Excerpt from the Book, “Detoxify or Die” by

Sherry A. Rogers, M.D.

Part 1

The Secret of Sweat

So here we are riddled with disease-producing toxins and piling on more each day. Inevitably the axe will fall. But what if we could get rid of these toxins? What if we could have a body that only had the toxins we had accumulated up until 20 years ago, or better yet at age 16? What if we could get rid of our lifetime burden of toxins or even just turn the hands of time back a couple of decades?

I have followed hundreds of patients who used the oral, non-prescription mercury detox cocktail to get rid of mercury aluminum, cadmium, arsenic, and other heavy metals. For folks who have tougher cases we can use DMPS which is available by prescription as Chemet, or the infinitely cheaper and non-prescription and identical substance, Captomer (Thorne, N.E.E.D.S.). And for folks with high levels of calcifications in their arteries, EDTA is an intravenous chelator but requires sitting hooked up to an intravenous solution in a doctor’s office for four hours three times a week for 20 to 40 sessions, costing thousands of dollars. Then you need a maintenance program. A safer proven way to reverse coronary calcifications is with the macrobiotic diet (Ornish, 1998). PET scans proved that the calcifications melted away. For the full directions on doing the health-promoting diet, start with You Are What You Ate, then proceed to The Cure Is In The Kitchen, and use Macro Mellow for the cookbook).

But what about the cancer-causing PCBs and the multitude of plastics and pesticides with all sorts of chemical configurations that the body has no way of metabolizing? What about all of the newly synthesized dangerous chemicals that firemen, for example, are exposed to when these plastics and pesticides burn, creating new compounds that have never before been seen by man? None of these chemicals are removed by chelation or any drug.

In the 1970s a controversial gentleman named L. Ron Hubbard designed a sauna program that enabled drug addicts to detoxify. He reasoned that folks were never addicted until they had taken drugs. And the more they took, the more they craved. He thought if he could get the drugs out of the body (the unmetabolized residues), the addict would no longer crave. He published his brilliantly successful program in his book Clear Body Clear Mind in 1990. Shortly after the results of the program were known, physicians from many specialties realized that this program might also be adapted for getting rid of all sorts of other types of chemicals, thereby restoring health in an endless variety of diseases (Kilburn, Schnare, Roehm, Rea, Root, Tretjak, Tei).

Sauna Proven in the Toughest, Most Resistant Cases

I always say if you want to prove that a new medical therapy works, pick the most recalcitrant, impossible to treat conditions. For if it is a success on those cases, everything else is bound to be a “piece of cake”. And that is exactly what folks have done with the sauna. By getting rid of years of drug residues in addicts, Hubbard freed them from their cravings and addictions, impressively lowering recidivism. Drugs are metabolic poisons, damaging the normal function of the body. Only when years of drug residues have been reduced are folks freed from the plague caused by the slow leeching out of sub-therapeutic doses of stored drugs and toxins. For these trace amounts unmercifully trigger cravings, reminding them that they need a higher dose to block out all feeling. For addicts, it is imperative to get rid of all drug residues in order to cure their cravings and addictive behavior. This includes alcohol, cigarettes, and prescription drugs.

In addition, the accompanying nutritional program has corrected long-standing deficiencies that also trigger addictive behavior, fatigue and a myriad of symptoms. For when it comes right down to it, chronic drug addiction has two causes: nutrient deficiencies which cause cravings and stockpiled unmetabolized drug residues that slowly leach out and cause cravings. That’s why drug pushers give so many freebies because once you get it in your system, it is difficult to resist wanting more, depending upon each individual’s chemistry. The trick is to be smart enough to never take the first dose.

But proof only began there. One of the worst occupations for bizarre chemically-induced or toxic symptoms is that of a fireman. This is because when modern home and commercial furnishings and construction materials burn, they release even more damaging chemicals whose carcinogenic potential has become magnified. Not only does burning of a multitude of phthalates and other plasticizers, PCBs, dioxins and related compounds create chemicals that are many-fold more toxic, but when they are inhaled in massive amounts by fireman, it gives them as high a level as if they had had it by IV.

