Louise was only three-and-a-half when she came to the Ecology Unit. At the age of two, she had begun to complain of joint pain and had started to run an incessant fever. She had a rash. Studies by a local hospital led to a diagnosis of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Aspirin was prescribed and for over a year Louise was brought for weekly visits to the hospital to have her salicylate (aspirin) levels measured. She also was taken regularly to a famous Midwest clinic, but no demonstrable cause or effective treatment had been found for her condition. She had to be carried into the Ecology Unit.

On beginning the program, she was taken off her aspirinlike medicine. During the fast, Louise experienced a day of vomiting (withdrawal reactions), but after three days of fasting her joint pains completely subsided, and she began walking normally—something she had not done in over a year.

During the next eleven days, Louise was given twenty-six foods to test in their relatively uncontaminated forms. She had strong flare-ups of symptoms after eating carrots, eggs, and chicken, and somewhat less severe reactions to pork, cherry, corn, orange, grape, beef, apple, rice, cane, milk, cod, potato, and honey.

For example, eggs (one of her favorite foods) was followed, about two hours later, with the following reactions: the child said her legs were hurting, and when she was asked where, she pointed to her feet. When eating carrots, she at first reported that she loved them and was in a very happy mood. After 40 minutes, however, she asked for a pillow to sit on because her seat hurt. She soon had a “tummy ache” and loose bowel movement. After one hour, she reported that her knees hurt and pointed specifically to her left knee. She asked her mother, plaintively, “Why does my knee hurt?” Soon she was crying bitterly about the pain in both her knees and was holding her throat. (She had had a polyp removed from her throat the year before.)

Other foods gave no such reactions, however, and the child quickly recovered from these temporary food responses. Kelly left the hospital on her own two feet, completely off her previous medication, and with no pain. There was virtually no swelling in her joints. Since then she has occasionally had intermittent mild swelling in her knee, but without any pain. Her parents have done a good job of keeping incriminated foods out of her diet and of discovering other potential sources of reactions in the environment.

At the other extreme of the spectrum, the clinical ecology approach can also benefit those arthritic patients who are on in years or whose problems are longstanding.

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