Ultrasound

Aajonus consistently directed people toward urologists, cardiologists, and other specialists who would use ultrasound rather than x-rays for diagnostic purposes. When he began experiencing urinary symptoms including pain, difficulty initiating urination, and eventually the need to lift his leg to urinate, he contacted a friend who had recently had stones removed and asked specifically for the name of a urologist who used ultrasound rather than x-rays. He reported that he had actually advised that friend, approximately six months before his own episode began, to find a urologist who would use ultrasound to diagnose urinary problems. This recommendation appears to have been a standing piece of guidance he gave to people dealing with urinary tract issues.

He also refused x-rays when hospitalized following a serious motorcycle accident, insisting on sonograms when examinations were needed. In cardiac research settings, when doctors wanted to evaluate his bone density, he declined x-ray-based bone scanning and indicated he would seek out a facility at UCLA or another university that had ultrasound-based bone density equipment. He stated he wanted to have his bone density checked with ultrasound and everything else with ultrasound, specifically to avoid x-rays.

He distinguished clearly between different imaging modalities on grounds of biological harm. MRI he described as involving a high magnetic field and as making people sicker, while also failing to register biological vitality, showing only solid matter rather than life. CT scans he described as involving high radiation. X-rays he opposed categorically for personal use and also raised concern about x-ray irradiation of food during shipping. Contrast-enhanced imaging using barium he described as the injection or ingestion of a toxic substance to increase image definition, a practice the medical industry continued despite known toxicity risks. Thermographic screening, which measures infrared radiation heat emitted from the body without discharging significant electromagnetic fields, he mentioned as another alternative method of anatomical imaging that produced minimal burden on the body. Ultrasound, by contrast, he characterized as "not as radical as radiation waves," using sound to map tissue density rather than bombarding tissue with damaging energy.

Ultrasound sat between thermography and x-ray in his framework, less harmful than all radiation-based methods, more useful for structural assessment than thermography, but still carrying the specific risks of auditory damage to fetuses and potential unspecified harm from overuse in adults. He treated it as the most practically accessible and acceptable option for people who needed conventional structural imaging and could not avoid a diagnostic procedure entirely.

While Aajonus supported the use of ultrasound as a diagnostic tool, he was explicit that it was not without risk and gave specific parameters defining when it crossed from acceptable into harmful.

His clearest safety statement for adults was that ultrasound is only harmful if done more than twice within a six-month period. He mentioned that he personally had his arterial plaque checked every three to four years, which he considered a safe frequency, and that the company Life Line Screening made such testing accessible once or twice yearly at low cost. He framed once or twice yearly as an acceptable frequency, consistent with his rule of no more than twice in six months.

For fetuses, the safety threshold was substantially more restrictive. He stated that ultrasound can damage the auditory capabilities of a fetus, impairing hearing. Because of this, he advised that pregnant women avoid both ultrasound and radiation exposure. He gave a more precise boundary for fetal safety as well, namely that ultrasound should not be performed more than once every five weeks during pregnancy, and each session should not exceed four minutes. The implication was that brief, infrequent fetal ultrasound might be acceptable but that anything beyond this could damage the developing auditory system.

This distinction between adult and fetal safety thresholds reflects his broader framework that developing organisms are more vulnerable to disruptive electromagnetic and acoustic energies than mature bodies, and that what is tolerable for an adult may be meaningfully harmful to an unborn child.

One of Aajonus's most consistent personal uses of ultrasound was monitoring arterial plaque, specifically in his carotid arteries and around his heart. He described beginning this practice around 2001, when ultrasound-based arterial checking became more widely available, and continuing it on a roughly every-three-to-four-year schedule.

In multiple workshop accounts, he described cardiac research settings where teams of specialists used ultrasound to examine his heart and carotid arteries. The accounts varied slightly in their specifics but were consistent in their central details. Doctors spent far longer than normal on the examination because they could not find the plaque buildup they expected given his diet of large quantities of raw cream, butter, raw meat, and cheese. He described his fat intake at the time as approximately a stick of butter per day in fall and winter, and eight to ten ounces or more of raw cream per day in spring and summer.

In one account, the normal examination time was described as ten minutes, and the cardiologists extended it to twenty-five to thirty minutes searching for congestion they could not find. In another account, conducted when Aajonus was approximately twenty years old, a cardiologist conducted a sonogram with videotape running, and what was normally a fifteen-minute procedure extended to half an hour, with twice the normal amount of video recorded, because the cardiologist could not believe the cleanliness of the cardiac arteries and kept repositioning the transducer to capture the heart from every possible direction. In a third account, the total session ran forty-five minutes rather than the usual twenty, with doctors checking the heart from every angle and spending ten minutes on each carotid artery rather than the usual three.

In each of these accounts, the doctors expressed disbelief at the cleanliness of his cardiovascular system given his dietary practices. Descriptions from the cardiologists included characterizations like "completely clean heart" with "not a bit of plaque on it anywhere" and phrases like "this is beautiful" and "this is amazing" directed at the images of his arteries at nearly fifty-six years old. They found only the slightest trace of plaque consistent with what one might find in a person in their mid-twenties.

