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The Sins of the Father are Still With Us Photo by Tammy Gann on Unsplash One. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) The domestic violence in my house at the hand of my father was terrifying for me, as a small person. I remember my father spitting on my mom, pulling a door off its hinges, punching me in the face, slamming my sister against a wall, ripping the phone from the wall. I remember the fear I felt being home. I remember the stinging words he called me- “Shit Ass!” as he turned over the yellow formica kitchen table, crashing a full meal with a rare treat of strawberry shortcake, to the floor, when I dared to mumble something about him ruining a nice dinner. My mother so quick to pick up the already chipped, now-shattered plates, embedded in whipped cream. The worst part, after my fear and trembling, was that he would take to his bed, sickened by his violent outbursts, and my mother was forced to wait on him, bringing him food, massaging his red, psoriatic legs, and trying to explain his point of view to her daughters. That flipped the switch inside me to revulsion and repulsion, and hatred. I would never be that weak and compromised, I vowed to myself privately. One of my therapists used to remind me that the way I survived those years was behaving as if I was in a war zone. She would quote “Intermittent reinforcement is the biggest predictor of behavior.” That saying meant that walking on eggshells- because you don’t know what might blow up or when- is way more unsettling to the nervous system than what you do know what to expect, even if it is bad. I still struggle to free myself from ‘freezing’ but then I took to running to my room when I heard his car on the driveway. My father was always so proud of his tools, with designated spots on the pegboard he confidently installed in his workshop in the garage. He could make and fix anything and his ‘man cave’ was proof enough. When it came to family life, that gray space of emotions and needs where communication matters, he had absolutely zero tools. He would have been just as likely to meet a Martian as to say aloud, “I am scared,” or “I need your support,” or “I feel so much pressure.” He was a rough and tumble kid, raised in the Jewish ghetto in the Bronx, poor and equipped with an 8th grade education. He felt so trapped at home with his third wife, my mother, who could not pretend to adore him and daughters who quaked in their boots at the sight of him. Yes, he had honed survival skills, but he was completely undone when it came to the realm of emotions and communication. Two. Breaking Free For the first half of my life, I was completely obsessed with overcoming the shameful residue of my dysfunctional childhood. Beginning as a young adult, I spent a small fortune on therapy, joined 12-Step programs, and found oh-so-many psycho-spiritual-somatic paths to healing. Pretty woo woo, I know. But I was absolutely, positively determined NOT to repeat the familial dysfunction I grew up in; I would break free and chart my own wild and love-filled path. After all those years of ruminating on and healing the pain within, I found that, starting in my thirties and then on into my forties and fifties, things shifted with me and I rarely felt haunted about my childhood. I felt the lifting and clearing out of a lot of shame and pain. I felt a calmness and freedom about my childhood trauma that I fully embraced. Was I getting free from the burden of my ACE (adverse childhood experiences)? I had no time to dwell on the trauma in my past. I had a full career in the arts and college-level teaching, a husband or two, and the gift of all gifts, my twin daughters. I was busy doing, caring, earning and my focus was on giving all I could to my girls, so that they could emerge from childhood with good self-esteem, autonomy, ethics and a sense of their lives’ wondrous and awesome possibilities. Becoming a parent was a gift on so many levels; the unanticipated one was the way it involuntarily lifted up, up and away old thoughts, beliefs, and pain and landed me in the realm of forgiveness and acceptance. Mothering my children was so healing to me. Three. Acceptance of Questions. My father died when I was pregnant with my girlies; my mom and one of my two sisters are also long gone. I think about my mom, the willful victim, ill-equipped to stand up to the emotional and physical abuse of a stunted, hard-knocks man. I remember a birthday card she had displayed on her table from him, where he wrote inside that she was a foolish woman who would never find happiness. I shuddered with rage and pain for her and made her throw it out. She went on to find love and happy companionship with two good men. Her girlish giggles over decadent chocolate desserts, her loving heart and utterly pragmatic smarts are how I remember her. I vividly recall my vow that gray afternoon when I was five years old to never be financially dependent on a man. How did I have this thought at that age? Did my childhood trauma force me to have adult awarenesses because I felt so unsafe? I remember that same girl lying in bed at night, bewildered by why I was born into this family, and how I reminded myself that nothing could happen to me that I could not bear. I still believe this. I know for a fact that ACEs can direct us to our brokenness and thus our healing. They can reveal our inner strength and tenacity to our selves. ACEs also point us to where the multigenerational familial healing needs to occur. What if the quotas on Jews in college had been lifted and my father’s violent, womanizing, gambling father had put some money into his son’s education, rather than losing it all on craps and running away with another woman? What were my father’s options as he unconsciously carried around his unresolved ACE’s? ACES impact our choices in life partners. I could describe my domestic partner of 23 years similarly to my father in some ways. He was more fun and not violent, he was loyal and could be loving, but that explosive anger, emotional stunting, lack of communication tools and personal awareness were all too familiar. Or was he just like most men, especially of his generation, when it comes to toxic anger issues and lack of tools in the emotional and communication realms? Having now entered the years of my wisdom (ahem), I ponder how to put my adverse childhood experiences in to perspective. Have I healed? After all those years in therapy and healing and living, did I achieve freedom from my ACE? Or do the sins of our fathers still limit me and all of us? I sit with these questions and mull, knowing there are no clear cut answers. I feel satisfied that I did a lot of healing and worked hard to find personal freedom from the shame and abuse in my past. Maybe I am not 100% free but I am a whole lot freer. My daughters are even freer than me and their children will be freer. If you are struggling with healing from Adverse Childhood Experiences, there is hope. After a while, you will know that they don’t define you and that you are bigger than them. Here’s to the soft tools of communication and emotional intelligence. Here’s to human resilience and tenacity! Here’s to radical, incremental, iterative change! WRITTEN BY Rhyena Halpern Health Coach & End of Life Doula who loves to write on Wellness, Third Act of Life, Death & Dying, Autoimmunity, Trauma, Food & Weight. rhyhalpern@gmail.com

