January 1, 2017 PDI Newsletter
Greetings PD and DC Warriors,
Welcome to this January 2017 PD Institute Newsletter. Happy New Year, and blessings of the Christmas season to all. What a great start to 2017 we are having here, and I trust it is the same where you are and that you are doing well.
This month we will have a look at two different communications since both are helpful to understand Peyronie’s disease and Dupuytren’s contracture treatment a little better. The first section will be a recent answer that I wrote for the DCI website in response to a comment/question that was posted to the article “DMSO Questions.” The reason I am including this particular reply in our newsletter is that I feel this particular answer has a strong philosophical emphasis that is important to anyone dealing with a slow or poorly responding Dupuytren’s contracture or Peyronie’s disease treatment; it will discuss why your treatment results might be disappointing you, and what you should do about it.
You will notice that my reply to Chet is a rather broad and general comment about how the body prioritizes for healing when there are other fibrous tissues in the body, or even multiple health issues present at the same time. This is a common situation for many people who read this newsletter, perhaps more common than most realize. I think it is fair to assume that any of us might have larger and more numerous health problems going on in the body (that lay down fibrous tissue) of which we are completely and blissfully unaware, or masses of fibrous tissue as a result of past injury or disease. Thus, as we struggle to correct a bothersome Dupuytren’s contracture or Peyronie’s disease situation, the reason our treatment plan needs such a high dosage could be that there are other – potentially larger – areas of fibrous tissue that are siphoning off all the nutrients we are throwing at the DC or PD problem. The existence of other fibrotic infiltrations (old surgeries, chronic arthritis, lung damage, healing of accidents of any kind) is an interesting way to consider why we might not be responding to our Alt Med treatment or why we do not respond to our Peyronie’s disease and Dupuytren’s contracture treatment in the same way.
As you read this you might understand how this response directly applies to your own personal situation. So many of us come to treat DC or PD not early in life, but later. During all those years many accidents, surgeries, and diseases happen that leave a biochemical alteration within the body that affects how the body reacts to our current Alt Med treatment. We have to accept this complexity of our body and work with it, perhaps altering how we use Alt Med in a way that is different than other people because we are different than other people.
What I am struggling to say is that our body chemistry and physiology is a lot more complex inside than we realize simply because of all the different things that happen to us. Just because we decide to focus our self-treatment on our DC or PD does not mean it will happen exactly as we think, or go directly to our DC or PD because that is our intention. Where these internal nutrients are directed after we swallow them might not be where we think. Watch how your DC or PD fibrous tissue responds to your treatment plan (changes in the size, shape, density, surface features and adhesion of the fibrous tissue), and if these changes do not occur you will probably have to change your plan because there might be other old and chronic problems and tissues injuries that are taking up and using those Alt Med vitamins, minerals and enzymes. Please use this answer to see how you might respond to using your own treatment plan.
The first communication:
Dr. Herazy,
I have both Dupuytren’s contracture and Peyronie’s disease. Do you have suggestions for a treatment plan that encompasses both?
Chet
Greetings Chet,
Thanks for your interesting question. I am sure this question occurs to a lot of people who have both problems, so I am pleased to be given a chance to present a few interesting ideas I have in this area.
Actually, there is no way to stop or alter how the distribution of vitamins, minerals and enzymes will ultimately be directed in your body if you have both Dupuytren’s contracture and Peyronie’s disease, or even if you have several other areas in your body where large masses of fibrous tissue is located. The internal nutrients of your food or supplementation go where the body takes it, and where the body takes it depends on what the body needs at that moment. This action is not random (like pouring water on sand), but intelligently guided by a process that is still not fully understood (vastly larger and more complex than the activity of bees in a hive). Thus, if you are you are treating Dupuytren’s contracture with internal Alt Med you cannot help but also treat your Peyronie’s disease; and if you have multiple health problems in addition to your DC or PD the intelligence of your body might take your DC or PD therapies to areas and problems you might not intend.
I have held the philosophy for many years that the innate wisdom of the body will control and direct where the nutrients of the body will be sent in health, as well as in disease. If this is a concept that makes sense to you, then you understand if a person has many current health issues and a lot of concurrent fibrous tissue buildup as part of prior healing (many prior injuries, multiple sites of arthritis, several surgeries, old chronic disease such as asthma, cataracts, hepatitis, etc.) there are many places in the body that can compete for the vitamins, minerals and enzymes that you might be taking for the self-treatment of your Dupuytren’s contracture and Peyronie’s disease. This could easily explain why some people have to take such high dosages of the vitamins, minerals and enzymes that they use – they are being integrated and consumed throughout the body, in addition to their Dupuytren’s contracture and Peyronie’s disease. And this could easily be the explanation why so many people have such slow progress or seemingly no progress – their body does not utilize the nutrients where you think they should go, but where they have to go to preserve life. While anyone who has Dupuytren’s contracture and Peyronie’s disease knows these are terrible conditions to live with, they must admit they are not life threatening as would be asthma, high blood pressure, cancer, or hundreds of other health problems that can threaten life. An intelligent innate capacity would demand that the health problems of higher importance are addressed first and foremost. I think this philosophical concept explains a lot of the vagaries of what happens when we try to help ourselves heal that it should be kept firmly in mind.
