Case study: arthritis with myalgia


        CASE STUDY: ARTHRITIS WITH MYALGIA
Patricia Engel was a skilled pianist and violinist, thirty years of age, who had been well until moving into an all gas-equipped house. At the same time she had changed most of her wardrobe from natural to synthetic fabrics. Within a four-to-five-month period she noticed that she needed rest periods during the day. She also suffered from increasing levels of morning fatigue. Soon this was followed by unexplained muscle soreness.
Miss Engel took a trip to Europe. After being exposed to excessive amounts of motor exhaust while traveling, however, she developed chills and arthritic pains of the neck and shoulders. Another similar episode occurred after she disembarked in New York City when she ran into heavy traffic fumes. But two weeks after returning to her apartment, with its gas-fired range and water heater, generalized joint and muscle aching and pain incapacitated her. The pain started in her shoulders and spine and then spread rapidly to her fingers, hips, knees, ankles, and other joints.
Conventionally minded doctors treated her with aspirin and another nonaspirin pain-killer. Soon she was given cortisone therapy. After three years of this, however, she developed a cataract, whereupon the drug was discontinued. She also received indomethacin (Indocin) and gold therapy, an experimental form of arthritis treatment. Nothing stopped the spread of the disease. By this point, she was so crippled that she had to abandon her career as a musician, since she could no longer play the piano or violin.
Upon admission to the hospital under my care, she fasted and suffered headaches and muscle and joint pains as withdrawal symptoms. These symptoms soon cleared, and her joint movement increased. Miss Engel was then tested with chemically less contaminated health foods. Her reactions, listed in the order of their rapidity of onset, were as follows:
Corn: 30 minutes, sleepiness; 1 hour, restlessness; 3 hours, fatigue and sensitive joints, with generalized myalgia and arthralgia the following morning
Tomato: 30 minutes, knees, hands, and wrists more tight
Peas: 30 minutes, arms, shoulders, and fingers tightened and more sensitive
Beets and beet sugar: 1 hour, restless legs and increasing generalized stiffness
Lamb: 2 hours, hoarseness, followed by chilling and progressive fatigue
and arthritic pains
Rice: 2 hours, tightness and stiffness of knees and wrists
Wheat: 4 hours, restless legs with residual muscle and joint stiffness
Milk: 4 hours, stiffness of joints with residual generalized joint stiffness
and soreness
Beef: 8 hours, aching joints with residual pain in joints
When Miss Engel was fed regular supermarket foods, which had been tolerated in their organic form, after the third such meal she awoke during the night with extreme stiffness and chills, all her joints being so sore that she had to be helped out of bed.
Upon returning home, she avoided all of her incriminated foods, and chlorinated water, and by following the Rotary Diversified Diet (Chap. 18), she remained well. Within a week, however, her arthritis gradually returned. This was tremendously disappointing, especially since she had previously removed her gas stove. She did notice, however, that she felt better when she was outside the house and became increasingly worse the more time she spent inside.
She therefore had her gas-fired heating system removed and replaced it with electric heaters and also had the gas pipes removed from the walls. She made her bedroom into a pollution-free "oasis" (Chap. 20) and then reintroduced questionable items one at a time. She was found to be susceptible to polyester bedsheets, living-room curtains, and several other plastic and synthetic materials. The finish on the doors of her kitchen cabinets was suspected, and there was definite improvement when it was removed.
At the present time, Miss Engel is free of muscle and joint pain, but there remains some impaired motion in the left wrist, due to the destruction of tissue caused when her illness was uncontrolled. She also gets a mild increase in arthritic symptoms before her monthly period, after housekeeping, when the pine trees in her yard are putting out new growth, and when she is working in the yard. However, there is simply no comparison between the minor problems which she has now and the crippled patient whom we admitted to the hospital a few years ago.
Patricia Engel is just the sort of patient whose case could not have been fully understood in the 1940s or early 1950s, because much of her illness was caused by chemical susceptibility. Even such a seemingly innocuous material as the varnish on her kitchen cabinets was contributing to her arthritis and had to be modified or removed before she could get significantly better.
Few diseases are as pathetic as rheumatoid arthritis in children. This problem often starts innocently enough as a swelling in a knuckle or finger, spreads to other parts of the body, and finally leaves the child a cripple for life. It is often accompanied by swollen lymph nodes (glands), enlarged spleen, fever, profuse sweating, and anemia. Conventional medicine recognizes no agreed-upon cause or effective treatment for this ailment.
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