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was a mild daily enema with herbs specific to pitta and liver function to help the impurities exit his body. In the afternoons and evenings Joe rested, took gentle yoga classes, and attended lectures on ayurveda. “Panchakarma had a profound emotional, physical, psychological effect on me,” he says. “By the end of the program I felt ten years younger.” Hoping for scientific proof, Joe tested the efficacy of panchakarma through blood work. “I asked my lab to do a basic blood chemistry profile and a hepatitis C viral load test the day before I started panchakarma and then a few weeks after my treatments were over,” he says. The results were impressive: The first profile revealed that Joe’s viral load was in the low range at 297,086 virons per milliliter, but that an abnormal number of his liver cells were dying daily. After PK, his viral load decreased by over 100,000 virons per milliliter, and his liver cells returned to normal. In the weeks and months that followed, Joe’s energy gradually improved, and some of his excess pitta symptoms, such as irritability and itchiness, began 
Herbal Dusting: This nourishing treatment absorbs oil. |
to subside. Inspired, he began to follow Lad’s road map to health: eating a diet of bitter, cooling, protein-rich foods (avoiding hot, spicy, sour fare); taking pitta pacifying herbs; reducing his intake of alcohol and coffee; self-administering mild oil enemas; exercising moderately; and practicing specific asanas. At Lad’s suggestion, Joe returned for panchakarma every few months for four years. Each time that Joe repeated his pre- and post-PK blood work, the tests showed a substantial decrease in his viral load and a rebalancing of his liver enzymes. And it wasn’t just PK that affected his blood chemistry. In December 1999, he intentionally abandoned all of Lad’s lifestyle advice for 60 days, then repeated the blood tests. His viral load skyrocketed to over 1,500,000 virons per milliliter and his liver cells began dying off again in abnormal numbers. That was enough to convince Joe that the lifestyle changes had a profound effect on his health. (One month later, after another five-day panchakarma treatment, his viral load plummeted by 1,100,000 virons per milliliter and his liver enzymes normalized yet again.) Joe returned to his ayurvedic lifestyle, and although his HCV symptoms didn’t subside immediately, his fatigue, digestive problems, and hypoglycemia disappeared over the course of three years. Then his restless legs syndrome faded away. To this date, Joe has gone to PK 17 times and tries to follow his road map with an attitude of moderation. “I know what’s good and bad for me, and I try to make good choices more than 90 percent of the time,” he says. “My viral load has stayed in the low to medium-low range for the last four or five years, and my liver enzymes have all stayed within the normal range. I have not been able to clear the virus, but I’m completely symptom-free. None of my Western doctors have admitted it’s possible that panchakarma and ayurvedic lifestyle changes could produce such dramatic results, but I have the empirical data to prove it.” Senior editor and former Everyday Ayurveda columnist Shannon Sexton lives and studies at the Himalayan Institute in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. |
{ WARNING }Participation in a clinical panchakarma requires close supervision by an ayurvedic expert at all times, says Julia Mader, cofounder of Rasayana Cove Ayurvedic Retreat in Central Florida. If your body isn‘t properly prepared for cleansing, or your treatments are incorrectly administered, you can overwhelm your nervous system or dislodge more toxins than your body can handle. There are other precautions to consider. “Ayurveda has evolved over thousands of years,” Mader explains. “Now it’s coming to America and people are making a lot of money off of it.” In the process, however, some practitioners are abandoning important precautions, such as residential care, dietary restrictions, and lifestyle adjustments to cut costs and increase their profits. Make sure your PK practitioner is well qualified and makes your well-being the highest priority, she says. Have patience in the process. As Mader observes, “I receive a lot of requests for PK from people who just want to get cleansed very quickly, that’s the American way. But ayurveda is gentle, soft, and slow. In panchakarma, we’re trying to create a gentle wave of cleansing, not a tsunami.” When treatments are too severe, she says, the body holds onto ama even more resolutely, and can push toxins deeper into your system instead of releasing them. CLEANSING IN A TOXIC WORLDMany ayurvedic experts believe that even healthy people need regular panchakarma treatments today because our environment is so polluted. According to research cited by Maharishi Ayurveda, up to 1000,000 synthetic chemicals (including PCBs, dioxins, and pesticides like DDT/DDE) are used... [next page] |