You may feel easily compatible with your new partner about the big things that matter, like a shared world view, your professional goals, whether you want to have kids, or sharing money and bills, but how do you know if you are compatible when it comes to ingesting food? Your long-term relationship may have successfully navigated the map of her weird family, their waxing and waning sexual appetites, or made peace with his trail of dirty dishes and stinky socks. But does their requirement every Friday night for pizza and beer drive you nuts? What to do about deep ideological divides in the culinary canyons of your collective stomach? Could they sow irreparable discord in your love nest? My spousal unit told me what he ate the other day. He had a piece of chocolate cake in the morning. He had some blintzes fried in copious globs of butter plus a slice of leftover pizza for lunch. In the late afternoon, he had a handful of potato chips. For dinner he had his favorite meal of chicken in cream sauce and scalloped potatoes with extra gruyere and a glass of wine, red of course. He grudgingly ate a few bites of grilled zucchini. Immediately after dinner, he had what he calls first dessert- that night it was two biscuit cookies dipped in dark chocolate and a few chocolate-covered mints. For second dessert, about 2 hours later, he had Haagen Das chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips. Oh, and did I say he is super skinny? You probably guessed that my food intake on the same day consisted of oh-so-boring organic vegetables and chicken, berries, a handful of cashews. But that is not the point. The point being that how that dude ate was a daily upsetting trigger for me for 20 years. I felt deprived if I did not let myself indulge as he so freely did. I tried to keep up with him on vacation when he consumed no less than five desserts a day. I can’t tell you how much crusty bread and how many sticks of butter I ingested at all of those fancy sauces at the French restaurants he had to, had to, just had to frequent on trips to New York City, never mind the huge quantity of desserts. I intensely longed to be like him, a hedonist who could, with abandon, indulge, all day every day. While he could take one bite of a cupcake and throw the rest out, that same one bite triggered me and sent me into sugar addiction for weeks and often months. Definitely, absolutely, my spousal unit and I were 100% NOT food compatible! And it was hurting me. Literally. Physically. During those blurred years of sleep-deprived, manically stressful childrearing, working a big job with a long commute, and losing my grip on sugar and flour- my hypothyroidism bloomed into full autoimmune Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, my weight increased by 30 pounds, my fatigue quadrupled, and my hormonal imbalances kept me emotionally sliding. I had the sugar-stress blues and was an exhausted, rotund, sugar-addicted mess. Something had to give. Between his unequivocal refusal to keep sugar out of the house combined with the reality of raising small people, that something was going to have to be me. I was going to have to learn to peacefully co-exist with a lot of white flour and sugar, without consuming it. It was a long time coming, but I took up the torch of self-determination to make peace with those very incompatible foods. Like a modern-day Dona Quixote, I was on a quest to free myself forever from my internal war with sugar and my external battle with my spouse over food. Yes! I can do this! And I did. Over time. A long time. Years. As a hedonic eater, my partner lived to eat; he saw food as a sensual indulgence and did not worry about the impact to his health. I eat to live, as an, ahem, boring homeostatic eater, who indulges in a square of monk fruit-sweetened chocolate because it does not send me into sugar hell. I would not consume cocaine if it was in my pantry and since sugar is 7 times more addicting than sugar, I just say no. I recall how it makes me feel, how inflamed it makes my gut, how its hyper-palatability lights up my brain and makes it impossible to stop. I know his way of eating hurts my body. Now that the kids are grown and mostly out of the house, I call the food shots and if my spouse does not like what I am cooking, he can go out or order in. That helps a lot. So does a gluten free diet- excellent for healing the gut and lowering inflammation- since that automatically excludes so many processed foods. I must ‘keep the peace’ with those pesky, incompatible foods. I remain vigilant every day. I never take my abstinence from sugar for granted. I embrace the lack of food compatibility with my partner, allowing it to work to my advantage. I now feel my body needing less food and that feels amazing. I feel my body using the food I ingest to fuel my energy which is also amazing. I am definitely food incompatible with my partner. I always will be but the difference is that now I don’t let it hurt me. Finally, it’s that simple. I went from feeling deprived to feeling empowered in my pantry. What about you? If you are not in a food compatible relationship, how do you navigate that challenge? BTW, don’t you agree that dating apps should include food compatibility in their logarithm?

Remember that saying popularized in the Great Recession, “Don’t let a great crisis go to waste”? While most of us are compliant with the sheltering at home decree, the wearing of masks, adjustment to life on Zoom, why have we given a pass to our collective need to boost our bodies’ ability to fight this virus? People are questioning what ‘normal’ will we return to eventually, and seizing upon the chance to reboot our mindsets at work and home. But what is it going to take to get very real about this call to act on improving our health? People who have been exposed to or contracted Covid-19 and have either had mild cases or remained completely symptom-free hold the secret to fighting this disease. Their immune systems are working optimally, able to fight off the virus. Their white blood cells went on the attack against the foreign invaders and were successful. Would your body’s immune system do the same? No matter the contagion- whether the common cold, flu, SARS, HIV, Covid- 19 — we know that people with strong, healthy immune systems are going to do better than people with compromised and suppressed immune systems. In my studies as a Functional Medicine coach and as a patient formerly diagnosed with three auto-immune disorders, hormonal imbalance, leaky gut and an eating disorder, it is clear that we need to do some pretty specific things to build a strong immune system: Develop and maintain a healthy gut microbiome; Give up, get off, and do away with processed food and sugar; Lower our bodies’ inflammation levels with whole, nutrient-dense foods and high quality, absorbable supplements; Practice good lifestyle habits by managing our sleep, stress, exercise, social connectivity and personal well-being. These four suggestions reflect an urgent need to fight the virus as well as a long-time a-coming need to stop making excuses about what we continue to ingest, despite knowing better. People know that sugar and white flour are ruining our health. People know healthy fats are needed and should not be avoided. People know that pesticides, plastics, metals like teflon and mercury and mold are toxins wreaking havoc in our bodies. People know we are over prescribed drugs that, along with each of the above, are contributing to the epidemics we face in the steep rise in autoimmune diseases, diabetes, heart disease, cancers, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, etc. We, including me, have to stop making excuses and get with the program! Stop bargaining with that birthday cake, those burgers, M&M’s and margaritas and make those changes. Getting out of denial may be the difference between life and death! Hippocrates said all illness begins in the gut. Your microbiome needs to be healthy. Most of us suffer from leaky gut which must be repaired as the first step in boosting your immune system. Summarizing Dr. Ruscio here: Leaky gut, or intestinal permeability, caused by eating inflammatory foods, occurs when small gaps open between the tight junctions of cells that line your small intestine. These gaps allow undigested food particles through to get into your bloodstream and cause an immune system