How I almost left my heart in San Francisco – Part 1 - Part 2

In August 2006, while in Colombia, I experienced a rather frightening event: I woke up one morning with my left foot completely numb, I could feel absolutely nothing from the top of my ankle down. I tried to go on my morning walk, but had to turn back at the front door, knowing I would not be able to make it.

Later that morning, I got a ride to a hospital. The doctor who examined me asked me a series of questions, mostly about the medications I was supposed to be taking after the bypass surgery. At this point, as you know if you read part 2 of this story, I was no longer taking any of the medications originally prescribed, and I had, just two weeks earlier, stopped the last one, the Aspirin. The doctor told me that the problem was part of my atherosclerosis and strongly recommended that I resume taking the Aspirin until tests could be performed to decide on a course of action.

My foot slowly started feeling a little better; since I had a planned return to San Francisco in September, I decided to just keep taking the Aspirin until I could see my regular Doctor at Kaiser (not the cardiologist, Dr. Garrett).

I returned to San Francisco on September 6, 2006. Back at home, the first thing I did was to go see the doctor, who confirmed that the problem was related to atherosclerosis and recommended that I keep taking the Aspirin and doing my walks, even if the foot hurt, as that would tend to help in recovering; he also mentioned that sometimes in these situations they do a bypass on arteries in the lower leg. I had had enough of bypasses and not having exactly enjoyed that experience, I was reluctant to stop the Aspirin again and resigned myself to continue taking a pharmaceutical drug for who knows how long. So I walked and walked, and my foot eventually went back to "normal"; that took almost three months. But it was not completely normal: everything felt and worked fine, but I ended up with a big black and blue spot covering most of the inner (right) side of my left foot, and, occasionally a little tingling in the toes.

In September 2008, I found an article in the Life Extension Foundation's monthly magazine –called simply Life Extension; being a member, I receive it, but it is also available in newsstands for 5 bucks. The article's title, "Natural Methods for Reversing Atherosclerosis" caught my attention. I read it 3 or 4 times, did a search and found a supplement called Endothelial Defense with GliSODin and CocoaGold™, 60 vegetarian capsules. I decided to buy 1 bottle and take it according to the directions, just to see what would happen. I started taking it on November 28. On that date, my left foot looked approximately like you see on the photo to the left. That same day, I started drinking a glass of pure organic pomegranate juice, 6 ounces daily – this was also a result of having read the above-mentioned article.

I was absolutely astounded about 3 weeks later; that's when I took the photo on the right. The first photo (above left) is retouched to show what the foot looked like the day I started taking the Endothelial Defense supplement – it's very, very close to reality; believe me, I know; I had been looking at my foot daily for two years. I did not photograph it before because I had no idea this was going to happen. It could be a coincidence, but I do not think so.

Of course, this is not a full-fledged scientific study: I am just giving you a true account of what I have experienced. I also stopped taking the Aspiring at that time and have not had any problems, at least so far.

I like what I see.