My dad is on it
I found this forum while still on the phone with my dad (I live about 2k mi away so driving over for dinner on Sundays isn't practical), after he told me about memoryhealer.org. I don't call my parents as often as I should but I am fiercely protective when I smell a rat. To my great joy, all the questions I asked him on the phone, I have since read on this forum. I decided to register and take some time to share his experience on the program with you. I will say this once, so please don't ask again. I am a real person and my (family's) situation is real. I am not selling or otherwise touting anything. I found this forum as one of the top several Google hits by searching "memory healer."
First, some background. He was diagnosed late last year with dementia, probably dealt with symptoms for 6-9 months prior. He is a very head strong, extremely intelligent, career engineer (as are both of his sons); point of this is that his brain and mine are well exercised. He quit smoking back in the 70s, the day his Dr told him it would kill him, and never had another since. His life has been dedicated to competent, responsible decisions founded in solid reasoning & logic, verified with research or data whenever possible. His mother had Alzheimer's and I was not close enough to his father to know if any history is there.
We took a two week trip to Europe with my parents in Sept and I was not prepared for what I was about to witness. My dad was almost completely "gone." What I mean by that is, someone who was always able to read between the lines or you could count on telling directions once had to have everything explained and had to be "taught" the same directions or instructions to tasks several times with almost no hope of remembering. Both parents had a great time telling my wife all the stories of my childhood as though they happened yesterday. I'm sure you all have similar stories to this. My dad was here but he wasn't. I cried myself to sleep almost every night (I can't remember the last time I cried but thank god we had separate rooms for the whole trip). Partly because I knew I needed to have more patience that I just couldn't muster and partly because I was angry that I let this sneak up on me (probably mostly because of the later which is very selfish and I'm not proud of).
Fast forward to this evening; the first time I spoke to him in a month. He told me about memory healer, the "science" (parts of the brain effected, etc), the cost of the book, the ingredients in the diet (there are more than I could probably remember), the number of pages, etc. The first chance I got, I interrupted him and asked if he bought any supplements or subscribed to any recurring newsletters that cost money. Negative. As he talked, I realized he was back. Everything he told me, he told me from memory. He wasn't reading the ingredients of the diet from the book to me. He didn't turn to the last page to read the page count and regurgitate. We started talking about my career and the politician in him came out, he was reading between the lines! I didn't have the heart to tell him I had already thought everything through. I just let him go. I asked him if he remembered the cancer "Dr" in the Caribbean selling cures to people who had no hope. Of course he did, he remembers everything as long as it didn't happen in the last couple years.
My point is that whether you believe in what memory healer is selling or not, it's really rather irrelevant. If the patient recognizes some physiological benefit, that's all that really matters. For all I know it's a placebo but I don't really care. Take a vacation, you'll get duped out of $40 within 10min of walking out of the airport. He says he feels different after being on the diet for a month and I can attest to the fact that he IS different than when I last spent time with him.
He did tell me the diet isn't remotely appetizing and some days he "just can't do it" and has normal food. I know him well enough to know that the alternative isn't an option to him so he'll do it for as long as he thinks he's getting a benefit and "just can't do it" for someone like him is probably 1 day a week or less so you will need quite the constitution to stick with it. He also told me he still takes the drugs from his Dr but dosage and frequency have not changed.
If this helps one person reading it, my time has been well spent. Good luck. I got a taste of what this disease does from my grandmother and I wasn't even around her toward the end. I can understand the desperation of patients and family members to somehow want to contain it.
P.S. - And I will be contacting mom separately to make sure she's watching the credit card statements for supplements and other garbage.