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Finding out I had chronic kidney disease – CKD – was only the start of it.
Realizing that CKD is really difficult to treat… and that it inevitably gets worse was shocking.
I faced ending up on a dialysis machine. Hoping and praying for a suitable kidney donor.
And losing years off the end of my life because with CKD… there’s no way out.
As my doctor showed me, all this has now changed. CKD is not the life sentence it once was.
And as I found out myself, he was absolutely right. Today chronic kidney disease for me is a distant memory..!
Take a look at this and I’ll explain.
Want text version instead of video? Here is simplified transcript…
I used to believe that once you had chronic kidney disease then that was it… you were pretty much stuck for life.
I thought there was not much you could do – except tweak it as best you can and hope to goodness that it didn’t get worse.
Maybe you’ve heard the same.
I really believed it too.
But I don’t any more.
Because of something my doctor showed me I now know there’s an awful lot you can do to manage CKD – and what you can do turned out to be literally life-changing.
CKD isn’t a life-sentence
I was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease – CKD – just over 2 years ago.
My doctor explained that there is a number of reasons why we get CKD. But it was always caused by something else that was already going wrong in the body.
Diabetes, heart disease, various cardiovascular diseases, being very overweight and so on. They can all cause CKD.
High blood pressure was the cause of my CKD.
Your CKD may have a different cause. But the result is the same.
My doctor told me that chronic kidney disease can’t be tackled directly. Instead, doctors address the diseases that cause it in the first place.
Which, for me, meant tackling my blood pressure problem.
It might be a different fight for you depending on what’s causing your own CKD.
But whatever the cause, the strategy is the same: alleviate the problems of the CKD itself while addressing the underlying disease that is causing the CKD in the first place.
Unfortunately, using standard methods CKD can – and often does – get progressively worse. As it gets worse it becomes a significantly more threatening disease.
There was no way I could just accept that. No way.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to accept it. I did something else instead.
Which has meant that these days I can’t remember what CKD even feels like anymore.
But before I jump ahead of myself, let me make this important point.
My doctor taught me something very worrying about CKD.
The disease has 5 stages. Stage 1 is the mildest.
Stage 5 is as serious as it gets.
Stage 5 can shorten a person’s life by many, many years.
You do not want to reach stage 5.
My CKD was at stage 3 when it was discovered. Most of us only discover our CKD when it’s already well underway.
The danger here is that CKD gets progressively worse. Doctors find it very difficult to halt CKD’s progress into stages 4 and then 5.
At stage 5 you are plugged into a dialysis machine. You hope and pray for a suitable kidney donor so that you can squeeze some more years out of life… before finally succumbing.
Dialysis machines and kidney transplants were not for me.
I didn’t care that other people coped with being strapped to a dialysis machine for hours on end four or five times a week.
That’s them. It’s not me.
And I didn’t care that, for people lucky enough to find kidney donors, better transplant techniques meant that they weren’t dying so quickly afterwards.
As far as I was concerned… once you reach the kidney dialysis machines and transplant stage your days are numbered.
I had – and still have – many years of life ahead of me.
And I wanted those years to be healthy, happy, enjoyable.
Not ill, diseased… watching my clock run down.
I felt very low, to be honest.
My doctor gave me the standard spiel: we can handle the symptoms, we can try to address underlying causes… with the right meds you could lead a fairly normal life. And so on.
I told him this wasn’t good enough. I didn’t want my life cut short with a disease that – at least officially – had no way of being reversed.
I didn’t want to watch myself deteriorate week by week. I didn’t want to be plugged into a dialysis machine. I didn’t want a transplant.
And I didn’t want to die early.
I was very upset. I didn’t know what to do next.
But I didn’t want to just do nothing.
I’ve known my doctor since college. He’s a trusted friend. He told me to come back at the end of the day and we could go for a coffee and a chat.
He had something important to tell me.
Well, what my doctor told me that afternoon was jaw-dropping.
He described how he’d witnessed five of his own patients treat their chronic kidney disease to the point that they now experienced none of its symptoms.
Here’s the thing: they had first treated the underlying cause – the condition that gave rise to their CKD in the first place. That had led to the melting away of both that condition’s symptoms and their CKD symptoms.
Which was staggering. We’re talking about diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, obesity here…
He wouldn’t claim they no longer had the disease – professionally he’s not allowed to say that yet. Tests are still taking place, official verification is required – that takes years to complete.
