Guest guest Posted October 2, 2008 Report Share Posted October 2, 2008 Posted to a few mainstream medical groups: ---------------------------------------------------------------  Dear Doctors,  Over the past few months many of you have written to me off list enquiring about how I regressed, what symptoms I suffered and how I recovered. I did not reply, not because I am modest or arrogant but because it is very difficult for me to go back to those days and reminisce. I have tried documenting my experience and even written about it in bits and parts on the net but I was always conscious of the fact that, because of the severe memory lapses I suffered during those times, my narration may not be accurate. That apprehension is there with me even now. Moreover on two occasions I was requested to document my experience for medical journals but after I wrote and submitted I was greeted with silence and my subsequent mails ignored.  But I know and feel that my experience needs to be told so that the doctors may benefit from it and of course their patients. I will try to be as accurate as possible.  My problem started one sunny morning sometime in 1979. I had passed my intermediate in science and was looking forward to a career in medicine, my childhood dream being finding a cure for asthma, a condition I had suffered acutely for many years. I was very good in biology, had a knack of helping people in distress, and appreciated the poise and confidence exuded by the doctors I met at the air force base my father served in. I still remember doctors Mahapatra, Nair, Ghosh and Chatterjee, senior doctors of the air force hospital who would take great pains to answer my questions about asthma. They were appreciative about the feedback I gave and hinted I should take up the study of medicine. Hence my interest in biology and allied sciences.  Later my father opted for a civillian posting and we settled down at Bhubaneswar. One day my father told me to stay back as somebody would be coming to deliver a vaccine. I was not new to vaccines but someone coming over to deliver one was a bit unusual. My father said it was a 3-in-1 vaccine that our local health unit doctor was very enthusiastic about. My brother was not so enthusiastic as his term examinations were on and he could not risk a fever. I was administered the shot then went out for a game of cricket with my friends.  I had a slight fever in the afternoon. I was not worried, fever after vaccines was a good sign, doctors usually said. In the evening I went to bed early. I remember having a very disturbed sleep. It was full of dreams and I was tossing and turning in bed. The next morning I felt odd. The world seemed to have changed and I felt I was a bit too keenly aware of things. The rays of the sun, the sounds around me, the sights I saw; things that one rarely worries about seemed overwhelming. It seemed abnormal. I also felt extremely lethargic and somewhat depressed. It was very irritating and I desparately wanted to return to normal. It was as if I had lost my alignment with the world and was positioned wrong.  This continued for some days. Sometimes I would physically shake myself to get rid of the condition. I took more cups of tea to combat the fatigue and lethargy. I could also feel my body ache all over, like getting up the next morning after running a marathon. It did not occur to me to visit a doctor. Maybe it was because I felt depressed and did not feel like meeting anybody. I was hoping this condition would pass. It was unlike anything that I had experienced earlier.  One night I was itching all over. It itched so much my fingers ached from scratching. The itch seemed to emanate from deep within. The next morning I saw that I had developed a rash all over my body. I was bleeding in many places from the incessant itching. Subsequently I developed ferocious looking ulcers at some spots, my chin, chest, lower abdomen, buttocks and upper thighs. The ulcers had raised edges, like craters, and would exude a sticky fluid upon itching. Small ulcers appeared around them which like bubbles would attach themselves to the main one and help them grow. The one on my chest spread to cover almost the entire chest and a portion of the abdomen... My skin felt unusually dry and harsh. This time I visited our family doctor.   I could see the doctors eyes pop out when I opened my shirt. From where did you catch it, he asked. When I said it had appeared by itself he refused to believe it. You must have come into contact with a friend who has this, he said. He examined the ulcers, poked me with a needle to check for sensation, and when he saw me cringing he appeared relieved. He prescribed Grisofulvin tablets and a Betnovate ointment. While he took my history I mentioned the vaccine. He did not attach the least importance to it.  The medicines did reduce the intensity of the itch but they refused to go away. I developed a diarrhoea. Somebody advised me to visit a homeopath. This doctor too was surprised at the nature of the ulcers. He was a retired principal of the local homeopathic college. He did not comment much, only listened to what I said and after consulting a big fat book wrote down the medicines telling me that it could take a long time to heal. He advised me strongly against meddling with it with any kind of ointment. He took one long look at me when I mentioned the vaccine angle but did not comment.  The homeopathic medicine aggravated the condition. The ulcers which had receded somewhat appeared again with full force. I went back to my family doctor once again who was furious when he learnt about the homeopathic intervention. He wrote down something in his pad and said it was a hand made lotion which the local chemist would prepare for me. It was very strong and could create stains he said.  