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My friend of 35 years will die today. How do I know this? I know this because I was told last night that she will be taken off of life support. You see, Tuesday night she had a massive heart attack and is now deemed to have no brain function due to lack of oxygen.
Dawn was a healthy and happy 47 year old until Monday - save for one thing. Dawn has Grave's disease. For those of you that are unfamiliar, Grave's disease is an autoimmune condition that causes your thyroid to put out too much thyroid hormone and results in a plethora of problems. Most commonly the symptoms of Grave's disease include:
irritability
muscle weakness
sleeping problems
a fast heartbeat
heat intolerance
diarrhea
enlargement of the thyroid
weight loss
Although seemingly, this condition seems very life threatening, it really isn't. There are medications that one can take or one can even have their thyroid destroyed by radioactive iodine to prevent not only the symptoms but the other by-product of this disease: death.
However, Dawn felt that her best bet to deal with this disease was to do so holistically. She scoured the internet and learned natural approaches to healing this chronic autoimmune condition. Or so she thought. What she didn't know is that Grave's disease has a propensity to come at the host with a vengeance in the form of something called a "thyroid storm".
A thyroid storm is when your thyroid spills out massive amounts of thyroid hormones and it causes unpleasant symptoms or even death. These symptoms include:
fever
tachycardia
hypertension
neurological
GI abnormalities
Based on what happened, our best guess is that Dawn had one of these episodes and had a massive heart attack. However, I have not spoken to her doctors so I can't say for sure. If I was a betting woman (and I am), I would be willing to guess that this is what happened.
Sadly, the amount of information on treating Grave's disease holistically on the internet is in overabundance. I have found several sites that point to treating it with a healthy lifestyle. The general consensus is that if you do the following things, you will have the ability to reverse it:
Manage stress levels
Eat an anti-inflammatory diet
Get some exercise
Lower Exposure to environmental toxins
Treat sensitivity of the eyes and skin
Talk to your doctor about potential complications
However, there's nothing on the internet from these alternative healers that says if you don't take your medicine, you will run the risk of shortening your life by about 40 years. Nothing is said that you will have a massive heart attack in front of your boyfriend, fall off the couch, start vomiting and stop breathing. Nothing says that you will get worse than very sick. Nothing says that you will put yourself into a condition called hypnoxic-anoxic brain injury. Nothing says that you will turn yourself into a vegetable. Nothing says that you will die.
Besides the obvious reason that I am writing this blog today in an effort to heal, I am also writing this blog because I want to SCREAM FROM THE ROOFTOPS that this disease is very real and can most certainly turn deadly. I want to do something to avenge the death of my friend. I want to fight but there's no one to fight. She did it to herself.
Or did she?
Sure, she was the one who chose to not take her medicine. But she was also the one who was given misinformation by a plethora of internet resources that didn't state that this disease WILL KILL YOU if you don't take your medications. Sadly, this is not the only disease out there that has a bunch of quacks claiming a cure through alternative therapies. Another deadly illness is diabetes - both Type 1 and Type 2.
My daughter is a Type 1 diabetic. I've run into other Type 1 diabetic parents that are trying to take the "high road" when it comes to their child's illness and try to not just modify the child's diet but SUPER MODIFY it in an attempt to reduce insulin intake. Should I tell them that they are playing Russian Roulette with a loaded gun as well? Do they need to see the corpse of my friend JUST TO PROVE that often traditional medicine is the ONLY way to go?
I just don't get it.
Why is it so hard for us to accept that eating a plant, ingesting a root or drinking a juice made of berries WILL NOT magically renew our bodies? Why is it so hard to understand that there's PLENTY of research and information that validates the reasons why these medications were created and how they have saved lives? There are many grave markers that are left unfilled due to these advances in technology.
Save one.
Dawn was my friend. Dawn died today. Dawn had Grave's disease.
Author's Note: This was written a few days ago. The day that she was supposed to be taken off life support. The family decided to wait because they were not able to wrap their heads around their daughter's impending death. Dawn was removed from life support on Saturday, July 1st. I decided to wait until after the holiday weekend to post.