Serious eye disease is well…serious.
For many with these conditions the message given to them is one of no hope and few options for lasting treatment. 30 years ago this message bothered Grace Halloran, who felt that something could be done if you took the time to look closely at the problem. She did just that and now we have a program many use to reverse their eye disease.
So there is hope after all.
Something we commit to here at Organic MD is a dedication to this approach to health. To look at what is possible. To look at effective methods of healing from different traditions because if it works – it’s worth exploring more. Sometimes modern medicine forgets this and chooses to draw from a limited well. Grace reminds us the power of curiosity can create positive change.
Today’s post is Part One in a three part series looking at Retinitis Pigmentosa and a treatment for this challenging disease. Although you may not be relating to this particular issue, the video is worth the watching. You can learn something about our basic system of healing that if supported works miracles.
Watch the video here:
Leave a comment. Ask a question. Part Two coming soon.
To Your Health.
The transcript of the video follows below:
Retinitis Pigmentosa Treatment Now – Part One:
Your Genes Are Not Your Destiny.
Hi this is Dr. Damon Miller your Organic MD.
And this is Carlyle Coash. Welcome to the Organic MD video podcast. This is another in our series on different subjects.
This particular series is going to be on Retinitis Pigmentosa.
(Dr. Miller) We’re going to be talking first about some of the genetics of RP –
Retinitis Pigmentosa – and then the next talk will be about some the research that’s being done for Retinitis Pigmentosa. The final of the three talks is going to be about what we know about the treatment of Retinitis Pigmentosa.
So..I just want to start – You know it’s important to understand that there is a genetic underpinning to these diseases – meaning that these diseases run in families and in most people who actually are diagnosed – if you go looking – you’ll find an abnormal gene.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t recommend that everybody run out and get genetic testing – we will talk about that in a little bit. But there is a gene that’s abnormal. What’s interesting – there are whole medical journals devoted to the study of the genetics of Ophthalmalogic disease.
One is called Ophthalmic Genetics.
And they did an article some years ago. It was called Genetics Uniting What Ophthamologists Divide. Ophthamologists base their diagnosis on what the eye looks like – what the retina looks like – are you losing central vision – like you would see in Macular Degeneration. Or are you losing peripheral vision? That’s what you would see in Retinitis Pigmentosa. Do you have abnormalities in an electro-retinagram – it’s a test that’s done that helps diagnose Retinitis Pigmentosa and differentiate it from other diseases because you have a loss of electrical activity.
So these diseases in a way look different.
They clinically appear different but they all have the same gene. The same gene that has abnormalities maybe at different places. So why is it that you have one gene that can have these abnormalities and in one person it looks like one disease and in another person it looks like another disease?
And nobody really understands that at all. Why is it that one person would have a genetic abnormality and it shows up when they are five years old and another person has a very similar abnormality and it shows up when they are 70.
So there all kinds of things that go into these genes, whether your body expresses it or not – when it expresses it.
The story isn’t just do you have a gene or not. And that’s one of the reasons why I don’t recommend that people run out and get these genetic tests. It just promotes a lot of fear and it doesn’t tell you really what’s going to happen to you.
So…Grace Halloran (who really developed a lot of the work that we still are using today) she herself had Retinitis Pigmentosa. Her son was born and from a very, very early age you could tell by looking at his eye that he was going to have the family disease and have a bad. It was really because of him and trying to help him that -that’s what lit the fire under Grace to try and find things to do for this disease. Thankfully for us all she found a lot of things to do that are very effective and we’ll be talking about those the treatment things in the third talk.
Her son – he had at an early age, had it young and her family – actually the particular disease they had was a combination of central and peripheral vision loss – so it was sort of a combination of Macular Degeneration and Stargardt Disease – sort of the worst of both worlds.
The bottom line here is to remember that these diseases are more similar than they are different and so the treatments that we’re going to talk about apply to all of these diseases. The research applies really to all of these diseases. If you have Retinitis Pigmentosa and you see an article about Macular Degeneration read it because it’s going to be relevant to you.
(Carlyle) So the tests… it sounds though like there is a test that you can have to see if you have the gene? Is that worth doing?
(Dr.Miller) Well… one of the really exciting parts of medicine now is something called Epigenetics. Epi is a Greek prefix that means “on top of” so it’s the information on top of your genetics. So you do a genetic test it’s just going to look at your DNA sequence. The sequence of base pairs in your DNA. But that DNA is all wrapped up in these very complex Proteins and Histones and all kinds of things that shape it, control it, how it folds, what gets expressed on the genome and what doesn’t get expressed.
And that’s only just beginning to be understood. But it’s clear that you can have very abnormal genes that never get expressed and why they would get expressed later in your life and not expressed earlier in your life – there’s just a whole world of information here that nobody really understands. What’s clear is that Your Genes are Not Your Destiny. I don’t care what they say you have on a gene test it doesn’t mean you’re going to get that disease.
And this is true…I don’t care if you’re talking about kinds of cancer or degenerative diseases in the eye or metabolic diseases like diabetes. These tests promote a lot of fear and they don’t give you knowledge that’s really going help you. If you want to keep your vision and you’ve got the gene for one of these diseases, you’ve got to do the things that we’re going to be talking about to take care of your health. Real basic stuff to take care of your health.
Because that’s what’s going to keep you healthy.That’s what’s going to keep you from getting these diseases. That’s what’s going to allow you to go to your grave with good vision.
(Carlyle) So I guess we’re going to hear about that in the next….
(Dr. Miller) Oh yes there will be more!
(Carlyle) Yes! Thank you so much for joining us. This is just part 1 of 3 installments and we will continue next time…
(Dr. Miller) And I just want to throw in here. Carlyle and I just published a book called Stem Cells Heal Your Eyes. It is available on Amazon.com – Stem Cells Heal Your Eyes. It’s a great book and it really lays out all of this information we’re going to be talking about here.
So if you want know more go get that book – you’ll love it.
(Carlyle) Have a good one, talk too soon and keep looking out for new episodes.
(Dr. Miller) – Thank you.
