RadioVerso.org – Herbal Health

If your doctor or hospital consultant refers you to a chartered physiotherapist – or you choose to see one independently – for back pain, the first step towards treatment will almost certainly be an in-depth assessment of your condition and what led to it. As well as an examination of your posture, this assessment will include a discussion that will cover your work and leisure activities, your history of back pain, the incident leading to the pain, and the nature and site of the pain.

Physiotherapy still remains largely a hands-on profession, and the most likely treatment for back pain will involve the physiotherapist using his – or her – hands gently or more vigorously to achieve one or more of the following aims:

Mobilisation – this means freeing one or more joints in the spine, and this is accomplished by the therapist moving them, often very gently, to relieve pain or spasm.

Manipulation – or realigning a joint that is or has become misplaced. Although a vigorous manoeuvre, the least force necessary is used, and this often involves a very small movement indeed.

Massage – this can help relieve muscle spasm, increase circulation to the injured area and so speed up and promote the natural healing process.

Other treatment methods commonly used by physiotherapists include ice, hydrotherapy, and acupuncture. For an acute back problem, ice can reduce pain and increase circulation while hydrotherapy can help a patient move their back and limbs more freely in water than they may otherwise be able to do. The use of acupuncture for pain relief is also increasing.

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“Sleeping through the night” is a phrase that is probably best banned from our vocabulary. Let’s face it, no one really sleeps through the night. If you poll a group of adult friends and ask them how they slept last night, you will undoubtedly hear such things as: The wind woke me up.

At 3:00 am I looked at the clock and was relieved to see I had two more hours before the alarm would ring.

If you poll a group of parents, and get past the “She has always slept through the night,” you will hear a variety of comments:

When he is teething, he has a little trouble sleeping.

She seems so hungry at around 2:00 am—must be a growth spurt.

He has been waking with bad dreams.

If sleeping all night long, every night, is your expectation for your child,

you may be setting yourself up for frustration. Sleep needs and patterns

change with age, illness, and emotional or even environmental factors. Just as

with other parenting issues, our goals, expectations, and approaches must be

constantly re-evaluated.    

It is misleading to think of sleep as a state we simply fall into at night and wake from in the morning. Sleep research has shown that there are definite patterns and fluctuations during the night. They play important roles to help refresh us and can reveal some causes behind sleep disturbances.

The descriptions of these cycles can be quite technical. Because a basic understanding is crucial, an effort has been made to give a very simple explanation of what occurs and how your child might be affected.

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Area indicates a number of nerve cells in the cortex (the name given to the layers of nerve cells on the surface of the brain) which are in some way abnormal, tending to discharge paroxysmally. They may drive other nerve cells to follow their abnormal patterns of discharge. The paths of influence of the discharging nerve cells are indicated by the arrows. As long as the discharge remains in one part of the brain, the seizure is said to be a partial seizure and its cause

location-related. What happens during a partial seizure depends upon the exact site and pattern of discharge of abnormal nerve cells. Temporal lobe seizures are of this type.

The abnormal discharge may spread through the connections linking the two halves of the brain, or, by affecting poorly identified central collections of cells, initiate a generalized seizure discharge, in which case the seizure is said to be a partial seizure with secondary generalization (to a convulsive seizure—grand mal). These are also known as tonic-clonic seizures).

The second main class of seizure. In this class of seizure, central collections of nerve cells are in some way abnormal in their behaviour—even though they may appear to be perfectly normal under the microscope. Because of their central position, and the direction and power of their transmissions, a seizure discharge generated within them spreads more or less simultaneously to all parts of the brain. Such a seizure is generalized at onset. Typical absences (often known as petit mal), and some grand mal seizures, are of this type.

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The bags under your eyes, the weight you have been losing or gaining, the grumpiness and sheer exhaustion—these are the obvious reasons to make some changes. Your child’s physical and emotional well-being are also reasons.

Dr. Burton White, author of The First Three Years of Life, feels that sleep problems understandably occur in families where children are loved and whose needs have been met. So, in some ways, the emergence of sleep problems is not necessarily a bad sign. He notes that it is the continuance of sleep disturbances that can cause deeper problems.

