I got really serious about my health in 1999. I felt things were spinning out  of control. I was in a lot of pain and depressed - again. I was working a job in  a start up company that I had taken because I wanted to get in on the stock  option bonanza that was going on in the tech world. I knew it would be a grind
that I wouldn't enjoy much. I ended one bad relationship and started another
(even worse) one. I was making poor decisions in my personal life and work
life.  Everything hurt: neck back shoulders wrists hands arms knees.

I had thought that because I quit the various forms of self medication I  tried over the years I must be better now. If I can quit that on my own everything must be okay.  It became apparent that I wasn't acting rationally or in my own best interests across the board.

So early in 1999 I resolved that this would be my last year in the corporate
world, at least as a full-time employee. If I could hold out to the end of the
year I would be better off. I did not make it to the end of the year.

My last day was June 30, 1999.  It was very scary - like jumping off a cliff into dark, swirling, stormy waters.  Then I hit the water and I found it was warm and the more I swam the more soothing and easy it became. I swam towards one island, my first goal. As I reached it, the island disappeared, only to see a new one in the distance. Again I thought this might be scary but it wasn't it - was just the natural order of things.

It turns out it was the best thing I ever did.

The setup for my 1999 situation began at around age 10.  I had back problems as a kid which were related to too much sports.  Baseball, basketball, football year-round. Too much stress mentally and physically.  For a couple of years, about age 10 to 13, I was the starting pitcher in baseball and since my dad was the coach I started every game which meant throwing at least 2 to 3 times a week, often on one day of rest. I was also starting center on the basketball team and a number of positions including quarterback (I really wasn't very good) on the little league football team. 

Little League football in combination with my dad's expectations for me to be
the star was the worst.

In the fifth grade I was almost as tall as I am now but by age 13 or 14 the other boys had caught up to me physically and I was beginning to tighten up.  Bending over I could only touch my kneecaps.  I had already had a number of  cortisone injections (shoulder, arm) so I could continue to pitch and throw. I had chronic pain in my arm, shoulder, my right knee was swollen and painful, and my back and neck hurt all the time.  

I went to a number of specialists culminating with a well known orthopedic
surgeon at leading hospital in Detroit.   After many x-rays he held up the plastic sheet and showed me that a piece on the tip of one of my vertebrae was missing. On another x-ray he diagnosed Osgood Schlatter's disease in the
right knee.  This is common among kids at that age when they have a growth
spurt. The surgeon said that only 5 years ago most doctors would have
recommended a full body cast.


The recommendation I received was that I should refrain from sports and any
strenuous activities.  No running no jumping no hiking no biking no swimming. Maybe a short walk now and then.  My back was very unstable and nothing would get better and the best I could hope for was to maintain the status quo to avoid surgery.

 The doctor gave me a sheet of exercises from a file.  The first of dozens of such exercise sheets I would get.  My first physical therapist.

Over the next two years I went to several different "specialists" who made  the same diagnosis and similar recommendations.  Lots of exercise handouts.

Fortunately I was a pretty stubborn 13-year-old and never listened to them or
took any of their advice.  

As a teenager my hand tremors became evident and were ranging from moderate to severe. My parents and teachers at school found this alarming. Again a series of "specialists" including a leading neurosurgeon, a neurologist and Parkinson's specialists examined my condition.  They poked and prodded – their favorite weapon was a sharp spiked wheel which they ran up and down my arms and back –  and quickly concluded I did not have Parkinson's and I was diagnosed as having an essential tremor. 

Beginning in my late 20s I was involved in three car crashes:  whiplash from rear end collisions in all three.  This was the beginning of my long association with chiropractors.  I do think that they were successful in alleviating the pain, at least on a short-term basis but my back had been hurting for so long how could I know what it felt like to feel good?

So by 1999…

Standing for 20 min. was uncomfortable.  My knees had continued to hurt - it felt like deterioration - and arthroscopic surgery was recommended at least twice to clean them out. I really hated the crunchiness that sounds like walking on gravel.  Driving was extremely uncomfortable and something to be avoided.
At the start up I mentioned earlier I developed tendinitis in my hands, wrists, arms, shoulders and neck from continuous computer use, primarily  the mouse.   Through constant poor use I created all kinds of pain. I tried all sorts of props and gimmicks to alleviate the pain I was creating.  So I switched from left hand to right-handed mousing only to succeed in inducing tension in both arms. The state of California has a traveling ergonomics specialist  who recommended raising the height of my desktop so that I could stand to use the PC, alternating with a very high stool for breaks.

For tendinitis I filed a workers comp claim at the recommendation of human
resources at VeriSign. Filing a claim was standard practice and would protect
the company from a lawsuit.  Now the government would pay for treatment:   multiple chiropractors, several physical therapists with varying specialities, myofascial release, acupuncture from three different practitioners, hand therapists, electrical stimulation, ice, heat, alternating ice and heat every five minutes, massage, craniosacral,  keyboard retraining program, sports medicine M.D., Neurologists and more.  At my own expense I sought out alternative treatments such as Feldenkrais, yoga, meditation, eye and neck therapies, Rolfing (three different times with three different practitioners), Hellerwork (a derivative of Rolfing).

Under the workers comp program in California 10 is the magic number. Every
time you visit a doctor or therapist you are required to rate your pain on a scale of one to 10. All practitioners are under intense pressure to get you healed in 10 sessions. They are reluctant to give you an extension and I had to be examined by the state of California chiropractic board examiner for continuing treatment.