But when one of his own patients attempted an alternative health approach to his chronic kidney disease…. and by all measures, succeeded… my doctor couldn’t ignore that.
The effects weren’t temporary – they lasted.
My doctor explained that conventional medicine was still testing these new remedies. But ordinary people had jumped straight in and had been applying them for some years.
No drugs, no hospitals… and the results were fantastic.
I was excited and nervous when I heard this. But everything we discussed that day I went on to prove to myself.
But before I jump ahead of myself let me tell you what else my doctor told me.
We’ve always known that CKD is caused by other conditions: diabetes, high blood pressure, heart conditions, too much excess weight and so on.
So it makes sense to tackle those conditions if we’re to address CKD.
Doctors tackle those conditions either by significantly reducing their effect on our bodies… or by successfully reversing them completely.
This much has been well understood for a long time.
We also know another vital element of the story: that the conditions I listed above – diabetes, high blood pressure and so on – are often the result of low-level, ongoing inflammation in the body.
Those conditions are either made worse by this ongoing inflammation – or, more often, are directly caused by it.
Finally, we’re well aware that the inflammation itself is mostly caused by a faulty immune system.
In other words, our immune system is being triggered way too often.
Which leads to ongoing inflammation… which in turn overwhelms our bodies and creates damage throughout.
So… a faulty immune system… leads to widespread inflammation… which leads to one or more of the diseases mentioned. Which leads to CKD.
This is the pathway to disease.
But what causes the faulty, malfunctioning immune system in the first place?
What’s that initial trigger that sets off the whole thing?
That has always been a mystery. Yet if doctors could find out how to stop the immune system from malfunctioning then the inflammation, the disease and the CKD… all goes away.
In the last few years scientists finally found out.
The immune system malfunction that causes your chronic kidney disease comes from problems in the gut.
We now realize that, incredibly, most of the western world’s major killer diseases begin in our guts.
This one insight has changed forever how scientists now tackle disease.
And this isn’t theory, by the way. It’s not guesswork.
It’s heavily researched, scientific knowledge.
When we’re talking about your gut we’re not talking about bloating or stomach ache or anything like that.
We’re talking about the fascinating environment within your intestinal tract.
That environment – also called the microbiome – contains trillions of fantastically useful bacteria.
We’re used to thinking of bacteria as being harmful. But over 90% of the bacteria in a healthy gut perform functions that keep you alive.
They do things for you that your body itself simply cannot do.
When healthy gut bacteria dominate our guts – and unhealthy gut bacteria are kept to a minimum – we are at our healthiest and happiest.
When this balance is disturbed we get ill. If it’s disturbed for long enough, we get very ill.
Here are just a few functions gut bacteria carry out for us:
Good bacteria literally keeps us alive. So we need it to be in the best shape possible.
If the number of good bacteria are reducing then bad bacteria gain an upper-hand in your gut.
Given enough time the damage they cause to your body can be bad, then severe – then fatal.
Conditions that are directly linked to poor gut health include:
Recognize anything on this list?
If you have even one of these then your gut health either has a major hand in it or – in most cases – your gut health is the actual cause of it.
Remember the pathway to disease we mentioned a moment ago? We understand that pathway now:
Poor gut health leads to immune system malfunction… which leads to low-level inflammation… which leads to one or more of the above diseases. Which then leads to CKD.
By the way, if you’re a Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) sufferer who has been told that your diabetes is for life because its cause is unknown… that story is currently being rewritten.
Consider this from a 2018 white paper:
Recent evidence shows that altered gut bacterial composition is highly associated with T1D and, thus, targeting gut microbiota may serve as a therapeutic potential for T1D patients.
‘Pathogenesis’ simply means ‘the development of the disease’. The scientists here are suggesting that the therapy for Type 1 Diabetes is to target the state of the sufferer’s gut health.
Or this from a 2019 white paper:
Among the included studies, 24 articles confirmed the association between gut microbiota dysbiosis and T1D.
‘Gut microbiota dysbiosis’ refers to imbalances in the environment of the gut. Here, the researchers have confirmed that the state of the gut is associated with Type 1 Diabetes.
Dozens of heavyweight scientific research papers are reaching the same incredible conclusion.
