Doctorshealthsystems

Babies and small children can be a real joy when you are fit and well and on top of the world. But if you’re below par, they can change almost immediately into fiends. And if that happens, your feelings towards them can change just as abruptly. It was no surprise to me to read in Dr Dalton’s book Once a Month that so many babies are battered when their mothers are suffering from the aching miseries. There are lots of difficult and involved reasons for this horrible experience. One of the most powerful seems to be that the parents had the baby in the first place so that it could love them. Another is that they don’t understand why their baby cries and the crying makes them angry. Another could be that they’re completely out of gear because they haven’t had enough sleep for far too long. A baby who cries night after night for months on end can reduce even the most patient mother to a shred of her former self, and break down even the most loving self control. I don’t believe premenstrual tension causes women to batter their children, but the miseries could be the final straw that makes you take violent action.

If you find that you are far more severe, or even unkind, with your children during the days when your period is on the way, you really do need an extra pair of hands to help you.

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The pain of adapting to life without a loved one is real but natural. The whole routine of your life is upset and it is not easy to readjust. This is a difficult time but as a result, your life will change in ways you can’t imagine at the time.

My mother has recently died. My son’s response that ‘Nana had gone to a higher rank’ reflected our opinion too. We grieved for her in different ways. She lived with me for almost fifty years.

I am lucky I had the opportunity to really know my mother. She did so much for me and was the centre of my household. Her absence is noticed in so many ways. No one places fresh garden flowers on my desk, anymore. She always ’said it with flowers’.

Mum taught us love and laughter, and I now see that her greatest gift to me was that of time. I couldn’t have done so many studies without her help and support.

Grief is never easy. It is an ongoing process encompassing many emotions – regret, remorse and loss.

The formal stages of grief are firstly denial, when we can’t believe what has happened. The second stage is anger, when we want to hit out at someone or something (why me?) The third stage is bargaining (if only I can … till… I will. . .).The fourth stage is depression and the fifth, serene, stage is acceptance.

The emotional pain has an individual timing but it usually takes about two years for the ache in your heart to gradually subside. It never completely goes but becomes less intense with the passage of time. There will always be moments when a memory will be triggered and you find tears streaming down your face.

‘Letting go’ has to be learnt many times in our lives. We must let go of the past, including its mistakes (although we call them opportunities).Throughout our lives we have to learn to deal with grief. We must leave our mothers to go to kindergarten, we must leave the support of our school to go to work. We must say goodbye to our youth. All this sorrow has to be accepted as part of gaining maturity. If we are successful guardians, we allow this process in our children without pain or guilt.

In acupuncture, the channel of chi energy which is out of balance is the metal meridian. This controls all crying, weeping and sobbing. Yin and yang must be balanced if people are having difficulty overcoming their grief.

Star-of-Bethlehem (a Bach Flower remedy) helps immeasurably when your emotions become embarrassing to you. Homeopathically, there are many choices, but you need an expert to work them out.

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The shooting hot pain down one leg, or both if you are unlucky, is well-known to every chiropractor and osteopath in the world. We specialise in this condition and it forms one of the major parts of our practice.

The sooner after any injury, be it from sport or from a fall, that you have the joint adjusted, the sooner it will be mended. It is important not to waste time. If you ignore treatment the next two or three days will be crucial. You are an injury waiting to happen.

During the next couple of days, you will be just bending over to pick up the soap, or simply twisting to heave yourself out of bed, when this gripping pain will race down your back into your leg.

Do you want to know how to make it worse? Put the electric blanket on! Or have a hot bath! The inflamed ligaments around the sprain/strain will be further aggravated by the heat. The last thing you want is a ride to hospital for traction.

All you need is ice to reduce the swelling. Think of a lower back injury as if it were a sprained ankle. How would you handle that situation? That’s right – lie down and take the weight off it. Next, ice pack it, and then support it with an elastic wrap. Then a few hours later when you can walk trot down to the

chiropractor to have the joint adjusted and take the pressure off the nerve.

You must have no exercise for ten days to three weeks — until the ligaments heal – then into the pool or whatever exercise your chiropractor recommends.

