Stephen's Story

Once upon a time I was a normal guy. Or so I thought. I ate what everyone else ate, I drank what others drank. Maybe I ate more chocolate and drank more coke than beer, but aside from that, I was normal. Little did I know that I was setting myself up for a health disaster.

It came in the form of a panic attack, disguised itself under a load of work pressure and a trip to the gym where I climbed on the rowing machine and rowed for an hour. Being an ex-rower and having never been beaten on the rowing machine, I wore my name of "Steroid King" with pride and so I assumed I knew what I was doing. I went home that night knowing I had done something serious. Work got in the way, as we were implementing SAP, and my side of it, the order confirmations, was going horribly wrong. It took a week of this when I sat back in my chair one particularly stressful day and thought “Oh God, what is this horrible feeling?”

I decided to go and get it checked out immediately and not wanting to alarm anyone, I got in my car and left for the doctor, who happened to be 30kms away. I got half way. Thankfully there was a cop on the highway and I pulled up behind him because I could go no further. It felt like 100 tons were sitting on my chest, I couldn’t breathe, my mouth was dry and I had pins and needles all down my left arm. “I’m having a heart attack” I squeaked at the cop. He sprung into action and put some orange cones behind my car, radioed someone, and after that he seemed clueless. Thankfully my wife phoned back, I had been talking to her all the way telling her to book me an appointment with the doctor, so I motioned him to take the phone. She got there in record time and they pushed me over and she drove me to hospital with him escorting us. They stuck things in my arm and pills down my throat and let me out 2 hours later with the diagnosis of a panic attack. Not being familiar with the term, I asked how many of these cases they treated a day, the answer was about 8.

I was home from October 2004 until December trying to recover from it; I just couldn’t face anything stressful. We went on holiday in December, but on the first Friday afternoon of my first week back at work, I drove onto the highway and it was at a total standstill. I felt a cold shiver down my spine and thought “Oh no, not again!” I crawled all the way home again where Denise wanted to know what had happened to me, because I was as white as a ghost when I walked through the door. This began a series of mini-attacks where every week I would suffer another one, and it would take me a week to recover. It started to progress into my sleep where I would be sleeping perfectly and without dreaming anything bad would suddenly start awake in a mad panic and that would be the end of any sleep for the night. I would drift off to sleep and as soon as I did that, I would start awake again. This went on night after night.

After 2 months of this Denise and I were both sleep deprived wrecks. Eventually one very desperate day we decided that we need to see our doctor. He cheerfully and confidently prescribed Prozac to me, and said I would be on it for the rest of my life, then proceeded to describe a few of the side effects I could look forward to like no sex drive. I don't need to tell you what this does to a guy, so you must know I was desperate to still go ahead and pop the pills. He also said that he had patients that couldn’t go outside their house; another couldn’t leave her room because of fear that they would have another panic attack. Sounds great, doesn't it… Yet, I was so relieved for some form of solution that I cried like a baby… okay maybe not like a baby, but you get the picture.

For 2 weeks, life seemed better until one night I woke up with the shivers. I’m not a cold person at all, yet in the middle of summer I was freezing, I put on every piece of warm clothing I could find and more blankets yet nothing helped. The next morning I phoned the doctor and his great advice was to increase the dose of this stuff! It concerned me that he didn't even suggest I see him first, over the phone he put the loaded gun in my hand and said fire away Jack!

That was the turning point where we decided to take our health into our own hands. Denise emailed Mary-Anne Shearer and she told us to contact Mark her husband because he also used to suffer panic attacks. Up to this point we hadn’t heard about anyone really recovering from this still to us, strange phenomena. Rather they were just coping with the condition, so I was immediately interested. Mark was very friendly and helpful. He said that he would go for a business meeting at a coffee shop, drink a cup of the best, and by the time he reached his car, he would have a full blown attack. He told me to drop all caffeine, sugar and to contact Sue, the Natural Way Health Consultant in our area. He also said I must start taking Barley Life, preferbly the Garden Trio right away. I was like "Garden what?" Yet, at the same time would have taken just about anything to get well.

