Another email from Marla

Hello Karen:


I haven't had my CBC taken in over 2 years now. But prior to stopping my CBCs all my numbers, I think, are documented on my website. During that time, I also did two full years of phlebotomy to get my iron overload down to normal. During those two years of full phlebotomies, my hgb remained in the normal ranges (even as high as 15s at one point). As far as I know my counts are normal, except my plts never went higher than 118K, but remained steady there for years.

I no longer juice, except if I get sick or something, which isn't often. My diet is a lot different now than during recovery. But still mostly organic and still not much junk food. I say that because I do on occasion have some dessert of cookies or a pic of cake or muffin. I think I'm more of an herbal tea drinker now, than a juice drinker. . .

As far as juicing regime, I would probably make changes. I think the list you got was already modified from during my recovery phase. I see what you listed was in Jan 2002 and my last blood transfusion was in 2001. So this was definitely a phase where I was modifying my regime. I "don't" recommend one cup of orange juice daily and didn't do that in the beginning as well. I think that came about as I was learning about vit C from Dr. Rath. I since come to believe that it may be too much to have 1 full cup of orange juice every single day. If you look at the May 2002 example menu, you'll see that I changed more and there is no orange juice there. The other juices I drank during recovery were a combo of carrot, romaine and celery or cucumber, sometimes with half an apple. I did not juice beets regularly. Again, that must have been what I was doing during that phase of my tweeting my diet to try to tease out more results. You may also notice that I started to add meat back in by May and that's when I started to see more improvements especially with my reds. You may notice that by April 2003, I has stopped juicing and had added more meat products. To get a better understanding of why I decided upon the changes I did, you can check out the book list that I had read during that time.

I tried a lot of things especially in the beginning. so if you look at the page of my treatment, there is a section where I write about what I "eliminated." This might help you get an idea of what else I tried and what and why I stopped them. But to re-iterate, all my juices in the beginning consisted of carrot, romaine, celery or cucumber, and half an apple or so and barley green mixed in. I would basically put a measuring cup under the juicer and see that it filled at least the full cup. In the beginning I followed Dr.Lorraine Day's protocal of 8 glasses of juice a day and I even went beyond to about 13! But I later cut back to 4 a day, which I think I more practical (each drink being 2 cups worth--i.e. 2 cups 4xday). Looking back in retrospect, I can see how it's confusing. There was so much that I may have taken some info for granted! Especially the juice combo in the early phase. By the time I had started my website, I was pretty much transfusion free and just trying to document it for anyone interested. I did not list my counts while transfusion dependent because I didn't feel those mattered because the blood wasn't mine, but transfused blood.

Oh, and one last thing, the lemon water. . . I did do that for a couple years, but later became sensitive to lemons! So I don't recommend it every single day like I did it. My sensitivity came in "hives." I have since stopped it, and find that I can only take lemon water for about two weeks when the hives start to come back. So easy with the lemons. . .

Okay, I hope that's more clear! If not, let me know.

Take care!
Marla