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Maurice, aged thirty-seven, found it difficult to establish a normal sleeping pattern after frequent business trips to America. Mogadon was prescribed and he found the jet-lag easier to cope with. After three months he was not travelling so much and felt he did not need the tablets. His insomnia became worse than he had ever known it. He had palpitations and a tight feeling in his chest, and also had digestive problems.

His doctor was kind and sympathetic but said he did not think Maurice had been on the tablets long enough for dependence to have developed. The doctor suggested going back on the full dose to see what happened.

Maurice’s symptoms were much improved when he visited the surgery a week later. His doctor said that he had discussed the case with his partner who had two patients who had experienced similar problems, although they had taken the tablets over a longer period.

Complete withdrawal took six weeks. For the following three weeks Maurice felt ‘off colour’ but did not have any dramatic symptoms. After that he was back to normal.

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Skin Problems

These should always be investigated in case there is another cause. The ones most commonly reported are: dryness, itching, a dry scaly rash (often on the hands or over the bridge of the nose and on to the cheeks), spontaneous bruising and skin breaking easily. Minor cuts often take a long time to heal. Many people notice a change in skin colour. It can have a slightly jaundiced or pale brown appearance. Often a dramatic improvement can be seen in the condition of the skin even in the early days of withdrawal.

Dental Problems

The high incidence of premature tooth loss (apart from extractions because of the jaw pain) in people who have been on tranquillizers for years is another pointer to inadequate nutrition. (The same may be said for split nails.)

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You may feel delighted that you have managed to cut down or stop taking your pills, but be puzzled by how down you feel. This is another temporary state to endure. It will improve or disappear altogether when you are through withdrawal. Many people who have loving families and no financial worries, or stress of any kind, feel guilty about being so down.

Withdrawal blues do not single out people with life problems, many people have a temporary ‘down’. Sometimes the depressive symptoms are delayed and appear when the sufferers feel they are coping well. Try not to get discouraged if this happens—it will pass. If it gets too much for you to cope with, your doctor may want to give you an anti-depressant for a short time. Many find this a help, but realize it is a temporary measure. Gradual reduction from these drugs is advisable.

Depression may manifest itself in ways other than extreme sadness. Here are some of them: sighing; sluggishness; headaches; nausea; constipation; heavy limbs; feeling bloated; needing more sleep; time passing slowly; losing interest in people; feeling that people do not want to see you; isolating yourself; losing interest in appearance; loss of appetite; compulsive eating (particularly sweet foods); being annoyed out of proportion to the situation; feeling a black cloud or shape over your head or on your shoulders; finding mornings are worse and having to force yourself from the oblivion of sleep; people you love seeming far away—you know you love them but cannot feel it—you feel guilty and worry about this; the smallest task seems beyond you; you feel worthless—how could anyone love you; you feel a burden.

Many people are slow to accept the physical symptoms they have as depressive symptoms. That is not to say that it is ‘all in the mind’—far from it. It usually starts in the mind and then affects the body.

Suppressed emotions such as fear, anger, hurt and jealousy, actually cause chemical changes to take place. It is the altered body chemistry that is responsible for the physical changes. It can happen the other way too. A physical change can cause depression. Influenza, anaemia, bad nutrition, food allergies, certain glandular disorders, and hormonal changes such as at puberty, the menopause, and after childbirth, are all common causes of altered emotional states.

So often the sufferer will say ‘If I did not feel exhausted, sick, heavy-limbed, etc. I would not be depressed.’ In fact, it is often the other way around. If they were not depressed, they would not have the physical symptoms. So until you recognize that you are depressed, you cannot do anything about it.

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It will take time for the body’s normal chemicals to be produced again. When you understand that there is a definite physiological reason why you may feel more anxious during withdrawal, this will give you the confidence to ignore the ‘pull yourself together’ brigade. This point is also illustrated by the large numbers of people who are prescribed these drugs for a physical reason who also have anxiety symptoms on withdrawal.

