Hannah Sharapan's Health Story
Crohn's Disease and How I Was Helped with
MGM's Food Supplements.
[Editor’s Note: Hannah and Alan Sharapan are highly successful
Secret Company Master Coordinators. Hannah’s willingness to share her experiences has
helped countless people. Hannah recounts her experiences with
MGM's Secret
supplements on Natural Solutions for Inflamatory Bowel Disorder, an
excellent resource featuring Nedra Sahr, M.S., C.N.S., available from K&E
Productions at www.keproductions.com/mall or by calling 800-852-5135.]
When I was two years old, I had a bleeding rectal fissure. It reappeared
when I was ten, and then in High School it began to give me real
problems.
Beginning in Jr. High, it seemed like I was missing a lot of school with
rather indistinct symptoms. In High School, my stamina was worse. In my
senior year I became extremely fatigued. I was tested more than once for
mono, once for an ulcer, and I saw the doctor regularly. I missed a good
portion of the last few months of my Senior year, including the day that
I was inducted into the National Honor Society, the day of my Senior
Prom. In fact, in Pennsylvania schools were supposed to hold back a
student who missed more than 29 days. However, because I had done well,
my school simply marked my report card as having missed 29 days.
In addition to the fatigue, by my last few months in High School, I was
also vomiting almost daily. I went down to 70 pounds, and I am 5'2". I
wonder sometimes if today I would have been wrongly diagnosed as an
anorexic?
Unfortunately, I wasn't diagnosed at all--with a guess that maybe it was
psychosomatic. I can remember lying in bed, day after day, wondering how
I could be doing this to myself. Was I crazy? The next moment my
thoughts would go to "what if I had some dread disease and the doctors
were missing it?" I had just finished reading Death Be Not Proud, and I
worried more.
Somehow, I mustered enough strength for graduation and, thinking that
Iooked a lot better, took my place in line for the Grand March. Imagine
my dismay over how I really looked when a teacher handed me smelling
salts. I never heard a word that went on at Graduation. I went to
College in the fall, a little bit stronger and about 8 pounds heavier. I
had alternating constipation and diarrhea, with regular rectal bleeding,
distention of my abdomen, and not infrequent nausea and vomiting. By
mid-term of my Sophomore year, I was falling asleep even sitting up.
Then, hospitalized, tests revealed the elusive culprit--Crohn's
Disease--a serious intestinal disease.
Having to withdraw from College for the term caused me great agony. I'd
be a term behind everyone else. I wouldn't graduate with my friends.
Would my boyfriend find someone else?
The disease was so rare in 1962 that I felt stranger yet. To try to
build me up, the doctor recommended daily milkshakes, not knowing that
most of us with Crohn's Disease can't tolerate milk. I did pretty well
for the next few years--in fact, right up through my Wedding Day when I
married Allan, the boyfriend whom I had worried would leave me. However,
the day after our wedding, I was in extreme pain.
After a large
injection of Cortisone to try to stop the pain didn't work, we found
eventually that I had been perforating. I was so ill for the next seven
months that I had to go to stay with my parents who lived two hours away,
seeing Allan only on weekends. The next two years I was on a treadmill
heading downwards.
My diet was now only tea, jelly, and soda crackers,
and my doctor didn't believe in supplementation. I had now vomited
daily, often more than once a day, for nearly six years. My skin
pigmentation lightened, my teeth went yellow, my hair began to gray. If
only I had known about
MGM's Secret Company. Allan and I saw each other under such
duress that it was tough on our young relationship. I was so weak that
my mother was bathing me and brushing my hair.
Although I greatly feared surgery, the doctors decided that it was the
only way that would enable me to lead any sort of life. The x-rays
showed the disease had spread throughout my intestines; so they said the
best that they could do was to remove just the worst parts. Since it
wasn't emergency surgery, I convinced them to wait for a few months while
I psyched myself up for the surgery.
I'd lie in bed seeing myself well
and picturing the disease localizing to a point that it could all be
removed. It was not until I was in
MGM's Secret Company and learned about
visualization techniques that I realized that I'd been using them. I can
still see my doctor's beaming face when I awoke, and he said, "Hannah, we
got it all. It was localized in just three places!"
Greatly improved by surgery, Allan and I were finally together. During
the next six years, I led a relatively normal life, except for occasional
impactions, lots of fatigue, and picking up many cases of the intestinal
flu which could keep me in bed for a month. Being advised not to get
pregnant, we adopted Halle, and four years later adopted Danielle.
During this time, I had developed some allergy problems and had gotten
fibrocystic disease in the breasts (they think as the result of the ACTH
that they had me on for the Crohn's). I did become pregnant, though,
when Danielle was a small infant. During the pregnancy I did have some
problems--from straining so my cervix dropped so far that I almost lost
the baby. After three weeks in bed for that, I then got a rectal
abscess, one of the most painful things that I ever went through.
Toward
the end of the pregnancy, I began to need daily rectal dilations, having
to drive 45 minutes each way to the doctor's office. This treatment was
so painful that when I'd get up from the table, there would be a ring of
perspiration where I had been. Our oldest daughter, Halle, was starting
kindergarten, and I had looked forward to walking her to school that
first day, but, instead, I was in agony with another impaction.
These
impactions were a result of a rectal stricture (which is scar tissue)
from the Crohn's. The doctors agreed that removal of the scar tissue
would just cause new scar tissue to form.
