thin and eyes dark. She would open her bowels every four days or so and I noticed her behaviour would improve after every bowel movement. Stools were formed then followed by loose impacted stool.

Meanwhile, I was cooking round the clock but nothing seemed to be helping her. I could see clearly that the gut and brain were definitely connected in this problem and luckily physiological symptoms were always good markers of gut distress, rather than just two-year-old behaviour.

For example, if I gave Stevie foods like broccoli, avocado and miso soup, I watched as hives spread across her mouth and down her back. I watched her behaviour also deteriorate and she became oppositional and aggressive soon after eating these foods, which I later learned is a common symptom of food intolerance to the amines in the food rather than food allergy.

At first however, I panicked, wondering if anaphylactic shock was about to play out as this is one of the early signs.

I searched around for traces of egg or nuts and sesame that she had been diagnosed as being allergic to, I re-wiped her high chair and washed my own hands and was dumbfounded as I knew I had got rid of all these foods from our house for the time being.

As you can imagine, it was a totally unsustainable situation, if I wasn’t watching for the allergens that could kill our daughter in a matter of minutes, I was trying to support her through what seemed like wave after wave of anxiety attacks. Like many parents reading this book, I felt beaten and broken into a million pieces.

In the end we had nothing to lose and despite her being seriously allergic to eggs and nuts we tried the Gut and Psychology Syndrome Diet (GAPS) created by neurologist and nutritionist Dr Natasha Campbell McBride.

This wonderful doctor was forced to turn to food as medicine after her own son developed autism. She found the healing protocol she put in place for him transformed her non-verbal little boy into a walking, talking, very healthy child.

He is now a fully grown, university educated, healthy man. Inspired by her story, we leaped into GAPS.

The principles made sense. It was purely and simply a food as medicine regime and I felt that at the very least, it could do no harm.

At the age of two, Easter 2013, Stevie went on the protocol’s introduction diet and took small amounts of probiotic powder and gelatine. Every single step was tiny, painstaking in fact, but she began to improve.

Then she really began to improve.

We implemented the introduction diet as well as we could with the restriction of egg, nut and sesame.

As the diet recommended we cut out all grains and starches. We began with soups and stews using vegetables and meats that Stevie could tolerate. Pumpkin soups cooked with chicken stock, rich in essential minerals and sleep inducing glycine was a staple. The gelatine derived from these stocks were said to soothe an inflamed gut wall and plug holes created by leaky gut syndrome.

Marrow by the teaspoon, again rich in essential fats and minerals was fed to her and tiny amounts of chicken liver pate, high in Vitamin B and importantly B12 were also part of the food as medicine healing process.

We later learned through genetic testing that Stevie’s Vitamin D and B genes were not functioning. Her methylation and detox pathways were extremely compromised. This could be a major contributor to why she was suffering from autistic symptoms. Autistic children share similar DNA I was told. In addition, around 80 per cent of autistic children suffer from either constipation and/or diarrhea.

In a matter of days and weeks, the hives around her mouth stopped, sleep improved. We added digestive enzymes and a synthetic probiotic very slowly – the head of a pin a day in fact – and we watched her bowels and in turn her mood improve.

We used Japanese acupressure, applied castor oil packs and gave small amounts of digestive enzymes. We gave a teaspoon of fresh pressed carrot juice first thing in the morning to help stimulate bile.

Very quickly we were able to introduce tiny amounts of foods like broccoli and avocado, building up day by day. We introduced a whole host of fats starting with ghee, then butter, olive oil and eventually macadamia nut oil.

We gave grass fed meats, fermented vegetables, cultured dairy such as kefir using goat milk, 24-hour cow’s milk yoghurt and a range of seasonal fruits – each one responsible for restoring our daughter back to excellent health.

I started the support group www.mummacare.com around this time to offer some recipes to people also going through similar restrictions. All those posts eventually became what is now The Alchemy Cookbook – Transforming Food into Medicine.

At Easter 2015, we completed the two-year recommended GAPS gut/brain healing protocol and we have a very different little girl I am overjoyed to tell you.

Stevie no longer needs her epipens for a start.

Very quickly, with every visit to our paediatric allergist, tests revealed that Stevie’s allergies were leaving her.

At the time of writing, Stevie’s only known allergen is peanut, which was first registered around 10mm at 11 months old and was just 2mm one year ago.

