As a long-time fitness buff in my late 40s, I wasn't overly concerned when red welts began to appear on my elbows, ankles and scalp. I thought merely that I'd picked up a fungus at the YMCA, which, surely, would go away in a few days. And when the welts didn't go away, but became larger and thicker, I concluded merely that this was an uncommon modern fungus, requiring store-bought fungicide. When that didn't work either, I felt the first twinges of fear, and began to wear long-sleeved shirts to hide my disfigured elbows. Yet, stubbornly, I didn't see a doctor until I was suffering from a fierce earache.
I'd known Dr. Hans Schein of Charlton for 20 years, but had only seen him twice during that period because I’d only been sick twice. Yet I thought of him as “my” doctor. He was more inclined toward homeopathic remedies than most modern practitioners. To me his outlook was more in keeping with the Edgar Cayce readings. A native of Germany, he spoke with an accent, which I thought quaint. His office was in his home. He peered into my right ear, then my left, as I explained that the ache had made me quit swimming at the Y, a routine I'd practiced faithfully for a decade. “Ja,” he concluded. “You haf svimmer‘s ear. I vant you to swab it mit dis lotion tree times a day.”
“You wouldn't have any idea what's causing these red welts on my elbows?” It was almost an afterthought. “Mmm…looks like psoriasis. “So-rye-a-sis?” I'd barely heard the word. “What causes it?” “Dey don't know. Dere is no cure. Mit me, it comes und goes. Is better in summer, vorse in vinter. Sunshine helps. Maybe fresh vegetables. Ointments, too. Many people haf it.”
Driving home I vaguely remembered an article about some kind of skin disease in an old A.R.E. Journal. I found it in the September, 1977 issue, titled, “Psoriasis: Hope for the Afflicted” by Dr. John O. A. Pagano. I was impressed by this statement: “I had yet to find an article on psoriasis that seemed to go beyond the surface….; that is, until I came upon the works of Edgar Cayce."
Dr. Schein had told me that the cause was unknown, yet here was Cayce, describing the cause in detail: “…the thinning of the walls of the duodenum and the small intestine, allowing the toxins of digestion to seep into the lymph and circulatory systems.” The skin lesions were “merely an attempt by the body to throw off the toxins.” Obviously, Cayce on psoriasis hadn't yet trickled down to the cloistered academia of orthodox medicine. The cause of this thinning was generally believed to be stress, but Cayce and Pagano were more concerned with treatment, which involved five steps:
- diet,
- colonic irrigations,
- herbal drinks,
- spinal adjustments,
- external salves.
When I told Sherrill, my wife, that Dr. Schein had suggested that those red welts on my elbows might be psoriasis, she balked: “That‘s impossible. You of all people couldn‘t possibly have psoriasis. You take too good care of yourself. You eat well. You swim every day. You don't smoke. How could you possibly get psoriasis?” Agreeing completely, I discounted Dr. Schein‘s diagnosis.
A friend who sat opposite me at work had had the disease for over 20 years. He scratched himself often, had open sores on the backs of his hands (and, he assured me, legs, back and midsection, too). He left flakes of skin on the chair and floor wherever he sat. His condition had worsened steadily over the years. It was systemic, he told me, like diabetes or arthritis, not contagious. And nothing could be done for it, he insisted. I could understand why it had been termed “the heartbreak.”
An antibiotic Dr. Schein had prescribed temporarily alleviated the earache, but the itching, pressure on the eardrum and swollen glands in my neck returned soon after the last dose. Refilling the prescription, I decided it was an expensive stopgap. Despite Dr. Schein‘s warning, I kept trying to continue swimming, but it made my ear itch. I was afraid of another flareup. Foresaking my watery arena was a great sacrifice. I‘d grown to love the exercise and routine. I could feel myself becoming peevish by the day.
Soon another symptom set in — boils on my arms, legs and scalp. They formed slowly and remained for weeks without coming to a head. They hurt. Still I refused to believe I had psoriasis. One day, alone in the men‘s room at the Schenectady Gazette, the newspaper where I‘d worked for 15 years, I removed a small spray can of fungicide from my pocket and squirted it in my ear. “Damn,” I thought, inspecting my ear in the mirror, “why doesn't this fungus go away.” In answer I was prompted by an inner “voice” — not an entirely new experience for me — only two words, “It’s psoriasis.” That was it. A bald flat statement. Nothing to encourage argument. Startled, I stared at my reflection looking startled. The next day I called Dr. Pagano at Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and made an appointment.
The 165-mile drive from my house in upstate New York took about three hours. Pagano was a pleasant man — energetic, enthusiastic, artistic. His own woodcuts of old railroad engines adorned the walls of his office. He confirmed the verdict of my inner voice, gave me a spinal adjustment, two bags of herb teas, and a Manhattan address where I could get a colonic. He wanted me to return for 12 more treatments.
