35 Start Your Day with a Glass of Urine

Drinking urine is a way of returning the body to nature, I think. Once our bodies have done so, when the end comes, it comes abruptly, as it does for the trees of the forest. Surely this person's death was precisely this type of ending.

The woman continued, "Actually, my brother brought urine therapy to my attention. He showed me an article from one the weekly magazines and said Grandpa's stories were not entirely off the track. That's how I came to know of you, Dr. Miyamatsu."

"Until about ten years ago, I lived with my daughter and her family. But my husband and I moved out after my bronchiectasis got worse because I didn't want to impose on my children. I have tried acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicines, but my condition has only worsened. Besides, these treatments and medicines are so expensive. Dr. Miyamatsu, do you think urine therapy will help me?"

One of my patients in Toronto with bronchial asthma was cured by urine therapy. I met her on a cold winter day about three weeks before Christmas. She had given up on Western medicine and wanted to cure herself naturally. The 26-year-old woman had had asthma since childhood and had been rushed to the hospital by ambulance many times after asthma attacks. Each time she was hopitalized, she was treated with chemothrapeutic drugs. The medicines would be effective for a while, but the asthma attacks continued and became more serious as they went along.

34 Start Your Day with a Glass of Urine

Chapter Four


Urine Therapy of Past and Present, East and West


I have told a good number of friends about my experiences with urine since my return to Japan, and it seems word has spread. One day, friend of mine said her acquaintance wanted to desperately to talk with me, so I contacted the person myself.

"Dr. Miyamatsu? Thank you so much for calling me."

The voice on the other end of the phone was that of a woman with a beautiful Okinawan accent.

"Please don't call me 'doctor.' My friend told me about you, but please relate your story in more detail."

"To be truthful, when I was a child, my grandfather claimed that drinking our first urine of the day would prevent us from getting sick. But no one in our family believed him or tried it. Grandpa died at the age of 86 in 1945, but to the best of my knowledge, he was never sick even once."

"Our family originally came from Naha, Okinawa but moved to Osaka after the war. Grandpa, being the son of a rich landowner, led a life of luxury, with wine and women to his heart's content. He tended sugar cane fields during the day. Apparantly he also involked some kind of incantations to drive away illness, but I'm not sure exactly what they were."

"Do you mind telling me how your grandfather died?"

"Despite his wayward life, he died very quietly and naturally. One day he said he wasn't feeling well after breakfast and went to lie down in his room. He stopped breathing almost as soon as he lay down. What a way to go!"

This woman's story made me recall the Grassy Narrows Indian reservation, where I often went walking alone deep in the forest, talking to and observing the plants and trees. In the wild, trees often suddenly topple over when they expire. I had often wondered why the end came so suddenly.

33 Start Your Day with a Glass of Urine

More Effective than Acupuncture

Around that time I was overcome by an overpowering sleepiness and had to take one-or two-hour naps. Even though I caught up on my sleep in the daytime when I had time, I had no trouble sleeping at night, and would get sleepy around 11:00 p.m and be fast asleep in a matter or minutes. I would wake up at around 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. and drink the first urine of the day. After that, I would be so alert I couldn't get back to sleep. This pattern continued for about two weeks. Thereafter, six hours of sleep was fully sufficient to　rest my body.

As I said earlier, I had a hemorrhoid operation 25 years ago. Although the operation relieved the pain, I was still bothered by a constant sense of pressure around the anus. After the pain in my shoulder subsided and my sleeping time shortened, I experienced pain in the anus twice. I also hemorrhaged two or three times. But the bleeding, too, vanished before I knew it, and the presssure-like sensation that had been with me for 20 years also disappeared.

The next part of my body to improve was my gums. It started with pain in my front and back teeth whenever drank something hot or cold. After all the other experiences, I was certain these symptoms could be traced to urine therapy. So I decided to gargle with urine. The pain disappeared in about two weeks. One of the fillings I had in my back teeth came off. That's probably because the inside of the tooth became healthier and contracted somewhat, so the filling no longer fit. Today I don't have a single cavity.

Having come this far, I couldn't contain myself any longer. I felt I had to tell as many people as possible about this incredibly wonderful feeling. A number of people trusted me and started right away. But most people hesitated. I noticed a big difference in the speed of revcovery in my acupuncture patients between those who drank urine and those who didn't. Moreover, I found that ailments that were supposedly impossible to cure with acupuncture could be cured when the patients also drank urine.

My personal experience collaborates this point. I don't know how many times I tried to cure my hip and neck with acupunture. The pain would improve for a bit but then regress. But since drinking urine, the pain has disappeared for good. I am completely relieved of my pain.