Stevie falls into the category of the 20 per cent of people who drop their peanut allergy in their lifetime.

Scientists at the Murdoch Research Institute have only recently reported their findings from a trial that introducing probiotic to children with peanut allergy is implicated heavily in 80 per cent of the children being able to eat the food after only a matter of months.

As you can and will see, the science is catching up and there is so much potential and hope for the kind of radical and practical healing story we have personally experienced and been astonished by.

By implementing very simple changes, in some people – I stress not all – I have learned that when you heal the gut, you allow the immune system to not have to work so hard. If the immune system is not working over time it is not at risk of going haywire – sending out messages to attack the body and the brain when every day foods are introduced.

In addition, I am pleased and infinitely relieved to tell you Stevie and the rest of our family now sleep very well at night. She still wakes once or twice but with no screaming or upset. Her appetite has normalised and she loves her meals. Her bowels are very regular and healthy and her weight is bang on target. She loves cream and butter and avocado.

In the past, she could not handle even a little bit of broccoli or avocado. These days, she has enormous amounts.

She is calm and happy in the day and we as a family can relax and enjoy her. She loves kindergarten and to the outside world, looking at this child today, any of the above story would seem hard to believe.

I can assure you readers that what I am describing is a true and balanced account from a mother of sound mind and accurate perception.

Thankfully, I just happen to have the nature of a terrier dog and the skills of a journalist who brazenly rang up expert after expert, scientists, epigeneticists and paediatricians alike in pursuit of answers.

I also had the exposure and experience of shiatsu and Chinese medicine (James and I met while studying at the Australian College of Shiatsu) and we had both seen that eastern medicine had many answers that both complemented and went beyond western medicine in certain areas.

Together, James and I gathered up every last piece of our shattered, exhausted selves, we searched hard, did not leave each other’s or Stevie’s side and eventually found the keys to unlock our daughter’s health concerns.

It is my deepest wish that those reading this receive hope, courage and confidence to seek out their own answers to whatever healing mystery they are facing.

I wish you all well.

Nic

By Akil Palanisamy, M.D.

“Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
But to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain,
But for the heart to conquer it.
Let me not look for allies in life’s battlefield,
But to my own strength.
Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved,
But hope for the patience to win my freedom.
Grant me that I may not be a coward, feeling your mercy in my success alone,
But let me find the grasp of your hand in my failure.”

– Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel Prize winning poet from India

I was on top of the world. I was a senior at Harvard University and had been accepted to

medical school to pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a doctor. That’s when the trouble started. While working on my senior thesis I noticed severe wrist pain with numbness and tingling in my arms. The pain got worse and began to interfere with my sleep. I could no longer type on a keyboard. I went to student health services and was diagnosed with repetitive strain injury (RSI).

I had worked hard during my college years in classes and research activities, but nothing out of the ordinary. I was used to working hard, and had a lot of energy to fuel that work. The previous year I had become vegetarian. Certainly, I was under stress but managed it with a daily meditation practice. I had a regular routine of gym workouts and yoga. The reason for my illness puzzled me.

I was prescribed anti-inflammatory medication and physical therapy, and was given extra time for writing during exams and help with typing my thesis. My symptoms abated but did not disappear. I was able to finish college and graduate with honors.

I then began medical school at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). My top choice, UCSF was considered the top medical school on the west coast and I was excited to begin. After eight years in Boston I was eager to escape the snow as well, although the cool climate in San Francisco surprised me. I began to understand the quote attributed to Mark Twain, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”

I completed my first year and was happy, although I was in class all day and studied several hours each night. My symptoms had been manageable with physical therapy but began to worsen when I started my second year. The wrist pain was intolerable at times and was accompanied by back pain that made it impossible to sit for more than fifteen minutes.

Also, a heavy and onerous fatigue began to set in, which I attributed to stress. Inexplicably, I lost 30 pounds over several months from my already lean baseline weight of 138. I could not attend lectures due to worsening back pain and fatigue. I was given extra time for exams, which helped me to pass my exams and not flunk out of medical school, but I began to struggle with severe anxiety, which had never bothered me before.

I adapted. I began intensive hand and wrist therapy. I learned to use voice recognition software. The University provided a foot-operated mouse. I dictated papers and class assignments. I studied at home using textbooks. Eventually I began to study lying down on my side, the only position that was comfortable for my back. This unfortunately led to neck and shoulder pain.