A long car journey is an aggravation to chronic sciatica. The sitting position stretches the sacro-iliac joint and the repetitive movement of getting in and out of the car as you stop to look at something or to visit the toilet, brings the irritated sciatic nerve to screaming point. Consequently I hear about many people’s holidays first hand as I treat their sciatic pain after a long trip.

The first thing you should do is lie down and take the stretch off the pelvic joint. Put a pillow under the troubled leg to release the tension over the joint.

Don’t heat the joint if the pain is radiating into the thigh, knee or ankle. Ice it for ten minutes every hour till the pain subsides. The next morning you will be able to walk to the toilet, get dressed, move your body to your chiropractor’s couch!

If possible, let the sweeping and vacuum cleaning be done by another member of the family. Or you will injure yourself again. Don’t become depressed because ‘it never seems to heal’. Just do the right thing and be patient.

Sitting is often the wrong thing to do. Watching TV while recuperating will aggravate the condition – that low lounge chair wrecks your lower back every time. Can’t someone make furniture that supports our spines?

If you are elderly and your back injury occurred many years ago, this does not mean that you cannot be helped. So much depends on the cause of the problem and on the condition of the joints needing therapy. The skeleton needs gentle handling at any time, but more so when the frame has taken a lot of stress over the years.

Osteopathic work is always available to you no matter what your age. All muscles can be gently ‘untangled’ to improve their circulation and assist the drainage of tried muscles. Fibrositis can be massaged away to restore the stretch necessary for movement.

Acupuncture and moxibustion easily attract warmth and relaxation to the area, and are valuable tools when relieving sciatica. We can help cramps and coldness in the leg. Many a seventy-year-old has told me that this was their first massage and they were sorry they had waited so long.

Chiropractic also has specific adjusting techniques for the frail, the young and the frightened.

Mrs Mac’s story-I’m a woman in my eighties and had been incapacitated with a painful thigh and hip for two years. My doctor said it was a bit of rheumatism that comes with old age and gave me something to rub in with some tablets to take. I’ve got so many tablets now that I rattle.

Well I suffered with it for over two years till I came to Sydney to visit my daughter and she took me along to see her chiropractor. I was very nervous about this as my doctor had advised me not to have anything to do with them at my age.

But my daughter insisted, so I went along. I was surprised at how gently I was handled. I was told that I had twisted my leg somehow. I remembered that one day several weeks before the trouble started I had jumped up quickly from my rather low lounge chair. I had a twinge in my hip for a while then I forgot about it.

Anyway, my leg and hip were worked on and I was assured that nothing had to be ‘clicked’, especially at my age. In three treatments I was so much better that I could get to sleep without pain. I have so many things I want to do at my age. I am glad that the pain does not interfere with my bowls now.

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The burning pain of cystitis has to be experienced to be believed. If there is blood in the urine it is wise to have it analysed, since discharge of blood can have sinister overtones. Although the medical answer is antibiotics, what do you do when it becomes a chronic condition?

We prefer to look at the whole person not just the symptom. Firstly, have your pelvic structure checked out for any misalignment. If the nerve supply to the bladder is affected, removing the cause can solve the problem.

Homoeopathy is then my choice for treatment:

Aconite if you can catch the symptoms early.

Cantharis for all the classical signs, this is IT.

Staphysagria for ‘honeymoon’ cystitis. Too much, too soon.

Dulcamara use to prevent the problem.

A homoeopathic for the infection is given at this time.

Acupuncture is used then to boost the immune system and sedate the pain. We use ear acupuncture for the bladder meridian, although we sometimes go directly to the bladder points near the spine. There is so much that natural therapy can do.

Helping yourself: Go vegetarian. Drink barley water (boil 100g/4oz barley in enough water to cover it. Strain and pour cold water over the barley. Add a little lemon rind. Simmer till the barley softens. Cool. Strain. Add honey and drink at least six times a day). My usual recommendation is to add barley to all your vegetable soups. Use chamomile as a herbal drink. Have two days on vegetables and boiled rice only, to relieve acute symptoms.

See your chemist for a mixture to alkalinise your urine. Or if you have access to a herbalist they may recommend yarrow, marshmallow leaves, bearberry, sage and horsetail to be made up into a tea infusion. Or some prefer alfalfa and corn silk teas.