In a case where there are only Dupuytren’s contracture and Peyronie’s disease to deal with, since these problems are so similar in the way they affect the body and how the body lays down fibrous tissue in these two problems, almost all the treatment requirements we have identified so far are used essentially the same. Vitamin E, PABA, acetyl-L-carnitine, MSM, L-arginine, all the proteolytic enzymes plus others are used in both problems; even the stretching principles and ultrasound can be applied in the same way to just a different part of the body.
For this reason it often times happens that those men who have both Dupuytren’s contracture and Peyronie’s disease will notice that their recovery will almost always to be slower, and that their recovery will typically not follow an even or equal rate of recovery between the two problems. By this I mean they will report that only one problem will progress at a time, with the other lagging behind. In these cases of multiple health problems it is almost a rule that the dosages will need to be overall higher than if there was just one problem going on, as though the dosages were being used up or distributed in so many areas that a larger store is needed to do any good.
Further, there are local treatments like ultrasound, DMSO and the Super CP copper serum with vitamin E trio that are applied together, plus stretching, Genesen Acutouch treatment, and heat packs that would certainly be applied to the local areas of involvement depending on where your Dupuytren’s contracture and Peyronie’s disease is affecting you. These local external treatments would be applied to both problems as needed.
Thanks for the opportunity to get these ideas and information out to you. TRH
The second section is another simple email exchange and blending of emails, just as we have used so many times before, between one of the many people who send email questions to me and my response to it. This particular email was chosen from the stack because it pertains to both DC and PD so there is something for everyone here, and because it contains a nice list of common questions and concerns about Dupuytren’s contracture and Peyronie’s disease treatment.
People tell me they enjoy and learn from reading the emails in these monthly newsletters. These particular emails are selected from the many dozens of correspondence I get from PDI and DCI readers each month who have questions, primarily about treatment. Peyronie’s disease and Dupuytren’s contracture cause a similar fibrous lesion in the body, and we have repeatedly seen how successful Alternative Medicine treatment is almost identical for these two problems. For this reason it is beneficial for people with PD to read about DC treatment, and for people with DC to read about PD treatment; everyone on our mailing list should benefit from learning the treatment principles and ideas found below.
As you read these emails keep in mind that the text in black is from the person asking the question and the text in red is from me.
From: Theodore Herazy <herazy@comcast.net>;
To: MVXXXXXXXXX
Subject: RE: Dupuytren’s contracture questions
Sent: Thu, Dec 15, 2016 1:14:27 PM
Greetings MVXXXXXXXX,
It is great to learn your husband’s Peyronie’s disease continues to improve. Congratulations. Please do not let him lose his treatment focus, meaning to lose his interest in treatment, since I have seen that many men especially get overconfident when their PD starts to improve.
Please see below for comments…
Regards,
Theodore R. Herazy, DC, LAc
Peyronie’s Disease Institute
Dupuytren’s Contracture Institute
From: MVXXXXXXX
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2016 10:19 PM
To: Theodore Herazy <herazy@comcast.net>
Subject: Dupuytren’s contracture questions
Dear Dr. Theodore,
I want to ask few questions about my husband’s hand. We were paying first all our time and work to his Peyronie’s disease first because it is much older and bigger problem to bother himself as a man more. After making the last increase of Neprinol to 3/3/6 and Bromelain to 2/2/5 and adding wet heat packs before his stretches but keep everything else the same kind his Peyronie is now improved he is now ready to treat his hand. We want to know how we make his dosages larger each week and more and different pills if he needs. Why do you want to change anything? It might not be necessary to change anything in his treatment plan. Since you have not been measuring his DC nodule or his finger range of movement I advise that you start doing this immediately. He might be making progress with his hand, but you would have no way to know it because you have been only paying attention to his PD. Both the DC and PD problems respond to the same kind of treatment, so it is possible that this hand is making changes but you do not know it because you have not taken the time to measure and check him. It would be a terrible thing for you to change a plan that is working, only to create a new plan (one that is even larger) that does not work for him. Just because a plan is larger does not mean it will work better. Balance of the plan is also important. You have figured out the balance of internal therapies that are working for his PD; you do not want to give that up right now. Actually, a plan that is working for his PD should be able to make changes in his DC, or at least be very close to making good changes for him. Perhaps only adding some direct attention to his hand with the external therapies (US, DMSO, stretching) is all that is necessary to make the DC progress faster and more obvious. If his hand truly does not improve using the plan he is now following we can discuss possible changes then. When he did what you said to use smaller gentle force when he was stretching the scars he felt for first time what you call a deep dull ache you told about in the DCVD. After doing all new plan changes we both notice his scars started to melt little more each day. Thank you. He is a good student and the piano has taught him how to be sensitive with his sense of touch. Now the Peyronies inside is smaller and softer and his bend outside is less also, maybe half the 90 angle bend at start so we now work more attention to his hand.