After completing my Board exams (8 hours of sitting down and typing answers to questions on a computer), I was afflicted with excruciating pain for three days. Although school had been challenging until then, I was about to start the most difficult part of medical school, the third year. This entailed long hours caring for patients in the hospital, being on overnight calls without sleep every few days and studying intensely without much time off.

I knew I couldn’t do it. I was in a state of deep despair. Here I was, after getting my degree at Harvard, pursuing my life’s passion of studying medicine at one of the top schools in the country, and I had to stop because my body was failing me. I had been in pain for so long that I wondered if it was even possible for me to get better. I had seen some of the top doctors in the country, gotten the best treatments, but continued to decline. I felt hopeless.

I asked for a leave of absence and was granted a year off. I decided I needed to get to the bottom of my illness. Three years of intensive physical therapy, doctor’s visits and medications had not helped at all. Something was missing.

My parents thought diet was a factor. They thought my becoming vegetarian was causing a problem. I believed this was not true because I ate a ton of fruits and vegetables, and ate tofu and dairy products for protein.

I had given up eating meat for ethical, environmental and spiritual reasons. I was an active member of the San Francisco vegetarian society, had organized vegetarian events for the University, and was a strong advocate for vegetarianism. I thought that my spiritual growth and meditation practice would be deepened by avoiding meat.

I had been studying Ayurveda, the traditional medicine of India, for a while on the side. I decided to visit a practitioner in San Francisco. She diagnosed me with excess vata (air energy) and low ojas (vitality). She recommended some herbs and spices and dietary modifications. She suggested that I eat for my Ayurvedic body type and also incorporate some nourishing foods.

My path to recovery began with two words: bone broth. The Ayurvedic practitioner recommended it as one of the nourishing foods that could help restore vitality in my depleted body. But I was resistant. I could not eat animal products. I went back-and-forth about this for a few weeks.

Finally, because I was using animal bones that were about to be discarded, I decided that this did not violate my principles. After a month of daily bone broth, I was about 10% better, which was the first time anything had helped in years. Bone broth is rich in minerals and gelatin, which support digestive health and help reduce inflammation. My recovery from illness began with healing and repair of my gut.

In the story of the Buddha, after practicing an extreme form of asceticism, the Buddha was weak and near death. He was visited by a milkmaid who offered him a little milk. Despite the taboos against this, he decided to accept and eventually recovered his health. He went on to teach about moderation and The Middle Way. I felt I had reached a similar turning point. I questioned everything I thought I knew about health and disease. I decided to keep an open mind. I realized that there was a lot I didn’t know about nutrition and alternative therapies.

Next, I explored acupuncture, visiting three different acupuncturists for 10-12 sessions each. I didn’t see much improvement. I tried Qigong. I visited energy healers and reiki practitioners. I deepened my yoga practice. I continued taking herbs. I improved another 20%.

Four months of my year off had passed and I was still not feeling much better. I was becoming desperate. I decided to experiment with eating meat again. I was deeply conflicted about this after three years of vegetarianism. However, I was willing to try anything to recover my health, because I knew that I could not fulfill my dream of becoming a doctor without a healthy body.

One day I stopped by the UCSF cafeteria and bought a chicken sandwich. I went to an empty classroom where I could eat mindfully. Before eating, I prayed for some sort of sign or clue to let me know if I was doing the right thing.

Eating the sandwich was uneventful. But, as I was chewing the last mouthful of chicken, I bit into something hard. Surprised, I pulled the morsel out of my mouth and realized that it was a tiny rolled-up piece of paper. I unfurled it and saw that it had a word on it. The word was “RATION”.

I was puzzled. I decided to try to make some sense of this and just think about what the word might mean. To me, a ration was something scarce and valuable consumed during a time of need. Perhaps the message was that I needed a small amount of meat in my diet to get better. To this day, I don’t know how that piece of paper got into my sandwich. It’s a mystery.

I then meditated on the decision for several days. I realized that perhaps I should try eating meat for a while to see how I felt. My Ayurvedic practitioner agreed with this and explained that certain body types may do better with animal protein. In fact, she had wanted me to eat meat after our first visit. However, she started me initially with bone broths because she sensed I would be more open to that at the beginning, based on my strong ethical convictions.

