A theory and method for treating ETS side effects holistically and naturally

In case anybody reads the comments on the first post on this blog and wonders, "What is Carter's diet? And how can it help treat my ETS side effects?", allow me to explain.

Chris Carter had ETS and suffered from horrible side effects. He researched the side effects of ETS, developed a theory on what was causing them, and came up with an eating plan to heal his body.

Check out this forum thread from ETS and Reversals Discussion, where Carter posted about his theory on what causes the side effects of ETS and the diet he has followed for several years, which he claims has cured his side effects. Scroll down the thread to see a list of foods that Chris Carter does and does not eat.

http://etsandreversals.yuku.com/topic/374?page=1

Please note that Chris Carter is a not a doctor or nutritionist but he speaks from experience and his own research.

Below is some further information written by Chris Carter, which has been copied from another post he wrote on the same forum. Chris wrote this post in June 2008. It has been edited only slightly for brevity and clarity.

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I believe natural food and the way you eat is the answer to all ETS side effects.

I'm a 30-year-old male and live in the UK. For those desperately looking for some sort of answer, wondering why your life has finished because of ETS, I am offering some advice. I want to tell you that there is life after ETS and it's a lot better than you think . . . . I'm living proof!

I had ETS at T2 and T3, four-and-a-half years ago for head, hand and armpit sweating. For five months after the surgery, I thought everything was good. Then the weather started to warm up . . . . oh shit, WTF have I done.

For the next two years my whole world fell down because of ETS side effects. I had become a shadow of who I was, a walking dead person with no vision of anything bright, sunny or happy. I had every known side effect and was in and out of hospital going for various scans, tests, scans and more tests, cameras in places, more tests, different consultants, being passed around like some f**king experiment.

Everything went wrong, as so many of you have experienced, and I couldn't believe that no one knew anything and no one could help me. I felt I had signed a death sentence.

After one-and-a-half years of all these terrible side effects, I started to research the human body, starting with the ETS operation. Coming from an engineering background, I like to find solutions and answers to problems. After looking at all my side effects and what causes the same conditions in people who have not had ETS, I started to work things out from the results of all my tests and scans and I began looking at the op and the sympathetic nervous system in more detail.

It took me about a year to fully come out of ETS side effects by changing my diet and lifestyle. For the last year and a half my body has been rebuilding. I was only going to get better as a result as coming out of the state of fight-and-flight.

The effects of fight-and-flight taken from Wikipedia
-Acceleration of heart and lung action
-Inhibition of stomach and intestinal action
-General effect on the sphincters of the body
-Constriction of blood vessels in many parts of the body
-Liberation of nutrients for muscular action
-Dilation of blood vessels for muscles
-Inhibition of lacrimal gland (responsible for tear production) and salivation
-Dilation of pupil
-Relaxation of bladder
-Inhibition of erection
-Auditory exclusion (loss of hearing)
-Tunnel vision (loss of peripheral vision)
-Increased sweating
-Digestion slows down, redirecting blood to the muscles and brain.
-Breathing increases and supplies more oxygen to the muscles.
-The heart beats faster and raises blood pressure.
-Perspiration increases to cool the body.
-Muscles tense up to prepare for action.
-Chemicals are released to help blood clot.
-Sugars and fats are released in the blood stream to provide fuel.

My Theory in Brief
The operation put our bodies, not our brains, in the state of fight-and-flight. The area that was cut on me (T2 and T3) stopped certain messages from the heart and lungs getting to my brain. Hence, by default, the internals of my body changed and began to operate in a different way, to keep me alive. One of the main changes in my body was how I convert food to energy. In a person who has had ETS, this process is very different to how it happens in a person who has not had ETS. Therefore it is really, really, really important what we eat every single day.

The main thing is NOT to eat any man-made substances, only 100% natural whole food. Basically anything that doesn't have a wrapper around it.

Foods To Avoid
All E-numbers, especially E101-199 E202-299 E301-399 E500-599 E600-E700, E800-E900 or anything that has an X or a Z in the name, and any sulphates - the less you eat, the better. In addition, don't eat anything that has been modified or contains an ingredient whose name you can't pronounce.

You will need to read the ingredients of everything you eat.

You also need to massively reduce (or even better, stop) eating sugary, processed refined food and any liquid stimulants (coffee, tea, fizzy, energy or coloured drinks). You will need to reduce salt, as this is a natural preservative. Most sauces, drinks, packaged foods and cheap processed stuff contains loads of these bad things.

As most of you are probably aware, the best thing to drink is WATER and that is very true for ETS patients, any other drink seems to affect me and probably will affect you. Sports drinks, protein shakes, coffee, energy drinks, caffeine drinks, etc. will affect us even more as these are all stimulants that effect the body (i.e., they are quickly absorbed into the blood stream through the kidneys and liver).

Basically, make everything you eat from scratch. Learn to cook! Eat fruit and veges, drink lots of still water. Yes, this may be very boring but you get used to it.

It's a lot better than taking any medication, most medication does contain stimulants, sugars, salts or preservatives, so really it's no good for us either. Also, multi-vitamin tablets contain loads of man-made s**t, therefore they will affect you, especially if you are not out of the fight-and-flight.

The reason certain foods affect our bodies is because lots of man-made chemicals in food have the same basic chemical formula as adrenaline, or noradrenaline - E-numbers and modified foods with added substances especially! These foods keep ETS people in fight-and-flight, and the longer it goes on the deeper you get into losing normal, healthy, bodily functions.

I think you will all agree, all the symptoms of fight-and-flight are the same as ETS side effects. Normal people may only be in that state for hours, most of us who have had ETS have been in that state for years.

If you suffer from ETS side effects then I recommend you look into and change your diet, cut out foods containing the chemicals/substances that I have mentioned above for at least 9-12 months (maybe longer). When you start seeing improvements and getting better then maybe start re-introducing things and see how they affect you.

I'm living proof this works as I'm so much better now after two-and-a-half years on my diet. I work in London and wear a suit every day, don't have to even think about wearing a vest underneath my clothes don't even have to think about taking my jacket off really and its June (UK summer). Three years ago I would change my vest underneath my shirt about three times a day in June.

I have just returned from holiday in Spain with my girlfriend, where it was 28 degrees Celsius. I was lying on the beach all day.

I am not on any medication. ETS and its horrible side effects are behind me now but what I know and what I'm going to do with that knowledge for the rest of my life is all in front.

For those who want to try this, please have a sustained go at it. It's better than medication. You just need to eat natural foods.

Things to Read Up On (use Google)
GI Diet (this details high GI foods and low GI foods, low and medium GI foods have proved to be better for me)
Effects of fight-and-flight
Food stimulants
Processed food
Microwaves and their effect on natural foods
Natural whole foods

I have put this information out there for people like me who have had ETS and are devastated about the results.

ETS was the maddest/worst/hardest/most amazing and terrible experience of my life, but now having my normal life back, doing normal things again is the best experience ever!

Thanks for reading

Chris Carter