After delivering Ashley, I continued to have rectal dilations weekly for
the next six years. Then in 1979 we found MGM Secret Company. We were introduced
by way of the business opportunity, but we believed that we had to be
totally sold on the products. I hoped I would be able to tolerate the
supplements, because I couldn't handle any of the ones I had bought at
the store. I hoped, also, that the
MGM's supplements might give me
that sorely-needed energy which I lacked; and perhaps that vitamin-C
might reduce my colds.
I truly believed that that was the most that
vitamins and minerals could do for you; and with even those results I
would have been thrilled! Was I ever in for a pleasant surprise when I
did get the energy. Plus I gained three hours a day because of needing
less sleep. Then my digestion vastly improved. In fact, for the first
time in a long while I was really absorbing my food.
Since
Secret Company, I am
able to keep my weight with little effort after a lifelong struggle with
being way too thin. My allergy symptoms virtually disappeared; and
within months so did the cysts. In July1 979 I began the
MGM Secretsupplements, and July 1979 marks the month of the last of the rectal
dilations.
Four years later I went to the doctor and he said that as long as I was
there, he wanted to check the stricture. Reluctantly, I agreed. I was
shocked! I had only what I would call normal discomfort. The doctor
looked at me in disbelief and exclaimed, "Hannah, the stricture is gone!"
As he sat down to write on my chart, I can still see him, his head
shaking; as he recorded and barely audibly repeated, "The stricture is
gone--no more scars!" Me! He has told me since then that another doctor
examining me would say that the examination showed an essentially normal
rectum.
He added, "You are a living testimony to your products!"
This is the
MGM Secret Company Food Supplement program I follow:
I started very slowly, like this:
1st Day--1/2 tablet of Alfalfa at breakfast
2nd Day--1 tablet of Alfalfa at each meal and 1 at bedtime. I gradually
built up to taking 4 each meal and 4 at bedtime.
After the first day or so when I could feel that I tolerated the Alfalfa
well, I added 1 B-Complex at breakfast Anyone with a digestive problem
knows that it is a good idea to try one new food at a time, so I suggest
the same with supplements.
Based on personal experience and experience in working with others, I do
feel that anyone who sticks to working out a program will be able to
tolerate all the supplements and feel much better on them. Every person,
however, will have to find his/her own rate of adding on other
supplements and amounts thereof.
The next day, I increased to 1 B-Complex a meal, and now I eat 2 a meal
and
1 at bedtime.
Next came Calcium. Now I eat Calcium Complex Chewables. I eat only
about
4-6 a day.
I have read that there is a zinc and Vitamin-C deficiency in Crohn's
Disease cases. I eat 4-6 zinc a day and 12 Vitamin-C Sustained Release,
divided up over mealtimes and bedtime; I do increase these two
supplements if I feel a cold or flu coming on.
Next came the Vitamin-E 400 IU tablets. Vitamin-E is reputed by many
nutritionists to break down scar tissue, and based on my personal
experience, I have to believe that that is true. I eat 6 Vitamin-E
tablets daily.
I eat 8 Vita-Lea for Children each day.
I now use a minimum of 3 tablespoons of Instant Protein at breakfast,
but, again, gradually I built up to that from a slow beginning. I began
mixing 1/4 teaspoon at breakfast, then 1/4 teaspoon per meal, on to 1
teaspoon per meal and then up to 3 tablespoons of Instant Protein at
breakfast.
Generally I drink my Instant Protein in apple juice or a blend of apple
juice along with other juices, such as cranberry or apricot nectar.
I began with Herb-Lax when I started the Alfalfa. If someone has the
constipation that I did, that person will often take Herb-Lax initially,
too.
More often Crohn's patients suffer from a chronic diarrhea and are
concerned with taking too much Herb-Lax. Sometimes they have to
experience results before gaining the confidence in the products. I have
heard many people say that they felt that Herb-Lax had actually helped
them get over diarrhea problems. The way I began with the herbs was to
lick a tablet the first night; the next night I broke off a crumb, then
subsequently 1/8 of a tablet, then a 1/4, then a 1/2, etc.--cutting off a
bit at a time.
When Fiber Wafers came out, I added 1 a day--that seems right for me.
When EPA and Beta Carotene came out, I added them, eating 3 of each each
day.
As far as diet is concerned, once I started to do much better and to feel
much better because of the supplements, I became interested more in
adhering to sound nutritional ideas. Over a period of time, I found
improvement by eliminating red beef, seeds, sugar, and pop. I had gotten
off milk years ago. I rarely eat anything fried. Now I eat lots of
brown rice, chicken, fresh vegetables, and some fresh fruits and fruit
juices (not citrus).
Summary of the
MGM's Secret Food Supplements I now take:
After gradual build up and experimentation, my daily regimen is as
follows. These supplements are divided up by taking some four times a
day, at meals and at bedtime.
Alfalfa--16 or more Herb-Lax--1 (at bedtime only)
B-Complex--7 Calcium Complex--4 Zinc--6 Vita-C (Sustained Release) – 12 I
add Chewables if I feel a cold or infection coming on)
Vita-E 400IU Tablets--6 Instant Protein--3 or more Tbs (at breakfast)
Vita Lea for Children--8 EPA--3 Beta Carotene--3 Fiber Wafers--1 In
closing, let me emphasize the importance of checking in with a client who
has Crohn's Disease every two days until you have them on a complete
Secret Company program.
They need constant reinforcement until they get results.
Hannah Sharapan
Buy MGM Supplements online:
http://www.mgmsupplement.comEditors note: the manufacture/company name has been changed in this testimony to adhear with the P&R Guidlines.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
