When I was healthy, I had the luxury of forgetting that my immune system functioned as a precise, intra-related cellular cascade. Suddenly, however, at the age of 45, I quickly transformed from a once-vibrant and high-achieving psychiatrist and ultra-marathoner—running ten miles during breaks between caring for patients—to a sickly, immunocompromised, and bed-ridden patient. My illness began when I was engaged in humanitarian work with war victims in Chechnya, where I was seen as challenging Russian policy and poisoned with what I suspect was anthrax.
My hope in writing about my experience is to encourage others suffering from chronic illness who are poorly or inaccurately diagnosed and are too easily dismissed by Western medicine. Through self-directed health care that creatively mixed Western and alternative medicine, I became my own health advocate, sleuthing the details of my medical ordeal and paving my own road to recovery. My physical recovery was interlaced with spiritual realizations which have vastly enriched my life.
In 2005, while working with children in Chechnya, I developed flu-like symptoms—fever and muscle soreness—during the trip. Days later, my symptoms included nausea, vomiting, lethargy, dizziness, diarrhea, and extreme weakness; I was delirious and unable to move out of bed for three days. Out of our group of seven adults and three children, all of whom were eating the same food, I was the only person to fall ill.
Chechnya is a volatile region marked by armed conflict between Russia and Chechens fighting for independence. Prior to our arrival, Doctors Without Borders abandoned the area, after a doctor was kidnapped and killed. Because of concern about retaliation, I will not describe the circumstances of my trip, such as specific names or dates and places we visited. Suffice it to say that because we were in a war-torn area where Russian approval was required, we were constantly “escorted” by a Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) agent.
Immediately after becoming sick, given the severity of my symptoms, I knew that I had been poisoned. The poison was probably in my food, but at the time I did not know the specific poison, and so for five years I sought answers through traditional Western medicine. It was not until 2010, after biological testing on a Rife machine, that results confirmed a derivative of man-made anthrax poisoning.[1]
Typically, gastrointestinal (GI) anthrax symptoms occur one to five days after the ingestion of spores. The classic signs are an initial prodromal phase with fever, muscle soreness, and temporary loss of consciousness caused by a fall in blood pressure; a second progressive phase with nausea, vomiting, ascites, and severe weakness; and a fulminant phase with increasing abdominal girth, expanding ascites, and shock. Many of these symptoms matched mine, yet I also developed chronic inflammation, arthralgia, autoimmune disorder, and food allergies.
Anthrax is tasteless, colorless, and lethal. GI anthrax is the great imitator, hiding behind a smokescreen of diagnoses, including food poisoning and GI viral infection. Because it mimics other illnesses, anthrax is the perfect biological weapon: difficult to diagnose and, if the victim survives, to verify. Research studies document that after two years, protective antigens to anthrax are no longer present; it is, therefore, impossible to confirm anthrax exposure through research testing of anthrax IgG titers after two years.
Russia has a history of using anthrax as a biological weapon. In violation of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, Russia continued to stockpile anthrax. In 1979, in Sverdlovsk, anthrax spores were accidentally released from a manufacturing facility. The death toll was at least 68, but no one knows the exact number because hospital records were destroyed by the KGB. The cause of the outbreak was denied for years and the deaths blamed on intestinal exposure due to consumption of tainted meat.[2]
Reports indicate that American military personnel preparing to be stationed in Russia were vaccinated with anthrax as a means of prevention and against the use of anthrax in biological warfare. Vaccinations were discontinued when research documented the rate of heart attacks as twice as high after vaccination.[3] Evans (2005) reported that dozens of sick veterans who received the anthrax vaccine complained of fatigue, chronic pain in joints, and mental lapses—and that the Pentagon never told members of Congress about more than 20,000 hospitalizations involving troops who has been subjected to the anthrax vaccine.
Western physicians have limited experience with anthrax. Until the 2001 anthrax attacks against members of the media and the United States Congress, exposure to respiratory anthrax had been rarely seen in the West, and there had been even fewer cases of GI anthrax in the West. One of the most prominent cases of GI anthrax in the United States was reported by Klempner (2010), at the Massachusetts General Hospital, involving a 25-year-old woman who inhaled aerosolized spores and then ingested them by drumming on an anthrax-contaminated animal-hide drum. While she was septic, anthrax was diagnosed by blood cultures.