When you have a major problem or upset in life, it is often necessary to relieve anxiety for a short time, but it is a great mistake to carry on for months or years. Not only does the user run the risk of dependence, but also because the emotions are dulled, he or she is unable to adjust to the loss or altered situation. This is particularly so in bereavement. The user has to face the grief again when medication ceases, and may feel severe guilt about not grieving at the appropriate time. Because the suppressed emotions of years come to the surface in withdrawal, many people are able to face old conflicts and traumas, and in doing so, lose some of their fears, and gain self-respect.

To illustrate how many (although it is agreed not all) of the withdrawal symptoms are due to rebound anxiety, here are anxiety symptoms listed under ‘Anxiety Neurosis’ from the Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry (1983), Ed. Gelder, Gath and Mayou. Some people have found this section rather technical, others were finally convinced (because the source was beyond dispute) that they were not suffering from some serious physical illness.

Anxiety neuroses have psychological and physical symptoms. The psychological symptoms are the familiar feeling of fearful anticipation that gives the condition its name, irritability, difficulty in concentration, sensitivity to noise, and a feeling of restlessness.

Patients often complain of poor memory when they are really experiencing the effects of failure to concentrate.

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How immune complexes affect the blood vessels depends very much on what sort of antibodies they contain – there are five different isotypes. In the healthy person, the main antibody formed to food is immunoglobulin A, or IgA, which has special protective properties. Unlike most other antibodies it does not activate the defensive proteins in the blood known as the complement system.

The products of the complement system cause inflammation, a reaction designed to mobilize the body’s protective forces. The effects of inflammation are to make the blood vessels in the vicinity more leaky and to attract other immune cells into the area – the leaky vessels make it easier for the immune cells to gain access to the surrounding tissues. What appears on the outside as a swollen, red, tender area is in fact a microscopic battleground, where the body’s own cells and tissues are unfortunate casualties of the general mayhem.

The purpose of inflammation, in the healthy individual, is to fight off infection. The body assumes that the antibodies have attached themselves to an invading bacterium or virus and sends in the troops. Obviously the body needs to have control systems that tell it not to react when the antibodies are bound to something innocuous – such as a food protein which happens to have wandered into the blood through the gut wall. This is the function of IgA. Because it does not activate the complement system it can quietly mop up non-harmful antigens for disposal by the phagocytes, without setting off a damaging episode of inflammation.

For this system to work, the body must somehow distinguish food from other sorts of antigen. And it must make sure that IgA – rather than IgG, another more inflammatory type of antibody – is manufactured to fit the food molecules. The details of how the body does this are still far from clear, but a general picture is emerging from current research, and this is described in Chapter Twelve. The process is known as ‘the induction of oral tolerance’.

What, if anything, goes wrong with this system? There is only a limited amount of evidence available, but it does seem that the system for producing IgA rather than IgG to food molecules breaks down in some people. Where this occurs, the immune complexes circulating in the blood after a meal will be potentially inflammatory. If they are deposited in a blood vessel, damage to the walls of the vessel will follow.

Such people may also have IgE in their food-molecule immune complexes, so mast cells could be triggered to add to the inflammation. Whether this actually happens is not clear. But if it does then there are important implications for the way we think about allergies: the dividing line between Type I (IgE) food allergy and Type III food allergy may not be as sharp as is often assumed.

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As long ago as in April 1956, at the Second International Biogenetic Congress held in Baden-Baden, Germany, under the chairmanship of Dr Galeazzi, many of the papers presented dealt with the research findings in connection with royal jelly.

Then there were the articles written by Professor Belvefer of Paris, who had been conducting research on royal jelly for decades. It is amazing to read his references to the findings made by a number of researchers, for example the fact that the queen bee is able to lay 300,000—450,000 eggs a year as a result of her feeding on this remarkable nutritive complex. This feat cannot be matched by any other creature on earth.

