Dementia & Memory Loss

Forgetfulness, Confusion, Senility and Alzheimer’s Disease

Understanding the Condition

The brain is the hungriest organ in the body. It is only about 2 percent of our weight, yet it uses about 20 percent of the blood’s oxygen and fuel, every minute of every day. It cannot store food for later. It depends on a steady flow of rich, clean blood, on plenty of water, on the liver to supply its fuel (glucose) and carry off its waste, and on the nerves to carry its messages to every part of the body. When any of these falters, the mind is often the first place it shows.

Dementia is not one disease. It is a name for a group of signs: memory loss together with trouble in at least one other area, such as judgment, language, planning or personality, bad enough to get in the way of daily life. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of a dementia that keeps getting worse; the second most common is vascular dementia, from narrowed blood vessels and many tiny strokes. Many older people have some of both.

Diagram comparing two kinds of clouded mind: a starved or clouded brain that can often come back, and damage built up over years. — Two kinds of clouded mind. Simplified diagram drawn for H.E.A.L.

When the Mind Can Come Back

Much of the confusion we see in older people is not true dementia at all. It is a brain that is starved, poisoned or upset, and it often clears in days or weeks once the cause is found and the brain is fed. These are the first things to look for:

Not enough water. Many older people stop feeling thirst, and a dry brain is a confused brain.
A hidden infection. In the elderly, a bladder infection often shows up as sudden confusion instead of pain or burning.
Poor blood flow to the brain, from a weak heart, hardened arteries or sitting still for most of the day.
Low B12 and poor nutrition. The nerves and brain run on nutrition; a body that has eaten poorly for years runs short.
Sleep aids and other medications. Dr. Tim Jennings teaches that sleep aids, both over-the-counter (the “PM” pain relievers and the diphenhydramine or doxylamine sleep tablets) and prescription sleeping pills, interfere with the brain’s work of moving short-term memories into long-term memory. Used night after night, they can produce what looks like serious dementia, and many people recover a great deal once they come off them. Herbal sleep supports are not part of this concern. Some bladder and allergy medicines, strong pain pills and a long list of prescriptions taken together can also cloud the mind.
Marijuana (THC). Dr. Jennings warns that THC, the part of marijuana that makes people high, disrupts the brain’s work of turning short-term memories into long-term ones. More and more older people are being offered THC gummies or drops for sleep and pain. In his view, marijuana is dangerous to the mind, and anyone whose memory is slipping should stay away from it. It can be habit-forming; if it is hard to stop, that alone is worth paying attention to.
A sluggish thyroid, which slows the thinking along with everything else.
A toxic bowel and liver. When the bowel is backed up and the liver is overloaded, waste stays in the blood that feeds the brain.
Grief, depression and loneliness, which can look just like dementia.

A change that comes on suddenly, over hours or days, is not dementia. Look for the cause, and see the box on medical care below.

Coming Off Sleeping Pills

Over-the-counter sleep aids can usually be stopped and replaced with herbal sleep supports such as the General Nervine and NFX. Prescription sleeping pills and anxiety medicines are different: stopping some of them suddenly can be dangerous. Work with the doctor to taper them down slowly.

When Damage Has Built Over Years

In Alzheimer’s disease, sticky deposits (plaques) build up between the brain cells and twisted fibers (tangles) form inside them. The cells lose their connections to one another and, over the years, the brain shrinks. In vascular dementia the arteries feeding the brain harden and narrow. Dr. Christopher wrote that when the arteries in the brain harden, the result is slowness in thinking, loss of memory, dizziness, and in the end senility, and that a long-standing case can leave a brain that has practically “turned to stone.” He also taught that hardening of the arteries can be reversed if the cause is reversed: dead, processed and overcooked food. This kind of damage takes years to build, and it takes time and steady work to turn. Herbs and good food can slow it, steady it, and sometimes improve it. The earlier you start, the more there is to save.

What Dara Has Seen

I’ve seen members give the Brain Formula to parents who drifted from the boat, so to say, and they came right back in only a few days. Other people it seems to do no good. I believe it is the heart work as well as how you have been feeding your body up to that time.

The common signs are forgetting recent conversations and events, repeating the same questions, losing words, getting lost in familiar places, trouble with money, cooking or other everyday tasks, poor judgment, changes in mood or personality, withdrawing from people and activities, restlessness and, later, confusion about time and place.

The Emotional Side: the Energy Work

Healing the whole person. We are body, mind and spirit, and all three must heal together. When one part is neglected, the other two cannot find complete healing. A person can follow a perfect herbal program, but if she stays in a life that keeps wearing her down, or never makes time to care for herself, the body will keep losing ground. Healing the body often means facing what is happening in the heart and spirit as well.