response, such as brain fog, joint pain, fatigue, impaired sleep, and digestive problems such as celiac disease and Crohn’s disease, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), as well as autoimmune diseases such as Hashimoto’s, Lupus, chronic fatigue syndrome, MS, and brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s. This pandemic is a call to action! To cut our attachment to unhealthy food that is compromising our lives. To get over our rationalizations and denials and just do what we know we need to do for our health. Don’t give in to the attachment to really unhealthy foods. Be a survivor of Covid. Be healthy for life. The Pragmatics of What to Eat and What to Avoid Healing your gut by feeding your microbiome whole, low inflammatory foods is the repair. Once you clean up your act and your health has improved for a substantial period of time (i.e. 6–12 months), you can occasionally indulge in that unhealthy treat, if you must. But for now, no excuses- we are talking life or death! Here is a list of the best foods to consume, in prioritized order and adapted from Dr. Ruscio, Dr. Hyman, Dr. Christianson, Dr. Minich and Dr. Wentz. This list reflects largely what I have done to heal myself. You can experiment and find what works best for you. Fresh Green Veggies: Organic veggies like spinach, kale, peppers, snap peas, brussel sprouts, lettuce, broccoli and zucchini. Nightshades like onion, eggplant, tomato if tolerated. Fresh Fruit: Fruits such as berries and apples provide vitamins, minerals, and prebiotic fiber. Healthy Fats are your friend: Foods such as olive oil, coconut oil, and avocado are good sources of healthy fats to keep your brain, skin, and cells happy. Butter and ghee can be used in moderation. Wild Fish: Provides omega-3 fatty acids and protein to help keep blood sugar balanced. Emphasis on wild, not farmed. Grass-Fed Meat and Eggs: Organic, ethically raised animals that provide beef, pork, and poultry also provide healthy omega-3 fatty acids and protein to help keep blood sugar balanced. Nuts and Seeds: Source of protein, healthy fats, prebiotics, and slow burning carbs. Herbs and Spices: Provides flavor and anti-inflammatory plant compounds. Bone Broth: Long-cooked broth from meat or poultry bones is rich in collagen and gelatin, both of which help heal leaky gut. Cultured Dairy Products (if tolerated): Yogurt and kefir provide some good bacteria. Small amounts of cream and cottage cheese can be used in moderation, if tolerated. Roots and Tubers (if tolerated): sweet potatoes and carrots provide slow burning carbs, as well as prebiotics and fiber. Use white potatoes sparingly. Fermented Veggies (if tolerated): Sauerkraut and kimchi increase your probiotic diversity and give a small boost to your probiotic community. Gluten-Free Whole Grains (if tolerated): Whole grains like brown rice, millet, and quinoa provide fiber and minerals, and are slow burning carbs. Here is a list of inflammatory foods that should be reduced and ultimately removed from your daily intake. Shed a tear and say goodbye, and boost your immune system! Gluten: includes wheat-based products like bread, pasta, crackers, tortillas, cereals and the grains spelt, rye, barley and kamut. Sugar & Artificial Sweeteners (if you feel like indulging just remember that sugar is 8 times more addictive than cocaine. Is it really worth it?) Processed and Junk Food Commercial Sauces & Dressings Alcohol and Sugary Beverages Industrial Oils: Avoid canola, corn, cottonseed, soy, and safflower. This means avoid things like commercial potato chips, falafel, french fries. Restaurant meals that use sugar, MSG, industrial oils, gluten. I read everyday about progress the biologists and doctors are making to understand more how to stop this virus. I noticed that there are indicators that people with high reserves of Vit. D, NAC, glutathione in the body fare better against the virus. As a person with a compromised immune system, I take supplements daily to build strengthen my immune system and keep my inflammation level low anyway. I take only capsules or powders, no tablets since they are not absorbed well. I have increased my efforts to strengthen my immune system with this regimen: Vit D* Zinc* Liposomal Vitamin C* Liposomal Glutathione* NAC (N-acetyl cysteine)* Astragalus Fish Oil B12 Iron Vitamin A *Early evidence exists that high levels of these are found in people whose immune system resisted contracting Covid 19. **I also use prescribed LDN (low dose naltrexone)** for the lowering my inflammation levels and boost my immune system. If you want to know more about that wonder drug see my store here. So don’t let this crisis go to waste. Use it to make your body- and mind- resilient to this virus! Use it to make the choices and changes you know you need! Use it to get fiercely well! WRITTEN BY Rhyena Halpern Functional Medicine Health Coach. Designing our Third Acts, Autoimmunity, Healing, Food & Weight, Trauma, End of Life planning. SF Bay Area rhyhalpern@gmail.com

Are you like me? One of those women who can’t lose weight despite severe caloric restriction? Have you shamed yourself enough yet? Have you double shamed yourself not only for the extra weight but also for buying into the fat-phobic society we live in? Despite your feminist positions on body acceptance, do you feel better lighter?Do you need to resolve your eating and weight issues for your own health and happiness? Have you, like me, really and truly tried every diet? Have you gained and lost the same 20 pounds more than ten times? I lost 32 pounds over the last several months. Those pounds slowly found me again after my last big weight loss six years ago. That brings me to hCG, or the only way I can lose weight. It stands for human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG), a hormone produced early in pregnancy to sustain the embryo until the placenta is formed. HCG takes between one to two weeks after conception to show up in the blood and urine, which is what a pregnancy test is actually measuring. Additionally, hCG is normally produced by the pituitary gland in minute amounts by both men and women to support good reproductive health. In the 1950’s Dr. Simeons, a European endocrinologist, discovered that, used for short durations of typically 23 or 40 days, injecting tiny amounts of hCG into patients, combined with a very low calorie diet (that emphasize protein, limit carbohydrate intake and eliminate fats), resulted in a. the loss of the visceral fat (not subcutaneous which is good, protective fat), b. significant weight loss of .5 to 1 pound a day, and c . re-set the body’s hypothalamus, causing the body to reset its metabolism and thus better maintain the weight loss. If you need to find out more about it this very instant: Dr. Simeons original protocol can be found here. Alot of hCG businesses will put a big hustle on you to buy the product. The hCG site I trust the most is here. Back to my story. Six years ago, I tried hCG under the care of a Functional Medicine doctor, after months of working on detoxing, cleansing and rebuilding my microbiome, balancing my blood sugar and hormones, according to the tenet that you have to be healthy enough to actually lose weight. I lost 40 pounds; 15 while on the hCG protocol and then 25 more over the next 4–5 months. The first thing I noticed with the hCG protocol was the lack of sugar cravings. I had no hunger and could actually feel the food I ate supplying fuel to my body. That was an amazing feeling! It reminded me that when I was pregnant 21 years ago, I was amazed that my near constant cravings for sugar disappeared. Now I know it was hCG! In the last year, I did two rounds of hCG, separated by two months, and lost a total of 32 lbs. My weight loss was much less linear this time. In the first round I lost 15 pounds, only to gain back 5 very quickly. Then I did the second round and it took me 3x (!!!) as