Dear Dr. Cutler,

I am a 79-year-old man from Cleveland, Ohio. I used to suffer with terrible back problems. The pain was tremendous. It took half an hour to get out of bed and I could hardly bend over to put on my socks!

—Albert C.

Dear Albert,

It sounds like you found a real answer for your back pain. Yours is a perfect example of immune hypersensitivity from foods as the underlying cause of inflammation. Inflammation or disease will manifest where genetically or mechanically (from prior injury) you are the weakest. Therefore, if foods must be eliminated to quiet the inflammatory process, foods you are eating could be causing a hidden inflammation of your heart, or a genetic aberration leading to cancer that hasn’t surfaced yet. The best answer is to cleanse the body periodically from antigens—which trigger allergy and inflammation—that build up over time in the body. Then all the underlying immune hypersensitivity quiets down.

Another method of cleansing is through sweating. I’ve worked with a Navajo woman who told me she suffered for years with hypothyroidism and recurrent asthma symptoms. She was on thyroid replacement meds and used asthma medication constantly. She followed her Native American tradition of attending a sweat lodge weekly for approximately a year. Since then, she has not needed her asthma medicine or her thyroid replacement, and she was tested normal by her doctor. Sweating can be another powerful way of quieting the immune hypersensitivity that is behind inflammatory conditions—and even hormone dysfunction. So, thank you for sharing!

All the best!
Michael Cutler, M.D.