How I Got My Life Back - Part 1

When I reached my late twenties, I started to feel pain in my left knee while running. After years of running as much as I wanted, I could no longer finish a three-mile. I was concerned that something serious was wrong with my knee, or that age was catching up with me. The latter excuse seems ridiculous now that I'm in my fifties, but at the time I was ready to believe it.

Luckily, not everyone was as pessimistic as I was. Sometimes in life, you meet an angel just when you need one. My angel came in the form of a colleagued named Garrett, a six-foot two-inch Irish American fireball of enthusiasm and positive energy. 

Garrett was the most kinetic person that I had ever met. He had already run a number of Ironman Triathlons and was training hard to improve his time. He used to go out on eight-mile runs at lunchtime. 

When I learned that Garrett was an endurance athlete, I chatted with him a few times about training and about tips for avoiding injury. He was supportive and always happy to share information. When I mentioned my sore knee during one of our conversations, he didn't seem to think that it was a big deal.

"You should go to my doctor," he suggested one day. "He's a sports medicine guy." I wasn't sure what that meant, exactly, but I figured that if he could help an Ironman, he could help me. I took down the number and made an appointment.

The doctor was as unlike Garrett as you could imagine. Calm, subdued, decidedly low-energy. I had trouble trouble picturing those two in the same room together. 

Sports medicine turned out to be Applied Kinesiology. Imagine chiropractic for the whole body, not just for treatment of the spine.

I told the doctor about my sore knee during the initial consultation. He poked around for two or three minutes and presented his diagnosis. In his relaxed, golf announcer voice, he told me that I had a toxic liver.

"A toxic liver?" I asked. It sounded kind of scary. "What does that have to do with my sore leg?"

He explained that there are close connections in the body between the skeletal muscles and our major internal organs. When an organ is under stress, it weakens the muscles to which it is most closely related. The liver relates to the left quadriceps muscle. The weakened quad was contributing to my knee pain.

If you thought that the diagnosis was unusual, just wait until you hear the prescription. 

"Drink apple juice," he said. "Apple juice cleanses the liver. If you want to accelerate the process, add a tablespoon of extra virgin olive to the juice. Just make sure that the olive oil is labeled 'Extra Virgin' and 'First Cold Pressing'."

If you think that apple juice mixed with olive oil might taste disgusting, give yourself a prize. The two ingredients never fully blend together. It tastes as though you have both of them in your mouth at the same time, and that just tastes wrong. It feels wrong, too - it's slimy.

I wanted to be a good patient, and I wanted to be able to run again, so I choked down that nasty mixture day after day. And what do you know? After a week, the knee pain was gone. The apple juice and olive oil was nothing short of a miracle.

Over the years, the good doctor treated me for a number of aches and pains. When I moved out of state, I asked him if he could recommend another Applied Kinesiologist in my new area. He gave me a name and number. I lost the number, but remembered the name. For years, I never got in touch with this new guy. But a storm was brewing.

(to be continued)

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