When I got home I talked it over with Sherrill. She thought I ought to stick with him, but the long drive made me hesitate. The next day I told Pagano on the phone that I’d first try to manage by myself. He made me promise I’d get back to him if I ran into problems.
In the meantime, I’d sent for the A.R.E. circulating file. Its main thrust was diet:
- many fruits and vegetables,
- no red meats except lamb,
- plenty of fish and fowl,
- few fats, sweets or pastries,
- no fried foods, shellfish or tomatoes.
The Cayce Psoriasis Diet seemed almost the same as the Cayce Normal Diet. I posted a list of "yeas" and "nays" on the fridge.
The aim of this diet, I learned, was to promote alkalinity. Though my diet was basically healthy, it tended to be too acid-forming. I hadn't been aware of the need for this kind of balance. Cayce was big on assimilations and eliminations. Somewhere in the readings I recalled a statement to the effect that, if a body could assimilate everything it needed from its food, and eliminate everything it didn't need, it would live forever, which is astounding when you think about it, but obvious. Of course, it can't, which is why it grows old.
Recently, I'd slipped into several unfortunate eating practices, often consuming a large bowl of ice cream and chocolate syrup before bedtime. Pagano had advised me to eat my main meal in the middle of the day. Also, I'd been neglecting "My Green Drink," a concoction I invented years ago when I noted in the Cayce readings that gelatin helped the body assimilate. Cayce had suggested that raw vegetables with gelatin provide up to seven times as many vitamins as those without gelatin. The readings recommended the ingredients for "My Green Drink" in many places, but the recipe was my own:
- 3 large stalks of celery,
- 2 medium-sized carrots,
- 2 packets of unsweetened gelatin, cold water to soften,
boiling water as a solvent, making 1 cup
- 1⁄2 to 1 head of leaf lettuce,
- 1 cup unsweetened yogurt honey,
- 1 tbsp. olive oil.
Slice the celery, put in blender, add gelatin liquid, blend, add carrots, blend, add lettuce, blend, add yogurt, blend, add honey to taste and olive oil, blend until smooth. I usually drank about a third, poured the other two thirds into two small bowls, covered and put them in the fridge to set up. It was good as aspic, too. "My Green Drink" allowed me to imbibe more vegetables in a few gulps than I could consume, salad-style, in many minutes — a true jiffy mixture. I had to admit, though, it didn't look overly appetizing, sort of gloppy and chartreuse. But I knew from a past study of the Eskimos that taste preferences were almost entirely habit, that what seems pleasing or displeasing is not as absolute as we usually think, but is amenable to modification, given the required desire and persistence.
One day, a bunch of neighborhood kids were hanging out in the kitchen while I was preparing "My Green Drink." I noticed them observing me slyly, particularly Woody, from next door. Finally, he piped up,
"You're not really gonna eat that, are you?"
"Sure. Want some?"
"Nope."
"It's really delicious." I listed the ingredients. "Here. I'll pour you a glass."
"Not me. Looks yukky!"
"Okay, Woody. But what about the rest of you. I can't believe you're all chicken-hearted."
No one spoke.
"Okay. How about a nickel? Who'll do it for a nickel."
Silence.
"A dime?"
Woody asked, "How much would I have to drink?"
"Just this much." I set in front of him a small jelly glass.
"No way, man."
"Okay, then. I'm not hard to get along with. How 'bout a spoonful?"
He was still shaking his head.
"How 'bout a quarter?"
Woody leaned forward. "Whaddya think?" He turned to Davey and Chris,our sons. "I mean, after all, how bad can it be? Can I have a drink of water after? You're not kiddin'? A whole quarter?"
But Davey, a year older and presumably wiser, advised, "Don't do it, Woody. You'd be crazy. A quarter doesn't go very far these days."
Woody drew back. Even he could see the logic behind that.
As it happened then, the pleasures of "My Green Drink" remained beyond the ken of the rest of the world. I thought this a definite pity. After all, it was loaded with vitamins and seemed an effective tonic for the lower intestinal tract.
Dr. Pagano had urged me to submit to a colonic irrigation. I couldn't see traveling all the way to Manhattan for it, so instead I fixed me a monster enema with Glyco-Thymoline and baking soda, and endured this three nights in a row at the beginning of my treatment. I'd already adopted two beneficial health practices from the readings — a 20-minute fume bath in a homemade steambox followed by a peanut oil rub once a week. I saw no reason to desist from those. Pagano had advised slippery elm bark tea before breakfast. Cayce said it should be drunk tepid, not your normal temperature for tea.
Beyond that, it was tawny, thick and pasty. To get it down at first I had to keep reminding myself that taste preferences are arbitrary, that I'd already learned this lesson from the Eskimos.
"Elm Barf Tea," Davey called it.
