One Year Later: The Dr. Fernando Vega Diet and Sevenfold Cure

It’s been a year now since I decided to consult a new doctor. The doctor whom I had been consulting before had made up his mind that Chronic Lyme Disease and related infections were causing my myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). I appreciated his willingness to care for patients like me, and his efforts to find new treatments that made a difference. But I did not seem to be improving. I was helping myself by developing a new paradigm of the body and new systems for self-guided sevenfold healing and cure. This system helped me to realize that I still had faith that I would be able find a doctor who could offer new and helpful advice.

Looking around the area, I found Dr. Fernando Vega, a Family Practitioner affiliated with the School of Public Health at the University of Washington, where I was a faculty member until I developed ME. It was clear that he was unusual; he was way ahead of his time in having cofounded a group practice called Seattle Healing Arts that had been going for thirty years and that included practitioners with many backgrounds. I took the plunge; I made an appointment to see him.

At the beginning of the appointment, Dr. Vega asked me questions and listened to what I had to say for well over an hour. He didn’t do any of the things that most consultants have done that have put me off. He didn’t use a computer. He didn’t try to distance me or to put me in my place. He didn’t blame me for my problems or imply that I shouldn’t complain. He seemed to respect my efforts to help myself. He wasn’t paralyzed by helplessness or guilt, nor did he over-compensate with biobabble or waivers. And he didn’t throw me out of his office. Even so, I was still mistrustful; he responded with patience and compassion. I knew that I had found the right doctor.

At the end of the visit, Dr. Vega told me that he could help me and handed me a sheet of paper. Having thought that I had tried everything, and having doubted that he could offer something new at that time, I was astonished and cautiously hopeful. On the sheet of paper was printed an elimination diet that he had developed over his thirty years of clinical practice (Vega Diet). During that time, he had listened closely to  patients and had learned from them and had incorporated what he learned into his practice. He suggested that I try the diet and follow up with him in a few months. I was thrilled to have found a doctor with an independent mind and an interest in the unknown and who was interested in learning new things through careful observation and in developing new treatments empirically.

I went home and followed the diet strictly, supporting it with high quality organic foods from my local PCC Natural Market or a farmer’s market. I prepared the foods simply, most often as risottos. The diet eased my signs and symptoms almost immediately. I had tried elimination diets in the past; this one was different. The only problem was that I couldn’t find foods that I could add back. I choose to continue the diet even so. When my symptoms worsened again, I added Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum’s Energy Revitalization System and Alpha ENF. That worked.

The diet changed my life. By sticking with it, I was able to develop a system of sevenfold cure, and thus to analyze my problems and to begin gathering components of a cure. I will describe this process here over the next few months.

For now, I want to share the Vega diet with those who may not have access to such care and who may  benefit from it (to access it, click the link at the bottom of this posting.) I highly recommend the diet for you to try prudently if you have any one of the emerging epidemics, especially any that may have been labeled myalgic encephalomyelitis, chronic fatigue syndrome, Chronic Lyme Disease, gulf war syndrome, chemical sensitivities, ME, CFS, CFIDS, GWS, or the like. I also recommend it to you to try prudently and in consultation with your doctor if you have obesity, diabetes, MS, or any of the other chronic illnesses that are increasing in some areas for unknown reasons.

Caution: If at all possible, try the diet with the consultation and support of your regular doctor. If you use the diet unwisely, you might develop the same nutritional deficiencies that I did. To avoid this, follow the instructions provided in the image that you can access through the link below, taking care to add foods back as directed or to use supplements as needed. Also, to give the diet a fair trial, limit your foods to those grown organically without pesticides, including Bt-toxin and others that farmers may consider to be “natural.” If you can’t afford high quality organic foods, or can’t access them, see if you can grown them yourself, trade labor for food, or go in with others on community-supported agriculture.

Next time: blood blisters and pink mold

Vega Diet