HOW HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE MEDICINES RUINED MY HEALTH AND AYURVEDA/YOGA HELPED ME

In the previous blog, I have already explained that high blood pressure controlling allopathic medicines work by changing the flow of blood and not by cleaning our blood vessels. In this blog, I shall be narrating my own case history to explain you the gravity of depending upon such quick fix solutions that spiral down one’s life. For ease of understanding, I have divided the blog into five sections:-

• My case history starting from the time I began facing these severe, chronic and painful imbalances,
• The exact science behind my horrifying experiences
• How I managed them using Ayurveda, Yoga and Spiritualism and
• How incomplete understanding of medical sciences delayed my cure and how i could have been spared of my horrendous experiences,
• The silver lining of these experiences

Do share it with your near and dear ones, so that they stay away from such medicines, which are nothing but slow poisons and instead learn Ayurveda to live in line with their constitution.

To understand fundamentals of Ayurveda and about your constitution please watch these two videos

• Understanding Vata, Pitta and kapha in the modern scientific language
• Understanding your Ayurvedic constitution

MY EXPERIENCES

Here I Begin…. Year 2007 was the time when out of nowhere I developed a love for Ayurveda and Spirituality through various books that I used to pick up from the library. Life was seemingly going great with me doing fine on the personal as well as professional front in the corporate world after retiring from Indian Army as a Captain. Physically too, with minor ups and downs as in everyone’s life, I used to feel fitter than the most. I used to maintain a strict exercise regime, eat a healthy well-balanced diet as per my wisdom and enjoy lots of professional assignments, and slog and slog. Perfectionism was my motto.

The beginning of Neuropathy

Till around 2011 beginning, being in a state of inertia, I never realized that my body was getting into a state of serious imbalance solely because of the long term use of BP medicines that I had been taking, and what to ignore the symptoms, my mind never even registered them. This is what happens with most of us that due to this state of inertia, we fail to register subtle changes that are taking place within our body, mind, and behavior, not just because of medicines, but also because of the foods that we consume along with the environmental and situational inputs. And then began the testing phase of my life when I first developed mouth burning syndrome. It was a constant nagging, burning pain that kept on increasing inside my mouth and around it as well. Slowly this burning started soaking up my ears, eyes, arms, groins, legs, and all over the body. This burning pain was coupled with other symptoms like unnecessary nervousness, irritation, confusion, shaking legs, weight loss, headache, breathlessness, heart and throat burning and loss of sleep. From a person who used to confidently address a gathering, I was reduced to one who could not even speak properly. During these distressing times, I would have visited several doctors but without any respite and then I also began visiting Ayurvedic specialists.  But I was getting zero relief from any medicine.  And soon I realized that while the burning pain continued, my brain stopped registering things around me and my vision started blurring. I used to remain very confused and wondered what was going wrong with me. The burning pain, especially in the mouth, was so intense that I used to writhe all the time, and soon after, it started affecting my decisions, my daily routine, and not only just my professional life, but also my personal life.

Brain fog

For quite some time, I literally felt like a zombie. From a person who did not even need a calculator to perform even the most complex calculations; I turned into one who would find it difficult even to understand the basic logic of things and what was going on around me.  I used to forget my own statements and/or figures within seconds. It was as if my mind had stopped processing any information. I started having minor road accidents because of the confused state and had to do away with driving. A lump used to remain in my throat all the time, which would not allow me to even speak properly. A hint of excitement (for whatever reasons) used to dry my throat profusely and used to give me continuous tremors and shivers. Howling due to nightmares during the sleep had become a regular phenomenon with me that my family used to encounter. I used to feel extreme cold while inside my workplace due to centralized air-conditioning for which I had to take frequent hourly breaks just to stand under the Sun. But on the contrary, if I would stand under the sun for too long, I would begin having burning sensation throughout the body along with surge in mouth burning. Doctors named it as neuropathy along with brain fog. They tried everything they had in their armamentarium on me and even I tried all possible therapies apart from allopathy and Ayurveda whether it be homeopathy or acupressure.

When i discovered that BP medicines were the cause of my pains

On several occasions, I even asked the experts about the safety of sartan, the BP medicine that I was taking at that time and if that was the reason for this super-burning, but everyone turned me down stating that sartan can’t be causing this and it’s a very safe drug. And then in 2011 end, I finally decided to stop taking sartan and switched over to ayurvedic BP medicines. And yes! within a week itself, my problem of mouth burning subsided significantly to tolerable levels. However, even discontinuation of Sartan did not have any positive impact on my state of mind because by this time nerve suppressants coupled by my spice-less diet had numbed my brain (though I realized this fact later on after I properly started understanding the principles of Ayurveda). My body had become hypersensitive to even minor changes. I used to have strong cravings for spicy foods since I had stayed on a spice-less diet for a long time, but the moment I would satiate my cravings to feel a bit elated, my lump in the throat, dryness and burning in my mouth, lips, eyes, loss of control on my emotions, and burning in my peripherals used to erupt intensely.

When my quest to cure myself changed my perspective of life

During this period, to the best of my memory, I would have read thousands of articles and a number of books on Ayurveda and modern medical science, just to understand what was going wrong with me, and yes, by that time, I had vaguely started understanding the connection between the two. I also underwent PLR (past life regression) sessions and auto writing sessions to understand why and what was going on with me.