Dr. Marc Weissbluth, author of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, states that the development of healthy sleep habits is not automatic. If your child has not learned them, then his functioning during wakefulness is not “optimal.”2 Put simply, a sleep-deprived child (waking several times a night or missing out on even an hour) is not at his best. His cognitive processes will be fuzzy and his social functioning will be marked by grumpy unpredictability.

A child can “adjust” to whatever sleep patterns he has fallen into. (Look at how you have “adjusted.” Do you say “I didn’t know it was possible to exist with so little sleep”?) However, there are signs—some subtle, some blatant—that he is not at his best.

It is the parents’ job to insist on healthy sleep, just as they insist on healthy nutrition, to give the child the strongest base from which to grow. Good sleep habits do not necessarily happen spontaneously. This is a skill that can be learned by children and facilitated by parents.

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Students of medicine, our future doctors, are forced to memorise an enormous quantity of bits and pieces of information, the most important being the names of chemicals and hormones and their relationship to various organs and functions of the body.

I highlighted the “bits and pieces”, because they do not form a complete picture of the way our body functions. To a serious scientist their collection poses more questions than it provides answers.

After young doctors complete their University studies and their initial supervised practice, they practice on their own, continuing their “education” during their working life.

Let us analyse, how they update their knowledge. Critical study of Medical Journals and complex results of clinical research requires time and significant effort from doctors, for which they are not being paid. Another source of new information is that concerning new drugs manufactured by chemical companies. This information is simple and quick to absorb: it comes with short and complete instructions on how to prescribe drugs to patients, details of dosages etc. It also comes with “free samples” of drugs to make the doctor familiar with the name of the drug, by being always at hand. Well-informed drug sales representative would offer a doctor personal assistance in acquiring familiarity with any new drug. Each year a multitude of new drugs is introduced to medical practice in this way. After several years of medical practice, most of the doctor’s new knowledge comes from such sales representatives, who usually do not have any medical education at all.

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There are all sorts of problems about epilepsy. Epilepsy is the name given to recurrent ’seizures’ (also known as ‘fits’, or ‘attacks’), of which the fairly well-known grand mal convulsions are only one type. A whole variety of brain disorders can cause epilepsy, which should perhaps be considered no more than a stereotyped reaction of the brain to a variety of stresses. It is not generally known that, in spite of the most modern methods of investigation, an underlying cause can only be identified with certainty in about one third of people with epilepsy. The good news that has emerged from research studies over the last twenty years is that the long-term outlook for the cessation of seizures is very much better than was previously considered to be the case, as earlier research referred only to people with epilepsy whose seizures were the most difficult to control.

People with epilepsy have many worries. Children with epilepsy may be upset or worried about telling their friends and what will happen to them in the future. Women with epilepsy are understandably concerned about the possible effects of anti-epileptic medication when pregnant. Not everyone understands the impact of epilepsy upon the eligibility to hold a driving licence. Many employers understand little about epilepsy, and people with epilepsy may not have the same possibilities of employment, or of career advancement.

Epilepsy can begin at any age in life, but is particularly likely to begin in early childhood. One of us is a paediatric neurologist with a particular interest in epilepsy, and the other works with adults with epilepsy.

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Before we start to discuss the limitations of conventional medicine, let us consider the following facts, which are very easy to verify, but for some reason or another escape the attention of the public:

1. Medical Practice and research concentrates on the study of curing diseases, rather than on the study of maintaining perfect health.

2. Medical Practice is BIG business (doctors, hospitals, medical equipment, drugs, pharmaceutical supplies, health insurance, etc.) This business as a whole is not interested at all about people getting healthy. On the contrary, the more people are sick, the better the business.

3. It is in the best interest of medical business to fight, criticise, ridicule, discredit and preferably make illegal any method potentially capable of improving the health of the population.

4. Medical Education and Research are funded to a large extent by chemical and pharmaceutical companies, which are in a position to decide what to teach doctors and what research directions should be funded. Note, that no research can be performed if there are no funds to support it.

