Closing the back door
Urine spike testing, trace minerals, ketamine and marriage, Vedicinals 9, EMF
Urine Spike Testing
Pierre and I put almost a year of time, attention and money into working with Zero Spike to try and bring a urine spike test (UST) to market. The test itself, and the Augmented NAC which Zero Spike manufactures continue to hold promise. However we reached a point with the Italian team when it was obvious that this partnership wasn’t working out. Test results for our patients have been delayed, and efforts to rectify this haven’t produced a timely remedy. I was always more enthusiastic about the UST than Pierre, as he saw limitations to the resulting data and thought it needed a lot more validating. The Italians decided to press forward, reaching out to Dr Peter McCullough who wanted to cross-market his spike detox formula. Have at it Peter.
Trace Mineral Supplementation
As our active patients at the Leading Edge Clinic are well aware, trace mineral supplementation has rapidly become a key clinical focus. Pierre has immersed himself in researching the topic for more than three months, and we are anticipating the results of his efforts in online publication(s). There is a big, black hole in science and medicine on the topic. A cursory search on the declining nutritional content of our food supply leads one to the conclusion that we can’t eat our way out of this hole. Lucky for us, a doggedly persistent Japanese scientist understood where we were headed fifty years ago, and spent decades developing a solution. End of teaser.
Ketamine
Low-dose sublingual ketamine (LDSK) that is. Our use of this miracle drug has only expanded over the last months, and we continue to see impressive benefits for our patients. There are some patients who can’t tolerate it, at least at first, and we understand this to be due to elevate background glutamate. So, we lean into over-the-counter therapies including green Rooibos tea, NAC, MSM, and Curcumin which increase endogenous glutathione production.
To say that LDSLK saved my marriage may be an exaggeration, but then it may not. Kerrie and I have been together for thirty three years, and the pandemic was hard on both of us. After a patient told me about the excellent experience he and his wife had with Marriage Quest, we looked into it.
Prior to their retirement, Dr. Israel Helfand and his wife, Cathie Helfand, worked together as a couple offering marriage counseling at their rural northern Vermont homestead to couples for more than 40 years. The Marriage Quest process was originally developed in collaboration with Dr. Barry Ginsberg of the Center for Relationship Enhancement and has been refined through decades of retreat work since 1995.
Today, Dr. David Helfand, a Licensed Psychologist and expert in intensive couples counseling, runs the practice after nearly a decade of leading private marriage retreats. His work blends neuroscience, attachment theory, and practical skills to help couples reconnect, rebuild trust, or separate with clarity and compassion. Additional therapists will join the Marriage Quest team in the future.
Before the pandemic, we went to a fantastic marriage therapist in Ithaca for three years. I say fantastic, because he was older, but hip, and neither of us felt like he took sides. When visits became remote, we tried a few times, but it just wasn’t the same. And then our therapist retired.
Dr David Helfand meets one-on-two with couples for two, three or four days. His expert care was expensive, but not as financially, mentally and emotionally expensive as divorce, and we decided that after thirty three years together, we owed it to each other to try. We are two people who are both vaccine injured, and who have experienced many losses due to how our perspective on reality differs from most of Ithaca, let alone our oldest friends and family. We were anxious that David would accept us where we were, and not dehumanize us or our lived experiences over the last five years. How scared and scarred are so many of us from the pandemic? We asked him outright about this, and his reply was perfect: “Your marriage is my client.” I will endorse him as a safe resource for other couples who have also been impacted by Covid and the Covid shots.
Being good students, Kerrie and I started our homework before the marriage retreat. We played hooky from the annual Marsland clan vacation at the Jersey shore back in June (sorry guys) and diverted to Jamaica for a week of quiet, sun, ocean, warm hospitality, and delicious food. Anyone who has known us for years could / would be astounded by that choice of vacation destination, but it was just right. It was about reconnecting, away from cat litter boxes, challenging patients, and the daily routine. More about that in another Substack.
I have kept open a back door to exit our marriage for some time now. What happened a month or so before our retreat was extraordinary, and it wouldn’t have happened without my previous five months of low-dose sublingual ketamine. That evening was fractious. I don’t remember what we were arguing about (who ever does?), but things were tense as we got ready for bed. I fed the cats their nighties, closed up the house, and let my ketamine troche dissolve under my tongue. When I came to bed, we had a brief exchange, and the next thing I knew, I was sobbing. Fortunately for me, and us, we have both done a lot of peer counseling, and so the occasional tears don’t elicit panic. This was different. I went for it. Think of being five years old, and having your pals over for a birthday party, pissing off your mom with some antics, and being sent to your room. And crying so hard it hurts, the snot is running like a faucet, and your chest heaving.