(To be continued…)

Excerpt taken from The Paleovedic Diet by Akil Palanisamy M.D. (Skyhorse Publishing) Copyright © 2016. All rights reserved

Report Released at CES Finds “Second Screen” Trend May Worsen Eye Symptoms

LAS VEGAS (January 6, 2016) – Nearly eight of  every 10 Americans who suffer from digital eye strain use two or more devices simultaneously, according to a nationwide survey released today at the International Consumer Electronics Show.  The report by The Vision Council, based on a survey of more than 10,000 adults, finds that 65 percent of Americans experience symptoms of digital eye strain, such as dry, irritated eyes, blurred vision, neck and back pain and headaches.

“Our eyes are not built to stare at digital screens all day, but the demands of our modern-day world frequently put us in front of a screen for hours every day,” said Justin Bazan, OD, medical adviser to The Vision Council.  “Patients underestimate how their technology use may be contributing to eye strain and do not consider ways to reduce this stress.”

The report, Eyes Overexposed: Digital Device Dilemma, finds that Americans are spending more time using devices. In fact, one in 10 people report spending at least three-fourths of their waking hours on a digital device. Prolonged periods of use appear to exacerbate symptoms as 96 percent of Americans who experience digital eye strain spend two or more hours each day using devices. A combination of factors foster the onset of digital eye strain, including the proximity of the screen, the frequency and duration of use and the degree of exposure to high-energy visible (HEV) or blue light emitted by video screens.

Device use differs dramatically among generations. Key findings include:

• A majority of parents (70 percent) who let their children use devices for three or more hours a day, or who do not set limits, report being very or somewhat concerned about the impact of digital devices on developing eyes.
• Nearly nine of 10 Millennials (87 percent) in their 20s use two or more devices simultaneously and 73 percent report symptoms of digital eye strain.
• Nearly 7 in 10 (67 percent) people in their 30s spend five or more hours each day on digital devices, contributing to the digital eye strain reported by 69 percent.
• As adults in their 40s face challenges trying to focus their eyesight at varying distances and moving between devices, 66 percent experience digital eye strain.
• Frequent users of computers, Americans 50 and older need to be cognizant of their work-space ergonomic set up. Nearly 65 percent of adults in their 50s and 53 percent of people 60 and older experience symptoms of digital eye strain.

“When using technology, many people think suffering with digital eye strain is unavoidable, but it doesn’t have to be,” said Mike Daley, CEO of The Vision Council. “The optical industry has responded to the shift in digital habits and has developed lens technology to protect eyes from blue light, glare and other environmental stressors.”

Commonly referred to as computer eyewear, these glasses have lenses that are constructed specifically for the mid-distance range at which users typically view a digital screen, and they can be purchased with or without a prescription. The lenses and filters are customized to reduce blurriness and pixilation, decrease brightness, block blue light, and minimize glare while working in front of a screen—or multiple screens.

Adults and children should have regular comprehensive eye exams to help preserve vision and identify other potential eye health issues. During an eye exam, patients should discuss their digital device habits with their eye care provider to determine the best solutions for their lifestyle.

Below are five tips to relieve digital eye strain:

1. Wear computer eyewear and glasses with lens options that can help reduce symptoms of digital eye strain, block harmful blue light and improve vision.
2. Follow the 20-20-20 rule: Take a 20-second break from the screen every 20 minutes and look at something 20 feet away.
3. Build an optically optimal workspace to mitigate outside irritants. For example, reduce overhead lighting to eliminate glare.
4. ‘High-five’ the screen for the right viewing distance when sitting at a computer.
5. Increase text size on devices to better define content on the screen.

To view or download a copy of Eyes Overexposed: Digital Device Dilemma, visit The Vision Council online at www.thevisioncouncil.org/DES.

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The Vision Council is exhibiting at CES in the Family Tech Zone. Find us in CES Tech West at The Sands in the Venetian at booth 74853.

About The Vision Council                                                         

Championing better vision for better lives, The Vision Council positions its members for success by promoting growth in the vision care industry through education, advocacy, research, consumer outreach, strategic relationship building and industry forums. By sharing the latest in eyewear trends, advances in technology and advice from eyewear experts, The Vision Council serves as a resource to the public looking to learn more about options in eyeglasses and sunglasses. For more information, visit www.thevisioncouncil.org.