Dara has seen that the heart work matters as much as the feeding. Often a mind begins to slip when life has become too painful to face: a deep loss, a betrayal, loneliness or years of carrying more than one person can carry. Some people simply withdraw from a world that has grown too hard. Love, patience, company and a reason to get up in the morning help bring them back.

Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, describes these patterns:

Alzheimer’s disease: not wanting to face the world as it is; feeling hopeless and helpless; anger. Turn it around: I let the past go with forgiveness. Each day holds a new and better way to live, and I walk into joy.
Dementia: refusing to deal with the world as it is; hopelessness and anger. Turn it around: I am right where I belong, and I am safe at all times.
Senility: retreating to the safety of childhood; escaping a life that became too hard to face. Turn it around: I rest in God’s protection. I am safe, and I am at peace.
The brain: the computer, the switchboard of the body. Turn it around: I am the loving keeper of my own mind.

Emotional patterns paraphrased from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House). For the family: these are not faults to blame anyone for. They are a reminder of how much the heart is carrying.

Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing

Dementia involves the brain and its blood vessels, the heart that pumps blood up to it, the liver that supplies its fuel and clears its waste, the bowel that must carry that waste out, the kidneys that keep the blood clean and the body watered, and the nerves that carry every message. The work is to get the blood flowing to the brain, feed it, clean the blood that feeds it, and give the heart and spirit a reason to come back.

The Brain Formula: the First Support

Brain Formula. Ginkgo leaf, gotu kola herb, calamus root, rosemary, kola nut and cayenne. It opens the blood vessels and increases the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain, and this is often what brings a clouded mind back. Many people who are confused will not take a green drink or much nutrition at first, so the Brain Formula is the main support to start with. Take 2 dropperfuls three times a day, up to double that amount. As a tea: 1 teaspoon of the herbs to a cup, 6 cups a day.

Using the Brain Formula With Care

The Brain Formula opens the circulation, and its ginkgo and cayenne thin the blood a little. That is part of how it helps. If the person takes a blood thinner (warfarin, Eliquis, Plavix) or a daily aspirin, let the doctor know they have added it. Stay at the dose on this sheet; this is a time when more is not better. If unusual bruising or bleeding shows up, ease back, and set the formula aside for a week or so before any surgery.

Helping a Forgetful Person Keep Up

The formula only works if it is taken, and a person who is forgetting things will forget the formula too. Both of the stories below worked because the doses happened every day.

Reminder notes. Put notes where they will be seen: the bathroom mirror, the coffee pot, the kitchen table.
Tie it to meals. Breakfast, lunch and supper make three natural times for the three doses.
A pill organizer or a set of small cups set out each morning shows at a glance whether a dose was taken.
Family or a caregiver gives the doses. When the confusion is deeper, someone close by needs to make sure every dose goes down.

Feeding the Brain

The Brain Shake

When a green drink won’t go down, turn it into a milkshake. Blend frozen banana and strawberries with fresh apple juice. The berries turn it pink instead of green, and the sweetness goes down easily. Add 2 tablespoons of Superfood and 1 tablespoon of flax oil or wheat germ oil; both feed the brain and nerves and make it creamy. Blend and serve like a milkshake.

The Foundational Program. As soon as the person will take it: Superfood and juicing, Echinacea, and bowel cleansing with LBF.
Water. Offer water all day long; many older people no longer feel thirst. Dr. Christopher used steam distilled water to wash out the deposits that harden the arteries.
Live food. Dr. Christopher taught that hardening of the arteries comes from dead, stale, processed and overcooked food. Move toward fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds, as many of them raw as possible, and away from sugar, white flour and processed foods.

Clearing the Liver and Bowel

Keep the bowels moving with LBF, building up one capsule a day until the bowels move two or three times a day. Many older people go days between movements, and that waste stays in the blood that feeds the brain.
Liver flushing. The liver supplies the brain’s fuel and clears its waste. A week of liver flushing, then an ELF (Emergency Liver Flush) once or twice a week; many people describe it as the fog lifting. Weeks of kidney flushing can be alternated in.

Circulation, Movement and Company

Hot and cold showers in the morning wake up the circulation, when the person is steady enough to stand safely.
Walk every day, outdoors and in the sunshine when possible. Movement sends blood to the brain.
Company and purpose. Conversation, music, singing old hymns, puzzles, gardening, and a job to do that matters. A mind that is used and loved has a reason to stay.

