WHEN DRUG THERAPIES AND ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES DON'T WORK

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You just bought yet another supplement. Two weeks down the road, you haven’t noticed any changes. The supplement is expensive and you’re tired of keeping your hopes up. Is it worth continuing? After all, shouldn’t it have done something by now?

When I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis, one of the very first medications they give you is prednisone, a type of steroid, known as a corticosteroid. As with any steroid, this drug is very fast acting. Unfortunately, the drugs I tried after Prednisone took much, much longer to work. Methotrexate can take up to six months to work for some people, while for others it can work as early as one or two months. And then there are others who never experience any relief from Methotrexate after having been on it for many months.

So what do you really need to know when trying out a new drug, supplement or therapy? How do you know if you’ve given it enough time? Why is it that some people seem to do really well with supplements and claim they work, while others claim they don’t work at all? Why do some people have to try endless drug therapies before they finally reach the right one, while others might get relief right away?

Here are my thoughts on how to make any drug, supplement or therapy a success………

1. Research the drug, supplement or therapy.

Research, research and then research some more! It’s impossible to have a successful outcome from all drugs or therapies in terms of getting relief, but not wasting your time is success! I always have my favorite dependable sites like Mayoclinic for example that I depend on for information, but do be sure to also look at blogs, Wikipedia and ask people on support groups, as well as people you might personally know. It’s important to get a well rounded view on possible outcomes. Most people will be against experimentation. You’re not always going to get the kind of support you want, and that’s something to consider also. In the end remember, it’s your body and your decision, period.

2. Have realistic expectations.

If you have a chronic disease, the odds are against you, that you will find a drug or supplement that puts you in remission. Many people do go into remission, but many more don’t. There are different types of remission as well. Most people who achieve remission, achieve “drug induced remission” meaning that if they went off the drugs, their symptoms would come back full force. There is the rare person who achieves remission and can go off drugs without the return of symptoms. There are also different degrees of drug induced remission. You can be considered in remission and yet still have some symptoms of the disease. Most auto-immune diseases require “stacking” medication before symptoms of the disease are relieved. Keep that in mind when taking supplements. Although there are many supplements that can do amazing things, you will mot likely still have some symptoms of your disease if you are on only one supplement. Drugs and supplements both take time to work. Research how long it usually takes for something to work and consider adding on an extra month just in case your body takes longer than most. Remember that this is somewhat of a gamble. Even your doctor doesn’t know what drug will best suit you or how long it will take.

3. Understand “Hering’s Law”.

Natural Healing is based on “hering’s law” which in a nutshell means that people often re-visit previous symptoms temporarily. This is often when people quit their new supplement or medication, while re-visiting symptoms is often an indicator that you’re on the right track! Having side effects from a drug or supplement doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Any kind of detox will give you side effects simply because the toxins have to re-enter your blood stream and exit your body. This can cause lots of symptoms. Antibiotic therapy is also another therapy that people often stop because they suddenly get side effects. If people could just realize that this is often a sign that you’ve found the right medication for you, they could stay on the right track and reap the benefits right around the corner! On the flip side, side effects that are not normally a disease symptom, like vomiting or blurry vision, depending on your disease, could be a sign that the drug you’re taking is not the right drug for you. For people on drugs like methotrexate, side effects often become less severe over time, but this is not considered “Hering’s Law.” “Hering’s Law” is the re-visitation of old symptoms from the disease itself, not new side effects from the drug. If you are having severe side effects like vomiting or blurry vision and these are not normal symptoms of your disease, then you should consider talking with your doctor and possibly coming off of the drug.

Some pharmaceutical drugs don’t cause you to re-visit symptoms because they suppress the immune system. Suppressing the immune system, vs. emptying the body of toxins are two entirely different things. It’s important to realize that side effects are simply part of the healing process when it comes to a lot of supplements, alternative therapies and select drugs.

5. Don’t group all supplements or alternative medications into one lump sum.

Look at each one individually and it’s specific mechanics. This means that if one product doesn’t work for them, they often give up on all products even though they are all so vastly different. Again, research is key. It’s absolutely essential to understand how a supplement, drug or therapy works so that you’re not hindering the process. Some supplements or drugs require a special diet or other supplements in order for them to work.  N-Acetyl Cysteine is one of them. It rids your body of toxic metals. But it’s important to take this supplement with extra Vitamin C among other things in order for it to work. Along with that, you have to supplement the metals that are important to your body, like zinc, iron and selenium because N-Acetyl Cysteine doesn’t have the capabilities of only selecting specific metals.

6. Try to take into account how complicated the body is, how much it changes from person to person and how if something doesn’t work for one person, it doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t work for you.

I feel it’s helpful to have a back up plan in case the drug, supplement or therapy doesn’t work. I also research like crazy to find out how long it takes to work for most people and at what dose. And if I’m purely running an experiment and I’m the ONLY one I know that’s taking the supplement then I give myself at least three months to feel its effects. Perhaps that’s not even long enough, but I know that with Vitamin E, for instance, it can take up to three months before you might notice a difference. So hang in there and give it plenty of time!

7. Natural healing needs the effort of the person to consider what they’re ingesting, whether it’s the wrong foods or medications that are inhibiting the supplement from working.

Again, research is key. When I finally took the leap and tried alternative therapies, the first thing I tried was Low Dose Naltexone. There was a growing buzz on the internet and in my support group that LDN was working for people with autoimmune diseases, particularly Multiple Sclerosis and Crohn’s. I convinced two other people on my support group to try LDN too. We couldn’t find anyone on the internet who had RA and was trying LDN and the only information we could find about it was on the LDN website. We had no idea how long it would take to work, or how well it could work. All we had were each other, and that was at least, something.

One of the women, we’ll call her Susy, started feeling a difference with LDN right away, while the another woman, we’ll call her Jennifer and I were waiting patiently for something to happen. At around two months, I noticed I could finally sleep on my sides again, something I hadn’t been able to do in over a year. It was a miracle. But Jennifer still hadn’t had any positive results with LDN. She had stopped taking Enbrel, and I had stopped taking methotrexate. So we were really dependent on LDN working. As time went on, she tightened up her diet and went through horrible flares. She almost gave up. Enbrel hadn’t worked for her, so she continued to hope that LDN would do something. After six months on LDN she started to finally reap the benefits. But why did it take so long? And why at the four month mark, did both of us start to experience more frequent flares? She eventually decided to try minocycline therapy while still taking LDN. We agreed that LDN was working for us, but we also felt that because we still had inflammation, we needed something more to get things under control. Four months later of  Minocycline and LDN, and Jennifer is in remission. She no longer takes LDN or Minnocycline. She is a perfect example that some things are worth the wait.

I never took minocycline therapy and I have various reasons why. Instead I decided to try Serracor-NK, which was a recommendation from a neighbor. At first I was skeptical because so many other supplements I had tried didn’t work. Still, I was impressed with the case studies online and one in particular with an older woman with RA who took Serracor-NK. But after one month and no changes, not even any noticeable side effects and I started to wonder if my money was going down the drain. Knowing the supplement did not decrease the woman from the case studies’ ESR rate until the second month, I vowed to hang in there, determined that if I didn’t at least stick it out that long, I would always wonder if it could have worked. To my grateful surprise, at two months I did feel a difference, and at four months, I felt a tremendous difference. In fact, each day gets better and better!

In the end, listen to your body and do what you feel is right. You have to live in your own skin. You are the only person that knows you the way that you do. And don’t forget to share your successes with the rest of us!