06/07/2026
Featured Article
HOW TO HEAL FASTER!
by Larry Heisler, M.A., LMT
www.newjerseymassage.com
A fella came in for a medical massage session and began my intake by saying:
"I was sitting at a red light when a car came barreling into me at 35 miles an hour. Apparently, the driver wasn't paying attention. The ensuing whiplash left me with herniated discs in both my cervical and lumbar regions. Consequently, I've had years of pain.
And here's the problem...
that was five years ago, and it still hurts, sometimes bad."
My first response was, "Yikes that's tough,"and then I continued by saying, "Our body is made to heal, and over time it usually does.
But sometimes when an individual eats a lot of sugar, or an excess of highly inflammatory foods like red meat, their body does not have the essential building blocks for adequate healing, and they suffer much longer unnecessarily. Add to those refined carbohydrates like white bread, desserts, soda, white rice, junk food and you create a roadblock to self-healing.
Obviously, many Americans have serious nutritional deficiencies, and critical healing takes significantly improved nutrition along with other important regular practices like exercise, massage therapy, controlling stress (cortisol) and a very good vitamin/mineral supplement program to supercharge your outcome.
Another important hindrance to healing successfully is an acidic bloodstream. All these bad food elements; sugars, refined table salt, soda, sparkling carbonated beverages, coffee, and most of the flesh foods including meat, poultry, fish and cheese and simple carbohydrates in general, are all highly acid forming. Remember, your body goes out of its way to maintain alkalinity (homeostasis, a mildly alkaline ph. of 7.35).
An acidic bloodstream creates an oxygen deprived environment that depresses the immune system and can become a breeding ground for everything from cancer to candida but most importantly can slow down recovery to a crawl.
When nutrition pioneer, Dr. Nathan Pritikin was in residence at the Mayo Clinic, he introduced his revolutionary plant-based diet and exercise protocol to the clinical world of medicine.
At that time the notion of curing degenerative diseases like heart disease, arthritis and diabetes with diet or supplements was considered ridiculous and physicians strongly admonished anyone promoting the idea. They were to be labeled quacks.
Miraculously Dr. Pritikin's predominately plant-based program was showing for the first time, in clinically controlled studies that heart disease, the major cause of death at that time in the United States could be reversed!
Furthermore, his program was successfully treating patients at Mayo with every form of cardiovascular disease like congestive heart failure and many other serious degenerative conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, insulin dependent diabetes, gout and severe cases of hypertension.
In one study group of men confined to wheelchairs,
blood supply to the legs was so bad that the average patient could only walk a few hundred feet.
After six months of Pritikin's low fat, low protein, high fiber nutrition and walking program, the results were so dramatic as to be almost unbelievable. Every wheelchair bound patient was walking 6 to 10 miles a day.
"According to Dr. Melvin P. Judkins, who supervised the angio-graphic studies of the patients, a return to normal without drugs was effected in 100% of the experimental group patients with angina, diabetes treated by oral agents, gout, arthritis and elevated blood lipids; in 75% of those with hypertension and diet controlled diabetes; and in 50% or more of the insulin dependent diabetics and those with congestive heart failure.
When questioned about the amazing reversal of diseases,
Dr. Pritikin, who first proposed the highly complex carbohydrate diet in his book, Live Longer Now explained that with a regular exercise routine, the diet produces changes within a few weeks which increase blood flow and raise the oxygen content of the blood. The improved circulation quickly improves the patient’s condition and permits the body to start the healing process that is key to permanent recovery.
In other words, when a person eats a plant-based diet, they significantly increase their oxygen content and blood circulation thus dramatically speeding up their healing and recovery."
Bestways Magazine (1977)
So, a plant-based diet can significantly oxygenate your body and speed up healing.
AND THAT'S NOT ALL YOU CAN DO TO SPEED UP HEALING...
