I promised a few days ago to post something more on urine therapy.

Almost eighteen years ago, my husband John (a chiropractor) decided to attend an international conference on complementary medicine that was being held in India. I stayed home with our three-year old son, Aaron.

I'll never forget John's arrival back home from his trip. He opened his suitcases, and they smelled like Indian bedspreads that I had used in my hippie days. I love that smell--a combination of cow dung smoke, incense, and Indian spices. He pulled out a sari for me, necklaces, little statues of Hindu gods, and other little gifts for our friends. Then he told me that the best gift he was bringing home was not in the suitcase. "Oooh, what is it?" I asked. "Something I learned about," he said, "an amazing health practice."

I wasn't surprised. John has always been curious about new health practices, and he is always willing to experiment on himself before suggesting anything to his patients. "Well, what is it?" I asked. "I'm a little afraid to tell you," John answered. Then he took a breath and said, "it is auto-urine therapy."

I groaned. I had heard of auto-urine therapy, but always thought it was a bizarre thing that I would never want to try myself. I felt apprehensive. Now my husband was telling me he was interested in this therapy, and I knew that he would certainly try it himself.

He told me about a charismatic man who gave a talk at the conference, and he was so enthusiastic about it that John became very curious. The next morning John came down with travelers' diarrhea, and the man had said that urine could cure anything. John decided to try it--he drank some of his own morning urine, and the diarrhea disappeared! He was impressed enough to take some more the following morning. He said it made him feel very good, and he intended to continue to drink it every morning.

I felt sick to my stomach just thinking about it. But every morning John would drink some of his first urine, and he would smile and make jokes about it. "Ah! The golden elixir!" "Champagne of the gods!" The amazing thing was that he started getting very healthy and happy. John had always been a bit moody. He would periodically sink into depressions, and it wasn't easy to be around him then. After starting the urine therapy, his mood became light and playful most of the time. He also stopped coming down with colds that Aaron and I would get.

I started reading some of the literature that he found on urine therapy. The "Bible of urine therapy" is a little book called The Water of Life by John Armstrong. In it he recounts stories of healing of many different people that he had worked with using urine. There were several other books I read as well. The ancient Indians (from India) wrote about urine therapy in the Vedic scriptures, which provide detailed instructions for using urine for healing. The thing that really made me want to try it myself was a tape of testimonials called "You're in Good Health." If all those normal-sounding people could do it, and sound so positive about it, then maybe I could, too.

I was hoping to having another child, but had had three miscarriages after our son was born. I was 44 years old, and was beginning to think that I wouldn't be able to get pregnant again. However, some of the testimonials I read had to do with conceiving a child when the woman thought she couldn't do so. I decided to give it a try.

I got in the shower (so I would be nice and clean) and then peed in a cup, and I drank about 4 ounces of my urine. I had to suppress the urge to gag, but I did it. Afterward, I felt euphoric! I think I was simply happy that I had finally gotten up the courage to do it! The next morning I tried again, but this time I gagged, and couldn't get any down. But, I was determined to see if urine therapy would help me conceive again, and maybe prevent another miscarriage.

The next morning I didn't try to drink the whole 4 ounces, I only took a little sip and swallowed it. The following morning I sipped again. By the third morning I was able to swallow a couple of gulps without gagging. I found if I held my nose it helped--the smell was gagging me. By the end of the week I was drinking my morning urine with no problem. It usually doesn't taste bad at all--a little salty (if you have been eating salt in your diet), and a little like chicken broth. If you are stressed out, or have been eating lots of meat, or haven't been drinking enough water, it can be rather strong.

