Resetting the Bar

Last summer, for the first time in my life, I had an ear infection.

I was totally unprepared for the pain!

It did not get better until they lanced my ear drum!
(I posted several posts about the experience! It was really traumatic.)

Recovery from the meningococcal meningitis and sepsis using 24 days therapeutic water fasting and Complimentary Medicine
Dr. Vladimir Etkin, MD, RUSSIA, Voronezh city, vld707@list.ru , Skype address vld707, http://naturopathy.mylivepage.ru/

I would like to share my story of success about my 24 day water fast while suffering from meningococcal meningitis plus meningococcemia (sepsis). In the winter of 1980 when I studied in Residency at Kursk Medical College on the general therapy of internal diseases, I gradually developed bad headaches which plagued me throughout the whole month, and I was also struck by a chronic cold. Almost two days went by before doctors were able to confirm my own diagnosis. (At first they thought I had gone mad!) Drifting in and out of consciousness I was in no state to discuss my condition with them even though I tried.

On one fine day-after five days of unconsciousness- I awoke with a sensation of unimaginable ease in my body. At the time it had not yet been established that the meningitis had caused edema on the brain. The day before my birthday my joints had swollen and became crimson: both talocrural and wrist, and joints on two fingers on the left hand were also affected. In the morning my body temperature was 37.5 C, and by the evening it had gone up to 39 C. For most of the night I felt drowsy and slept for only two to three hours due to the septic temperature (a septic polyarthritis).

The spinal lumbar punctures (they were seven in all during my illness) added to my misery as for almost 2 weeks I was not able to bend my waist as a nerve had been touched. Any attempt to bend led to piercing pains in my right leg. The lumbar punctures were a necessary evil as the doctors could only establish from an extraction of spinal fluid the true nature of the infection. Once this sample was analyzed the doctor informed me that he now knew how to proceed with the correct treatment.

My diagnosis sounded like a verdict: The residual phenomena meningococcal infections (meningitis and a sepsis) with the raised craniocereberal pressure, extrapyramidal disturbances (defeat subcrustal ganglia substances of a brain due to encephalitis) and fatigue syndrome.

Translated into ordinary language, it would mean: Constant headaches day and night which made me climb up the wall, 4 hours of hallucinations late at night, and awaking early with shaky legs, dizziness, weakness in the right hand and a leg. These symptoms increased with the change of weather, and I also experienced a constant tremor of head and painful spasms in leg muscles, decrease in memory and concentration, fatigue and emotional imbalance in the form of vulnerability, despondency’s, depression, etc.

My speech was in no way impaired, and although I could read, the word meaning (semantics) was at times absent. It was necessary to re-read a text several times over in order to grasp the meaning. To write using a pen was a problem as the hand would simply not obey. The usual pen reminded me of a piece of a stiff piece of wood which was difficult to hold. This made the task of writing a difficult process. I knew when it was about to rain, because my right hand weakened, and the right leg stumbled a
little.
A doctor from the outpatient clinic where I was receiving treatment presented me with the first edition of “Fasting for the sake of health” by Professor Nikolaev.
In that hot summer of 1980, during the 24 day therapeutic water fast I lost at total of 16 kg, but the co-ordination of body movements was restored, the liver functions improved and consequently my complexion returned, and most importantly was the belief in my ability to make a full recovery!