Researchers aren’t allowed yet to claim that repairing gut health successfully eliminates T1D – even though the evidence points convincingly in that direction.
But gut health is heavily implicated in T1D – in the same way that gut health is now known to often be the only cause of all the other conditions I just mentioned.
It’s this insight that is now leading us into startling – yet very simple – remedies for western society’s most deadly diseases.
Get those gut bacteria healthy and everything that was going wrong – including CKD – starts going right again.
But what causes our guts to become unhealthy?
There’s no doubt at all about the causes: it’s our lifestyle choices.
‘Lifestyle’ simply refers to the usual suspects: stress, sleep, fitness and diet.
Which, at first sight, all seems pretty bland and dull. We’ve heard all this before.
But now it’s very different. Because now scientists understand the direct link between what we do… and how we get disease.
Poor lifestyle habits slowly ruin our gut health. They decimate good bacteria – allowing bad bacteria to thrive and expand their deadly effects.
Our gut environment becomes less helpful to us… and steadily more deadly.
Which makes it inevitable that, in time, we will end up either very ill or fatally ill.
The damage that bad habits do to our gut bacteria is almost the entire reason we are tired, ill, overweight, suffer low moods and struggle as we get older.
We say it’s ‘age’ that causes disease. That’s absolute nonsense.
It’s the slow and steady neglect of our gut health that causes disease. We do it to ourselves. We don’t mean to. But it’s what we do.
Poor lifestyle habits are the primary reason (for millions of us, they’re the only reason) we contract western society’s worst diseases – heart, blood, liver, kidney…
Your basic lifestyle habits directly and dramatically determine whether you’ll be ill at all.
And if you will be ill those habits determine which illnesses you’ll get – and how they will play out over the long-term.
Take heart though. This knowledge is, literally, life-saving.
We’ve now discovered at the deepest level why we get ill.
Which means we can get well again.
Simple, specific changes to some daily habits are now ridding people of a whole array of horrible conditions.
There is a right way of doing this, of course. It’s not simply a matter of ‘eating healthily’ (whatever that means) or ‘getting more exercise’ (which not all CKD sufferers are able to do).
When someone is so ill that their kidneys are starting to fail then correcting specific lifestyle habits can change their life.
Done properly, it can save their life.
Beware though that the standard advice we see in magazines or on popular websites isn’t right for CKD sufferers.
We have a specific condition and that requires new and very specific action. It’s easier than most people believe – but it has to be right.
Correcting these lifestyle factors properly can be literally transforming – more powerful than medications and even more life-improving than surgery.
But diet – what we eat and what we drink – is the kingpin of disease.
It’s the supreme dictator of how we’re going to suffer as we grow older – or even if we’re going to suffer at all.
You can eat your way back to healthy gut bacteria – and, therefore, full vibrant health.
There are many, many foods that you can eat unlimited amounts of.
Including – happily – a number of foods that ‘fad diets’ tell you not to touch.
Everything you need to eat can be bought at a local supermarket. Half of it is possibly already in your kitchen.
Essentially though you must eat enough of the right things in the right quantities. Do that and everything else falls beautifully into place.
I thought sleep and stress and fitness and diet were just things that other people paid attention to. I was sensible enough to not eat like a pig.
And I didn’t think I was suffering stress any more than the average person was. All life has some stress, doesn’t it?
But, really, I didn’t give my food – or anything else about my lifestyle habits – much attention.
In truth, I didn’t really know how to.
I enjoyed life, worked hard… but behind the scenes things were steadily going wrong with my health.
Today, I thank my lucky stars that I found out how to undo what was going wrong.
My health today is like it was 25 years ago. It’s like I’ve not aged a single minute.
Today, we know accurately what we can do to make all the nasty stuff go away.
If we address our health problems today in ways shown to actually work…. then we can reverse the diseases that plague us.
And as we do this, the symptoms of chronic kidney disease melt away to nothing.
That’s an opportunity we’ve not had before. Because only now have scientists finally worked out the full path – all the steps – from good health to disease.
Remember the path: gut health… malfunctioning immune system… widespread inflammation… disease… CKD
And understanding that, we have a simple way of going backwards – of reversing from CKD back to health.
So my doctor is explaining all this over coffee – well, three coffees to be accurate.
It was a heck of a lot to take in.
It all led to one obvious question though: how do I go about applying all this to myself?