Saffron or chamomile tea should be sipped a half hour before meals or at bedtime, Pagano had said. These suffusions were actually pleasant.
In another A.R.E. Journal story, "The Healing Powers of Safrron Tea," author Robert Clapp noted that Cayce had recommended it more times for more different ailments than any other tea. Everyone should use it, Cayce had said.
Not swimming now for fear of another earache, I took long walks with my dog around the neighborhood. I visited a chiropractor several times, noticing a backache between my shoulder blades, in just the spot Cayce had pinpointed for psoriasis. Instead of a main meal with ice cream when I arrived home from my second-shift job, I cut back to a bedtime snack of "mummy food," made from a pound of black mission figs pureed in a blenderful of boiling water, a pound of dates pureed in a blenderful of boiling water, 2 heaping tablespoons of corn meal added to the dates before adding the water, stirred together in a large pot and simmered for an hour. This was my version of Cayce's recipe, allowing me to skip cooking it daily, keeping it chilled in the fridge for two weeks. Mummy food, though rich, is alkaline reacting in the body. It tasted great and had beneficial effects on my body in general and the eliminative system in particular. But when I began to eat it for dessert at the Gazette, I was forced to run an inordinately long gauntlet of taunts, even for a newspaper office. Its color and consistency was what attracted attention.
Bob Van Brocklin, city editor, passing through the editorial lounge one evening while I was polishing off a bowl, asked with perfect deadpan, "Why do they call that stuff mummy food?" I should've smelled a rat. Reporters and editors love to flaunt their idle fancies. But, innocently, I began to tell Bob the story of how Cayce had named it after an Egyptian mummy had sat up in his dream and given him the recipe. Bob cut me short. "They call it 'mummy food,'" he corrected, "because, if you ever fed it to a real mummy, even though he'd been dead 10,000 years, he'd have to jump up and run to the bathroom. Ha, ha, ha, ha!" Such raillery at my expense was best ignored, I figured.
The ultimate testament to the efficacy of my self treatment came during a colonic irrigation in 1981 at the Beach. I was trying my best to relax, while Sandy Duggan kept fiddling with the dials on the colonic machine, adjusting the flow, watching the pressure gauges, monitoring the passage of wastewater, and exclaiming, "Where are the toxins? Where are all the toxins?"
"Well," I suggested, "I've been fasting for several days now. Haven't had a thing to eat except juice. Wouldn't that explain it?"
"No! What accumulates in the colon is of longer term than that! It has to be your diet!"
"Really!"
"I'm serious! This is remarkable! I've been giving colonics for over 20 years now, averaging 600 a year. You have the cleanest colon I've ever seen! Honest! It's incredible!"
"You mean it," I puffed, belly inflated.
"Please keep you head down. Your stomach muscles must stay relaxed."
That let some of the wind out. "Sorry." She kept shaking her head, and ooing and ahhing over what was (or wasn't) appearing in the colonic machine.
Feeling self-satisfied and sassy, I exclaimed, "Let's see, 600 colonics a year for 20 years…that's 12,000 colonics. Puts me at the top of a pretty long list."
"Amazing," she repeated.
"Cleanest colon from a class of 12,000. I've never been a valedictorian! You aren't just trying to make me feel better?" Colonics aren't the world's most pleasant experience.
"No. I'm serious."
"Then I get the title — 'Mr. Clean Colon'."
"That's you all right. No doubt about it."
"Wow! Wait till my wife hears about this."
All this happened in 1980. Now I can report 17 years without psoriasis. Yet I know it isn't a disease you exactly get over; it's more a matter of control. But I haven't had to make diet a bugaboo, and can eat many things in social situations which would've been taboo at first, such as spaghetti and meat balls with tomato sauce. Yet I've definitely transformed my taste preferences. I no longer crave ice cream or chocolate, but an occasional yogurt cone doesn't produce ill effects, and Sherrill and I sometimes enjoy a glass of wine on weekends. But in general I am careful. I've discovered that my left little toe itches when my diet gets too acid — a gentle reminder that I'd better lean toward the alkaline.
I started swimming again as soon as the earache subsided, and entered Masters Competition for several years in the 1980s with some success. Unfortunately, Dr. Schein passed on before I had a chance to present myself to him as a case history. Previous to my retirement from The Gazette, I was reminded of the debt I owed Cayce whenever I saw my friend, the backs of his hands still raw. I was never able to persuade him to try Cayce on psoriasis. He didn't seem to realize that the Biblical commandment, "subdue the earth," might mean the earthiness in ourselves, or that a health problem might occur again in another lifetime unless we put it behind us.
Dr. John Pagano has written a book, Healing Psoriasis: The Natural Alternative, with many color photographs of cured patients. He can be reached at (201) 947-4001; P.O. Box 1215, 35 Hudson Terrace, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632-2408; http://www.psoriasis-healing.com.
© Graham L. McGill. All rights reserved.