Many of the physicians who treated me were sympathetic but mystified by my clinical symptoms and misinformed about anthrax. A leading infectious disease specialist sent me for anthrax titer testing — without even knowing such a test did not commercially exist.
Eastern doctors have more experience with anthrax and, consequently, fatality rates reported in the United States from GI anthrax are higher than reported in the East. Kanafani (2003) found that GI anthrax is extremely rare in the West but is more frequently encountered in developing countries. Kanafani maintained that information about the clinical manifestations of GI anthrax is poorly detailed and inaccurate. Hatami (2010) reported finding that GI anthrax is not as rare as previously thought and presents with unusual clinical manifestations that often go undiagnosed. Hatami also noted that doctors are more likely to successfully treat GI anthrax when cognizant of its presence, such as during an epidemic. In Western Iran, for example, the mortality rate of hospitalized patients with GI anthrax has been 64 percent; during an epidemic the mortality rate was 5.53 percent, which suggests that the awareness of patients’ anthrax exposure enables quicker and more effective treatment.
Upon returning home from Russia to the United States, I struggled to get through my workday of seeing patients and supervising residents. Just sitting upright took a monumental energy of will. I felt as if my limbs were anchored weights struggling to move through thick mud. Previously I had enjoyed limitless energy; now I ceased to be myself. My mind no longer functioned as before and I suffered mental lapses, having difficulty retrieving words. I refused, however, to become identified as a sick person or to let the illness prevent me from living well. I had an autoimmune challenge, but refused to allow my challenges to completely overwhelm me. Some days were better than others; I focused day-to-day on getting stronger.
In addition to chronic fatigue, I experienced a puzzling range of symptoms. After two years I had gained ten pounds. My abdomen was swollen and painful. I wrestled with insomnia, despite near-constant exhaustion. Sleeping aids were no help; sleep did not come without high doses of melatonin. I later learned that anthrax is believed to affect the pineal gland produce less melatonin.
Other physical symptoms descended upon my body. As an elite endurance athlete, my respiratory system had functioned effortlessly, but now I was chronically weak. I took ciprofloxacin for recurrent pneumonia, but after initially feeling stronger I soon weakened again; the antibiotics probably further destroyed my already-compromised flora. Although unaware at the time of what I had been exposed to, I was treated with an antibiotic which, ironically, is a treatment for anthrax.
Prior to my illness my vital signs were excellent; now I developed high blood pressure and dizziness. I was unable to walk to the bathroom without hanging onto walls to steady myself. Indeed, military doctors have documented cases where broken bones from falling were the result of anthrax-vaccine-induced loss of consciousness affecting the nervous system.
Research studies have demonstrated that anthrax lethal toxin induces vascular insufficiency in mice. On a subsequent vacation after my exposure, I experienced severe chest pain, heart palpitations, and difficulty breathing. I thought I was having a heart attack caused by the poison, but my stress echocardiogram result was within normal limits.
Chronically immunocompromised and susceptible to many pathogens, I developed, over seven years, recurrent GI parasitic infections as well as generalized yeast infections. Within the first two years after exposure an infection of histolytic amebiasis went to my liver, making me anemic and requiring three separate treatments with metronidazole and other medications. Painful tiny abrasions appeared in the corners and inner lining of my mouth, resulting in periorbital scarring. Additional testing showed malabsorption syndrome of short-chain fatty acids. My immune system had become hyperactive, based on elevated levels of fecal IgA. Low complement C3 indicated chronic inflammation.
While struggling with these physical symptoms, I also struggled with knowing how to handle my symptoms emotionally. As an athlete, I had not learned the value of “surrender,” a term I frame as a positive alternative to “submission.” Ghent (1990) understood that surrender has nothing to do with hosting a white flag; he and I use “surrender” in an Eastern philosophic sense, as an antithesis to submission and masochism and in contrast to the traditional English definition of the word. Rather than carrying a connotation of defeat, surrender enables a liberation and expansion of the self by lowering one’s defensive barriers. In successful surrender, acceptance occurs, and one transcends the condition that evoked the surrender. Surrender is joyous in spirit, fulfilling what Winnicott (1954) describes as the yearning to surrender the false self. Submission, by contrast, is a defensive mutant of surrender, a giving up of agency and responsibility. One way I experienced this way of framing my experience was in being treated with Chinese herbs in an effort to regain my yin (feminine energy) to learn how to rest. Resting was something I had never welcomed; I had confused such behavior with submitting and giving up.