How does an ordinary person like me make use of all this powerful stuff?
My doctor told me he knew of a health practitioner who had turned these new insights into a series of steps for CKD sufferers to follow.
The program showed them a way out of their suffering – all described in plain English.
He had already recommended the program to other CKD patients. And those who followed it enjoyed life-changing results.
That’s exactly what I wanted.
I wanted something I could do – something that I knew others had successfully completed.
Something that had successfully addressed their CKD.
The program that does it is called The Chronic Kidney Disease Solution.
It was created by Shelly Manning, a natural health practitioner who already had stunning results in other areas of health.
The patient who had first told my doctor about this program had himself suffered diabetes. If he could successfully address that and his CKD… then I wanted to be doing what he had done.
I ordered it as soon as I got home and it arrived in my inbox a few minutes later.
I started reading it there and then. And that was the moment my life changed forever.
Today I don’t know if I still have chronic kidney disease or not.
Even though he had seen it before, my doctor was delighted by my transformation.
A transformation I was able to feel and he was able to measure…
Today I eat very well, sleep soundly and am super relaxed.
I’m slim, happy, healthy and on top of the world.
I no longer experience any CKD symptoms. Not one. My blood pressure has been normal for over a year now.
I still have routine tests to ensure all is okay. It always is.
Whether I’m officially still a CKD sufferer or not, I doubt I’ve been this healthy since my twenties.
Shelly Manning’s The Chronic Kidney Disease Solution is a straightforward plan for the complete relief of CKD symptoms.
All I had to do was follow Shelly’s instructions. My body naturally took care of the rest.
It was easy work. And some of the pay-offs came quickly – I felt different after just 4 days.
Some of her instructions were so ordinary that I couldn’t see how they would have much effect. But they did.
And given that I’ve swapped high blood pressure, diseased kidneys, tiredness, fatigue and low mood for vibrant health and a very big smile…
…I can safely say that doing what she advised was one of my smarter life decisions.
Let me be bluntly honest with you here. Going from healthy to ill didn’t happen in an instant. Years of unhelpful lifestyle habits led gradually to chronic kidney disease.
We address illness in the same way: step by step.
So Shelly’s program works us back to health through three very specific phases:
Phase 1: Protect from kidney damage
First we stop damaging our kidneys any further and give them the space they need to heal.
It takes some simple alterations to our daily habits to achieve this.
We begin addressing gut health too. Those good bacteria respond quickly and as they recover so does our health.
I felt positive effects of this within days: a little less tired, a little more focused, more cheerful.
Phase 1 also directly focuses on balancing blood glucose levels.
Note this isn’t a portion-control or calorie-control diet. Shelly encourages more eating, not less. It’s knowing what to eat that makes such a profound difference.
Phase 2: Restore kidney function
We continue to establish stable blood sugar levels for life.
Gut health has significantly improved – I was feeling noticeably more energetic, focused and upbeat. And despite eating as much food as I liked I was 12 pounds lighter.
Having released the stresses they were under my damaged kidneys were now slowly regaining their original functioning.
I was sleeping better than I had in years – even though I’ve never had a real sleep problem.
Phase 3: Repair and renew kidney tissue
At Stage 3 blood sugars are naturally stabilized – and they stay that way.
My blood pressure was now comfortably back in the healthy range – which was both a delight and a relief.
Using specific foods and natural supplements I generated new stem cells to repair kidney and heart tissue. The supplements were cheap and I got them from my local supermarket. I only had to use them for a short period – but the benefit was enormous: I was literally creating a new, healthy body.
So much about my health was completely turned around. CKD symptoms were completely gone. Life-threatening blood pressure was normalized.
Shelly’s program is natural, simple and easy to follow. No doctor visits, no drugs, no complications. No bills, no expenses.
Which is why thousands of people are now taking the decision to transform their lives like this – and bring to an end their disease once and for all.
Okay, I’m teasing a little bit.
But I eat plenty yet remain slim. Mentally and emotionally I’m on top of the world.
I’ve not just finally addressed my chronic kidney disease – and the associated conditions that caused it.
I’ve also extended my lifespan. I will live longer.
And I’ll enjoy those extra years in good health – without the endless illnesses, medications and hospital visits that we’re conditioned to expect as we age.
The health effects of doing the right things has a profound effect on every aspect of my wellbeing – even at the smallest details.