long to lose the same weight. But I kept with it as I felt something was happening internally that I could not quite name but I could feel. The very long duration of the round caused a major reset in my mind and body, and I have finally achieved a kind of peacefulness about food that I never knew before. Skeptical? Your brain is programmed to hold on to weight. “While most people have a calories in, calories out view on weight loss, many people don’t realize that the brain is what controls weight and weight regulation”, Dr. Stanford, a progressive, holistic doctor treating obesity, says. “When weight loss occurs, the brain really tries to do what it can to compensate, such that it’s going to try to rebound back to where it was before the diet,” she says. “That’s why so many people go through ‘weight cycling,’ or repeated loss and gain of weight, for instance. The body doesn’t recognize that excess that’s not needed, so it’ll do whatever it can do to defend that,” she says. “People experience weight-loss “plateaus” because their bodies are designed to work that way, not for lack of willpower.” It seems pretty clear to me that hCG breaks through the brain’s programming by resetting it hormonally, through the hypothalamus. Remember how I said I was one of those people whose body resisted weight loss? That something between my metabolism, blood sugar, hormones had to be off, because my body would go into serious lock down and not let go of fat. Something got reset in me, and my body metabolically changed. I no longer want or need a lot of food. I do fine mostly fish or chicken and a lot of vegetables, and a small amount of fruit, nuts and healthy oils. The carb cravings left, well mostly. I still have some cravings that may be physical or mental. But now I peacefully co-exist with them. I am willing to befriend them. Since the original protocol uses a 500 calorie a day diet, critics say that anyone would lose weight with such low caloric consumption. I disagree based on my personal experience. With hCG, the body uses the daily calories to maintain healthy functions, while burning up visceral fat. hCG stops the hunger because it uses your own fat as energy. I never felt weak or hungry on hCG. I felt like my body was working! I felt free of cravings! Such sweet relief. If you Google hCG, you can find research stating that it does not promote weight loss. All I can say is it is definitely and absolutely the only thing that has really worked for me. It stopped my hunger and cravings, it reset my metabolism. I lost the bad fat and retained muscle. I felt great. A typical day’s consumption of food on hCG was 2 meals of 4 oz of protein (chicken and fish were my staples) and 4 oz of green, non-starchy vegetables and 2 apples, oranges, strawberries or grapefruit. Since the cravings are produced not by my mind/emotions after all, but rather by a physiological process revealing problems digestion and the health of my gut, the even better result is that I no longer see myself as innately defective. Now I know I just have a slight malfunction. And all this time I thought I was a huge, defective monster! What really changed is I stopped bargaining. There are a lot of foods that are kinda, really healthy, that get me going down that addictive spiral to disaster. Like that chocolate bar with monkfruit, dried fruit and cheddar cheese, those sweet potato fries made with processed indigestible oils (palm, sunflower, safflower, canola), protein bars, all those tempting gluten free breads and desserts, and all the restaurant food with too much added sugar, bad oils, and huge portions. Besides, I live with someone who eats 5 desserts a day. As I write this, there are 11 boxes of cookies, 5 pints of ice creams and 3 containers of candy in our kitchen, plus a lemon meringue pie. It hasn’t been easy and I have not felt supported. But its my responsibility. Finally, I have the willingness to choose not to bargain with them. Now I just opt out of consuming them. I don’t want to set off the vicious cycle of obsession, addiction, cravings. I want ease and peace. It took me decades to be willing to give up the desire to eat what my brain told me I wanted and to get over binges based on reactions to depriving myself. hCG completely reset me. I am free! I have to keep it going, generating my own inspiration and making the choices every day that support me. It can help free you too. Rhyena Halpern is a Functional Medicine Health Coach and hospice volunteer who loves writing and blogs on FB at Third Act Coaching and at ThirdActCoaching.org . To find more of her essays, they can be found on Medium @rhyhalpern or click here.

My fear of over eating has left me. My fear of being over weight has left me. My shame is ready to follow close behind my fear, in a bold ‘Kiss My Ample Ass’ curtsy. In this past year, I have lost more than 30 pounds. I have been here before, about a dozen times for a total of around 250 lost and found pounds. I see beauty in fat, thin, tall, short and different bodies. I am only talking about giving up fat that I did not need, that was indeed weighing me down. All my life, I have been plagued by falling into the abyss of overeating, of some weird gremlins driving me to stuff myself, past the point of comfort to a distorted place of brain fog, sluggishness and self loathing. I learned early how to eat shamefully. My mother, father and two sisters were also overweight and we habitually stuffed down our familial dysfunction with food. I filled a perceived hole in myself with processed, gross sweets that made me feel drugged and numb. It's been decades of struggle.The fear and shame about over eating has burdened and weighed down my internal mental landscape, choking and slashing my sense of well-being. I could have invented the cure for cancer with all that effort I expended on this nonsense. But this time, for the first time, I am not afraid of going back to over eating. I finally, after decades of self-work on the issue, don’t need to hurt myself with the wrong types of food or too much food. The change happened incrementally over a long time but I crossed over into freedom recently. I finally got -really got to the core of my being- that my convoluted body image obsession, compulsive overeating, and a body that attracts fat like moths to light, is MY THING. It is not my fault but it is my responsibility. It will always be my thing until I resolve it. It used to be that merely writing such a story as this would trigger a major binge. Today I can write about it without fear, but with confidence, joy and gratitude. My internal food compulsions left me during the last weight loss. My metabolism was reset by my pituitary and hypothalamus glands, a by-product of the hCG protocol (more on this in my story here). Even though I had adjusted to eating less and had lost weight on this protocol six years earlier, I slowly skewed back to my norm. This time, because I did it for so much longer, I felt my body reset to a much deeper degree. My body resisted for weeks and then something kicked in. I just stuck with the protocol week after week until I was different. My taste buds changed. My need for a lot of food melted away. My cravings for sweets dissipated greatly. My body was using the simple food I fed it- mostly chicken, fish and vegetables- as fuel. Now I choose not to over-indulge. I know the cost of falling into the food coma abyss. I know the addictive cycle that gets set up when I fall off the proverbial wagon. I don’t want to start down that hole that the sugar, the carbs, the weight gain brings. The downward spiral. The incessant loud banging in my head. Goodbye fear! So long shame! Now I am in charge. I can wait for that weird switch to turn off, the one that screams at me to overeat - about 20–60 minutes after dinner. I own this weird physiological conspiracy where my genes, my under-functioning thyroid, my hormones, my microbiome -and the critters in there that feed on sugar- bump into each other gracelessly and wreak havoc on my entire system. It turns out these were the real gremlins I had feared for so many years! Having been off gluten, soy, processed foods and most sugar and dairy for years now, my body cannot handle the assault of these inflammatory foods and especially sugar - it's as addictive as heroin to some. I cannot handle many carbs either. I need lots of protein. I need healthy organic chicken, wild fish, eggs, coconut, fruit and lots of green vegetables, plus a touch here and there of nuts and yogurt. No, keto does not work for me. Neither do the dozens of other food plans I tried. The difference now is that I trust myself to know what I need and let this be enough. I have given up the final level of mental food attachment to foods I want to eat, that I think of as treats and that trigger my body’s stability (think sweet potato fries and homemade ‘healthy’ cookies and all the added sugar in the tom kha soup from your favorite Thai restaurant). They are no longer too much to give up. I know what it will do to me and how I will feel. So I choose out of it. One bite is like one snort of cocaine, one hit of heroin. Did you know white sugar is 8X more addictive than cocaine? I choose not to start that vicious cycle again. Besides, I have found some fun foods that don’t trigger me. I adhered so valiantly to the Fat is A Feminist Issue dogma for years, even leading discussion groups on the book, and attending too many Geneen Roth workshops. I have to admit that ultimately it made me worse, not better. I became locked in to an identity of myself as having a psychological sickness. And even though I did overeat, the root cause of that compulsion just may have had more to do with the effects of sugar in my body than my emotional state. I was so invested in my feelings of deprivation that I could not give up the attachment I had to partaking in the food ‘normal’ people ate. Now I strive to under eat. I try to stop before I am full. I notice that I am becoming sated and then have another bite or two. My goal is to stop at around 80% full, although often I stop at 100% still. I know I can have more food later or tomorrow. I gave up the need to feel groggy from too much food. I remind myself of the punishing despair of the addictive spiral. I don’t want to jeopardize or lose this hard earned willingness. I have gone from being an over eater to an under eater. Being an under eater means freedom to me. I peacefully coexist with the internal body switch, with the need to eat for fuel, with my past dysfunction, with my well-being, and with a sense of ease and spaciousness. It can happen for you too. P.S. The Ten Noble Truths of Under Eating 1. If you have a long pattern of overeating compulsively and have a distorted relationship with food, you are not alone. Because It Really Is A Thing. 2. Compulsive overeating is a result of emotional and physical imbalances. Its not your fault but it is your responsibility. 3. Overeating will always be Your Thing until you make peace with it on informed terms that you choose. 4. The key to NOT overeating is not necessarily to work out your shame and self hatred and psychological trauma. A good deal of it may just be in your body (i.e. blood sugar swings, leaky gut, etc.), not your head. 5. Healing your gut and balancing your hormones and lowering your inflammation levels solve many overeating and weight-related problems. 6. Getting free of overeating is a lifelong journey. Its okay if it takes a good long while. It is waiting for you until you are ready. 7. You can find peace with eating food.You will get there faster with kindness than punishing and shaming yourself. 8. You can co-exist with cravings and compulsions. You can have those desires without acting on them. You can notice them and give them space. 9. As per Michael Pallin’s mantra: Eat real food. Not too much, mostly plants, and whole, nutrient-dense, unprocessed food. 10. Don’t live to eat. Eat to live your own precious life. With ease. Becoming an under eater* for life is the path forward. Rhy Halpern is a Functional Medicine Health Coach and hospice volunteer who loves writing and blogs on FB at Third Act Coaching and at ThirdActCoaching.org . To find more of her essays, they can be found on Medium at @rhyhalpern or click here. Special thanks to Robin Woodall for the term ‘under eater’. Womens Health Nutrition Eating Eating Disorders Mindfulness Photo Credit: Sculpture near Lake Constance, South Germany, Canva

Dr. Lorna M. Breen.Credit…Chris Leary Photography I can’t stop thinking about the well-respected, bright and warm NYC Emergency Room doctor who became another casualty of the virus, dying by suicide two days ago. Her name was Dr. Lorna M. Breen, and she was the medical director of the emergency department at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital. She had contracted Covid 19 after treating many sick patients. After ten days away she returned and was then sent home again as she was not fully recovered. Her parents brought her to their home to Virginia to recuperate, where she died by her own hand. She had no history of depression or mental illness. We don’t know what went through her mind and her heart in her last moments. We don’t know if she was spent, exhausted, ill or overwhelmed. That is hers and hers alone. We only know, as her father was quoted, that she was a very real casualty of the pandemic. Dr. Breen’s death is haunting me. I keep crying for her pain and suffering. I fear her death portends the demise of many other beloved souls. We are going to see many more suicides in this coming of the second wave. People who are out of work and can no longer hold on, completely destitute. Folks who have to close the successful small businesses they earnestly built years ago and can no longer provide for their families. Emergency medical technicians who are sick with the virus from transporting by ambulance those in urgent need of hospitalization but who have no health insurance and thus, cannot get the care they need. Heroic doctors and nurses who have seen ferocious illness tear searing red hot holes through their hospitals in the last 6 weeks, who need time and space to process the trauma but are too busy, too anxious, too upset, too sleep deprived to stop and rest. What of the victims of domestic abuse who have been trapped during quarantine, helplessly receiving their mate’s irrational punches and kicks? What about the kids who have lost a parent or sibling? How will they find their way? What about the high school students robbed of prom and graduation? The trauma is real and we still do not know what its tsunami will bring. We will be floating in its debris for a good long time. Here we are. We are strong and ready to help. We want to be their giving trees. Our hearts are open. We can sing to them; we can cradle them; we can listen to their rage and sorrow. We will help these brave folks who are suffering so completely with the tenderness born from our cell’s core humanity. Can we open our hearts fast enough to scoop them up and hold them through their pain until they get to the space where they can go on with the living? Can we form a circle around them and make them safe from the memories haunting and throbbing within their cores? PTSD is not just what happens to soldiers in wars. Our first responders are traumatized and we must catch them. Of course we can. And we must. We will be there for the people who suddenly lost loved ones to Covid through the shock of their grief. We must be there and help them through. We must listen deeply and witness the pain and soften into love and honor and acceptance. We will tap into the endless well of compassion within. We will lean into our eternal strength. May Dr. Lorna M. Breen’s memory be a blessing to us all. May her life and death inspire us to mobilize and serve.

