R.I.P. CHARLIE (gone to a better place where there’s no pain)
It is with real sadness that I pass on the news that Charlie (my partner in crime on Freedom From Psoriasis) passed away in 2021.
I have wonderful memories of our many Friday night Skype talks that sometimes went on for several hours. We shared a lot of laughs and we argued like hell but we always came back to how important our protocol was and what new things we might have found out in our continuing journey–battling psoriasis and helping others who had this disease.
And I remember we first met on the National Psoriasis Foundation (NPF) discussion board when he came onto my ‘thread’ (kind of like a blog) talking about magnesium chloride and I shot back at him, telling him to stop ‘hijacking my thread’ (which is when someone comes onto your thread without an invitation and talks about their own remedy).
Charlie wrote back, very apologetic, and I decided to check out his thread and saw a photo that made me think that he was a relative of one of those Duck Dynasty guys. But I spent some time reading what he had to say (which was hilarious) and decided that he was one of the good guys–that he really cared about people suffering from this disease.
If you never knew how he came upon the magnesium chloride part of our protocol, it’s worth repeating here. Charlie was working on his pond with a friend and Charlie was getting bitten by mosquitoes and his friend wasn’t. It turned out his friend was taking magnesium.
So Charlie went into his barn and found a bag of road de-icer, which is mostly magnesium chloride (a salt), mixed it with water and slapped it on his arms. “Hurt like hell,” he said. But it kept the mosquitoes away.
(you can hear him tell the story himself here: Charlie’s Story)
Then, after a month or so, he noticed that the psoriasis on his arms was getting better (it was the only part of his body that wasn’t covered with clothing when he was working–he had really terrible plaque psoriasis) so he sprayed his whole body. And then screamed around his house in pain because salt on broken skin is torture.
But he kept it up and his psoriasis started to disappear. So, he went on the NPF with the name “the Pain” to write about his “cure” and was promptly thrown off because you can’t talk about cures on the NPF. But he sneaked back on with a new name and that’s when we met.
Charlie was what the British call a “one-off”. It means someone who is completely unique–someone who when God made him, he broke the mold. There really was no one like him.
He tried to pretend that he didn’t like anyone but he cared deeply about the people who had psoriasis. He suffered a lot of pain over those years when we talked. He was an accident waiting to happen. One of the worst was being bitten by a brown recluse spider which was truly painful and left him unable to eat meat. And there were many more examples. But he just kept on truckin’. And fightin’. And drinkin’. And smokin’.
We joined forces on the NPF with a thread that was one of the fastest growing in the history of that discussion board. And because we were so successful, we got thrown off. And that (with the generous help of Mike, our web creator) was why we started the website: www.FreedomFromPsoriasis.com
I miss him. And I will never forget him. I’m pretty sure he’s in a better place where he has no more pain. But I’m also sure he’s raising Cain somewhere up there–arguing with anyone who wants to take him on. And making everyone laugh.
R.I.P. Charlie Brown.
With much love from Dakota and her little dog, Lucky.
(you can meet the man himself here: Charlie’s Story and on webinar replays)