I don’t even catch colds anymore!
It’s like I swapped a tired out body for a brand new one.
These aren’t miracle outcomes. Shelly isn’t claiming to be some sort of health genius who discovered something that nobody else noticed.
These life-enhancing changes come from researched, verified, documented science from the US, Europe and across the world.
Outstanding health is simply the inevitable result of making the exact choices that the body needs you to make.
We’re so used to getting ill we forget that your body isn’t meant to be diseased. It’s meant to be healthy.
Illness is caused. And it’s our lifestyle behaviors that cause it.
By undoing lifestyle damage you’re simply restoring yourself to the good health that your body always tries to reach anyway. You’re returning yourself to normal.
Shelly’s lifestyle plan shows us exactly how to do that.
Three years ago I decided not to suffer the deeply unpleasant effects of chronic kidney disease a moment longer.
I didn’t want to end up strapped to a kidney dialysis machine. And I didn’t want to have a transplant.
Today I am completely free of all chronic kidney disease symptoms. My blood pressure is now consistently spot-on. My weight is down, my sugars are stable. My energy is high, my mindset is optimistic and relaxed.
I’ve never felt like this before.
It feels like a miracle. But it isn’t. This is nature at work. This is cause and effect.
Like millions of Americans I’d unknowingly made myself unwell. Now I have knowingly made myself super well.
You deserve this too. I’m guessing that, for you, enough is enough. You want your health back.
Well, you can have it back – just like thousands of us already have. Get Shelly Manning’s The Chronic Kidney Disease Solution right now and you can join us in great health…
Her program works – but in case you’re the cautious type she has a full 60-day money-back guarantee. No questions.
Thousands of us are now fully healthy and happy. Join is now…
Remember: your body strives to be healthy. It does its best.
Lifestyle mistakes – the kind that millions of us make – work against it.
Undo those lifestyle mistakes and your body starts working its way back to its preferred state – which is vibrant health.
Do exactly the right things the right way and it’s impossible to avoid being healthy, energetic and happy.
Shelly Manning shows you exactly what those right things are.
Protect, restore, renew… not just your kidneys but your entire body.
Thousands of us did it – you can too. Start today.
Click here to receive the program…
What you address gets better. What you ignore gets worse.
This is especially true with chronic kidney disease.
Imagine being attached to a kidney machine 3 or 4 hours a day… for 4 or 5 days a week.
No more holidays. No independence. And a life expectancy reduced by 10, 20 or even 30 years.
And if you’re lucky enough to get a kidney transplant? Then the doctors can give you an estimate for your date of death. Because they know the transplant is temporary. It’ll keep you alive for only so long.
Your life is basically on a countdown timer.
Who on earth wants all that?
Not me. Not you. Don’t put yourself through all this.
Act now and make everything right again. Get The Chronic Kidney Disease Solution here…
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My Chronic Kidney cb | Blue Heron Health News is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked.
TORONTO – Health Canada has authorized Moderna’s updated COVID-19 vaccine that protects against currently circulating variants of the virus.
The mRNA vaccine, called Spikevax, has been reformulated to target the KP.2 subvariant of Omicron.
It will replace the previous version of the vaccine that was released a year ago, which targeted the XBB.1.5 subvariant of Omicron.
Health Canada recently asked provinces and territories to get rid of their older COVID-19 vaccines to ensure the most current vaccine will be used during this fall’s respiratory virus season.
Health Canada is also reviewing two other updated COVID-19 vaccines but has not yet authorized them.
They are Pfizer’s Comirnaty, which is also an mRNA vaccine, as well as Novavax’s protein-based vaccine.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
TORONTO – Sanniah Jabeen holds a sonogram of the unborn baby she lost after contracting listeria last December. Beneath, it says “love at first sight.”
Jabeen says she believes she and her baby were poisoned by a listeria outbreak linked to some plant-based milks and wants answers. An investigation continues into the recall declared July 8 of several Silk and Great Value plant-based beverages.
“I don’t even have the words. I’m still processing that,” Jabeen says of her loss. She was 18 weeks pregnant when she went into preterm labour.
The first infection linked to the recall was traced back to August 2023. One year later on Aug. 12, 2024, the Public Health Agency of Canada said three people had died and 20 were infected.