Today begins Day 9 of 21 of the Bay Area’s official Sheltering-In-Place edict. It feels like Day 493. Right? When I get ahead of myself and cringe at the thought of surviving three weeks- to possibly three months! OMG!!- stranded at home, I try to remember to breathe slowly and deeply. Last night when I was having one of those moments, I thought about the only experience I have ever had that comes close to self quarantining. Surprisingly, I remember that strange, long period of confinement with fondness. When I was newly pregnant, I had heard about women being put on bedrest and it always sounded abhorrent to me. I didn’t think I could stand it. I would go nuts if I had to endure such an edict. I could not imagine such a fate. So… When I was 22-weeks pregnant with my twin daughters two decades ago, I was put on bedrest for pre-term labor. I had what the very male medical profession call an “incompetent uterus” due to funneling of the uterus. That is when the cervix opens up inside the uterus, which could prompt pre-term labor. I would need to be on bedrest until I delivered my babies. I was ordered to keep my head as low as my hips. I did it for 12 weeks to the day. I got up only to pee and every three days I was permitted a 5 minute shower. I sat up to eat but other than that I was flat down. But it is amazing what you can do when you have to. And you know what? I began to like bedrest. What had seemed abhorrent, impossible, insane to me at the start became an odd refuge. I got into it. It was my calm before the storm of having- most probably pre-mature- twin babies. My first day on bedrest I bought a new laptop computer.I researched everything about caring for premie babies, about breastfeeding premies, about labor and delivery. I joined online support groups and found out how other moms survived bedrest and multiple births, I wrapped my mind around how to relax into a lot of crying by premature newborns. I learned about their medical needs and their developmental delays. My life in my bedroom became very peaceful. My Significant Other left me food before he left for work. Then the day stretched out in front of me. I had time to meditate and relax, unheard of for me. I spoke on the phone with dear ones incessantly. I had day visitors galore. People brought me yummy food. They sat with me, having driven or flown in for the day, and I was so grateful. And I baked those babies in my human oven. I talked to them and sang to them about baking these sweetest cookie girls. My body was theirs. I prayed for their well being. Once a month I went to the obgyn. That was my big outing. The goal was to get past 32 weeks when the babies’ lungs were far better developed and could survive out of the womb easier. And I did it, going into labor just a day before they were 34 weeks along. My water broke and that led to my 41-hour labor, replete with yells for Dr. Kevorkian to end my misery. (My girlies were small at 4.1 lbs each, but otherwise fine. They were in the NICU for two weeks which was a blessing of sorts. I got to rejoin the vertical world. I got to get cribs and car seats and changing tables and diapers and bottles. I got to walk a bit and recover some lost muscle. Before I knew it I was bringing those munchkins home. It was an amazing and odd and precious few months.) So here is the thing. We do things we believe are not possible all the time because we have to, because there is no other choice. We survive and sometimes even thrive. So we can do this self-quartanine. We can find ways to take care of ourselves and each other and not go too insane. We can find new ways to play with our kids at home, and new ways to work remotely, and ways to be of service to those in need in our neighborhoods. We can luxuriate in a book and help keep local restaurants and businesses alive. We can break through self isolation with our phones and reach out to others via FaceTime, Zoom, Facebook, etc. We have to hold on financially and trust that the debt relief will help the working masses and small businesses. If we are secure financially, we have to help others financially. We know the food banks are faced with a sudden huge increase in need. We know that if we get too anxious we can talk ourselves down with deep breathing, a good cry, a glass of wine with a friend virtually, or hitting a cushion and screaming it out. This is a time when we might turn into an anxious ball of fear, plagued by what horror might come through our door. But, this is also a extraordinary time of enormous reckoning. We are making lemonade out of lemons everywhere! Nurses, doctors, food bank workers, grocery store employees are all being recognized as heroes. Neighbors are shopping for the elderly who are infirmed. The homeless are getting resources, delayed for years in better times. Even banks are making allowances for those whose income suddenly dissipated. Its a whole different world than the Great Recession, where everyone was on their own, screwed over by those same banks. Perhaps our collective consciousness has evolved in this past decade. Overall, we are rallying together, motivated by the essence of our humanity, the goodness we have within inspired by crisis. We are cooperating in lines at grocery stores and washing our hands thoroughly without complaint. We are largely (somewhat? a little? maybe?) relieved of the burden of political divisiveness, such a constant companion these past years, moved by the sincere desire to contribute to the collective good. We are free to imagine how we might leverage this unity to reverse global climate change, solve our health care crisis and other modern evils. And we will suffer some devastating losses and there will be more mistakes and unacceptable consequences. Its human ingenuity that is the real hero, as women sew millions of masks all around the country, masks that our federal government cannot supply. There is no limit to our creative problem solving! We re-assert our resiliency, practice generosity and compassion, as our best selves face upwards toward the sunshine! Take heart! We can do this quarantine! We will survive and we will thrive! Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Canva Stay up to date on Coronavirus (Covid-19) Follow the Medium Coronavirus Blog or sign up for the newsletter to read expert-backed coronavirus stories from Medium and across the web, such as: All about the strangest new coronavirus symptom, a lost sense of smell. At-home coronavirus testing could be coming soon. People around the world are 3D-printing face shields to battle the coronavirus. Does Vitamin D protect against Covid-19? Covid 19, Resilience, Childbirth, Pregnancy, Compassion

When I go to Pilates class, every other woman in the class is in yoga pants and a sleeveless workout top. I too am in yoga pants, but with a long-sleeved shirt and a sweater, shivering my way through the class, while everyone else sweats. I only get warm if we do push ups or mountain climbers, despite the fact that I am usually the only one using the heaviest weights. One of the common symptoms of Hypothyroidism and/or Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, an affliction that affects at least 30,000,000 Americans, is cold intolerance. This means that your body is unable to generate heat to regulate your body temperature when you are cold. Conversely, when it is hot outside, I can actually feel my body cooling itself off. Its awesome to feel my body working to cool down. But when its cold, my body is not able to summon heat to warm me up. My only hope is extra sweaters, coats, socks, mittens, and a coat, even when I inside my own house. You can’t believe how much money I spend on heating my house. The cold is literally in my hands and feet but also a chill pervades my torso. I tense up against it even though I know I better. When I entertain the notion of leaving the awesome Bay Area for less expensive parts of the U.S., the list of affordable options dwindles rapidly due to extremely cold weather. Boise? Burlington? Ann Arbor? OMG. Someone would find me dead with icicles coming out of every pore. But, wait, there is hope! Its been three months since I have been taking LDN. In the last ten days I definitely feel warmer, despite the chill in the air. Could it be the LDN? After all it lowers pain and inflammation levels and brings about a sense of well being. If my Hashimoto’s Autoimmunity is causing the cold intolerance, it makes sense that LDN could lower the inflammation that is preventing my body to regulate its temperature properly. Want to know more about LDN? This is from the LDN Research Trust’s 2020 Patient brochure: LDN creates an increase in the production of endorphins, which should result in a reduction of painful symptoms and an increased sense of wellbeingLDN increases levels of endorphins should be expected to stimulate the immune system, promoting an increase in the number of T lymphocytes. This effect was first documented by Dr. Bihari in New York. This increase in T-cell numbers apparently restores a more normal balance of the T-cells. The effects of the disease process are significantly reduced.LDN may also act directly on these immune cells to stimulate or restore normal immune functions. I read about LDN and often it takes a long time for symptoms to reduce. I know many people who saw immediate results and others who saw none, and still others who after a year of diligence, finally got a reduction in pain or inflammation. It took me about two years of pondering and research it to try LDN. I love and am so grateful for the LDN reprieve. I have less overall pain, a greater sense of well being most days, and now this new experience of being less cold. Its a miracle. If you are interested in finding out more about LDN and if it is right for you, check out www.ldnresearchtrust.org and please note their directions: Consult your doctor prior to using this medication if you are currently taking long acting opiate medicines like codeine, tramadol, morphine, fentanyl or oxycodone. Do not use this medicine if you are pregnant, or breastfeeding without informing your doctor.Dosing Options for LDN — For many conditions, your prescriber will usually start treatment at a low-dose and increase gradually over a period of weeks until you are stable at your goal dose (“Go-Low, GoSlow”). Starting dose can vary from 0.5 mg to 1.5 mg and is increased up to 4.5 mg, which is the maximum dose for Low Dose Naltrexone — although you may have a lower goal dose per your provider’s instructions.LDN dosing for patients with chronic pain conditions will start at an Ultra-Low Dose and you will take the medication twice daily, separating it by 4–6 hours from short acting opioid medications.

