Rev. Malkmus, just read your Health Tip #240 and wanted to respond with my own testimony about ulcerative colitis. Ten years ago I was a naval officer at the top of my career field. While stationed at Washington, D.C., I developed ulcerative colitis and went to the Bethesda Naval Medical Center to have it treated. This is the same facility that recently had President Bush in for a colonoscopy. They have some of the finest medical personnel and equipment in the world. They told me that they don't know what causes ulcerative colitis, don't know how to cure it, but do know how to treat it with drugs.

Since this ulcerative colitis could flare up at any time, and I had to be near a major medical facility, I was considered non-deployable and was forced to retire with only 24 years of service to my country. After four years of constant flare-ups and treatment with large doses of Prednizone to bring it back under control, I was placed on twelve 500mg tablets of Alsulfasizine, six in the morning and six at night. I was also placed on fourteen pills of high blood pressure medication every day. Once on a trip two years ago I ran out medicine and three days later I had full-blown ulcerative colitis with the blood, diarrhea, and nausea, and my body was in a totally weakened condition. It took six months to get the disease back under control.

My mother, like yours, died a horribly painful death of colon cancer and my doctor would advise me that 'not if I would get colon cancer, but when I would get colon cancer,' what my options were. They said if the radiation and chemotherapy did not work, they would surgically remove the colon and place a colostomy bag at my side forever. Or they could widen the end of the small intestine to form a small rectum, but I would always have to be close to a bathroom because I would have to have a bowel movement every two or three hours day and night, and at the first sign of needing to go, it would only be seconds, because I would have no control to stop an 'accident.' Not a lifestyle to look forward to living.

I heard about the Hallelujah Diet from my brother George. He and his wife went on the Hallelujah Diet because his wife Patsy was losing her eyesight due to diabetes. Praise God, today, her eyesight is stabilized and she is off all medications for the diabetes. I was so impressed with the 50 plus pounds my brother George had lost on the diet, that I drove to Hallelujah Acres in September 2001 to hear your first-Saturday-of-the-month 'How to Eliminate Sickness' seminar. After hearing you, reading the literature, and hearing the testimonies, I was convinced this was the answer I had been looking for, not only for myself but for others as well.

I signed up for the November 2001 Health Ministers training and started my diet that very first night. I had to wean myself off the Alsulfasizine because of withdrawal complications, but was completely off all medications by the end of November [about two weeks after starting the diet].

This is now July 2002, and thanks to the Hallelujah lifestyle my colon has never worked better. I have lost 40 pounds, gone from 190 to 150 pounds. My blood pressure is now 100/62 and I no longer have need of high blood pressure medicine. The degenerative arthritis in my foot that the military doctors said would only get worse despite taking painkillers, has completely disappeared and I now jog 4 miles each day without any pain. My severe dry skin (x-linked icthyosis) simply went away; my hemorrhoids have disappeared; sinuses have cleared up; and my energy is at an all time high. I am 55 years old now and fully expect to spend the next 65 of the 120 years God gave us to live by serving Him as a Health Minister. Thank you, Dr. Malkmus, for opening my eyes to the truth that 'You Don't Have To Be Sick.'