Lupus

November 15, 2000
Moore suffered from lupus for 14 years. After taking control of her health care, though, and drawing on alternative therapies (usually called "complementary" therapies), she has "recovered." Books by lupus patients aren't unusual, but hers is the first to go into complementary medicine in detail. Nutrition and dietary supplements played major roles, Moore says, and naturopathy, traditional Chinese medicine, and mind-body medicine were in the mix, too. The hardest part of her return to health was the removal of 22 dental amalgam fillings, which gave new meaning to the trendy saw "No pain, no gain" but produced increasingly noticeable improvement. A problem with using Chinese medicine was the difficulty of finding herbs free of dangerous admixtures. A highly personal chapter, "Caring for Your Spirit," offers suggestions for bettering the quality of one's life. \plain\f2\fs17 (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)