SCIENCE BEHIND MY EXPERIENCES (BRAIN FOG, NEUROPATHY, TREMORS)

This section will explain the precise science behind my painful experiences. Years of usage of Sartan and Atenolol had drastically reduced blood from my upper body and also peripherals leading to high vata there. The result was high Agni (allopathy calls it neuropathy) leading to burning of mouth, face and entire body and short circuiting of brain (before I proceed further I must mention that all this knowledge has come to me only after my brain got totally healed). So, today I can recall that why and how, my brain had become highly confused (due to high vata) and why was it sending signals in jerk to the entire body leading to literally Parkinson’s type symptoms. Now, once all this happened, I had no option (even subconsciously) but to totally cut down my spices and pitta increasing activity to get relief from this constant burning (neuropathy). The result was slowing down of blood circulation and since very less of pitta was reaching in brain, it led to further increase in mental fog as a bit of pitta is essential to burn the food else it is bound to produce toxins (since brain doesn’t have pain receptors, high vata there manifests as fog and not pain).  

HOW AYURVEDA/YOGA AND SPIRITUALISM HELPED ME

Ayurvedic BP meds contain Brahmi along with other herbs and works by pulling blood from nearby surroundings and take it to brain to calm down vata there thus bringing down the BP (Of course there are other strategies too to control BP by Ayurvedic ways…. for detailed working of BP control through Ayurveda please check this blog⇒High Blood Pressure? Ayurveda Has A Sure Shot Cure (with testimonial). Once my otherwise hyperactive brain (due to less blood and high vata) calmed down along with spice less diets, I began to realize the lifestyle mistakes (especially eating) I had made in my life including the effect of BP meds which had created all this chaos. From astrological aspects, this was the end of my Rahu’s mahadasha and beginning of Jupiter’s period.

*** To understand my case history from Astrological angle and understand how Astrology has evolved from Ayurveda only, please click this link to reach the first blog of astrology series.

Once I understood the ill-effects of BP meds, I got into learning Yogasanas to reverse the effect of BP meds and slowly and gradually began getting relief especially with the help of headstands. I used to do headstands even in my office especially before presentations as otherwise I used to find it difficult to recall things and felt confused and nervous. However there was a flip side. My mind earlier had gone so high on Vata and pitta (Vata due to BP meds and pitta due to my lifestyle in Army) that it literally burnt down my body (and blood) which apparently used to look fit only because of pseudokapha (swollen due to sour foods). The result was that when I slowed down and did headstands to increase blood flow towards upper body, they further reduced blood from my peripherals resulting in severe and chronic body aches, which doctors named later as fibromyalgia. To combat this I realized that Asana like Moolabandha  which increases blood towards peripherals was helping me. However with time and thousands of experiments on diet and Yogasanas, I realized that with limited amount of blood in the body (high Vata), I have to walk on a thin line since if I increase blood towards one part of the body (to reduce Vata and thus discomfort in form of pain or burning), I get discomfort in some part where blood reduces.  In astrological terms, it can be said that my Saturn is very high (and in my chart too Saturn is debilitated).

HOW INCOMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF MEDICAL SCIENCES DELAYED MY CURE AND HOW I COULD HAVE BEEN SPARED OF MY HORRENDOUS EXPERIENCES

A very important aspect that needs a mention is that my horrendous experiences could have been lessened to a great extent had my attending ayurvedic physician known that how BP medicines represent an extreme bitter taste from Ayurvedic perspective and how they increase vata and are the cause of my mouth burning and associated problems. In absence of any guidance (not even from allopath docs), i continued allopathic BP meds which were aggravating my issue. On the other hand brahmi concoctions were trying to increase blood towards my brain as mentioned above leading to further increase in mouth burning etc. All this could have been avoided if my ayurvedic physician had the conviction to taper off my allopathic BP meds while introducing ayurvedic BP meds to calm down my high vata brain. It took me one year to take this call of removing allopathic meds on my own in absence of any guidance which further increased vata imbalance in my body. Today i have been able to help many people to get rid of their allopathic BP meds with this strategy because i clearly understand that how both of them work. However there was a silver lining to all my experiences….

THE SILVER LINING TO MY EXPERIENCES

Once my brain calmed (slowed) down, I began getting answers to every aspect of my life. It was like Domino effect where one realization opened hundred more windows of realization and so on and so forth. This realization dawned upon me not only due to my own experiences but also due to the knowledge that I gained from other’s experiences through books etc. And that’s how I could connect the dots (of my experiences/knowledge and others experiences), to understand the exact science behind Ayurveda, Astrology, Yogasanas, Pranayama, Meditation etc. which I penned down in my book THE ROOT CAUSE and blogs. That’s how I could get to peep inside the grand plan of the higher realms. That’s how I realized that earth is a school where we come from the higher planes to learn/impart real-time lessons to each other.

Today I know that my sudden love out of nowhere for Ayurveda and spiritualism in 2007, was part of the grand plan that would have continued from the previous lives. Today despite my bodily discomforts, I am glad and thankful to almighty for choosing me to go through this beautiful journey towards understanding the real meaning of spiritualism. Today, I realize that living on a thin line helped me to understand the subtle effects of everything around and therefore my uncomfortable state was a blessing in disguise, which taught me soooo much (that is why they say that Shani or Saturn gives instant results). Today I can guarantee that with the knowledge that I have gathered through my experiences, I can happily live for hundreds or may be thousands of years and SO CAN YOU ALL if you read my book and blogs. Today I can confidently say that YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT and therefore it is important to be mindful of what we eat through all our five senses. Today I can guarantee that the day we understand this and implement it in true letter and spirit, we shall win the war on diseases- mental as well as physical and then the world will be a healthier and happier place because crimes/ego issues/unhealthy criticism/wars/terrorism etc. are nothing but the indications of unhealthy mind only.

***This post is an extract from the book -THE ROOT CAUSE- Ayurveda, Astrology and beyond for a blissful life”.