After about a week of application the skin problem was much better. But I again developed a diarrhoea, very violent this time. I would go to the toilet umpteen times and wondered where the flood came from considering that I was eating practically nothing. One night I woke up with a start. My legs had gone ice cold. The coldness started creeping up slowly. When it touched my heart I panicked and screamed. My parents gave me horlicks to help me get warm and rushed me to the hospital. It was diagnosed that I was suffering from dehydration and was put on saline.  There were other symptoms I noticed. The weakness that developed made me feel I would just collapse like a punctured baloon. All my muscles twitched and jerked. My body was no longer fully in control. I would be getting up in the mornings bathed in a cold sweat and panicky. The memory problems surfaced around this time. I could not remember many things. Studying became a chore and I felt deeply hurt because reading was a passion, I was used to spending entire days in libraries. I started loosing weight. My eyesight deterriorated very rapidly. Soon I was straddled with thick spectacles. My skin lost sensation and felt like a rag covering my body. Mentally I knew I was loosing my sanity.  I received a letter informing me that I had passed the PMET (Medical Entrance) and was advised to take admission. I was devastated. I was in no condition to take up the onerous task of completing a medical degree. I took admission in commerce stream instead, hoping to graduate, find a job and a doctor who could cure me.   The doctors who examined me found nothing wrong. They said I was a " psycho " ... They gave me tonics, B Complex injections, and advised a good nutritious diet. Symptomatic treatment was resorted to. The diarrhoea settled into IBS.. I developed some strength but when I went back to cricket I found that I was not able to perform, my coordination problems were too much to overcome.. I persisted, unwilling to give up and continued as a spin bowler. I stood first in the college exams which I was adamant about dropping because of the panic syndrome and the severe memory problems. I was forced to take the exams by my professors. However I left my M. Com. half way to take up a job with the SBI. I was given a village posting.  Within a few months of staying in that village I developed a severe jaundice. My BP plummetted to 90/70 and the doctor advised me to pack up and go home. I took up another job, suffered yet another bout of jaundice after I recovered from the first and the digestive problems became a permanent feature. There was also a severe problem of worm infestation. I would suffer from a colic which was so vicious that I would roll on the ground crying, screaming and shouting. Located at the solar plexus this colic would go only when injected with painkillers. There would be fevers and swelling of the glands.  The doctors just refused to believe the vaccine angle and warned me that I was suffering from a obsessive compulsive disorder which made me fix the blame on the vaccines and raise the subject again and again. It was during this time I received the first direct threat not to persist with my " theory " . I had been studying about vaccines and did not particularly like what was enfolding. Sometimes I hit back ferociously. The doctors simply said they would stop treating me if I did not " reform " .  Slowly over the years the physical problems started receding with the various medicines but I developed some very peculiar sensory problems. I became a recluse, confined to my home and office. I developed a fear of travelling... My fear about insanity drove me to work even harder. I started loosing sensation of my entire body. I would go for nights together without sleep and yet have the same panic attacks during the morning hours. I developed a burning neauralgia. It was very strange. Feeling the acute intolerable pain all over the body and not being able to feel the body! Like being burnt alive I was engulfed in pain all the time without a pause. My body, when I could feel it, seemed hollow and I was afraid of being swept away by a gust of wind.  I developed a routine in office and would panic if anyone even suggested a change. My limbs would jerk automatically and often I would be contorting my entire body trying to find relief in movement. My anxiety and stress levels hit the roof. My colleagues could sense the change and called me a " Lunatic " , partly from the fact that unable to handle a heavy vehicle I used to travel in a moped called Luna.  I tried everything from ayurveda to homeopathy but nothing worked. I went back to search for the ex-principal of the homeopathic college but was informed he had passed away. The homeopaths told me it was a great error on my part not to pay heed to his warnings about not meddling with the skin problem. The body was trying to throw off the vaccine toxins and it was a gross mistake to stop the process, they said. The worsening of the skin problem they said was a part of the healing process. They pointed to some books that detailed the dangers of using animal serum in vaccines but said they had never come across a case like mine.  It was at this time I developed a suicidal tendency. My morning panic attacks turned suicidal. The first thing I would think of when getting up in the morning was that I had to somehow end my life. The thoughts were very powerful and it required a lot of restraint not to obey. While driving there was this irrestible desire to dash my moped to the oncoming trucks and other heavy vehicles. I would be standing before a fire, fascinated by the flame and yearning to jump into it and end it all.  My memory often completely failed me. I would go out on official assignments and upon getting down at the station forget who I was, what I was doing there and where I was headed. Seated on a bus I would travel miles past my destination before I remembered I had to get down. I had a lot of difficulty with numbers and would break out into a cold sweat when I would try to remember figures. With every passing day my problems only got worse. I use to go to bed in the evening with the thought that I had somehow lived another day and was fearful about the next. I would just lie there and wonder how much more suffering would come my way.  