This book and it's companion cookbook literally saved my life, after years of getting no help ~ or getting sicker ~ from the established "medical profession." I changed my diet and in three days the pain disappeared, and a week later I tossed away my cane and bounded up the stairs. I couldn't believe it, it was a miracle. I still can't believe it; all because of changing the foods I ate.
Now, years later, when I go off the no-sugar, no yeast diet, the pain and stiffness and depression returns and I have to stop and think... ahhh, I've been eating sugar = candida yeast infection! So back I go and all is well. This change in eating habits has saved untold thousands of people like me from suffering and pain and "given us our lives back." Why don't doctors tell us? I will never understand this.
How did I hear about this book & the problem of candida yeast infection? Three friends, from different parts of the country, told me about it, and I visited a nutritionist who backed up everything Dr. Crook says in the book. Et Voila! I was cured.
It is very hard at times not to feel great bitterness towards the "regular doctors" who wasted my time and money, and left me suffering for so many years, yet who have little or no training in basic nutrition.
It is not this way in Europe; here they seem to know only how to prescribe surgery or useless medications, some of which made me sicker, but I have to continue to remind myself that this is the training of the AMA. I hope things change, and soon.
In the meantime, a note of importance:
I developed the initial candida yeast infection was drinking "100% pure fruit juice." I drank it all day or night long, for three years, sitting in front of my computer working. I was a computer programmer at the time. Turns out any bottled fruit juice turns into fructose sugar during processing, and I was making myself sick by believing that the "100% pure juice" was healthy for me. How wrong that was. That's how I got sick.
After going on the anti-candida yeast diet for a few months (during which I lost 40 lbs as well! The fat just melted off me), all was well. Then I started drinking cartons of orange juice purchased from the grocery store. Joint pain, exhaustion and suffering again! I was told by a woman shopping alongside of me that processed orange juice was causing my returning joint pain, and she was right. She knew because she had been through the same thing. She was an angel from above! Now I only drink juice that is fresh squeezed (such as apple juice), and stick to the rest of the diet, and I have no more problems whatsoever. I have problems only when I go off my diet. Then it's back on so it's easy to fix. Pain is a great motivator for change!
I have recommended this book to many, many people and all have received a great deal of relief. If only I had been told about it sooner, it would have saved me three years of exhaustion, pain, suffering & immobility. It even hurt to breath some days, and doctors did not help at all. I tried everything.
The diet is simple: no sugar, no dairy, no yeast, no wheat, only organic foods and water to drink. It's not "easy" at first, but mayonnaise, eggs and chicken are allowed, spices, curries, rice syrup (really sweet), fresh corn tacos or chips take the place of many kinds of foods. Health food stores have lots of "gluten and dairy free foods, so you will shop there to your heart's content. Plus I had immediate results within three to seven days.
This diet was like putting "Miracle Grow" on roses with yellowed & blackened leaves half dead from lack of proper nutrients, and seeing green and healthy results, literally overnight! I still can hardly believe it. After four months, people said it was as if I was twenty years younger, and they were right!
Thank you, Dr. Crook! You have saved my life.
I recommend this book and it's change in diet with acupressure massage, and a bit of prayer and meditation. With Grace on our side, all will be well.
Update 2012: My other "magic trick" has been taking Espom Salts baths with TWO POUNDS of salts in a hot bath and 20 to 40 minutes reading my favorite spiritual book or regular reading. That's my "meditation time." I also take one 250 mg magnesium pill per day.
Magnesium is in Epsom Salts and if I've had a extra strenuous day, that hot bath with the salts takes all the pain away, almost instantly. It's a miracle. It's recommended to soak sore feet or ankles or bruises with the salts, but until I tried a LOT in a hot bath, it never worked. Experiment with the right amount for yourself, but start with a LOT. Walmarts, Costco or the DollarStore all carry Epsom Salts for about a dollar a pound. The brand doesn't matter; the only difference is the grind. The chemical composition is the same. Epsom Salts are sold as fertilizer for roses in agriculture stores and that's OK to use too.
Dr. Crook's diet, my two pound bag of Epsom Salts and one little magnesium pill every day keeps the pain away. I wish I had found out about this years ago! Before this, I suffered so much in constant pain, and so needlessly. If I had known all this before, I would never have needed to be on those addictive and expensive pain pills prescribed to me by my "regular" doctor! God bless you Dr. Crook and Epsom Salts!