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Case study 1 Greetings to you, Do you remember last weeks letter on healing crisis? As promised, here is a typical case history. Larry was a university junior and had become a vegetarian after graduating from high school. He had tried to improve his diet, but varsity life put him under pressure and so he started drinking coffee in the evening to stay awake and study. After staying up late, he felt tense so he started smoking marijuana for relaxation and to get to sleep. He also had little time to prepare lunch, so he got into the habit of eating fruit flavoured yoghurt for lunch every day. When the summer came, Larry decided to kick his coffee and marijuana habits. The hot weather was also making him feel uncomfortable eating dairy products, so he gave up his daily yoghurt. He had been suffering from sore throats and nasal congestion, and he changed over to a diet of raw fruits and vegetables to allow his body to cleanse itself. The first day of his new diet Larry felt pretty good. He had distilled water for breakfast instead of the usual 2 cups of coffee and ate fresh fruits for lunch. He had a salad for supper and went to bed early to get plenty of rest. The next morning he woke up feeling miserable. He had a sharp headache that raced up his neck behind his ears. He could hardly breath. His sinuses were clogged shut. He felt worse than he had for weeks. He headache stayed all day and into the next day. Now he noticed he had developed a hacking cough that convulsed him. He started spitting up hardened balls of mucus from his lungs. The third day his nose was continually draining. As fast as he could blow it, his nose would clog back up. All the time his headache had never left him, even when he tried to sleep. By the fourth day, the headache had subsided a little. His cough had worsened, however, and now pieces of hardened gray material were being expelled from his lungs. " I can't stand it " he thought, "Why am I feeling so miserable as soon as I gave up my bad habits?" Why indeed? First, Larry's headache is a symptom of caffeine withdrawal. When a person drops his caffeine habit. Changes occur in the vascular and nervous system. These changes occur as the body tries to renormalize itself and eliminate the caffeine poisons. Headaches often accompany caffeine withdrawal, and some people who give up their coffee habit may experience edginess and irritability for a few days. Larry's clogged nose and sinuses were related to the consumption of dairy products. Mucus build up occurs when milk is consumed. After such foods are eliminated, sinus drainage may occur for 2 weeks or more. The elimination of old mucus is a good sign for such deposits may become the breeding places for many diseases. The coughing and spitting of hardened phlegm resulted from the cleansing of the lungs of the tar deposits, which had been caused by smoking. Smoker's lungs are often crusted black with tar and chemical deposits. When smoking is stopped, the lungs try to cleanse themselves and coughing expels the old deposits. This is why a cough should never be suppressed. Coughing is one method that the body has of expelling toxic wastes from the system. After about 2 weeks, Larry started to feel better than ever. He had plenty of energy without the coffee. His nose, throat, and lungs felt so much cleaner that he had no desire to smoke or eat dairy products. He had suffered for a while, but now he was reaping the rewards of improved health. Next week we will examine what symptoms to expect, when leaving certain foods out of our diet. Until next week, same time same place..