By 2010, after five years of illness, like many others who suffer from chronic disease I had fallen through the cracks of Western medicine. I turned to holistic care. For four years, I was treated with a Rife machine for recurrent pneumonia—and my immune system grew stronger. It is not my intention to recommend alternative care to others—but I no longer was one of the fortunate who responded to Western medicine. The Rife machine put me on the road to recovery, as did various homeopathic medications. One of the many homeopathic medications I was treated with included biological complex II, which targets anthrax pathogen.
In 2011, after searching for different alternative treatments, I was treated with UVBI (ultraviolet blood irradiation)[4], an alternative healing modality to kill the pathogens ravaging my body. After these treatments I had the energy to work through half of my normal patient load, but I still had to rest to walk two blocks home. The benefits I experienced from UVBI were improvement of microcirculation and oxygenation of tissues, resulting in anti-inflammatory effects; strengthening of immune system; protection of my cardiovascular system through increased metabolism of cholesterol, uric acid and glucose; and other anti-infection effects.
Yet when I looked in the mirror, I glimpsed a subtle, sickly glow. Like a leafless tree highlighted with newly fallen snow, my new winter-wizened condition left my previously robust skin drooping. My endocrine glands no longer functioned efficiently and I developed hypothyroidism and adrenal fatigue. For many years, I took a thyroid supplement called thyro-complex, which helped restore some energy. To re-energize my adrenal gland, my breakfast consisted of massive amounts of herbs. It took years to rebuild my adrenal glands back to their original state. I also developed glaucoma, which I was able to heal.
In 2011, I started a three-month detoxification with Thieves—an essential oil that kills anthrax—but other medical sequelae followed. When I was treated by Dr. Sabina Grochowski, a physician with a holistic approach, she exclaimed that my “antioxidants were in the toilet.” Blood tests showed that my glutathione, coenzyme Q10, B7, C, D25, E, folate, selenium, and zinc levels were low. My serum food panel IgG test revealed 20 new food allergies. My HHV6 IgG antibodies test, linked to autoimmune disease, came back borderline high; my joints swelled painfully and strange skin eruptions appeared on my extremities. My eyelids became so swollen and heavy that I could not open my eyes, which were inflamed and itchy. Moreover, painful tiny ulcerations appeared in the mucosa of my vagina and hard cysts erupted in my labia. After years of misdiagnosis, lichen sclerosis and atrophicus was diagnosed. When other medication did not help, I began low-dose naltrexone therapy.
In 2014, I discovered and joined a research study at the NIH called “The Natural History of Anthrax: A Study of Primary Infected, Recovered, and Exposed Individuals and Evaluation of AVA Vaccinated Recipients.” In 2004, researchers had discovered that the antibody to anthrax-protective antigen is lost within two years of infection. Consequently, by the time I located this study, after years of misleading diagnoses by numerous physicians, it was not surprising that after nine years my blood titers were negative.
Due to being in superb physical condition, having a medical background, and being ferociously tenacious, I not only survived, but today, my health and outlook are improved. For the first five years, not knowing what I was poisoned with and not finding any answers through Western medicine, I became deflated, disorganized and panicky. But by taking total responsibility for my recovery and through self-directed health care as well as reframing my illness, I empowered myself to seek alternative medical resources for help. I became responsible to my illness and not for my illness. Eventually, through a combination of Western and alternative medicine, I received needed care.
Much of my glandular system has returned to normal functioning levels, although anthrax damaged my thyroid gland and I am hypothyroid. Ten years after exposure, I started nature thyroid for hypothyroidism, and some of my energy returned. My legs are free from the ball and chain that I labored to carry for a decade. My eyes are less inflamed and less itchy and red. No longer freezing at room temperature, I can take a yoga class and sweat, and not worry if I am going to collapse half way through the class or subsequently develop an infection. My mind is clearer.