When to Get Medical Care

Herbs are support alongside medical care, not a replacement for it. Confusion that comes on suddenly, over hours or days, needs a doctor the same day: it is often an infection, a medication problem or a small stroke. Before accepting a diagnosis of dementia, ask for a check of B12, the thyroid and a urine test for infection, and a review of every medication, especially sleep aids. Don’t stop a prescribed medication without the doctor.

Emergencies: a face that droops, an arm or leg that goes weak, slurred speech, or sudden severe headache or loss of balance. These are signs of a stroke: call 911 right away.

Level of Commitment

How much is needed depends on how long the trouble has been building and how much the body and heart are carrying:

Gentle support. For the absent-minded and the early stages. The Brain Formula three times a day with reminders, plenty of water, the Brain Shake or Superfood, daily walking, and company.
Focused cleansing. When the confusion is plain to see. All of the above, plus LBF, a week of liver flushing, then an ELF once or twice a week, with weeks of kidney flushing alternated in, and the Foundational Program as soon as it can be taken. Give it about three months, with someone close by making sure it all happens.
Incurables Program. For diagnosed Alzheimer’s disease or advanced dementia. The full Incurables Program includes cleansing the bloodstream with HEAL’s Blood Purifying formula. Blood Purifying contains chaparral, which has long been regarded as one of the strongest blood purifiers in herbal use. It has had years of bad press, but used wisely it supports the body in clearing what has built up. Use with care: take Blood Purifying in courses, not continuously: two dropperfuls 4 to 6 times a day for a week at a time, in a few ounces of grape juice, while drinking 64 to 128 oz. of liquid a day. Avoid it with existing liver disease. If the skin or the whites of the eyes turn yellow, the urine turns dark, or there is pain under the right ribs, stop and have the liver checked. At this level the family carries the program, and it takes every one of them.

More Is Not Faster

These doses are set to what the body can clear. Taking more stirs up more than the bowels, liver and kidneys can carry out, and that is when cleansing starts to feel like poisoning. Healing the body requires steady, consistent nutrition and action, not a bigger dose.

People are different, and now and then someone reacts poorly to a particular herb. If that happens, stop it. What I offer here is a guideline. You are the one living in your body, so work with the Holy Spirit and the wisdom the Lord has given you to apply these supports in the best way for your life.

A Loose Healing Plan

First days: Look for the quick fixes. Get plenty of water in, look hard at any sleep aids, and have a doctor check for a bladder infection, B12, the thyroid and the medications.
Day 1 onward: Start the Brain Formula, 2 dropperfuls three times a day, with reminder notes or a family member giving the doses.
Week 1: Feed the brain. A Brain Shake every day, LBF to get the bowels moving, and the Foundational Program as soon as it will be taken.
Week 2 onward: Clear the liver. A week of liver flushing, then an ELF once or twice a week, with weeks of kidney flushing alternated in.
All along: the heart work. Company, conversation, music, walking, sunshine and a reason to get up in the morning. Face the grief and the losses together.
About 3 months: Take stock. Some come back in a few days; long-standing damage takes months of steady work. Keep the Brain Formula going.

Stories from the Work

A Member’s Story: “You Need to Fix This”

One of our longtime members, one of three brothers who have been with us almost from the beginning, called and started talking the moment I said hello: “My wife is not happy, I’m not happy, you need to fix this.”

A few questions later the trouble came out. His wife’s mother had become too confused to handle the phone. Her daughter lived too far away to visit easily and was beside herself with worry, missing her mother.

We sent the Brain Formula to the mother’s address, and her other children, who lived close by, made sure she got every dose. The next week he called back. All was well again, and his wife could talk with her mother on the phone again.

A Member’s Story: Still Finding Each Other

A local couple, two of the sweetest people, knew they were getting absent-minded and worried that in time they would be lost to each other. They started the Brain Formula, but at first they kept forgetting to take it, and they would call to ask what they could do. The answer was always the same: the Brain Formula, and how much.

Over time the calls stopped, but the orders kept coming, regular as clockwork. When they were down in Florida visiting a grandchild and having a blast, they ran low, and three shipments followed them there. They don’t call anymore to ask what to do. They just keep doing what is working.

Watch

Dr. Tim Jennings, The Aging Brain. Dr. Jennings, a Christian psychiatrist, explains in detail what is happening in the aging brain and what we can do to keep it healthy. He doesn’t cover herbs, but the science he lays out backs up what is on this sheet. It is solidly scientific, and easy for anyone to follow. If the video doesn’t play above, watch “Modern Medicine Seminar 6: The Aging Brain” at comeandreason.com/mmbttb-6.

More on the Brain

This information is for education only. It is not meant to diagnose, treat or replace care from a qualified health professional.