The number of cases is likely much higher, says Lawrence Goodridge, Canada Research Chair in foodborne pathogen dynamics at the University of Guelph: “For every person known, generally speaking, there’s typically 20 to 25 or maybe 30 people that are unknown.”
The case count has remained unchanged over the last month, but the Public Health Agency of Canada says it won’t declare the outbreak over until early October because of listeria’s 70-day incubation period and the reporting delays that accompany it.
Danone Canada’s head of communications said in an email Wednesday that the company is still investigating the “root cause” of the outbreak, which has been linked to a production line at a Pickering, Ont., packaging facility.
Pregnant people, adults over 60, and those with weakened immune systems are most at risk of becoming sick with severe listeriosis. If the infection spreads to an unborn baby, Health Canada says it can cause miscarriage, stillbirth, premature birth or life-threatening illness in a newborn.
The Canadian Press spoke to 10 people, from the parents of a toddler to an 89-year-old senior, who say they became sick with listeria after drinking from cartons of plant-based milk stamped with the recalled product code. Here’s a look at some of their experiences.
Sanniah Jabeen, 32, Toronto
Jabeen says she regularly drank Silk oat and almond milk in smoothies while pregnant, and began vomiting seven times a day and shivering at night in December 2023. She had “the worst headache of (her) life” when she went to the emergency room on Dec. 15.
“I just wasn’t functioning like a normal human being,” Jabeen says.
Told she was dehydrated, Jabeen was given fluids and a blood test and sent home. Four days later, she returned to hospital.
“They told me that since you’re 18 weeks, there’s nothing you can do to save your baby,” says Jabeen, who moved to Toronto from Pakistan five years ago.
Jabeen later learned she had listeriosis and an autopsy revealed her baby was infected, too.
“It broke my heart to read that report because I was just imagining my baby drinking poisoned amniotic fluid inside of me. The womb is a place where your baby is supposed to be the safest,” Jabeen said.
Jabeen’s case is likely not included in PHAC’s count. Jabeen says she was called by Health Canada and asked what dairy and fresh produce she ate – foods more commonly associated with listeria – but not asked about plant-based beverages.
She’s pregnant again, and is due in several months. At first, she was scared to eat, not knowing what caused the infection during her last pregnancy.
“Ever since I learned about the almond, oat milk situation, I’ve been feeling a bit better knowing that it wasn’t something that I did. It was something else that caused it. It wasn’t my fault,” Jabeen said.
She’s since joined a proposed class action lawsuit launched by LPC Avocates against the manufacturers and sellers of Silk and Great Value plant-based beverages. The lawsuit has not yet been certified by a judge.
Natalie Grant and her seven year-old daughter, Bowmanville, Ont.
Natalie Grant says she was in a hospital waiting room when she saw a television news report about the recall. She wondered if the dark chocolate almond milk her daughter drank daily was contaminated.
She had brought the girl to hospital because she was vomiting every half hour, constantly on the toilet with diarrhea, and had severe pain in her abdomen.
“I’m definitely thinking that this is a pretty solid chance that she’s got listeria at this point because I knew she had all the symptoms,” Grant says of seeing the news report.
Once her daughter could hold fluids, they went home and Grant cross-checked the recalled product code – 7825 – with the one on her carton. They matched.
“I called the emerg and I said I’m pretty confident she’s been exposed,” Grant said. She was told to return to the hospital if her daughter’s symptoms worsened. An hour and a half later, her fever spiked, the vomiting returned, her face flushed and her energy plummeted.
Grant says they were sent to a hospital in Ajax, Ont. and stayed two weeks while her daughter received antibiotics four times a day until she was discharged July 23.
“Knowing that my little one was just so affected and how it affected us as a family alone, there’s a bitterness left behind,” Grant said. She’s also joined the proposed class action.
Thelma Feldman, 89, Toronto
Thelma Feldman says she regularly taught yoga to friends in her condo building before getting sickened by listeria on July 2. Now, she has a walker and her body aches. She has headaches and digestive problems.
“I’m kind of depressed,” she says.
“It’s caused me a lot of physical and emotional pain.”
Much of the early days of her illness are a blur. She knows she boarded an ambulance with profuse diarrhea on July 2 and spent five days at North York General Hospital. Afterwards, she remembers Health Canada officials entering her apartment and removing Silk almond milk from her fridge, and volunteers from a community organization giving her sponge baths.
