I have been suffering for years from IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (my wife thinks it should be called Unpleasant Old Bastard Syndrome) which was like waking up with a rat in your intestines.\u00a0 It made me cranky, irritable, and quite unnecessarily rude to friends, family and colleagues.\u00a0\u00a0 I consulted many fine doctors during this time, and ended up on enough medications to kill a horse, some of which ameliorated the symptoms, but none of which effectively ended my daily torment.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So when my friend Jane Tani recommended I go see Dr. Matt, an Oriental medicine practitioner in Canoga Park, I was prepared to try anything.\u00a0 Amazingly, he told me he could cure me in a day.\u00a0\u00a0 Though my son practices oriental medicine and acupuncture, and I have enjoyed the relief he has given me with his needles, I have to admit I was somewhat skeptical when Dr. Matt rapidly brought out a series of vials and lightly touched several acupuncture points, deep in thought.\u00a0 Other vials he would shove into the crook of my thumb and forefinger, and again lightly touch the acupuncture places, making notes the while.\u00a0 Then he leaned back.\u00a0 \u201cFirst of all\u201d he said, \u201cyou have a sinus problem, which is causing the irritation in the bowel.\u00a0 This is caused by mold in your home. \u00a0Secondly you have been travelling a lot and jet fuel is the worst thing in the world for the sinuses.\u00a0 So I am going to give you some herbs, and you will rinse out your nose every few hours with nasal spray, and you will change your diet, no raw foods, only cooked vegetables, rice, light protein, far less fish (I don\u2019t eat meat) and you will drink a ton of water and you\u2019ll feel better in a day.\u201d<\/p>\n
I felt better in ten hours.\u00a0\u00a0 What convinced him, he said, was I had just returned from Mexico City where I had felt much better.\u00a0 Mexico City, with the worst pollution on the planet!\u00a0 An expert confirmed his diagnosis:\u00a0 there was mold all over my home.\u00a0 \u00a0I had to throw away all my old carpeting, lay wood floors, clean all the curtaining, gouge out the old lead tiles, destroy the mold hidden in the walls, change my mattresses and pillows, and repaint with anti-allergen paint.\u00a0\u00a0 The best tip that Dr. Matt gave me was that on waking you must drink a large amount of water, because your lungs dehydrate overnight, \u00a0and when you moisten the lungs they produce large amounts of oxygen which gives you energy to wake up.\u00a0 Skeptical as always, I tried it and, gentle reader, it works!\u00a0\u00a0 Now I no longer need a bucket of tea in the morning, I just swallow the water and start writing.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s great.\u00a0\u00a0 Similarly in the day if you feel you are flagging, chug-a-lug some water.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s life changing I tell you.\u00a0\u00a0 So if you\u2019re a victim of IBS you might want to check out his web site:\u00a0 www.mmvanbenschoten.com<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s changed my life.\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019ve got it back.<\/p>\n Now I have Saintly Old Bastard Syndrome.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have been suffering for years from IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (my wife thinks it should be called Unpleasant Old Bastard Syndrome) which was like waking up with a rat in your intestines.\u00a0 It made me cranky, irritable, and quite unnecessarily rude to friends, family and colleagues.\u00a0\u00a0 I consulted many fine doctors during this time, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions\/152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}