LENA WOLFE

Lena Wolfe, now a leading model for Richard Ruckel Studios and a college student, is STANDING……learn how YFH helped make this possible!

By Donna Wine

As a young girl, Lena Wolfe always had fainting episodes. The episodes were sporadic, and Kenny and Cindy, her parents, found them easy to explain. "There was always a reason," says Cindy. "You know, she was buying lunch for the first time and was the first one in line. She was nervous," she explains. Other than these occasional incidents, Lena was a normal little girl.

Lena's health couldn't be called normal for long, however. When she was thirteen, the sporadic fainting episodes became regular. It was clear that, what had been an unsettling rare occasion, was truly a health issue. "The school started to call about Lena's fainting," recalls Cindy. "As if Lena passing out frequently wasn't bad enough," Cindy remembers, "the school would call and say, 'You have to come pick her up, RIGHT NOW'." Lena's condition affected not only her quality of life, but also impacted everyone around her.

The Wolfe's went to their family physician for help. He began with a basic, but very effective, diagnostic tool; he drew Lena's blood and ran a comprehensive series of tests. The resulting news was simultaneously troubling and encouraging. "Lena's blood work came back and everything was normal!" recalls Cindy. The Wolfe's did not understand how their daughter could be fainting on a daily basis, yet have blood work, which indicated she was a normal teenager. However, her results were all within the Normal Lab Statistical Reference Ranges.

It was obvious that there was more to the story than the blood tests indicated. Lena's physician referred the Wolfe's to the Cleveland Clinic, the leading medical center in the Cleveland area. Doctors at the clinic listened to Lena's story, reviewed her medical history and blood work, and prescribed a series of more complex diagnostic tests. On March 25, 1998, the Wolfe's received the first diagnosis. . . or more accurately, the first diagnoses. "Lena broke the record on the tilt-table test at the Cleveland Clinic," Cindy recalls, referring to a test used to diagnose patients like Lena. "Lena was diagnosed with hypovolemia, venous pooling, and NMH." Hypovolemia is a condition indicative of low total blood volume; Lena has 28% less blood by volume than you or I. NMH, however, was an even bigger problem. Neurally mediated hypotension (NMH) occurs when the brain and the heart fail to properly communicate, resulting in fatigue, dizziness, and fainting.

By mid-October of Lena's junior year in high school, her health had declined so much that she could no longer attend school. "Between her junior and senior years of school, she missed 135 days," said her father, Kenny. As well as worrying about Lena missing so much school, her parents had to worry about her safety when she was at home by herself. "When we called [Lena at] home and no one answered, we never knew if she was sleeping, or if she had passed out on the bathroom floor," said Cindy. Eventually, Kenny left his job to stay home with Lena.

The family went back to the Cleveland Clinic in January 1999. Every three weeks, it seemed, the doctors changed the drugs she was on, or at the very least, the dosage she was taking. None of the drugs were effective, alone or in combination. At one point, her medication regimen became so complicated that should she have missed one dose, she might have had a heart attack. Not surprisingly, Lena's body was stressed and out of balance from dealing with NMH. She had a migraine headache 24 hours a day, everyday. In addition, she was bedridden for all but four hours a day and, in those four hours, she was in a fog. "She was barely able to focus for even an hour to work with the tutor from school," says Kenny.

Hope came from an unlikely source - Cindy's business partner, Tom. One day, when Cindy was talking to Tom about Lena's declining health, Tom shared a story about his sister. "My sister has chronic fatigue, he said, but she's fine now." "She's fine now?" Cindy thought. The Wolfe's would have loved for Lena to be "fine." YFH had been the source of relief for chronic fatigue for Tom's sister. Kenny and Cindy immediately decided to look into YFH. They spoke with founder Ellie Cullen, and they agreed to begin with a HealthPrint Nutrition Bloodtest Evaluation. Ellie had not worked with NMH before, but felt that balancing Lena's bodily systems was the best place to begin. And that is what a HealthPrint does. The family doctor would continue to handle the medications. Cindy, Kenny, and Lena knew that YFH could not cure her NMH, but they were willing to give the system a try. At the very least, they knew they would gain a better understanding of how NMH had affected Lena's body.

Lena's HealthPrint highlighted several measures in Lena's blood that were outside her YFH Optimum Range, but were within the Lab Statistical Reference Range. For example, Lena's iron, hemoglobin and zinc were very low. The Wolfe's began to understand that being within the Lab Statistical Reference Range does not necessarily mean that the level is healthy. Working with YFH, they learned the difference between lab statistical average ranges and more narrow optimum personal ranges. Raising or lowering her scores to be in her YFH Optimum Ranges made all the difference in the world for Lena. There was nothing "average" about Lena's condition. More importantly, as they learned how to use nutrition to move towards optimum levels, they learned how to move towards a higher quality of life for Lena.

Another change that Lena made as a result of working with YFH had to do with specific changes in the food she ate. Oftentimes, NMH patients are prescribed a high-salt diet with the hopes of increasing blood pressure and minimizing dizziness and fatigue. This is a general guideline, one that is most likely to work for the average NMH patient. Once again, though, average did not necessarily mean healthy, let alone optimum. Lena was eating TV dinners and pasta in an attempt to follow the high salt regime. However, Lena's blood indicated that a high-protein, low carbohydrate and low glycemic diet of foods supplemented with sea salt was more appropriate for her overall health.

Today, says Cindy, "We always have meat and lots of low carbohydrate vegetables in the house. Kenny is a hunter, so we always have venison. We also bought a side of beef. The whole family committed to the dietary changes in an effort to support Lena. We wanted to understand the changes she was making. Some of us cheat more than others, but Lena doesn't cheat."

Following her YFH HealthPrint and other lifestyle recommendations, Lena showed dramatic improvement in just one month. As an added bonus, because Lena's family physician had been so willing to work with YFH, they were able to reduce her drug load to just one drug.  By October, 1999, eight months after she began working with YFH, Lena was camping with her family, a dramatic improvement over being in bed 20 hours a day. In fall 2000, she plans to go to college.

NMH has no cure; Lena will suffer from it all her life. But YFH has given Lena the ability to understand NMH's effects on her body, and her HealthPrint gives her the control over her health she didn't have before. Lena can now use nutrition and lifestyle changes to optimize her health, giving her the best quality of life possible. Most importantly, Lena's future health looks brighter than ever.

Cindy remembers, "The cost of working with YFH was so minimal, compared to the other money we had spent on Lena's care. My husband had quit his job to stay home and be with Lena. It was definitely worth trying."

YFH is proud to share Lena's story. Critical to her incredible results were the eighteen tests not normally run because of cost containment processes. As stated, balancing her bodily systems by establishing her personal levels through nutrition and lifestyle changes was the key to success. BUT, the real credit goes to Lena's personal determination to stick with the program and not cheat, as well as her family's loving support. If Lena had learned what to do, but followed the program half-heartedly, the result would not have been the same.

Lena is an excellent example of how one can get the most from the YFH system. She will be doing HealthPrints often, and for years to come, because she knows that the levels in the body are always changing. Lena now has a way to monitor those changes and know which nutritional and lifestyle adjustments to make.

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Photographs displayed courtesy of Richard Ruckel, www.mysticmtnstudio.com