These chemical concoctions have caused the most difficult to diagnose and treat disorders, especially of the brain and the nervous system. But researchers using Hubbard’s protocol (Kilburn) were able to accomplish what medicine was paralyzed in accomplishing. They restored these toxic firemen to normal once they got rid of their tightly stored chemicals. A sauna program is still the only known way of getting rid of these 20th-century man-made chemicals.

Using Hubbard’s protocol, other researchers (Schnare, Roehm) cleared people of PCBs and pesticides as well as Agent Orange (dioxins). These were folks who had undiagnosable and unbeatable symptoms, totally resistant to all therapies that medicine could offer. But the Master Planner, left one route for us to unload a lifetime of damaging, disease-producing chemicals: SWEAT.

Other clinicians reaffirmed the benefits of detoxifying saunas when, as a result of accidents involving pilots who did aerial spraying of pesticides, these men were also cleared of life-threatening symptoms. Likewise, residents of Michigan gave us a huge amount of scientific information when a PCB-laden cancer-causing fire retardant was accidentally put into animal feed, contaminating their entire dairy industry, milk and cheese, statewide, forever (Wolff).

Studies six years later showed that Michigan residents and folks from over 25 other states who also got the PCBs hidden in their dairy products, just did not get rid of those nasty PCBs. The body does not have the chemistry to do so. Even in the soil, these chemicals are what we call persistent environmental poisons. But those who did saunas were able to eliminate the PCBs as well as other stored toxins from their bodies. The truth is we have all eaten foods from Michigan and have slowly bioaccumulated these and hundreds of other similar toxins that are known as some of the most powerful inducers of cancer in existence. Remember, EPA studies show 100% of humans harbor PCBs, one of the most potent causes of cancer known to man.

But the proof for the magic of sauna detoxification does not end with drug addicts, fire fighters, Vietnam vets, pesticide pilots, or consumers of polluted dairy. Other researchers and clinicians studied workers accidentally contaminated from occupations as diverse as electricians to farmers. Meanwhile, machinists to office workers also had their lives saved, as serious conditions that medicine was powerless to help were reversed through the use of sauna.

Then there are my hundreds of patients with severe chemical sensitivity, saddled with just about any symptom you can think of, who have traveled the world in search of how to get well. When exposed to simple everyday perfumes, fabric softeners, carpets, pesticides, malls or traffic fumes, they were left unable to think or in total body pain, as examples of hundreds of symptoms. Some were referred to the specialized environmental units like the Environmental Health Center of Dallas, (Dr. William J. Rea, www.EHCD.com) or to North Charleston, South Carolina (Dr. Allan Lieberman) and then returned home to continue saunas for life.

Dr. William Rea, medical director of the Environmental Health Center, Dallas, receives the most difficult to treat cases in the world, cases for which there is no more hope and many of whom are physicians themselves. By now you are getting the idea that whenever you hear a disease is “hopeless”, it merely means no one has looked for the underlying cause, nor have they been committed to getting rid of it. For this is why Dr. Rea’s program has been so successful because he does just that. And sauna is an integral part of it.

In fact, Dr. William J. Rea, medical director of the American Environmental Health Center in Dallas Texas, has treated literally thousands of patients with nearly every diagnosis, incorporating this technique into an all-encompassing environmental medicine program. Because these patients come from all corners of the world, are desperately ill and have all exhausted everything that modern medicine has to offer, getting rid of their underlying chemicals is crucial to their healing. In fact, when physicians knowledgeable in finding the causes of disease are totally stumped and do not know what else to do for seriously ill patients, they often send folks (and themselves) to this unique center.