I could not quit my job and run away because my father was retired and my brother was studying engineering. I was already guilty about not living up to the expectations of my parents and there was no way I could let my brother fail them too.  My worried parents took me to my doctor relatives, some of whom hold very important positions. They too felt I needed psychiatric treatment. I remember asking the psychiatrist if I was mad. He said he was yet to see a mad man walk up to a psychiatrist and narrate his symptoms. He gave me some pills which induced sleep in me. But the dreams I had were horrible. Such nightmares that I would be afraid of falling asleep. My parents told me that I cried in sleep. I sometimes dreamt of being tied up and pushed into a dark coffin like room. I would be shouting to get out.  I had read about pain and knew that there was a " thresh hold " , a limit beyond which the body could not tolerate. But in my case there was none. I moved from one extreme to another without any end in sight. I developed a habit of praying. I would wander from one temple to another. Sometimes I would find myself lying postrate in the front of an idol without having the faintest idea how I got there. My colleagues made fun of me.  Have you ever heard your soul cry? I have. I have actually felt my soul. I have felt it appeal to God to be relieved of the horror. It is pretty frightening to go through such an experience I can assure you. You feel distinctly that the mind and the body are not yours. That they can be destroyed any minute. That your ego you treasure so much can be carelessly wiped out in a single stroke. All the things you consider permanent are the ones that are the most temporary. Nothing matters. All temporal efforts seem futile, life seems meaningless. You feel like being a puppet, dancing to somebody else's tunes. It is not so easy to think about death and what it really means. You have to face death to know.  Twenty one years of such pain would perhaps destroy God and I was a mere mortal. My brother passed with full honours and I got him married.  I came across a neuropsychiatrist. He said I was suffering from a chemical imbalance of the brain. His medicines relieved me only slightly. I knew I had a long and tough battle ahead. I was willing to fight. I had to survive and warn the others. I was an adult and could not bear what I was going through. It was beyond even me to imagine what many infants could be going through. That thought gave me strength to continue. My life was a total blank but for this passion. I had nothing to look forward to; absolutely nothing. My only companion was the pain and the fears, nightmares and phobias I suffered from. The depression would make me feel like I was being sucked into one large cosmic black hole. Often I would react violently and screaming like a mad man throw furniture around. I was after all a mere mortal and I wanted to be free.  One day while browsing the net searching for more matter on vaccines I came across a homeopath who mentioned some things about vaccines. I read on to know that she knew about vaccine ingredients and their effects. I immediately went under her treatment. I did not mention the vaccines because I was tired of being rebuked and threatened. Or maybe the communication problems I had prevented me.  This doctor treated me for a year with only a marginal improvement to show. One day she wrote to me that she suspected heavy metal toxicity and, as I was a science student, enquired whether I was accidentally exposed to any toxins? I mentioned the vaccines and she changed the course of treatment. I felt a little better but she cautioned me against expecting too much. From her mails I could know she did not expect that I would survive. She wanted to go in for palliative treatment but I pushed her on. After three more years of ups and downs, with a superhuman effort on her part, I finally started feeling that I may indeed recover. I was treated for mercury, aluminum, lead and arsenic poisoning. I was also treated for gut parasites. The usual remedies against adverse effects of animal serum were given. I also needed constitutional remedies and other remedies that the symptoms suggested.  With homeopathy I also undertook a naturopathic detoxification which helped me a lot. But it is not that I have recovered fully. I am still on the basic psychiatric medicines, one of which is imported from Denmark. Having learnt homeopathy I use my knowledge to nip problems in the bud. I have to take costly vitamin and mineral supplements as I cannot do without them. My muscle fatigue I know will stay with me forever as I suspect mitochondrial damage.  Thank you for going through all going through all this patiently. I would request each and one of you to be very careful in treating your patients. Death is an infinitely better proposition than having to lead a life damaged with medication.  I have forgiven all those who have threatened me and tried to discourage me... The doctor who advised the vaccine is still a friend. He does not know that it was his decision that made me suffer so much. I hope he never finds out.  I should stop here. Incidentally I have studied asthma too and have benefitted many people who have asked me for help. My life has not been entirely unproductive.  Thank you all again.  Regards, Jagannath. “There is an unpleasant whiff of arrogance in the whole (vaccine-autism) debate,†Horton says. “Can the public not be trusted with a controversial hypothesis? The view that the public cannot interpret uncertainty indicates an old-fashioned paternalism at work. The public is entitled to know as much as possible.†Add more friends to your messenger and enjoy! Go to http://messenger./invite/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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