This went on for two years, well after I left the company, and all the while the workers compensation board was sending me forms urging me to sign a release and settle the case. I talked to a lawyer and he said that now that Arnold the Governator was in office things with workers compensation would only go downhill and he urged me to settle. I was only too happy to get free of the bureaucracy. I had run out of treatment options anyway.

Final diagnosis from the state of California: permanent disability rated at
10%.

I had grown accustomed to my discomfort and continued to travel, go scuba
diving and pursue my underwater and travel photography habit. I even had a
contract with Lonely Planet Images and had numerous publications but I never
submitted much as the labeling of the slides (this was just as digital was
beginning to be accepted) was quite tedious and uncomfortable. My plans to be a regular golfer fizzled out even though I had been to several therapists who
specialized in golf treatment therapies.


I continued to seek relief and happened upon a system called meridian stretching that involved resistance stretching. I still think it's a great
system and I was very involved in it, even becoming business manager for Bob
Cooloey, the guy who created the system. I worked with him for over a year and
helped him get his book published. Bob did notice that I had hand tremors and
suggested that it might be heavy metal toxicity, specifically Mercury. One of
the chiropractors I had been seeing had me get tested using a hair sample
analysis. This came back negative so I let it go.

A number of people in the stretching group had been going to see Dr. Karl
Maret and recommended him highly. I went and got retested for Mercury by blood sample and, when that came back positive, by urine analysis.

The results were shocking and off the charts.  I was fully loaded with  Mercury. I started doing some research and found that Mercury is an insidious and elusive agent for all kinds of bad news.

This discovery was both scary and a form of relief. If I could get rid of the
Mercury maybe some of my symptoms would go away.

Amazing fact: the health insurance industry in the United States does not
recognize any form of heavy metal toxicity treatment and offers no coverage of
any kind. There may be an exception for lead but I'm not certain.

Over a four-year period I went through various forms of chelation therapy and
eventually reduced my levels to "acceptable".  The most effective form of
chelation therapy involves an intravenous solution of DMPS dripped into a vein
over 40 to 60 min. time frame. The DMPS bonds with heavy metals and then these are eliminated through bodily excretions. The chelation agent is
nondiscriminatory however and it also bonds with some of the good nutrients you might really need. Depending on the practitioner, and there are very few that do this, a solution of vitamins and minerals is either included in the initial IV
or you can go back the next day for another IV drip of vitamins.

I knew it would help when, at Dr. Maret’s suggestion, I had my amalgam fillings (lots of Mercury in these) removed. They did one side of my head at a time and I immediately felt like a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders each time. My head was floating on my shoulders.

This was all physically and financially draining but in the end I think it was very worthwhile.  My depression began to ease up and some of my body tension also began to ease. There was light at the end of the tunnel. My tremors were greatly reduced although still present.


Almost all of the therapies and modalities that I tried seem to have some benefit. I particularly enjoyed the stretching and met a lot of great people
involved in the practice.  The downside of the stretching was that they had
still a ways to go in regarg to figuring out the upper body and the tension in
my neck, arms, shoulders and wrists was ever present.  I woke up with a lot
of tension in the morning so the first thing I would do every day stretch for an
hour or two. And then in the afternoon go for a one-on-one assisted stretching
session as often as possible.


I went to the Whole Earth Expo one year and bypassed the Alexander Technique booth in favor of more aggressive massage therapies. I had run out of places to turn for treatment. The Alexander technique had been in the back of my mind and I always figured that I would run into someone who could recommend a practitioner. That never happened.

I wondered "where do these people hide out?"

I searched the Internet and since George Lister was a very senior teacher and
had his own training course I should at least talk to him. I told him I didn't
want to drive to his far off studio as I found driving to be very uncomfortable
at the least.  I thought about it and decided to make the trip.


Walking out of my first lesson with George I told him I felt like I was looking at the ground all the time because of the new position of my head. George said it was fine, don't worry about it. Later I realized that I had experienced a major release in my chest on the right side.

Around this time George told me about the swimming he was doing and the new method he had learned and was planning to teach. I told him right away to sign me up for the next session or class. I was certified as a scuba diver as a
teenager. I had always loved the water but it didn't always love me. After
completing lessons leading to certified swimmer and then lifeguard the swim
coach asked me to join summer sessions in preparation for swim team tryouts in the fall.  There was no technique involved and I remember the swim coaches
– you know they're coaches because they had whistles, clipboards and stopwatches – walking up and down on the side of the pool barking out helpful suggestions like "Faster!" and "Stroke!".  My neck and back tightened up to the point where I dropped out of the program by August.  I had never figured out how to swim without discomfort but my attraction to the water remained very
strong.

When George finally got things arranged so that we could do some swimming
lessons I was very excited. It took a while to get over my old bad habits and
retrain myself to swim in a new way. I could tell right from the start it was
going to be easy on the body and pain-free. Better than pain-free it actually
encouraged my body to loosen up and get stronger at the same time. It's been a fantastic experience.

I have found great physical and emotional comfort through the Alexander
technique and all the things that I have come to associate with it.

The way I move is much better, and I don't even think about pain anymore.
What I do think about is myself. My neck and shoulders and back are fine for the first time I can remember. I can still tweak my forearms or wrists on occasion but I can recover quickly, often just by lying on the floor.  Hands
on Back of Chair is also an effective way to release tension. It's also the
thing I'm most likely to forget about.  At some point about a year ago I realized that the crunchiness in my knees was minimal and very often nonexistent.

I find that the combination of the Alexander technique along with some
swimming, stretching, holosync meditation and very careful, thoughtful yoga give me a level of use that is very comfortable.