Ankylosing Spondylitis :: Health and Disease

Ankylosing Spondylitis
by author Leo Roy, MD, ND

Ankylosing spondylitis is an illness that took my whole lifetime to mature and five years to battle into submission.

The symptoms and causes, like almost all so-called incurable diseases, piled up, stone upon stone, beginning to create my tombstone. Each stone was a deficiency, a toxin or poison, a stress, a trauma, or an abnormal change or overload, progressively damaging and denaturing normal tissues and transforming them until there was a final body-break down.

These "rocks," piling up over most of a lifetime, had made me into a prime candidate for brain, joint and tissue infections and damages. It all happened so slowly I had no idea that anything was wrong.

By retirement age, semi-retired and less stressed, I was no longer whipping my adrenal glands to secrete levels of adrenaline and cortisone to fight and resist the damages of a lifetime. (Slowing down is like switching off body metabolism, immunity and resistance to diseases.)

For many years I had been experiencing and tolerating periodic burnouts and mild depressions. I blamed them on high work loads and self-neglect. I eventually reached the stage of chronic fatigue syndrome.

Antiseptic Solution

After a chance reading about the effects of root canal infections, it dawned on me that the symptoms were an accurate description of what I was experiencing (I had had three.) I had them taken out. Within a half hour, I could feel myself coming back to life. My mind cleared. My energies and urges to be active rapidly returned. By that evening I was back to my old routine.

However, the removal of the infected teeth had not been done right. The infections were still in the tissues that encapsulated the teeth. The poisons now had direct access to blood vessels that feed the jaw bones and could now flow through the rest of the body. As they did, the whole process of this disease exploded. Muscles became toxic; the pain resembled serious overwork or traumatic stressing (the fibromyalgia stage). It felt like prickly wire meshes had grown between my skin and muscles. Then came the rigor mortis stage: stiffness and rigidity over most of my body–especially at night, as the body starts to rest and its functioning and blood circulation decline. In bed, I could hardly move without feeling I was going to break something–like bending frozen wet blankets.

I discovered in a medical book that this pain had a name: ankylosing spondylitis. In a few words, you could call this disease an inflammation-(infection) induced rigor mortis. Other symptoms include numbness and tingling in hands and feet, inability to eat (I lost 60 pounds), iron deficiency anemia (taking iron doesn’t help) and progressive joint crippling. The spine turns rigid, like a poker.

Toxins, body wastes, poisons and infections are prime causes of ankylosing spondylitis. These poisons gravitate to the weak, damaged, deficient, blood starved and overloaded tissues and areas. They filter everywhere, but stagnate where the blood circulation is the slowest and lowest.

The smallest blood vessels in our bodies are those that pierce the ligament tissues that form the capsules of joints, the fibrous tissues that encapsulate our brains and those ligaments that hold bones into joints. The inside linings of articulations and the brain are particularly sensitive to and vulnerable to body poisons. Tissue damage, overloads and tensions constrict blood circulation.

Extracting root canals and scraping jaw bones of the residual infections were the only relief in my case.

Ways to Tear Down the Disease

There is no single recipe to cure any severe degenerative condition. There are, however, many strategies that have helped different people and may help you.

Normalize all body biochemistry and physiology through changes in diet, nutrition and lifestyle.

Correct all deficiencies, particularly the proteins; omega-3 oils with their specific anti-inflammatory actions; vitamin A and C complexes; calcium and magnesium.

Manipulate and balance all abnormal bone alignments. (See a good chiropractor.)

Gentle exercises-no forcing.

Fast, to flush out toxins and infections.

Surgical extracting and correcting abscesses or infections.

Rest, sleep and relax.

Restore and enhance the adrenal glands to mobilize blood and healing and the thymus gland to activate lymph drainage, toxin elimination and immunity.

Electro-pulsating magnets, to enhance blood flow, oxygen and therapy availability.

Hot baths, hydrotherapy, massages, physiotherapy.

Remember, there are no incurable diseases. There are only incurable people. Join me for a nice walk along the beach in front of my home and I’ll prove it to you!

Leo Roy is a medical researcher living in Westbank, BC.

Source: alive #217, November 2000

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