As this was happening, I had the occasional thought that this was the ketamine opening me up. In my mind, I was contemplating what my life would be like without Kerrie. What if she was gone? What if we weren’t friends any more? What if all the rituals, exchanges and daily acts of humanity which make up our life were no more? It was unbearable, heartbreaking and crystalized for me that under no circumstances would I walk away from our marriage. I shut that back door, threw a bar across it, and welded it shut.
That was an amazing night, but there was another night in the week before our retreat. I went to bed before Kerrie, and as I lay there dozing, I began to review memories of my first cat as an adult, Stanley. He was an orange and white feline with lovely golden eyes, who had the attention of a buddha. Sadly, he died young and suddenly, and left a big hole in my heart. That night however, I could clearly see him as a kitten with his bulging eyes and outsized head, fleas jumping off his rump. I chuckled to myself remembering the mice fleeing our compost pile and running between his legs, or the way he used to lick our other cat Ori out of the box so that he could have it all to himself.
Then my memories turned to Kerrie. It was as vivid as yesterday, the beautiful, glowing, kind and funny woman she was when I met her. She was open, willing and curious. I had never been loved in that way before, and in so many ways, I wasn’t ready to accept it gratefully or gracefully. The most amazing thing, was that after that mental journey which covered decades, but didn’t last more than thirty minutes in earthly time, there were new and strong threads connecting the past to the present. It was abundantly clear, in a way that it wasn’t previously, that Kerrie has always been here with me, walking by my side in this life. When I woke in the morning, I hadn’t forgotten this magic, and it hasn’t stopped.
Vedicinals 9
Within a week from when Pierre and I broke with the Italian team at Zero Spike, I attended a life changing Zoom. Those are my favorite kind! It was a meeting with Dr Joseph Varron (President and CMO) and Dr Paul Marik (Chief Scientific Officer) of the Independent Medical Alliance, and Joachim Gerlach, CEO of Health Shield GmBH, and his amazing team members Carl Clift and Chante Senatre. We were there to hear about Joachim’s product Vedicinals 9, their spike busting senolytics, the cases they have successfully treated, and a plan to launch a survey in the United States using a lateral flow blood test. (The Vedicinals 9 pictured above are available to the public, but the senolytics in the spike busting package must be purchased through a licensed provider). My jaw was on the floor. I think that in our work at the Leading Edge Clinic, we have developed very deep expertise in understanding and treating post-acute sequelae of Covid and injury from the Covid shots. Joachim and his team are next level, and to their great credit (and yes they are selling a product) are unwilling to disparage any competitors. My spidey sense tells me that they sincerely just want to figure out how to fix the jam we are all in before we race off a cliff into a zombie apocalypse. They want data on what works best, and to share what they have figured out. The Leading Edge Clinic has agreed to participate in collaborative research with this extraordinary international team.
EMF
Thanks to clinicians who don’t work for the Leading Edge Clinic per se, but spice up our weekly clinical meetings, such as acupuncturist and doctor of Oriental medicine Dagmar Ehling, her radiologist husband Dr Larry Burke, and Canadian naturopath Dr Stephen Maltais, we have had quite an education in the dangers of EMF over the last months. It is overwhelming at first to contemplate how to mitigate EMF exposure, and decipher how it promulgates and exacerbates chronic disease. Turning off Wi-Fi at night, keeping smart phones on airplane mode, and eschewing smart watches are starting points. Last week was highlighted by an hour-long conversation I had with the engineer and RF expert John Coates. He is worth following on X, with the handle RF Safe, and he has a website with scads of resources and references. He develops open patient designs so that others will manufacture devices to limit our exposure. FYI, there are EMF limiting phone cases for sale on his website.
P.S. Thanks for reading. I’m sorry for the lags in my writing. It’s never writer’s block exactly, but more that there is so much to say, and it’s hard to decide what to tell you.
What a gift you've been given, the tears, the appreciation, and now, the exit locked. That changes everything! God go with you.
This post buoyed my hope something fierce! Thanks
So glad to hear of all the advancements in your private and professional life. Congratulations and bless you, your wife, and your work associates.