Further reports explained that royal jelly not only vitalises and rejuvenates through its effect on the endocrine glands, but also successfully combats whooping cough and asthma, especially in children. It has been found that children with a weak constitution soon pick up and have better appetites when given royal jelly. Benefits can also be obtained in cases of bronchitis, migraine, stomach and gallbladder troubles, digestive disorders, bad nerves and the peculiar kind of fatigue resulting from weak functioning of the endocrine glands. These and many other health problems can be improved considerably, if not cured, by taking royal jelly regularly. Moreover, it is maintained that people with a predisposition to cancer will benefit from a regular intake of royal jelly. It is also good for the skin when taken orally and when used for massage. For the latter, dilute some royal jelly with honey and water and massage the solution into the skin.

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In many cases the orthodox doctor goes to no end of trouble to help a patient, but unfortunately, without success. Then, when a simple natural remedy like cabbage leaves produces a cure, we are astonished at how natural active forces, without depending upon laboriously collected human knowledge, can bring about almost miraculous results.

The case of a 62-year-old patient, who suffered considerably, serves as a good example. An infection, aggravated by eating sprayed cherries, resulted in the development of a fungus the size of a small coin on the lady’s tongue. The doctor removed it with cautery (silver nitrate) and found it necessary to prescribe, in addition, eight days of radium treatment. After three weeks the patient left the hospital with a paralysed tongue.

Five weeks later, a large swelling appeared on her neck. It seemed that another operation would be necessary to remove it. Discouraged by the prospect of more surgery, the patient kept postponing it. Eight weeks later the pain had become almost unbearable but now an operation was considered out of the question. Instead, she received forty-three radiation treatments. Afterwards, the patient felt weak and thought death was inevitable.

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In fact, the programme consists of four remedies, one each to stimulate the intestines, liver, kidneys and stomach:

1. Rasayana No. 1 is a herb tablet that stimulates and cleanses the intestines.

2. Rasayana No. 2, is also a herb tablet; it contains curcuma root (Indian saffron) and serves to stimulate the liver.

3. A special kidney tea stimulates the kidneys and the excretion of wastes through the urine.

4. Arabiaforce, an Arabian plant essence, improves, regulates and balances the function of the stomach lining and the mucous membranes of the intestines. This remedy is made according to an old herbal recipe that was brought to Europe by Paracelsus. The herbal ingredients come from the Near and Far East.

These four remedies taken together serve to ‘spring-clean’ the body and are of special benefit to all those who suffer from constipation and sluggish metabolism.; For even better results and to consolidate them, take the above- mentioned ‘spring tea’ after completing the Rasayana Programme. Your body will respond to this good care, and will enjoy greater vitality and energy.

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Babies with teething problems will respond to Calcarea fluorica, taken in alternation with Calcarea phosphorica (calcium phosphate). I should also mention that mothers can more quickly regain their figure after the birth of their babies and prevent a pendulous abdomen, which is caused by a relaxation of the abdominal muscles and ligaments, if they take Calcarea fluorica or the calcium complex Urticalcin regularly during pregnancy.

Calcarea fluorica is generally given in the potency 12x, but for some rare cases it may be 6x. The normal dose is two tablets (0.125 g each), three times daily.

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Some time after the above experience, I travelled to the Amazon region and visited a jungle where malaria was rampant. I was accompanied on this study tour by a colleague who had been working with me in Peru, a man who was well acclimatised to South America.

I took the risk of travelling without malaria drugs, but I did take Echinacea tincture daily, about forty drops every morning and evening. During the first few days we put up a mosquito net, but in the native huts the mosquitoes were able to slip through the chinks in the bamboo floor. We even killed some blood-filled insects under the net.

My colleague had no confidence in Echinacea and declined to take any. Like myself, he must have been bitten hundreds of times. The area we visited around the Upper Maranon was notorious and feared for malaria. Although I was bitten all over, I was astonished that I did not once come down with a fever attack, whereas my colleague returned home with a bad case of the disease. Unfortunately, he had not taken any remedy. He believed that his sixteen years in Peru had made him immune to malaria. However, the area where he had been living, at our farm in Tarapoto, was malaria-free, unlike the Amazon region we visited on this occasion.

Thirty years later, a medical check-up brought to light that I had once had a malaria infection, which could only have been during this visit to the Maranon. As I had never suffered so much as a bout of fever or any other symptom of the disease, I came to the obvious conclusion that Echinacea may well help to prevent malaria.

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