We went to see, Sue, the Natural Way Consultant closest to us. She went through the list of side effects that Prozac has, one of them being panic attacks! How's that? The very thing this stuff is supposed to help me recover from causes them! I was shocked! I won't bore you with the rest of the list, but let's just say that my lack of sex drive would have been the least of my worries. She ran through our diets, gave us a new eating plan compromising of lots of fruit and veg. We also signed up and placed our first AIM order.

We changed doctors and the new doctor said she can medicate or I’m going to have to do the work to get over this. We immediately said we will work. She gave me less addictive pills to replace the Prozac, and sent me to a shrink to help. He was great, he told us what this panic attack was, how to start dealing with it and my personal favorite – it won’t kill you. That info really helped!

So we started putting all this info together with our new eating plan and the Barley. We were taking it twice a day and I found that it really helped. In my previous life, I really couldn’t picture how I could eat properly, but it came so easy and I loved it. I started feeling much better. I started reducing the medication, and eventually one day when it had finished, I was on my way to work and the highway was a standstill. Right then and there I had my second panic attack. Denise can to fetch me and took me off to the doctor again, who drugged me up and sent me home.

It took a while for the medication to finally wear out of my system, but once it was out, I felt much better. With a panic attack, there is a trigger, and my one trigger was being stuck on the highway. But I had another one. I was convinced that my heart was going to pack up at any second. This was the more intense fight to overcome, and I went through this awful phase where as soon as I left work, I would suddenly have this shift in my wellbeing, like a click and suddenly I was out of phase – like anti-matter – I was still here but not here, like I could die at any second, like my life was hanging on a thread on its last leg. This was a very scary phase and I had this continual stabbing pain in my chest and this brought on huge fear too. I had countless trips to the doc who would give me an ECG jus to make me feel better and send me home. It made me feel better just to sit in the waiting room, knowing there is help at and if I should suddenly have a heart attack.

Slowly and surely it dawned on me that I’m not going to die, all the medical profession told me this, the cardiologist had confirmed my heart is healthy, but fear is another monster to face altogether. This is where the Barley and Garden Trio really helped. I would just have a good dose and go to bed. I had figured out that I will feel better in the morning. I also saw that if I took the Barley at night, I slept better, and woke up better and felt much better than if I didn’t take it at night. So that all the proof I needed. I now take Barley night and day.

My work suddenly decided that I need to go to Germany for a course, but this was right over the time of my 5th anniversary. Work had already stolen 2, so this would put the total back in works favor and we couldn’t have that. I spoke to my boss who said I should take Denise with and have a holiday after that. What a great idea! We started planning and planned to go from Germany to Venice for 1 day, Florence 1 day, a B&B in Tuscany 1 day, back to Florence to catch the train back to Venice to fly to Paris for 1 day to London 3 days, and finally off to Cambridge for 4 days to see my brother and sister. While I was at the Germany hotel with fruit, I was ok, but the other places didn’t have fruit and with such a hectic schedule, I started taking strain. I would spend € 10 for 2 apples and a bunch of grapes. All I can say is thank God for the Barley life, it was such a help. I don’t know if I would have made it without it!

Back home again, my final recover was a trip to the physiotherapist who said I am hunching at my desk and that would affect my chest about here as he ran his figures along one of my ribs and pointed to a spot which was the exact spot where I got most of the chest pain. He did his thing and for the first time in a year I was finally pain and fear free. It was wonderful to feel great, and my health just got better and better from this point.

It’s now 4 years later and I will not go back to my old ways. I understand I was poisoning my life with bad food choices and it will catch up to you. I have found such reward in taking my health into my own hands and eating right. I feel great, look much better, and I have so much more energy. I am so thankful for this intervention that got me to see a better way now while I could still make choices. I encourage you to do the same without waiting for your body to start giving you some warning signs. Most don’t listen.