1. MANUAL LYMPH DRAINAGE!
When you clear the waste passageways, the body can speed up healing and recovery. The human body contains between 500 and 700 lymph nodes, and these are a major part of our bodies’ sanitation system. The lymph is just under the skin and requires a very light pumping/stretching action to move them along. Throughout your body there is a virtual road map where the lymph travels and moves. Some of the pathways carrying lymph are like smaller side streets in your home neighborhood, others are like larger routes and there are a few main roads and highways. If you know the pathways, the special strokes used in MLD can dramatically speed up the removal of the body’s waste. This can be especially powerful when the body is overwhelmed with health and nutrition challenges or preparing for surgery and specifically to speed healing post op. Lymph transports at a speed of 10-12 beats per minute. When you have more waste products (pollutants, to***co, chemical exposure, excess fats, sugars, alcohol), the lymph system can be especially burdened, and travel (detox) can be hampered. To speed up the system or as it is called the lymphangiomotoricity, exercise, diet and breathing exercises can really help and an actual 50-minute MLD session can speed up the process by a factor of 10 times! Thus, massage therapists trained in MLD can significantly help drain the bodies’ wastes clearing up many conditions and boosting the overall immune system and the bodies healing capacity.
2. Eat a predominately PLANT BASED complex carbohydrate diet consisting of whole grains, beans, seeds, nuts, fruits, vegetables, sprouted greens like broccoli sprouts, lots of green leafy vegetables, sea vegetation (kelp, wakame, arame, hijiki), fermented foods especially miso (as in all types of soups regularly, minimum three times a week), maybe some tofu, tempeh, perhaps a small amount of animal foods such as fish or seafood. When eating flesh foods, make them a side dish, not a main course. Try more alkalizing foods like lemon water, apple cider vinegar, and natural alkaline Spring water like Mountain Valley, Icelandic or Fiji. Minimize the highly acid forming foods and beverages (coffee, chocolate, sugar, and its substitutes, simple carbohydrate rich foods like soda, bread, white rice, etc. and animal flesh foods (beef, pork, etc.) and dairy products (can be inflammatory and acid forming).
3. You can try natural anti-inflammatory supplements like Vitamin D, nattokinase, magnesium blends, MSM, turmeric/curcumin, DHA, essential fatty acids like flax, borage or evening primrose oil, Co Q 10, antioxidants, sea vegetables. I take a comprehensive supplement program that includes supplements that you might have to look up like gamma tocotrienols, N-Acetyl Cysteine, olive leaf extract, pine bark pcynogenols, glutathione, alpha lipoic acid, and a bunch of mixed formulas with all the mushrooms and more esoteric herbal blends. Many of the supplements I take significantly improve the life expectancy of lab animals, I’m betting they will do the same for us!
4. ENZYME THERAPY
For special soft tissue recovery, surgery and bone healing:
It is well known and established that athletes treat sports injuries and especially their recovery from vigorous competition with of all things, digestive enzymes. Apparently digestive enzymes, the type folks take for assimilating their food better, also works for athletes when taken in larger doses and especially in between meals. The theory is the enzymes flush out the waste products of competition like lactic acid, much faster and helps the athlete recover from fatigue more efficiently. In a double-blind study, oral enzymes with placebos, athletes taking the enzymes three times a day before the events, were shown to heal 50% quicker than those taking the placebos. In an article written by K. DeFelice in the January 2003 issue of Sports Nutrition Magazine, Mr. DeFelice states,
"Sports injuries are often treated with protease enzymes because of their ability to effectively reduce inflammation and at the same time speed the real healing of bruises, swelling, and other injuries."
That same article also states, "Several studies showed that when enzymes were taken before surgery, the swelling from the injury left around seven days quicker, on average, than those taking a placebo; post-surgery recovery was also much more rapid (e.g. Duskova and Wald 1999). Although studied extensively abroad, North America has not been as quick to recognize these conclusions and adopt enzyme therapy."