A bicarbonate of soda hip bath is very soothing; garlic and calcium ascorbate are also recommended. Ferrum phosphate and sodium phosphate cell salts are the minerals naturopaths recommend.

Marian’s Honeymoon-Marian didn’t realise cystitis would go along with her on her honeymoon. It was a second marriage though she was only thirty-two. The burning pain started after only three days on their island paradise, and it was excruciating to urinate.

As luck would have it, there was a homoeopath close by on the mainland from whom she obtained some cantharis and staphysagria. She applied some hot water bottles to her back and just apologised to her new husband. He was very concerned and had the hotel make up the barley water with lemon as the naturopath recommended. The hotel pharmacy sold them some powder that considerably eased the pain of urination, but it seemed soaking in the bath was the most exciting thing she wanted to do. Oh well, at least the sun was shining . . .

On a different tack, a drug for arthritis has been found by a Newcastle hospital to cause severe cystitis in the elderly. If bacterial infection is not found to be the cause of your cystitis, it is wise to check any medication you are taking.

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It is especially important to find the cause of vomiting and nausea. If it is food poisoning, use the homoeopathic nux vom which works wonders. Give it in sips every time the patient throws up. It only has to touch the tongue to be effective. There’s no need for swallowing if even boiled water won’t stay down.

Chiropractic: Occasionally vomiting can occur because a joint in the upper neck is causing irritation which eventually affects the vagus cranial nerve, which supplies the stomach. An adjustment can stop the trouble immediately. This is often the case in pregnant women, especially if they find that vitamin B6 is ineffective.

Projectile vomiting in babies is often the result of a birth injury, and a chiropractor or osteopath specialising in cranial adjusting will be able to treat it successfully. However, any vomiting in babies is serious and requires immediate professional help.

Homoeopathics are:

IPECAC for diarrhoea, with a clean tongue.

Ant tart for diarrhoea with an unclean tongue.

Pulsatilla if sickness is after fatty or rich foods.

Arsen alb when the patient is chilly and very weak.

Cuprum met for stomach cramps.

Buy a product called Gastrolyte at the pharmacy for dehydration.

Dietary: If the problem is infection, then boiled water for twenty-four hours is only commonsense, though I feel that it is better to have something in the stomach to throw up rather than dry retching. Don’t give citrus, use apple or boiled white rice.

Acupuncture has great benefits. The laser machine can be used to settle the stomach of a child who feels queasy. This works well if the problem is only nervous tension. But the needles are far better for adults desiring immediate recovery.

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This results when a cranial nerve called the trigeminal becomes very irritated. The sooner the neck is checked and adjusted to normal the better, as chronic cases are difficult to reverse. The pain is severe with various trigger points and some of the medical treatments can be quite drastic.

Prompt treatment is essential. The sooner you realise that a nerve is acutely irritated and have a chiropractor do essential adjustments, the fewer complications will arise. Homoeopathics like rhus tox and hypericum are a good start, but you may need to have specific ones made up for you.

Acupuncture certainly will help, as the pain creates a great deal of stress which makes things worse. Keep the nerve and surrounding muscles warm to prevent palsy developing. Make sure the diet is adequate and ensure enough sleep.

Vitamins Bl, B6 and B12 (by injection) are recommended in high doses which are reduced as the pain lessens. See your general practitioner about those. Low doses of vitamin B complex by tablet won’t help much, but there is no harm in trying.

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The name literally means ‘twisted neck’ and is generally the result of an irritated nerve root which leaves the patient able to turn the head only one way because the muscle has cramped as a protective mechanism to prevent further damage.

Very rarely do people feel the strain occur when it first happens. Generally it takes up to forty-eight hours for the muscles to react. They provide a splint for the injury, so reduce movement while the strain is acute.

If an adjustment is done quickly, one treatment is often all that is necessary, although in my experience most require at least two.

Take the weight of the head off the neck, by using a towel or soft neck brace for support, for the first twenty-four hours. Better still, he down. If the condition is only muscular, and not an irritated nerve from a cervical sprain, the neck will be free quickly.

A young man came in with his neck rigid from pain. He said he had woken up with the problem as he found his cat had slept across his neck! I said we could leave the cat out of it. What had he done twenty-four to forty-eight hours before? ‘Only sailing’ was his reply.