5. Centralised Medical Authorities (with members educated in the environment described above) have complete monopoly and also final jurisdiction over our health. These Authorities advise Governments that there will be more sick to treat next year, and it will cost more. They make recommendations, that health insurance should be mandatory, and that the best way to ensure this is to introduce a health tax. Guess who benefits most from such a scheme?

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In the year 1893, the Swedish pastor Liljequist brought out a work entitled Om Oegendiagnosen. The book consisted of 284 pages, and an atlas with 258 monochrome and 12 coloured double-iris drawings. At first, he maintained that he developed eye-diagnosis independently from Peczely, and goes so far in the above work as to correct Peczely’s statements.

From about the year 1887, the Tubingen ophthalmologist Schlegel supported Irisdiagnosis. The Eye-diagnosis of I. v. Peczely, was well known at that time. The names of others who were prominent at the turn of the century should be mentioned: Stiegele, Rapp, Wirtz, Zoepperitz.

However, these well-known names are superseded in significance by that of Pastor Felke (1856-1926), to whom the credit belongs for complete originality in this field. His eye-diagnosis, upon which he himself unfortunately never wrote, has been expounded by A. Miiller in a book, The Eye-diagnosis based upon the principles of Pastor Felke.

Even after his death, Felke influenced the development of Irisdiagnosis through his pupils, whose influence is still evident today. To this group belong H. Hense, as well as Frau Pastor Madaus and her daughter, Eva Flink, together with many other indirect pupils. Many of these pupils have in their turn acquired student groups.

Other well-known authors and investigators should here be mentioned: Maubach, Dr. Schnabel and Thiel; Anderschou in England; Collins, Kritzer and Jensen in the U.S.A.; Vannier in France. The list may be concluded with the names of Angerer, Baumhauer, Deck, Kronenberger, Struck, Dr. Unger and Dr. Wermuth.

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Question

Will hypnosis help?

Answer

Hypnotism can produce a very positive response in the short term. The result will not last if we have no understanding of the disorder and don’t know how to manage the attacks and anxiety ourselves. In conjunction with panic/anxiety management skills, hypnotism can help while we work with aspects of the disorder. If we use an audio tape of the hypnosis session during periods of high anxiety and attacks, the tape must teach us how to control the anxiety and the attacks. The control does not come from a cassette tape.

Some people use subliminal tapes in an effort to ease their symptoms. We must know what the subliminal message of the tape is and, more importantly, we should consciously know and learn how to manage anxiety and the attacks ourselves.

Question

I have heard about people becoming housebound. I am the opposite. I can’t bear to be in the house. As soon as my husband goes to work I have to get out of the house. I spend my days travelling on buses or walking around shopping centres. Is this part of the disorder?

Answer

This does happen to some people. If they have difficulty in being alone, going out and being around other people is better than staying home. It can also happen to people who were housebound, but for another reason. As people progress in their recovery, some may go through a stage where the thought of being home all day brings back too many memories of their disorder. They prefer to go out as much as they can. This stage does pass.

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Panic anxiety management skills allow many of us to be free of our anxiety disorder. The skills can give us a control over our lives that we have never had before; but sometimes even this isn’t enough. A little-known aspect of the working-through process can hold us back, and be the final factor in the perpetuation of the disorder. It is our lack of sense of self.

Although this aspect is not related only to anxiety disorders, it can be the single most important issue in the disorders. Despite our ongoing attacks and anxiety, it can be the one issue we are most concerned about. It is as if we intuitively know the root cause of our suffering.

The lack of identification goes beyond our cry of ‘this is not me’. When we say ‘this is not me’ we are referring to the image we had before the disorder. Despite the image we had of ourselves, we have always known that we never felt any sense of who we are. We never had a real sense of self. This essential element was always lacking in our lives, and it is from this that our feelings of inadequacy, lack of confidence and lack of self-esteem arose.

We counteracted these by our need to be perfect. Over the years we adapted and modified our behaviour to what we perceived were other people’s expectations of us. We became who we thought we should be, and in doing so suppressed much of who we could be. Our identity became dependent on other people’s perceptions of us. The more dependent we became, the more we had to suppress our real self, even if we didn’t realise we were doing it. The more we suppressed our self, the more inadequate we felt. The more inadequate we felt, the more we felt the need to be perfect.

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