The one exception across these accounts was his right carotid artery, which showed plaque buildup that he had noted since he was young. He stated this plaque had not gotten worse but also had not improved despite years on the diet. The measurements he cited from Life Line Screening tests over four examinations spanning roughly ten years showed his right carotid reading between PSV 168 cm/sec at the lowest and PSV 181 cm/sec with EDV 59 cm/sec. He reported that he did not feel the need to address this because he was not a physically active person and was not concerned about it.

He also described using ultrasound to evaluate the plaque he had had since approximately age twenty. He noted that the plaque that was present when he was young had diminished substantially, to the point where it was barely visible, and he expected it to be gone within another ten years.

The most extensively documented use of ultrasound in Aajonus's personal medical history involved the diagnosis and surgical removal of what he described as the largest bladder stone ever recorded. The ultrasound played a central role in his account both as the diagnostic method he demanded and as a source of imagery that documented the stone.

He had been experiencing progressive urinary difficulty for some time before the acute episode, including slow initiation of urination, extended time to complete urination, and eventually the need to lift his leg like a dog to initiate any flow at all. He had experienced incomplete bladder emptying since infancy or early childhood, and he attributed the stone's formation to that long history as well as to heavy metals, particularly mercury and lead, that he had accumulated from tetanus injections he received as an infant. He estimated the stone had been growing since he was approximately two to two and a half years old.

When he went to the urologist, he refused x-rays. The urologist performed an ultrasound instead and immediately identified a large mass. Aajonus described watching the ultrasound screen himself and seeing the mass. The stone was so large that it was blocking urinary outflow to the urethra, which explained the positioning he had developed to urinate. The urologist examined the screen and described the stone as the largest he had ever seen in both personal experience and in the medical literature.

All four urologists at the clinic, along with approximately twenty nurses, confirmed they had never seen a stone that large. The actual shape of the stone, as revealed in the ultrasound prints, was scalene ellipsoidal, though from the camera's close perspective during the laser removal procedure it appeared round. The stone was removed surgically using a tube with a laser, camera, and fluid irrigation system. The core of the stone, the urologist reported afterward, was the size of a large marble, black like steel, and extremely dense with mercury. The center was described as entirely metal. The removal process took over an hour and forty-five minutes rather than the ten minutes typically required for a bladder stone.

Aajonus noted that the ultrasound imagery provided a medically accurate picture of the stone's size and position, which the urologist used to plan the procedure. He stated that the stone as seen in the ultrasound prints showed its actual scalene ellipsoidal shape clearly.

He also described sending other people with similar urinary symptoms to the same urologist because that doctor would use ultrasound to check for stones without requiring x-rays. He noted that none of those other individuals actually had stones. Their symptoms were caused by urinary wall toxicity and localized toxic accumulation producing similar sensations, not by stones themselves.

Aajonus used ultrasound, described in this context as sonogram, to evaluate whether people who believed they were constipated were actually accumulating fecal matter. He described telling clients who were concerned about infrequent bowel movements to have a sonogram done to see whether fecal matter was actually building up in their intestines. He reported that out of the thousands of people he sent for such evaluations, not one came back with a high registration of fecal matter, with the sole exception of people who had cancer and had come in for that reason rather than because they believed themselves to be constipated.

His point was that the subjective experience of constipation on his diet, including moving the bowels only every three days, did not correspond to any actual pathological accumulation of waste material. The ultrasound provided objective evidence to demonstrate this to people who were frightened by their bowel frequency.

Aajonus expressed a consistent preference for ultrasound-based bone density testing and noted that he used it to check his bone density in addition to his cardiovascular system. He described going approximately every two years to a screening service that used ultrasound to check arterial walls and bone density. He reported getting a clean bill of health each time on both measures.

The limitation he encountered was that the specific facility he visited for cardiac research had only x-ray equipment for bone scanning and was not set up to use ultrasound for bone density testing. He declined the x-ray-based bone scan and was referred to another university that had the appropriate ultrasound equipment, though he noted he had not yet followed through on that referral at the time he discussed it.

He described bone density by ultrasound as accurate within approximately one to two percent, which he considered sufficiently precise for practical purposes.

Separate from diagnostic ultrasound, Aajonus was asked about therapeutic ultrasound as used in physical therapy for reducing inflammation in musculoskeletal injuries. His response was personal rather than systematic. Following the cancer therapies that had damaged his spine, he received regular ultrasound treatments and stated they did not help his condition. He also noted that after those treatments began, the marijuana he was using to manage back pain began making his pain worse rather than better, a reversal of its prior effect, and he attributed this change to something the ultrasound treatments had altered in his body. He described this as the ultrasound having "changed something in my body that caused me suffering with no relief." He acknowledged explicitly that this was a single personal experience and that he had not conducted any experiments with therapeutic ultrasound to establish broader conclusions about it.