I felt there were enough strong, twisting actions done whilst sailing to explain how his neck could have been injured. It was fixed, as is usual in acute cases, in two treatments.

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Tonsillitis usually affects children, although it is by no means unknown in adults. The tonsils are two small lymph glands which sit at the back of the throat. They are part of our immune system and work to protect us firstly from infection to our head and brain as well as to the rest of the body.

When the tonsils are fighting infection, they become coated with the residue of a successful fight by the immune system. They need drainage with gentle stroking massage whereas in the past, an operation to remove them was commonplace.

As the immune system does its normal job, it will kill off the virus, so there will be a fever. It’s the only way viruses can be successfully eliminated. A three-day fever is a good sign that all is going well and the temperature should be controlled only with fluids if possible. (In my opinion, antibiotics should be kept for more serious conditions as they impede the natural processes.) Raising the child’s resistance with vitamin C is important at this stage. Give a 500mg tablet daily (chewable available); three to six tablets may be needed for the older child.

Chiropractors will adjust any observable neck problems, so that natural drainage can occur freely, and the tonsils can return to normal function. This happens quickly if the upper spine moves freely. Correcting the spine produces the fastest recovery. Healing will occur once any restriction is corrected.

Suck ice and, if swallowing is possible, eat soft fruits that slide easily down the throat. Use a cold moist towel around the neck covered with a dry one. Leave them pinned on for twenty minutes. This is most successful if repeated up to three times a day. Gargling with pure lemon juice when a sort throat is first noticed will stop the infection. Don’t eat or drink anything for one hour after the gargle. Rinse your teeth but do not swallow the rinse.

For the following homoeopathics we recommend a dosage of three times in the first hour which is usually sufficient for the day:

Belladonna if the child shows a flushed face.

Hepar sulph if the child is chilly and irritable and the mucus discharge is

yellowy.

Lachesis if the infection starts on the left side and the throat is sensitive to

touch.

Phytolacca for lymphatic and glandular swelling.

If the tonsils are removed, the child’s first line of defence is transferred to the lymph nodes in the neck. Other deep glandular problems can occur and take longer to heal.

Removal of the tonsils should only be necessary after all other measures have been tried. When the sink is blocked, you unblock it…you don’t throw the sink away! However, there are always exceptions to the rule, and occasionally chronically enlarged and infected tonsils have to be dispatched!

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The nerves involving the tongue, eyes and ears are cranial. But many times, pressure on nerves from the neck can ‘overspill’ causing problems further up the nervous system. If there is either numbness or pain in this area, remember that your chiropractor will assess the neck for possible implications.

On her daughter’s advice, a sweet lady of eighty-six came for help. She was suffering because her tongue was so full and sore. It also had a burning sensation that was unpleasant and she felt ‘wafty’ and tired. She was distressed because the doctor did not think it was important.

On getting the overall picture, it was discovered that her neck was twisted more to one side than the other and on reading her pulses, the chi energies were quite out of balance. She had good reason to be tired and wafty.

The first approach was to balance her pulses. Needles were inserted in her legs and hands. The famous point in the ear, called ‘the gate of heaven’ by the Chinese, so important because it treats the central nervous system, was the concluding choice. She started to settle down.

She needed therapy on the neck to relax the neck muscles and by her third treatment she was able to announce how much better she felt and all her tastebuds were back to normal. Zinc and vitamin B tablets were advised.

The tongue is a major source of diagnosis for traditional Chinese medicine. All naturopaths also observe the tongue for its colour, markings and general health. What it tells us would surprise you. Have a look at your tongue first thing in the morning before your yoga teacher tells you to scrape it with a spoon.

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The treatment of blood pressure almost needs a book on its own, because there are so many methods, and so many ways in which the doctor, patient and complementary therapist can join forces to help.

In a few cases, high blood pressure has a basic cause, and in these cases removing the underlying problem may bring the blood pressure down to normal. Underlying problems like this include obstruction of the arteries to the kidney; certain rare types of kidney disease; and various tumours (some benign, a few malignant) that secrete excess hormones which raise the blood pressure.

One of these hormone-producing tumours is called a phaechromocytoma and it’s a non-malignant growth of a type of tissue that normally forms part of the adrenal glands. It produces excess, uncontrolled quantities of adrenalin-like substances which can raise the blood pressure to very high levels. Finding and cutting out offending cells brings the blood pressure back to normal.