Although I may never confirm through traditional Western medicine the name of the poison, my life was forever altered by it. The medical community must have a greater awareness of anthrax's clinical manifestations and medical sequelae in order to lower morbidity and mortality. By better merging Western and alternative medicine, those suffering from chronic illness can be spared my ordeal to receive needed integrated care.
More generally, while those with chronic illness will have different manifestations than my own, key to our recoveries is learning the lesson of surrender, which involves the discovery of one’s wholeness and unity with other living beings, and letting go of submission, which involves feeling of being a puppet. Anthrax both laid me low and humanized me. Anthrax stripped me of the ability to use athletics as a way to feel invincible and prevent others from getting close. No longer physically able to exhaust my body in a minimum of twenty hours of weekly exercise, gradually spiritual parts of myself that had been closed off were aroused. Anthrax was the nuclear bomb that shattered my defensive sense as warrior king, who previously enfeebled my sense of vulnerability. It catalyzed my shift into a glimpse of a higher spiritual state of enhanced love and forgiveness which previously I had mistaken for submission. Anthrax gave me an aspiration to greater service of the divine which was the vehicle to ascertain a deeper meaning in life which healed my fragmented soul.
Although I am, indeed, returning to the physically healthy person I was before Chechnya, anthrax was my gift that awakened me to a spiritual transformation. It allowed me to catch a glimpse of being less concerned with the ephemeral material world to embrace the spiritual world with a deeper connection to others. Through my spiritual growth as a result of becoming ill, anthrax provided me a vision of shifting from submission to surrender, which is life affirming, a leap of faith from the concrete and materialistic, to continue to discover my authentic, divine soul.
References
Evans, B. (2005, December 4). An incomplete picture. The Daily Press. Retrieved from http://www.dailypress.com,
Ghent, E. (1990). Masochism, submission, surrender 1 -- Masochism as a perversion of surrender. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 26, 108-136.
Hatami. (2010). Two cases of gastrointestinal anthrax with an unusual presentation from Kermanshah (Western Iran). Archives of Iranian Medicine, 13 (2), 156-159.
Kanafani, Z. (2003). Endemic gastrointestinal anthrax in 1960s Lebanon: Clinical manifestations and surgical findings. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 9 (5), 520-525.
Klempner, M. (2010). Case 25-2010: A 24-year old woman with abdominal pain and shock. The New England Journal of Medicine, 363, 766-77.
Moayeri, M., Crown, D., Dorward, D., Gardner, D., Ward, J., Li, Y., Cui, X., Eichacker, P., Leppla, S. (2009). The heart is an early target of anthrax lethal toxin in mice: A protective role for neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNos). PLOS Pathogens. Located at http://www.plospathogens.org/article/Authors/info:doi/10.1371/journal.ppat.1000456
Nass, M. (2007, May 31). Evidence anthrax vaccine causes heart attacks. Located at http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/2007/05/evidence-anthrax-vaccine-causes-heart_31.html.
Quinn, C. (2004). Immune responses to bacillus anthracis protective antigen in patients with bioterrorism-related cutaneous or inhalation anthrax. Journal of Infectious Diseases, 190 (7), 1228-1236.
Winnicott, D. W. (1953). Transitional objects and transitional phenomena. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis. 34 (2), 89-97.
Winnicott, D.W. (1955). Metapsychological and clinical aspects of regression within the psycho-analytical set-up. In: Through Paediatrics to Psycho-Analysis: Collected Papers. New York: Basic Books Inc. (1975), 278-294.
[1] A Rife machine produces electromagnetic energy in the form of electrical impulses; finding the correct frequency and producing the proper impulse of the frequency kills or disables diseased cells.
[2] Wampler, R. and Blanton, T. (Eds.), (2001) Anthrax at Sverdlovsk. U.S. intelligence on the deadliest modern outbreak, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 61.
[3]Evans, B. (2005, December 4). An incomplete picture. The Daily Press. Retrieved from http://www.dailypress.com,
[4]UVBI kills pathogens without destroying GI flora. The results are more long-lasting and produce fewer side effects. UVBI involves the insertion of a needle into the vein to withdraw 60mcc of blood that is passed through tubing and then exposed twice to ultraviolet light. The treated blood is then returned to the patient’s bloodstream. Just 5 percent of my total blood volume was treated over a one-hour period with each treatment, but the blood spread throughout the body and enabled a rapid detoxification.