32 Start Your Day with a Glass of Urine

As time went by, a slightly less intense pain began to run down from my neck to between my shoulder blades. I had broken my right collarbone as a child doing juto, and from around the time I turned 30, my right shoulder would ache with each change of the seasons. By the time I turned 40, I couldn't bring my right arm all the way up, and every time I lifted something heavy or tried to throw something, a sharp pain would run up to my shoulder. I assumed this was bursitis.

The pain I felt in my shoulder after stating urine therapy was so intense I sometimes felt my arm would be shorn off. My wobbly neck also got so bad that I couldn't think or write for even an hour.

But having experienced the disappearance of the pain in my hip, I was cetain the pain and wobbliness would similarly vanish eventually. As the pain and wobbliness intensified, however, I began to have doubts about urine. Interestingly, my confidence in its efficacy fluctuated in conjunction with the degree of pain I was in.

Although the pain in my neck and shoulder lasted much longer than that in my hip, it, too, disappeared in about seven weeks, and the wobbliness in my neck cleared up soon after. The pain I felt deep inside my right shoulder disappeared,and I found I could lift my right arm all the way up and throw things without any pain.

31 Start Your Day with a Glass of Urine

Searing Pain in the Hip after Two Weeks of Urine Therapy


Around two weeks after starting urine therapy, I felt a searing pain in my hip that was quite different from anything I had experienced thus far. Strangely enough, it wasn't severe enough to prevent me from working. I felt intense pain about four or five times a day over the course of a month or so before it suddenly disappeared. Since then I have felt absolutely no pain, no matter what position I assume. It sounds impossible. The pain that had been with me for more than 20 years suddenly vanished.

Although I was physically aware that it had disappeared, deep down I couldn't believe the pain I had lived with for so long could have actually vanished. I tested myself this way and that, bending over, striking my hip, or assuming poses for long periods that had been impossible until then. I would get in the car and drive continuously until the tank was empty, then jump out and bend my hip. But the old pain was gone.

I am an easily persuaded person and more than willing to try anything that some one may recommend. That's probably why I was able to start urine therapy so quickly on Hamid's suggestion. I couldn't believe drinking urine would relieve the pain in my hip, but three months after starting urine therapy, my whole attitude toward urine and my own body began to change. I began to think I should take more serious approach to urine therapy.

30 Start Your Day with a Glass of Urine

Unable to withstand the pain, I entered the hospital in Kenora, the town nearest to the reservation. Many were alcoholics--women who had attempted suicide and men injured in fist fights. Given the large number of Indian patients, I expected the staff to be largely comprised of Indians, but to the best of my knowledge there were none. Aside from the younger generation, many of the Indians couldn't speak a word of English. It made me wonder how the petients and hospital staff communicated withe one another.

The thing Indians are most grateful for in a small town of less than 10,000 is the ability to secure a job. Virtually all important jobs are taken by whites, leaving nothing but dishwashing and the like for the Indians.

The hospital I entered was in a town similar to this. It was the first time I had been hospitalized overseas. At first I found it a harrowing place,as I had heard all sorts of horrible stories from the Indians on the reservation. But my illusion that entering the hospital would relieve my pain completely erased all these bad rumors from by mind.

After having scores of X-rays, I found myself strung up with weights pulling my neck and hips apart for five hours a day. But this treatment had absolutely no positive effect. After 20 days in the hospital, I felt no better than when I entered. The only thing the doctores could do for me was to give me painkillers or operate and remove the cartilage that had formed in my spinal cord. But there was no guarantee that operation would relieve my pain.

After returning to the reservation, I couldn't return to work and had to spend a week in bed. A white friend who worked on the reservation took me to a good chiropractor in Winnepeg, Manitoba. After a week or so of treatments, the pain eased enough to permit me to resume work.

My pain predated my move to the reservation; it goes back to my high school days whern I hurt myself doing various sports. My condition worsened when I did manual labor at Chikuho in Kishu prefecture.

29 Start Your Day with a Glass of Urine

The Effect of Urine Therapy on My Chronic Ailments


My decision to drink urine was motivated by none other than my own personal health problems. My right shoulder ached terribly with each change of the seasons and I couldn't lift my arm up straight. Sharp pain would shoot up my right shoulder whenever I tried to throw something, so I could only throw a baseball 10 meters or so at most. My neck would start to wobble when I sat down to read or write, and within an hour or so, my right shoulder would begin to ache. I had experienced nagging pain in my hip over the last 17 to 18 years stemming from the hard physical labor I did in my younger days.