“At my age, 89, I’m not a kid anymore and healing takes longer,” Feldman says.
“I don’t even feel like being with people. I just sit at home.”
Jasmine Jiles and three-year-old Max, Kahnawake Mohawk Territory, Que.
Jasmine Jiles says her three-year-old son Max came down with flu-like symptoms and cradled his ears in what she interpreted as a sign of pain, like the one pounding in her own head, around early July.
When Jiles heard about the recall soon after, she called Danone Canada, the plant-based milk manufacturer, to find out if their Silk coconut milk was in the contaminated batch. It was, she says.
“My son is very small, he’s very young, so I asked what we do in terms of overall monitoring and she said someone from the company would get in touch within 24 to 48 hours,” Jiles says from a First Nations reserve near Montreal.
“I never got a call back. I never got an email”
At home, her son’s fever broke after three days, but gas pains stuck with him, she says. It took a couple weeks for him to get back to normal.
“In hindsight, I should have taken him (to the hospital) but we just tried to see if we could nurse him at home because wait times are pretty extreme,” Jiles says, “and I don’t have child care at the moment.”
Joseph Desmond, 50, Sydney, N.S.
Joseph Desmond says he suffered a seizure and fell off his sofa on July 9. He went to the emergency room, where they ran an electroencephalogram (EEG) test, and then returned home. Within hours, he had a second seizure and went back to hospital.
His third seizure happened the next morning while walking to the nurse’s station.
In severe cases of listeriosis, bacteria can spread to the central nervous system and cause seizures, according to Health Canada.
“The last two months have really been a nightmare,” says Desmond, who has joined the proposed lawsuit.
When he returned home from the hospital, his daughter took a carton of Silk dark chocolate almond milk out of the fridge and asked if he had heard about the recall. By that point, Desmond says he was on his second two-litre carton after finishing the first in June.
“It was pretty scary. Terrifying. I honestly thought I was going to die.”
Cheryl McCombe, 63, Haliburton, Ont.
The morning after suffering a second episode of vomiting, feverish sweats and diarrhea in the middle of the night in early July, Cheryl McCombe scrolled through the news on her phone and came across the recall.
A few years earlier, McCombe says she started drinking plant-based milks because it seemed like a healthier choice to splash in her morning coffee. On June 30, she bought two cartons of Silk cashew almond milk.
“It was on the (recall) list. I thought, ‘Oh my God, I got listeria,’” McCombe says. She called her doctor’s office and visited an urgent care clinic hoping to get tested and confirm her suspicion, but she says, “I was basically shut down at the door.”
Public Health Ontario does not recommend listeria testing for infected individuals with mild symptoms unless they are at risk of developing severe illness, such as people who are immunocompromised, elderly, pregnant or newborn.
“No wonder they couldn’t connect the dots,” she adds, referencing that it took close to a year for public health officials to find the source of the outbreak.
“I am a woman in my 60s and sometimes these signs are of, you know, when you’re vomiting and things like that, it can be a sign in women of a bigger issue,” McCombe says. She was seeking confirmation that wasn’t the case.
Disappointed, with her stomach still feeling off, she says she decided to boost her gut health with probiotics. After a couple weeks she started to feel like herself.
But since then, McCombe says, “I’m back on Kawartha Dairy cream in my coffee.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
VANCOUVER – Mayors and other leaders from several British Columbia communities say the provincial and federal governments need to take “immediate action” to tackle mental health and public safety issues that have reached crisis levels.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim says it’s become “abundantly clear” that mental health and addiction issues and public safety have caused crises that are “gripping” Vancouver, and he and other politicians, First Nations leaders and law enforcement officials are pleading for federal and provincial help.
In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier David Eby, mayors say there are “three critical fronts” that require action including “mandatory care” for people with severe mental health and addiction issues.
The letter says senior governments also need to bring in “meaningful bail reform” for repeat offenders, and the federal government must improve policing at Metro Vancouver ports to stop illicit drugs from coming in and stolen vehicles from being exported.
Sim says the “current system” has failed British Columbians, and the number of people dealing with severe mental health and addiction issues due to lack of proper care has “reached a critical point.”
Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer says repeat violent offenders are too often released on bail due to a “revolving door of justice,” and a new approach is needed to deal with mentally ill people who “pose a serious and immediate danger to themselves and others.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024