Photo by Public Domain Pictures by Pixaby I saw my hospice patient each Thursday for 13 months. The first time was day after she turned 80 and the last time was just a month after she turned 81. That’s about 52 times that I got to be around her. She lived with exceptional grace and faith with Parkinson’s disease. Then she died, peacefully and comfortably, exiting this life with ease. I got to know her unemcumbered self. There was no extra stuff weighing her down; she was all about giving and receiving love. Her ego had been eradicated by the disease and she existed with a lovely equanimity, accepting every moment and every encroachment by the disease, with grace and faith. She didn’t resist or try to fight Parkinson’s. She had been a nurse. She knew what was coming and she let herself enter it. The disease showed her no mercy; she showed it faith. When I kissed her hello and asked her how she was, she always told me she was doing better. She always said she was at peace, comfortable, happy, except for the few times when she felt lonely or in pain. Early on, she loved to be outside and walk in the gardens. It turned out we had both lived in the same state 3000 miles away for many years. We talked about our lives on each coast. I met some of her wonderful sisters and nieces. We drew with colored pencils and markers I brought.We played Tic Tack Toe and Hangman. She prided herself on never losing at Hangman, no matter how long she took to guess the letters. As time went by, she became more wheelchair bound and then bed bound. She stilled loved being wheeled to the garden. She enjoyed watching old movies on TV. She could not chew and relied on pureed food and then only liquid nutrition. Her body grew more rigid as Parkinson’s seized control of her muscles. Parkinson’s stretched over every inch of her body, freezing her movement and expression, and yet she maintained mental control. She could communicate if she was hungry or not; if she wanted to be in bed or outside; the year she was born and married; when her beloved son was coming to visit again and how her grandkids were. The majority of patients who use hospice do so for under a month, and most of those for under a week. I got to be with her for 13 months. I got to sit with her bedside, hold her hand, wipe her brow. Her speech became very limited and mostly confined to saying yes or no. One time, while she was sleeping, she broke out in song. She sang clearly and effusively “Take me out to the Ballgame” six times in her sleep. I laughed so much that she woke up and we had a good chuckle. When I left her at the end of each visit, I always told her I loved her. She always told me she loved me very much. She made me happy and calm and grateful for each moment. She was a gift. Her memory is a blessing.

This is not a story about my hospice patient with advanced Parkinson’s and how over the year I have seen her every Thursday as a volunteer, she has given me the most meaningful encounter with grace that I have every known. This is not a story about leading Advanced Directive workshops and hearing from people in their 80’s who desperately want their wishes for their death known, but are stymied when it comes to actually committing it to paper. This is not about how much I want to have a good death so my loved ones can move on easily and so I am motivated to make sure my wishes are clear if I am no longer be able to speak for yourself. This essay is a loving push to remind you that you will die. No one, not even you, gets out of here alive.Good news! There is one thing you can do: Prepare for its inevitability. Let yourself embrace this reality. Let yourself step to death’s side for just a minute. Put down the fear for a moment.Can we pause together and breathe deeply? Consider this scenario: you are lying in bed and your death is imminent. Then ask yourself these questions. You can write the answers, think them, say them aloud. 1. Who would you want at your side? 2. Is it important to you to die at home? 3. Who do you have unfinished business with? 4. Would you want to live even if it meant being hooked up to a machine? 5. How important to you is it to be free of pain? 6. Do you have a will and trust? Are your financial affairs in order? 7. Are you leaving a lot of stuff at your home for your loved ones to sort through? 8. Do you have special things that you want to pass on to your special peeps? 9. Do you want a funeral or memorial service or something else? 10. What else is important to you to note? Think about it. Ponder it. Turn it over. Let me know if you want to talk about it. Feel free to reach out to rhyhalpern@thirdactcoaching.org or click here for more information. Death And Dying Consciousness Hospice End Of Life Relationships

or How to End Your War with Time in Your Third Act I used to think that the concept of an all powerful Boss, ie God, had been replaced by the great arbiters of modern life: Hormones and Time. All around me, I saw how hormone levels and the number of hours in a day literally drove and shaped everyone’s days. But as a former multi-tasking, stressed out working mom with long hours on the job, a long commute and then long hours managing home life, I mostly vibrated to the belief that Time was all powerful and all controlling. What surprises me the most about my life right now is my peaceful relationship with Time. It had always been a war. Wringing out every second. Making it count. Time was a commodity; something to possess and use obsessively. Piling up 2, now 14, which became 27, and jumped to 56 which rabidly divided into 719 things to do at this time.My life was crossing off items on lists diligently. Managing and tightening around the most important, non-negotiable tasks of the day. Constructing an efficiency machine that ran on getting to all my ‘have to’s’. It didn’t matter if that meant I worked 16 hours in a day or was up at 3 am working. I was obligated. I HAD TO. Have to prepare the powerpoint. Have to answer 130 high priority emails. Have to write the report. Have to handle this sensitive work situation. Driven. Compulsive. Hard. Have to. Fucking commute. I have to go food shopping so I can put out something for dinner that is half way healthy. I have to make sure homework is done, permission slips signed, clothes laundered, lunch made, soccer practice arranged. Have to. Have to. Ramped up high. Squeezing time. Can’t waste a minute. Lucky if I slept 5 hours. Do you relate? Always, always the things I yearned to do, needed to do to feed my spirit, those things waiting patiently at the bottom of the list, ignored again, sometimes grazed for a flirtatious moment and then abandoned. Stress. Sizzling, bloody, ugly stress. Chronic stress eating away at my soul. Do you relate? Now I can breathe. Ahhh. I have a plan for my retirement, otherwise known as My Third Act. Amazingly enough I do the things I used to yearn for every day. The