About Me

Hello. My name is Christine, I am French and I have been living in the USA for the past 25 years. I came to this country at an age when my taste buds were already fully conditioned to certain kinds of food and I never developed any liking for doughnuts, sodas, ice cream, the excess of sugar in all the pastries and the taste of sugar where it doesn’t belong: salad dressing, cheese, liverwurst or the likes. But, I am French and, as the saying goes, you can take the French out of France, but you can’t take France out of the French. So, for years, I had to have my daily cheese and bread, my coffee and more wine than is reasonable. And I’ve always cooked… well, French. Lots of veggies, marinated meat (if wine doesn’t work, beer, cognac or armagnac will), butter, sour cream... Probably lethal in its own way and yet so good! I never gained a pound (still wear the clothes I came with 24 years ago) never had digestive problems, was hardly ever sick, and hardly ever took prescriptions unless I was on my absolute last leg. By all western standards, I was “healthy”, active, energetic and happy. And in love with this country. Not everything about it though (it isn’t any more perfect than anything else in the world) but most of it. Enough for me to want to settle here with plenty of elbow room to remain… well, French.

Approximately four years ago, well into my forties, I simultaneously developed a sharp, constant pain below my right shoulder blade which made it very hard to take a deep breath, a terrible low back problem, and I became seriously depressed: I was at that age when things start coming full circle. My only daughter now in college, a horrendous marriage which had come to an end, a less-than-optimal work situation and no idea what to do with the rest of my life; everything was unraveling at the same time as my body was forsaking me. As most people, I blamed my circumstances, which were less than ideal at the time, and looked for outside answers. Determined not to take any prescriptions, (the warnings and the potential side effects were enough to scare me half to death), I tried psychotherapy and acupuncture, which helped me somewhat physically but not emotionally and set me back financially… I wasn’t getting much better and, for a while, felt as though I was getting out of my mind. It was debilitating and I hardly could function any longer. I ate poorly (not hungry), slept too long hours (always tired), needed daily naps, smoked and drank too much (you numb your pain whatever way you know how) was in constant pain and irritable; I was a wreck and my outlook on the future was dark.

Regardless in which field health practitioners operate, they tend to view it as the panacea for all diseases, whether mental or physical. Doctors swear by their prescriptions, surgeons by chopping off people, therapists by their sessions, acupuncturists by their needles, etc. Somehow, I knew that the answer lied elsewhere, I just didn’t know where. I also knew that, if the earth was created first and man placed on it afterwards by whatever means you choose to believe in, everything I needed to get better had to be right here, in its most natural form. To me, any manmade chemical was suspicious at best. I had the time and I had the drive: I wanted to get better… yesterday! So, for the past two years, it became my single most important preoccupation. As I said, self-absorbed and self-centered.

I purchased a juicer and started to juice anything organic I could put my hands on. I would recommend it: some veggie/fruit combinations are simply out of this world! It beats ice cream any day of the week. It helped somewhat but, somehow, I didn’t get from it everything I knew I should have: my energy still lacked, I was still depressed and tired, and my mind was always focused on negative thoughts. I felt as though necessary nutrients were not reaching the parts of my body that needed them the most. And my brain always seemed to run wild and amok. The chemical balance in me was seriously amiss. I don’t know how I knew. I simply did. I had to find where and why. Well, this is America: exercise nowadays is supposed to cure most ailments… so I joined a gym. But I lacked so much stamina that the simple idea of driving there (a couple of miles) was overwhelming. In addition, I got no joy out of it and I seemed to hurt myself a lot. I hated it. I quit going.

I started searching the internet for any information about depression and the chronic blues and blahs. The majority of the articles focused on antidepressants and was pretty bleak: once on the purple pill, forever on the purple pill with its side effects and its limited ability to cure. How could I justify methodically, systematically and knowingly poisoning myself for the rest of my life? For months, I searched, until I came across an article by Dr. Ross Anderson about the relationship between parasites and illness, depression included. AHA!!! It was enlightening! Further research led me to read about parasites and toxic colon. I’ve always been very slim and never had any digestive problem whatsoever; I could understand how most grossly overweight people could have parasites and a toxic colon but how on earth could it apply to me?

And then, it hit me! In my life I have extensively traveled all over Europe, including Naples during a cholera outbreak, in Africa, the US, Mexico and Venezuela, which I visited six years ago. Incidentally, at the end of that trip, I had contracted some nasty bug which gave me diarrhea. It resolved on its own (or so I thought) and did not require medical attention. However, it left me permanently exhausted, achy and foggy. Might it have been a parasite? And might it have migrated from my digestive system into some organ, creating havoc in my entire body, brain included? Who knows what else I was housing? I’ve also always had animals: cats, dogs, a snake, a squirrel, a hedgehog and I am the kind of person who pets pretty much anything that has a heartbeat, especially if it is exotic... And quite frankly, there are many times when I forgot to wash my hands afterwards. So, chances are, I was a breeding ground… A two-legged Petri dish of sort… Hmm… Come to think of it, as a kid, I used to bite my fingernails. And I sure as heck never thought about washing my hands before putting my fingers into my mouth, whatever they had touched. I never thought anything either of biting into an apple right from the tree on which birds perch and do… well, whatever birds do in their spare time. Speaking about which, I used to leave my windows open all summer long in Paris and, occasionally, I would come home to find a pigeon or some thank-you gift left behind: a feather… or something else. And then, there was the month spent in Greece eating undercooked pork (sorry fellah Greeks but the pork was always dark pink…) and, thinking of undercooked, what about the steak tartar or the oysters I used to wolf down… We’re not talking undercooked anymore here! We talking near alive and kicking! Folks, regardless how sinless your lifestyle might appear to have been and how godly all your habits, I strongly suggest you go through that little exercise yourself. It will accomplish a couple of things: first, you’ll know without any doubt that you have taken certain chances, which you may or may not have been aware of at the time, but which opened the door to unsuspected, unexpected, unwanted and unwelcome hosts. Secondly, you’ll realize how much fun you’ve had so far in life!!!

Well, Dr. Anderson was the starting point of my research. BUT to detox a-la-Anderson takes time and commitment I didn’t have the energy to put into in order to get better. Remember? Exhausted all the time, hurting, somewhat of a zombie and unmotivated? There had to be a better, easier, more doable way, better adapted to my condition! My search led me to DrNatura's site and it suddenly all made sense! In all honesty, all I did for the following several days was read and reread everything it contained. Every article, every testimony, every description. The more I learned, the more I wanted to know. I read other sites advocating colon cleansing as well but, for some reason, I always returned to DrNatura’s: the honesty and straightforwardness of the statements and the pictures, from so many people living in a culture known for its estranged relationship with the body, were compelling. I was simply mesmerized. The products seemed simple to use. They were affordable. It was all natural and… well, the site contained testimony after testimony from people who had tried it and raved about it. What did I have to lose? You can read about my road to recovery here.

Write me with any question at CBrightlife@aol.com.

Yours truly,
Christine