FlakeHQ Book Review

Healing Psoriasis Naturally,
Pulling It All Together
by Keith White

reviewed text release date May 10, 2010
eBook available for download at http://www.hppiat.com

Review by
Ed Dewke

Keith White was diagnosed with psoriasis in the 1960s. In Healing Psoriasis Naturally, Pulling It All Together, he explains how his first prescribed topical was described to him and how he consequently “threw it in the trash.” When the doctor said “it couldn’t be cured and there’s nothing you can do about it,” White got mad. He started reading and tried a few of the things he read about. (He decided not to try “urine therapy,” but he did, try “coffee enemas.”) It was, however, not until 1998 that he discovered Pagano’s book, Healing Psoriasis: The Natural Alternative. That was the first of four naturopathic books that eventually became the backbone of Healing Psoriasis Naturally, Pulling It All Together.

This book is short: the narrative portion is 24 pages long, a rich set of appendixes totals 32 pages (56 pages total content). This ebook is a PDF download; the reader needs to have Adobe Acrobat or a generic “Portable Document Format” reader to either read the material on screen or print it out. Acrobat’s reader is free to download and works automatically with popular web browsers. Download Acrobat Reader here.

Here is the Table of Contents from the narrative section of the ebook:

Introduction
The Searching Years (1990-1997)
The Discovery Years (1998-2008)
The Light Goes On (December 2008)
Pulling It All Together
What I Have Learned
I Find Answers
When More is Not Better
The Surprises
Looking Back
What is Next 

What distinguishes White’s narrative from the pantheon of books on natural healing processes is its memoir-like storytelling technique and comfortable chronological progression. It’s not overtly a “How To” book like, for example, John O.A. Pagano’s Healing Psoriasis: The Natural Alternative or Deirdre Earl’s Your Healing Diet. White is teaching us, of course, but he is doing it by telling us his own story of discovery. The first thing that impressed me after reading this story was how aggressively White pursued a solution for his own psoriasis. He complains because he waited too long to begin his earnest research. He made “discoveries” through reading books (“The Discovery Years”); then he had an epiphany, of sorts (“The Light Goes On”) and only after that did he start his serious task of “Pulling It All Together.”

As readers, we vicariously relive White’s experience. It was particularly fascinating to me — as I’m sure it will be to other readers — because the decade it took White to commit to rigorous action based on his discoveries was a direct result of his aversion to the strict dietary requirements. Which is exactly why I haven’t, yet, embarked on any diet-based therapy!

White has authored his book while his healing process is still in progress. All signs of his psoriasis have evidently not subsided, but there has been enough clearing of plaque lesions, and enough other health benefits — including weight loss and return to regular blood pressure — to convince him this is his right track. He's convinced his solution to psoriasis is connected to his ability, through controlling what he ingests, to return his gut to proper function and keep it there.

Having failed to be a perfect follower of the Pagano regimen ... having rejected most of the 'impossible' propositions proffered by the other diet-based naturopaths, he has come as far as he has by 'pulling it all together' into an action plan he could accomplish.

I, personally, am glad he has paused at this point to share what he's learned. If he'd waited until his psoriasis was completely gone, two things might have happened: (1) he might be enjoying complete success too much to make sharing seem worth the work; or (2) he might not have achieved complete success and felt his knowledge was diminished and not worth sharing (even though the logic in his 'pulling it all together' is most convincing).

And the best news of all? He's open to feedback — that is, he wants to hear from US — and he will keep working until he's satisfied he has accomplished his own cure. That's different than Pagano or any of the other authors’ books he's pulled together in his self-therapy and, now, his ebook.

Books that are significantly compilations, like HPPIAT, face a large challenge, especially when actual text from the compiled works is reproduced in chunks. The first 10 pages of White’s narrative recounts his personal story and is virtually quote-free. Starting on page 11, “What I have Learned,” and continuing on page 12, “I Find Answers,” White imports quotes from all four of his reference books. Most of them are couched as “answers to questions.” This goes on for about eight pages. “Appendix A: Book Quotes,” pages A-1 through A-15, lists all the quotes from each book separately. “Appendix B: Specific Topics,” pages B-1 through B-17 organizes the quotes by topic (the book from which each quote is lifted is identified by the initials of the title).  “Appendix C: Books Referenced,” is a citation list of the books (information you need when looking them up on the web, purchasing them online or hunting for them in your local library).  Appendix A and B are useful when you return to HPPIAT and want to relocate a quote. (However, page numbers refer to the books being referenced, not to HPPIAT. Perhaps in a future edition, White will include references to pages in his ebook where quotes appear; however, I don’t think all the quotes in the Appendix are used in the narrative portions of HPPIAT.)

The “large challenge” I referred to at the top of the previous paragraph has to do with reader suggestibility. It’s a mistake to infer from HPPIAT that the four authors whose works are compiled within are in agreement on what White has learned and is presenting in the book. Readers who don’t first consider what the book’s subtitle infers — “pulling it all together” — may too hastily conclude the process was like fitting puzzle pieces together. (In a puzzle, the pieces DO fit together. A more accurate analogy for the work White has done would be building a fence from field stones. A lot of hard work goes into chipping away at those stones so they actually DO fit together.) A correct understanding of the HPPIAT compilation is that certain elements of four different authors’ recommendations worked for White when followed in a certain order and for certain periods of time. Beyond this, the authors do, in fact, disagree on some things.

For example, Young, in The pH Miracle, suggests use of probiotics is not a good idea while Huffnagle, in The Probiotics Revolution feels otherwise (as the title might infer!). Huffnagle refers to probiotics in general as “our silent partners for good health” (see all of Chapter 5, starting on page 90) while Young writes, “Yes, [probiotics] help to break down hard-to-digest animal protein and meat. But guess what. You are meat! [They] will break you down, too!” (page 55)

It is these kinds of disagreements between naturopaths that make many non-experts trying to find answers throw up their hands and walk away from natural alternatives. What White understood was that themes of agreement also ran through and connected these books. In finding those themes (see HPPIAT, Appendix B) and cautiously “pulling them together” through real experiments on himself — initially focusing his observations on improvement to, and then elimination of, his psoriasis symptoms — real, usable answers could be found. He’s found them and is continuing to find them. In his next book, Beyond Psoriasis, Way Beyond Psoriasis, I think he intends to share some of the other health benefits he’s experienced from what he’s pulled together.

I think it’s sufficient to understand White is not making blanket endorsements of naturopathy as prescribed by Huffnagle, Lahoz, Young or Pagano. Healing Psoriasis: Pulling It All Together is a summation of what the others have suggested and White has tried and found to work. I think it’s a worthwhile read for anyone who would like an alternative to expensive prescriptions or ineffective over-the-counter products. You don’t have to buy the book (for now) and your thoughts, ideas, questions, and personal results (if you embark on White’s pulled-together approach) are welcomed by White.

Healing Psoriasis Naturally, Pulling It All Together can be downloaded here:

http://www.hppiat.com .  –Ed Dewke