A critically ill person is someone who could expire at any moment;
therapeutic interventions are racing against death. Can the body
repair itself enough before some essential function ceases
altogether? If there already exists too much damage to vital organs
the person will die. If there remains sufficient organ function to
support life, enough vital force to power those functions, and a
will to live, the body may heal itself if helped by the correct
therapeutic approach. But the therapy does not do the healing; the
body does that by itself--if it can. This reality is also true of
allopathic medicine.
I believe fasting is the therapy that almost invariably gives a
critically ill person their very best chance of recovery. If a
patient dies while fasting they almost certainly would have died
anyway, and if death comes while fasting, it will be more
comfortable, with less pain, and with more mental clarity.
Critically ill people may have, among other things, any of the
following diagnoses: advanced cancer, advanced aids, heart failure,
very high blood pressure, kidney failure, advanced liver disease,
advanced emphysema, pneumonia or other catastrophic infections,
especially those that seem unresponsive to antibiotics, strokes,
emboli, sclerotic vessels as found in arteriosclerosis, severe nerve
degeneration interfering with nerve transmission to vital organs.
Treating the critically ill does not have to be an all or nothing,
ideological choice between holistic medicine and AMA style medicine.
It is important for the critically ill and their families to know
that if they use standard medical treatment such as drugs or
surgery, these measures can and should be combined with natural
healing methods. It is always desirable to quit all addicting
substances, start a whole foods diet, (as light as possible), and
add meganutrition (supplements) to the medical doctor's treatments.
Few medical doctors are so arrogantly partisan as to assert that
natural measures will do any harm as long as the MD is still allowed
to prescribe as they please.
Holistic support will not only lessen the side effects of the
medical treatments but will speed up healing and often reduce the
required dose of prescribed drugs. I have had several clients with
cancer who chose to have surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, but
stayed on a raw food diet and took high doses of supplements
throughout the treatment. These people amazed the attending
physician by feeling good with little if any fatigue, no hair loss,
or flu symptoms. The same can be true of other conditions.