These people are so full of chemicals and their detoxication pathways are so damaged, that often they will need one or more months of detoxication saunas at the unit to be followed by months and years of saunas at home.

In one study by Dr. Rea, 210 patients with a variety of symptoms did only one or two 40-minute sessions a day for one month (Rea). Even a program this short with people for whom medicine had nothing more to offer yielded impressive results. Within one month 63% measurably decreased their levels of toxic chemicals and 31% improved their symptoms. Clearly, sauna is the only proven method for depurating a lifetime burden of xenobiotics producing “incurable” symptoms.

As lifesaving as sauna programs are, however, there was a problem with saunas. Not everyone could tolerate them. In fact, I was one who could not even spend five minutes in a sauna. For starters, as you have learned, the nervous system is one of the most commonly damaged areas of the body. Many of us just plain had broken, poisoned, thermostats and could not tolerate high heat.

I sprayed herbicides (atrazine) on our farm and my autonomic nervous system became damaged. For decades, whenever I got overheated, I would never sweat, but just remained bone dry and beet red. If I tried to go in a sauna I couldn’t stand it even five minutes, feeling like I would go crazy. Many people experience this because of a damaged autonomic nervous system, especially those with multiple chemical sensitivities, chronic fatigue, MS, and fibromyalgia.

And then there are heart patients who are notoriously intolerant of heat. The newspapers predictably report on the numbers of heart patients who die whenever there is a heat wave. Consequently, heart patients and especially those with congestive heart failure would be the last people on earth you would want to put in a sauna. So what do you do when the worse the poisoning, the less chance you have of tolerating a regular high heat sauna?

The Superior Sauna —FIRS (Far Infrared Sauna)

What is the best way to get rid of toxic chemicals including pesticides, heavy metals and hydrocarbon residues when you cannot tolerate a sauna? When a sauna makes you feel weak, sick, have a fast heart rate, faint, dizzy, panicky, headachy or just plain miserable, what is the solution? The far infrared sauna. Thanks to improved technology, the far infrared sauna is far safer and infinitely more tolerable, because it uses a heat energy that penetrates tissues, triggering mobilization of chemicals from subcutaneous fat storage, directly into the sweat. This activating penetration allows for a much lower overall temperature to be used (as I’ll show you later), one that is enjoyable and not torture.

But more important, you haven’t forced the body to bear very high temperatures (160 degrees and higher), pulling chemicals back into the bloodstream where they can duplicate original symptoms. Instead, they slip out the back door, so to speak, from just under the skin storage directly into the sweat. Over weeks and months, there is an equilibration, where chemicals that were stored in other organs slowly and safely disseminate throughout the body and eventually empty into subcutaneous fat. It is the chemical load that is stored beneath the skin that is the main area activated by the far infrared sauna.

Another thing I always worried about in a conventional sauna, even for the few brief moments I could stand one, was the fact that my eyeballs burned so much. I couldn’t believe that intensive heat on my corneas was good for them and feared triggering cataracts. To my knowledge, no studies have ever been done on this, but this high temperature on the eyeball and lens cannot be good for them. It’s unphysiologic. Anyway, I do not get that type of eye pain in the infrared sauna, only profuse sweating. And that is just the effect you want in order to release a lifetime of toxins from body storage.

The body gets rid of stored chemicals in stool, urine or sweat. The sweat route requires no drugs and is the most efficient and natural (man used to physically work and sweat before computers were invented). As the oldest of eight children, I used to hesitate to recommend something as expensive as a home sauna. I was looking for treatments that were natural, but inexpensive and definitely not high tech! But when you realize the lifelong incapacity and expense of diseases such as chronic pain syndromes, heart disease, chemical sensitivity, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, migraines, Alzheimer’s, cancer or any others caused by chemical toxicity, a sauna is cheap. Let’s face it: high-tech pollution requires high-tech solutions.