formula has flipped. I actually ‘have’ time rather than ‘having’ to do. No more time wars. After 18 months of study and boards, I became a certified Functional Medicine health and wellness coach. Love it! There is the book club I joined last year (20 years of yearning). The writing club (same). The wellness cohort meetings. The total joy of afternoons spent reading (40 years of yearning). The hospice volunteering with patients as well as running Death Cafes and Advance Directive Trainings (10 years yearning). The Shabbat ritual every Friday night including relishing the words of Mary Oliver and Marge Piercy (15 years yearning). Staying in bed for more than 7 hours of restful sleep- sometimes even for 8 hours. Lingering in bed until the sun rises bringing light to the day. Such a luxury to not HAVE TO get up in the dark. Netflix binge watching (Pose! Work in Progress! Schitt’s Creek rules! Frankie and Grace!). Babysitting step-grandkids. Hanging with my daughters during breaks from college. Pilates and yoga. Meditation. Stretching. Soaking in the spa. Cooking healthy, simple food. Journaling. Developing a writing practice.Writing. Writing. Writing again. Thinking. Planning for coaching. Coaching. Decluttering and letting go of STUFF. Dinners with friends and travel to Morocco, Tahiti, Oregon, Montreal, the San Juan Islands, the California Redwoods. Ahh, time is my dearest friend, not a vengeful god! A life composed of lovingly having sweet time. Composing a life with time as a dear friend. Saying goodbye to my time wars. Unraveling those tight ropes and getting comfortable.I love having time. 40 years of time wars turning towards time peace. From ramped up too high, too much, too driven, to relaxing into less. Everyday a bit less of a grip and a bit more ease. Every day is the Sabbath, the holy time of renewal. Breathing out, I pray for many more days. Do you have a War with Time? What is your Third Act plan? What Feeds Your Spirit? Working Moms Stress Management Time Retirement Retirement Planning

You may have heard about a drug called naltrexone that is having major success helping addicts get off opiods, at a high dosage of 50 mg per day. LOW DOSE Naltrexone is prescribed at a dosage of under 5.0 mg. That means the dosage is 45–49.5 mg less than naltrexone used for treating addiction. LDN, or low dose naltrexone, is not for addicts. It is used to relieve people from chronic, non-responsive pain that results from inflammation. It helps people like me- and maybe you. LDN was discovered at Penn State University in 1980 and was found to slow down the growth of cancer, as well as to help treat autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, and chronic pain. I hemmed and hawed for two years before I recently starting taking it. It doesn’t work for everyone and it often takes months before symptoms are relieved. Some people immediately feel happier and healthier. So its a gamble.I desperately didn’t want to be one of the ones it did not work for after so many years of trying so many things. So I justified my indecisiveness by spending time learning more about LDN and how it works (check out ldnresearchtrust.org and ldnscience.org). I learned that it is used by more and more people every day; approximately 500,000 people worldwide as of 2019 numbers, with 100+ published studies citing its efficacy for more than 60 medical conditions. I have Hashimoto’s disease, an autoimmune disease of the thyroid. Some of the disease’s symptoms are extreme fatigue, sleep disorders, brain fog and memory problems, thinning hair and dry skin, depression and anxiety, chronic muscle and joint pain, digestive and elimination problems, insulin and weight loss resistance, hormonal imbalance, and sensitivity to cold, to name a few. People carry around the burden of feeling a generalized crappiness. Through years of diligent healing with my Functional Medicine doctor, I had gotten through the fatigue, insomnia, memory problems, depression, muscle and joint pain, hormonal imbalance, but still struggled with others. And since people with Hashimoto’s often have a second autoimmune disease or chronic infection like Epstein-Barr Virus, interstitial cystitis, systemic candida, I also had interstitial cystitis and candida. Inflammation is the gift that keeps on giving. Within the first week of taking it at a very, very low dose of 1.5 mg, I had a delightful feeling of enhanced well being. Sweet! It was subtle but it was undeniable. I surmised that the reason it didn’t help my low back pain was that my back pain was not inflammation based, but it was sure doing something for the autoimmunity-related symptoms. LDN works by staying in the body for a very short time, supporting the body’s ability to produce endorphins and to kick start the immune system into gear. (High dose naltrexone does not work in the body the same way.) The LDNscience.com website states that “LDN goes into the body and essentially tricks the body by forcing it to double and triple its output of endorphins and metenkephalin, also known as opioid growth factor (OGF). Those endorphins and metenkephalin, in turn, cause the immune system to [balance itself]. A nice way to think about LDN is that it is not like any other medication whatsoever. It is a way to strengthen (in the sense of regulate/modulate/normalize) the immune system.” Conventional medicine has been such a huge part of the reason why autoimmune diseases have proliferated wildly the last few decades. So, being skeptical of a new drug is reasonable for those of us who are weary of the health care system. However, I am totally excited by this drug which houses a new approach to improving the immune system. There is hope for those of us who do all the right things but have not been able to fully resolve the symptoms that come along with having our body mistakenly identifying our own cells as foreign invaders and going on the attack. “When immune cells are being produced in excess (leading to autoimmune conditions), OGF acts to slow down their proliferation.” Brilliant! Wonderful! You go, LDN! Reduce that inflammation! I am slowly titrating up, meaning my dosage started out very low at 1.5 mg and will go up to near its max daily dosage of 5.0 mg. I am in my second month and my dosage is at 2.5. The body needs to slowly adapt to it because it is stimulating very complex processes to occur internally. And from Dr. Tom Gilhooy: “…Reducing cytokines is thought by many to be the dominant effect of LDN. Until we have more research on the subject the debate about how LDN works will continue, but it does appear that it may have two anti-inflammatory mechanisms…” If you have inflammation- whether autoimmune, cancer or diabetes 2- you might want to try LDN. Your conventional doc probably won’t know about it, but you can try. LDN is available online through reputable pharmacies or telemedicine companies whose doctors can prescribe it.