I had been using a rhythm method for knowing when I was fertile and could conceive. It involved checking cervical mucus every day, and noticing its consistency. By this means, one can tell pretty accurately when ovulation occurs, and you know when is the best time to conceive. I used a chart on which I placed little stickers every month, so I could see the pattern of my cycles for several months. Before starting urine therapy, I was a bit irregular. Some cycles were 30 days, some 25, some 32, etc. After starting the therapy, I had a 45 day cycle! I knew I wasn't pregnant because I was charting when I ovulated, and it was considerably later than before. The next cycle was 28 days, with a perfect textbook ovulation pattern. The following cycle was also a perfect 28 days, and the one after that was, too. I conceived a baby during the third perfect cycle!

I was so excited! With urine therapy I felt that surely I would be able to bring this baby to term. I got past the 13th week, and I thought the danger of early miscarriage was over. However, I started cramping, and during the night I started bleeding. Early the next morning I passed a huge blood clot (which was probably the fetus), and I started feeling very weak and dizzy. I called to John, who took my blood pressure. He couldn't get a reading, nor could he feel a pulse! He said, "we need to call 911 and get you to the hospital immediately." I was still sitting in the bathroom on the toilet, but I said, "Could I have some of your urine?" John had peed into a huge cup, as he did every morning, and he handed it to me as he rushed into the other room to call 911. I barely had the strength to lift the cup to my lips, but I did, and started gulping down John's urine. Within seconds I felt the strength returning to my limbs and my head cleared. I called to John, "Wait! I'm feeling better!" He came back and again took my blood pressure. It was 90/60 (which is my usual blood pressure) and my pulse was back again. John helped me back to bed, and I continued to sip urine. (I later changed to an electrolyte drink--tastes better!)

So, urine saved my life. I'm sure if I had not drunk that urine, I wouldn't have survived long enough for the ambulance to get there. I don't know if there was something magical about urine, or if it simply provided the perfect electrolyte balance that I needed. Maybe just drinking water would have done it, although a doctor told me he had never heard of someone coming out of hydro cephalic shock by drinking something.

I told this story at the first all-India Urine Therapy Conference, held in Goa, India in 1993. This time Aaron and I accompanied John to India, and we also spent time in Sri Lanka (where John studied acupuncture). Urine therapy is much better accepted in India than in the US, as it has an ancient tradition there.

After my dramatic rescue from death, I urged John to put out a newsletter about urine therapy. I had been writing monthly newsletters for his chiropractic patients, and I was so excited about urine therapy, I just had to tell everybody! John said it might be professional suicide if he did, and he was right. Because of the newsletter, the Nebraska chiropractic board tried to take away his license to practice. They ended up only suspending it for a month (as a punishment), but we had already planned to move out of the state by that time, so the suspension didn't really matter, or so we thought. When we moved to Missouri a year later, the Missouri licensing board didn't want to grant him a license because it had been suspended in Nebraska for a month. John sued them, and won the case, but he can't tell anyone about urine therapy now. (Psst, I can though!)

There are basically three ways to use urine therapy: by drinking it, by rubbing it on the skin. or by injecting it. John has done quite a bit of research on the ways urine stimulates the immune system, and he thinks rubbing aged urine on the skin stimulates the immune system dramatically. The Vedic scriptures recommend rubbing aged urine on the skin to heal almost anything. You can also use fresh urine which doesn't smell as strong, but the aged urine has the most potent effect.

I'm not going to go into all the details here. There are web sites and books available that present much more information.

I have been drinking my morning urine since that day eighteen years ago when I finally overcame my aversion to it. However, it is NOT a cure-all or a preventative for such diseases as cancer (as some of its proponents claim). There many people who have been cured of cancer and many other diseases by using urine therapy. When we were in India, we met many of these people. However, there are no guarantees. Even the charismatic man who first told John about it died of a particularly voracious type of cancer, so it didn't help him.

I am using the external application of aged urine, along with heating up in the sauna afterwards, as part of my healing plan, but it will not be the only thing I do! This practice does make you feel very good--mellow, peaceful, and sleepy. An interesting aspect of it is that if you leave the stinky urine on your skin for a while, after you wash it off, your skin feels very smooth and soft, and it smells very sweet!