(1) Just add up the time and money you wasted getting diagnosed. (2) Or add up the cost for a year of prescription medications and you will have paid for it. But its advantages do not end there. (3) Once you have it, it’s yours to use forever, for the world will never run out of ways to poison us. (4) The whole family can use it. (5) It is not only capable of providing the primary “cure” or solution for your current medical problem but can free you from symptom-producing medications. Since we are continually being bombarded by new chemicals every day, it is a tool to keep you “cleaned out” for life. It is a win-win situation.

I’m convinced that the far infrared sauna is something that everyone should do to restore health, and then continue to do on a less frequent basis to maintain the “cleaned out” state for the rest of their lives. It’s therapeutic as well as prophylactic.

The Hot Solution for Body Pollution: FIRS

How can we bring aging and illness to a screeching halt? Better yet, how can we turn back the hands of time? By booting those nasty disease-causing chemicals out of the body. Sweat out the poisons is the answer, but not any old sauna or sweating program will do, in fact, some are dangerous.

FIRS, the Only Sauna Proven Safe For Elderly, Severe End-Stage Heart Patients

Many people who are sick, like heart patients, would never tolerate the extreme temperatures of regular saunas. In fact, it would make them worse, raising blood pressure and heart rate, while triggering arrhythmias and shortness of breath. Clearly, heat is contraindicated. Imagine a man with cadmium-induced arthritis and hypertension, or a woman with mercury-induced shoulder pain and angina, or toluene- p induced migraines and arrhythmia. When, environmental chemicals create pain in addition to cardiovascular disease, as examples, what is the heart patient to do?

If you are like most people, you may have never learned much about the diagnosis of CHF or congestive heart failure. Yet it attacks more people each year than cancer, and it is as lethal as cancer. For with the diagnosis of cancer, the median survival (different cancers have their own survival rates, but if you average them all together) is 6 years. With CHF, the median survival is less: 5 years. When the diagnosis of cancer is made, folks feel imminent doom and urgency. But with CHF, it has received such scant press that it merely engenders a “So what?” response. It fosters no doom and gloom urgency.

In fact, even though congestive heart failure is more prevalent and more lethal than cancer, folks know so little about CHF that they do not concern themselves with preventing it the way they do cancer. CHF starts with any heart symptom you can imagine. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, angina, arrhythmias like atrial fibrillation, dyspnea (shortness of breath, beginning with the stairs and inclines), claudication (leg pains when walking), pedal edema (ankle swelling), pericarditis, cardio-myopathy (heavy metal or other poisoning of heart muscle), fluid in the lungs, recurrent pneumonias, bypass surgery (putting new coronary vessels in) or endarterectomy (roto-rooting or reaming out the old plugged arteries) can be the beginning that insidiously leads to congestive heart failure. The most common symptom is shortness of breath, especially on stairs, inclines, or while doing repeated deep knee bends, or jogging. An even worse sign is the swelling of ankles at the end of the day, indicating a heart so overloaded that fluid backs-up all the way to the leg vessels.

As with every illness, in “modern medicine” CHF suddenly becomes a deficiency of a multitude of heart drugs. Drugs to control the rhythm, like calcium channel blockers (proven to cause shrinkage of the brain and loss of mental function as well as increase the risk of heart attack and cancer). And ACE inhibitors are often prescribed, known to cause bronchitis (chronic cough). Digitalis-type drugs like Lanoxin to boost the force of contraction, and diuretics or fluid pills to decrease the swelling and work of the heart (and known to cause worsening of high blood pressure and the chance of sudden death by heart attack) are some of the other drugs added to the brew. And the list does not stop there, for the CHF patient has more drugs on board than most other diseases. Meanwhile, the real underlying causes, which can be totally correctable, go consistently ignored by medicine. And once a congestive heart failure victim starts accumulating drugs, it is extremely rare if any drugs are withdrawn. Instead, his physicians steadily pile on more to keep pace with his worsening symptoms.

Part 2        Part 3