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How It
All Started, The Teen Years
The story opens on a
football field where a very young me, seventeen at the time, just got
decked by an opposing linebacker on a cold frigid field in Kansas. As I
got up off the field I noticed a nasty pain in my forearm. Being young
and tough I just shook it off and continued the game. The next morning I
awoke to a giant red welt in a line running from my left elbow to my
wrist and it hurt like hell. This started many tests and a long
diagnosis by the medical community. It also ended full contact sports.
Through different drugs,
elevation, warm packs etc they kept it under control until I could get
surgery during Christmas break. The repair operation was a success and I
moved on with my life. I even played other sports like baseball
and track that school year.
My first medical
diagnosis was Buerger's disease. At the time there was little known about
this and you can read more about it on this web site. At the time they
told me, and rightly so it was later found out, that Buerger's is related
to severe nicotine allergy. This disease of course is only found in a
few million of us on the planet.
Here is where I made my
first major mistake. I blew off the doctors and did not stop smoking
which in hind site caused many painful years for me. If you have any
circulation problems or heart problems of any kind My
Recommendation: STOP SMOKING PERIOD. No if's, No ands, no but's.
Yes, I know it is hard to stop smoking, especially those with
Buergers disease it can be an absolute ##@%&*. After I finally did stop
and one of my former doctors heard about it, he then told me that all of
my past doctors had put it in my file that I should stop but not one
ever expected me to be able to do it. They thought then and still do
that Buergers disease patients are as addicted to nicotine as morphine
or heroin
users are addicted. So you see it can be done. And if one can do it
everyone can. Hard yes, impossible no.
I went through high
school and had only one more occurrence also caused by a hard contact
injury. After graduation, I joined the navy and never gave it a
thought. They evidently didn’t either. However about a year and a half
later I had another hard contact injury and this time it was in my left
leg. That nasty red line again only this time it was from my groin to my
left ankle. Again, I was drugged to reduce inflammation and operated on
to remove the blood vessel. Again the mechanics were good ones and it
worked out fine. Until I was 34 I was operated on three more times to
remove vessels that had clotted or become inflamed. They were removed or
snipped off with great success. Then the blood clot problems seemed to disappear
and some new symptoms started. This disease is called by a different name.
From then on it as been called cardiovascular disease,
arthrosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) or PAD (peripheral artery
disease). My circulation was getting so bad small injuries were turning
into infected open wounds that would not heal.
At this point I would
like to mention that this could have all been prevented if any of these
doctors would have mentioned that there was information that EDTA
although not approved, might just fix the problem. This information has
been available since the 40's. Now volumes of information are available
and most doctors in their god like pose (say fear of peers) will still not even mention that
it exists.
I have taken books and
other MD recommendations to family doctors. After reading the
information and admitting it would not harm me they still would not do
the therapy or prescribe it.
Oh Yes by the way EDTA
Therapy of any kind has never harmed anyone, unlike the drugs which kill
thousands ever year. Not to mention the surgery damage and deaths.
As I mentioned before I
was starting to develop open wounds that no doctor I saw could give me
any advice or counsel on how to fix it except stop smoking. They said
you will just have to live with it. Much of this of course is my
responsibility for I did not stop smoking. And As I found out later that
in itself may have slowed it down because I was so young and other
damage like free radicals had not yet developed enough to cause harm.
Then out of the blue I
was introduced to a doctor from Mexico who stated he could fix my open
wounds with plastic surgery. After he got the infection out with
antibiotics he did just that. He took skin from my thigh and put it on
my feet and success and wound healing were quick after that. He got me back on my feet and
I started a new business and really felt great. I did not yet stop
smoking. This will shortly cost me once again. The poor circulation of course
was still there.
In late 1979 I dropped
a large glass table top on my feet cutting into both sets of toes. And
you guessed it, infection started and no healing would take place and the
open wounds grew along with the pain and discomfort. I was a little smarter now so I visited a plastic
surgeon right away and he agreed to do the operation and removed three
toes and corrected all that with plastic surgery.
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