Kris Carter's Story

November, 1996

Hello Bill,

For as long as I can remember, I have had digestive problems. My mother often told me that for the first year of my life, I did nothing but "cry with a bellyache". They called it "the colic" back then in 1952. (Boy do I wish my mother has known about Aphanizomenon flos-aquae, (AFA) when I was a baby). When I went away to X-Ray school, I remember living on Alka-Seltzer daily to just be able to deal with the digestive problems.

In 1974 I ended up in the hospital with severe intestinal pain and the doctor ran a battery of tests that ended up with a prognosis of spastic colon. The doctor also deduced by listening to my history, that I had lead poisoning.

When my mother was pregnant with me, she helped my Uncle do a lot of inside house painting with lead paint. The doctor felt that the fumes probably didn't make her sick; however, they did have a damaging effect on the fetus (me). So I ended up being blessed with a messed up digestive system.

As a result, I had to deal with nausea, severe pain, unexplained bouts of diarrhea, and food related digestive troubles nearly all my life.

Well, the bomb hit in May, 1988. For about a month I had not been feeling well. On this fateful Friday morning I felt a sharp pain shoot though my lower intestine. I did my best to ignore it but by Sunday I was in so much pain I had to go to ER. Within two hours I was in surgery with a suspected ruptured appendices. It wasn't my appendices! What they found was a ruptured colon. The doctor said that part of my lower intestine had become abscessed and burst.

I woke up from surgery with not just and appendectomy incision (the doctor called his oops) but also with a colostomy. What a shock. I had more surgery three months later. They removed another portion of my intestines and re-attached my colon. Thankfully I might add.

I was also diagnosed with diverticular disease, which if anyone has it, knows that you have to be very careful what you eat or you pay dearly in pain and suffering. On top of all this I was told to be very careful as it was possible for my colon to rupture again.

About 15 months ago, after suffering from a three week long headache, I saw one of my fellow workers popping some green capsules while I was at work. I was familiar with "green food" so I asked what she was eating. She told me it was AFA. I had never heard of eating algae before, but I was interested in what it might do for me. One thing led to another and I decided to give it a try. I wanted to see if all these claims were true.

The first thing I noticed was no more headache! To my surprise, in a few days I started feeling more energetic, and though this is hard to explain to those out there who do not have intestinal problems, I felt a calming, soothing, healing feeling in my colon. I used to describe the pain in my colon as if someone were scraping my insides with a stiff wire bottle brush. After taking the algae for a few days, this was replaced with this warm, soothing feeling.

I've been eating the AFA for fifteen months now and I intend to make it a part of my diet for the rest of my life. I encourage everyone to at least give it a try. I was a bit skeptic and I'm very thankful that I didn't let my skepticism get in the way of eating AFA. It's a remarkable food.

Thanks a lot for letting me share my story with you.

Kris Carter, Colorado Springs, CO.