What other pills should he be taking with addition to pills in the Peyronie’s large plan that will also help with DC? For now, only add the external therapies to his hand as I have mentioned earlier. Make no changes to his internal plan (vitamin E, PABA, Bromelain 5000, Neprinol, etc.) for at least 3-4 weeks after he adds the external hand therapies. If you are positive – absolutely sure – that the DC nodule or cord has not gotten softer or smaller, or the lump more moveable, or the fingers more flexible, during this time then you can think about making tiny and slow changes to the internal plan he is now following. Can he take less or do less of anything? Probably not, but I could be wrong on that. Usually what a person needs to get rid of the fibrous tissue of PD is what is needed for DC. Does he use diferent diet for DC? No, keep him eating the same like you see in the Peyronie’s disease book. Keep in mind he is still working out of his PD, so you do not want to stop or abandon that plan. The dietary ideas for PD apply also to DC, just maybe not as much. What do you advice about he still tries to practice his music each day even if it is difficult pain to him? I know he is devoted to his art, but I believe it was all those hours of stressful piano practice during his life that I think started his DC. Tell him the best way to get back to the piano is to stay away from it for now. Tell him to mentally play; sit in front of the keyboard and play in his mind until he works up a sweat. He should do everything he normally does, just not use his hands on the keys. When he does this mental practice it is critically important that he does not tighten or tense his arm or hand muscles; he must keep his arms and hands totally relaxed. This will keep his brain connections strong so his piano technique will not suffer and it keep him sane.
I help him make measures to his finger movement with the calipers and we have also make measure how far his palm goes down to touch table, 2.25cm open not down away. The results are not clear to us and sometimes we get different answers so we want to use other way to keep track of his hand problem. My husband wants to know if there are more way to keep measure the physical way of the lumps and finger movements. With your next order I will include my prepared notes for people with DC that explains how to measure lump movement like the palm is the face of a clock. If you do not understand after you read this information, just give me a call and I will explain. I know he has only small cord development, but the Dupuytren’s contracture hand lumps are well defined on the surface. So I suggest you carefully outlining each one with a black ink pen. Do it this way: At the exact area where the abnormal fibrous tissue of the palm lump begins and the normal skin of his palm ends, place a small dot or line. Go over to the next area of the same palm lump and again find the next area where the abnormal fibrous tissue of the palm lump begins and the normal skin of his hand ends, and again make a small line. Do this all the way around each palm lump until you have outlined in pen a dotted line around the entire mass of fibrous tissue; you will have basically traced around the abnormal tissue of each palm lump, so you can easily see the palm lump from across the room. When he has done this, then have him use a copy machine where he will place his hand down on the glass surface as flat as possible and copy that palm; you will make a picture of his palm and the lines around the DC lump. The photocopy of the palm will be an exact and accurate picture of the size and shape of each Dupuytren’s contracture nodule. Write the date on the photocopy and make notes about the density and how well the “lump moves around the face of the clock” which is explained in the DCI information sheet “How to Use the Current Strategy Form.” Also, use this same photocopy of his palm as a note paper to write down anything about finger movement, caliper measurements, or even what has not changed since the last measurement. This is a great way to keep all your notes and ideas together with the picture of the hand. Make these photocopies in this way every month or so and keep them for comparison so you will know exactly how much progress you are making.
If my husband spoke English he would ask you these questions and to thank you for all your help since we start many months ago. I know. You are both great people and I am happy to help both of you. We are happy and greatful for you. Merry Christmas. TRH
MVXXXXXXXXXX
Well there you have seen two of the little discussions I have had this past month. I hope you found this issue of the PDI Newsletter interesting and informative so you can do a better job of helping your own PD or DC condition.
If you want to contact me about your problem or any treatment question, please send an email at info@peyronies-disease-help.com .
Happy New Year to all PDI and DCI Warriors. Enjoy your holiday with those you love, and take care of yourselves. Keep warm and stay focused on your treatment plans. TRH
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