Starting the day off with the pain I felt when I got up in the morning was like pulling myself out of a bad dream (possesed by bad spirits). This constant sense of pain is perhaps beyond the understanding of those who have never experienced it. But my upbringing, education and personal vanity would not allow me to complain about my condition. After my hip started hurting from the heavy cameras I carried as a photographer, though, I often asked myself why I hadn't chosen an easier line of work.

While I was able to manage on pure resolve in my early 30s, by the time I reached my late 30s I was clearly losing the battle with pain, which was gradually affecting my work. I was steadily overtaken by a fear that I wouldn't be able to stand in a matter of four or five years--I would be finished if I didn't do something. The last thing I wanted to do was spend the rest of my days in a hospital. These were my thoughts while I was living on the reservation.

28 Start Your Day with a Glass of Urine

Hamid and I shared Our Experiences

That day I only had one patient and the rest of the day to myself. Days like this are relaxing. I decided to call Hamid, who should have been at work by then.

"It's me, Hiro. Did you try it?"

"Wow, was it ever salty. I never imagined it would be that salty. My wife walked into the bathroom and made a face, like I was doing something really despicable, and know, like the faces the racists make at us. I told her I was going to go through with it no matter how much she scowled at me. She must have gotten the message, because she just walked out of the bathroom without a word. Then my elder son came in. I told him outright I had drunk my urine. For a second he looked dumbhounded, but then said there was nothing wrong with it since I was doing it. That's my son for you," Hamid related breathlessly.

"Lickily since I'm single (at then), I don't have to worry about what family members think. But When I told my mother last night, she nearly toppled over. I'll get her to start drinking it once we get better. But Hamid, do you really think it will work? We're not going to died, are we?"

"There's no way we're goingto die from drinking urine. Dasai poved it. In fact, there are many books in India about urine therapy. I would never resolve to drink it if I knew I was going to die. The only way to see what will happen is to keep it up. Sooner or later there should be some changes in our bodies. Believe it or not, my body alrady feels different today. It may be my imagination, but I feel like something is happening within me. Don't you feel anything?"

"Now that you mention it, I do feel slightly different. But there's no way it could work that fast. Last night I couldn't get a wink of sleep thinking about drinking urine. I got back into bed after drinking it at 5:00 a.m. and slept soundly until just before I called you. That, in itself, is a first appearance. I've never slept that soundly before. The only thing we can do is to keep it up. I'll talk to you again."

Our converstion ended in this way.

27 Start Your Day with a Glass of Urine

Well, I did it. Let come what may come. So what if I died. It wouldn't matter to me, since the people left behind are the ones who mourn. But since no one knows what will go out on the grapevine, I decided to keep my act to myself. No doubt, people would be whispering behind my back that I had gone nuts. So I decided to continue for a while without confiding in anyone and wait until I found myself getting better before telling others. So far the only person who knew was my mother. And Hamid.

I wondered whether Hamid had kept his promise and decided to call him later. After all, it ws still 5:00 a.m. and too early to wake him up. I returned from the bathroom and got into my sleeping bag again to allow the urine to settle down in my stomach. After a bit, the heartburn-like sensation diappeared. Instead, I felt satiated, as though I had just eaten a full meal. I also felt peaceful, as though wrapped in a warm pouch of some kind-like a womb or perhaps the pouch of a kangaroo. I drifted off to sleep and didn't wake up until 10:00 in the morning.

26 Start Your Day with a Glass of Urine

I began to have doublts again. Maybe Hamid was pulling my leg when he said Desai drank urine. If urine is so effective, why doesn't all manking drink it? Perhaps it is true that urine is passed from our bodies because it is not needed. If it really was necessary, God would have made us so that it would be recycled through our bodies naturally. The fact that it is excreted must mean we don't need it.

But the next instant I took it all back. Everyone has to eat to live. And the food we eat has simply gone through our bodies. Since when have our bodies become so filthy? We eat food with no consideration as to its cleanliness. Why should food become filthy just because it has passed through and been excreted from our bodies? It doesn't make any sense. I tried to convince the image of myself reflected in the bathroom mirror. All right, I'm going to do it.

Holding my nose with my left thumb and index finger and holding the jar in my right hand, I brought the jar to my mouth, and telling myself, "you're going to drink this," swallowed the amber-colored liquid in one gulp.

Was it ever salty! I didn't think anything from our bodies would be that salty. I felt as though all my innards from my esophagues to stomach were burning from the saltiness. My eyes turned red and my mind went blank. Then I started to burp. I noticed a strange smell. Each time I burped I felt like I was going to regurgitate, but nothing came up. Strange feeling. I took the toothbrush I had readied, applied lots of salt and brushed my teeth and tongue longer than I ever had before.