I received this question from a reader:

Hello, I got your website by luck. I have heart problems , CHF, pulmonary hypertension, arthritis, osteo, fribromyalgia, depression, low basal temperature, and sleep apnea. I also have a cat. My nose keeps dripping, mostly in the house. I take Flonaser, a steroid nasal spray twice a day. I read a website about a Dr Brownstein explaining how the thyroid could cause heart problems, overweight, etc. I read a gluten free diet could help me. I know I should see an allergist. I am on many prescription drugs. Can you comment? I am also very tired. People make fun of me as I struggle through life, can’t work, like I’m lazy. Could you recommend something?

First off, let me say that health problems such as you have are real and not a joke. I know a lot of people who have had similar problems and they can be debilitating.

Secondly, I am not a health professional - just a knowledgeable lay person. I cannot give you medical advice. However, I can share my story.

I have had many of the same health problems as you, from hypertension to arthritis, from chronic weight problems to low energy. In fact, in addition to some of what you mention, I had insomnia, low adrenal function, chronic indigestion and digestive problems and what I can only describe as “brain fog”. In the last few years of my life, these problems had become so severe that I had also reduced my workload as low as possible. I ended up closing a profitable consulting business because I did not have the motivation to get clients.

Allergies were part of my problem. I have talked about how much NAET treatments have helped my son - they also helped me immensely. However, that didn’t resolve my whole set of problems, and last fall I had added hypertension and high blood sugar to my set of health concerns.

At that time, my daughter was diagnosed with a yeast problem related to oxalates.

Oxalates are a substance in our food. Normally, your digestive tract would keep this stuff out your body - it would just pass through. However, if oxalates are absorbed into your system, they can cause all kinds of trouble. They will go anywhere the blood stream goes, and can even irritate the nervous system - because they can cross the brain-blood barrier. They almost act like a slow-acting poison for many parts of the body.

Oxalates occur in all plant food - fruits, veggies and grains. Meat, fish, dairy and eggs are basically oxalate free. As a result, there is a special diet that you have to follow if you need to keep your oxalate intake low, so that you get good nutrition and as much variety as possible, while avoiding the highest oxalate produce.

This is the diet that my daughter needed to be on. However, she was only two and a half at the time of her diagnosis, and I knew she couldn’t eat differently than the rest of us. Can you imagine mealtime if her plate was different than the rest of the family? So, I decided that I would eat like her, so that she would see that it was okay to eat this way.

To keep a long story short, I started to see benefits to me within the first few weeks! My chronic digestive problems cleared up. My long-running insomnia went away. I was able to stop taking thyroid medication. I no longer needed any adrenal support. I stopped having body aches. My gums stopped bleeding. My food cravings went away - which I thought were a problem with me and my ability to control my food intake. My energy levels returned. My brain fog disappeared.

I’m more and more convinced that people could benefit from the Low Oxalate Diet. Our modern medical care - including regular use of antibiotics - kills off the healthy bacteria that can help break down oxalates and protect us from them. Our modern diet focuses too much on gluten (which can irritate the gut lining) and high oxalate foods that we would normally only have access to in certain seasons. Chronic immune system irritation and inflammation, plus chronic gut issues are also implicated in oxalate problems. Many of us fit this profile.

Of interest to you is that it is known that oxalates can affect the functioning of the thyroid. Low thyroid could underlie many of the symptoms you describe.

For more information, please see the Low Oxalate Diet site.