Other hormonal causes for raised blood pressure include tumours of the pituitary gland (a gland at the base of the brain) which secrete too much growth hormone and diabetes is associated with higher blood pressure. However, with the exception of diabetes, all these conditions are rare: most doctors are unlikely to meet even a single case in their whole lifetime.

Once we’ve eliminated these conditions, we’re left with what is called ‘essential’ hypertension, and this forms the majority of cases of high blood pressure. Many cases of essential hypertension are probably genetic, and at the moment there is very little that we can do to cure it. Just keep taking the tablets! On the other hand, there are many things that can make blood pressure worse, chief of which is being too fat. For every extra pound of fat you put on, your blood has to go through an extra mile of capillaries; the fatter you are the harder the heart has to work. Mild to moderate blood pressure frequently rises in those who are overweight, and often returns to normal if the patient goes on a diet and returns to normal size.

Exercise also helps, making the body more efficient in how it uses biochemical raw materials, and regular exercise reduces blood pressure in the long run.

Stress, too, is associated with blood pressure, though the relationship is far from precise. Undoubtedly, extra levels of stress put up the blood pressure over a short period of time; for example, frantically rushing to get to work on time puts up the blood, pressure transiently. Some people seem to get high blood pressure when stress is maintained for a long time, yet others don’t get a raised blood pressure in these situations.

There are many things that the orthodox practitioner can do to treat high blood pressure. These fall into four main sections: dealing with obesity; encouraging exercise; reducing stress; and, prescribing medicines.. However, we shouldn’t look at these four groups independently; they all interact one with the other. A little less stress, a few extra pounds off, a little more exercise and a mild diuretic may together bring the blood pressure down to normal levels, but it might require a far higher dose of medicines if the first three procedures aren’t undertaken.

Let’s look at each of these in turn:

Obesity. Without doubt, being fat causes your blood pressure to rise, and shedding those extra few pounds may make all the difference to your overall health and wellbeing.

Exercise. Firstly, exercise uses up the excess adrenalin that swills round the system when we are in a state of alertness as a result of a fright or stress. Secondly, the fit person who exercises is less likely to become obese. Thirdly, the body systems of fit people work in a slightly different way to those who are unfit.

Exercise promotes a greater sense of well-being, a sense of relaxation, and causes some significant but subtle changes to occur in the body, particularly in the way in which the cells of the body handle sugar.

•    Stress. Our bodies are good at responding to external stress; they do so by putting up the blood pressure transiently, which is useful if we need to run away quickly in the face of danger. However, if stress is applied for days and weeks on end, or if we don’t get any opportunity to relieve the stress, then our bodies become constantly over-stimulated, with adrenalin swimming around the system; no wonder the blood pressure goes up!

Anti-stress measures can be simple, but very effective in reducing the levels of stress within the body; and by reducing stress we may reduce blood pressure fairly quickly.

However, stress on its own is unlikely to be the entire cause of high blood pressure; it probably has an effect mainly on those with an underlying predisposition to high blood pressure.

•    Medication. There are five main groups of drugs to treat high blood pressure. 1. The thiazide diuretics. These are drugs which are often used to produce extra

urine and dry out the body.

Beta-blockers are drugs which block the effects of adrenalin and nor-adrenalin, and so reduce the contraction of the arteriolar muscles, reducing blood pressure. They also stop the heart over-exerting itself, in much the same way that putting a wooden block under the car’s accelerator pedal prevents you over-revving the engine.

Calcium channel blockers such as nifedipine (Adalat, Verapamil, Diltiazem, etc) block the movement of calcium ions across the outer membrane of muscle cells and, in doing so, reduce the force with which the involuntary muscles can act. As all the muscles controlling blood pressure are involuntary, these medicines are excellent for reducing blood pressure.

Drugs which act to block the transmission of nerve impulses, e.g. Alpha-methyldopa. After being absorbed in the body this is changed into an imitation transmitter chemical – one that doesn’t stimulate the nerves – so, effectively, the nerve starts firing blanks! As a result the nervous system can’t force the muscles to contract as strongly, so the blood pressure drops.

The group of blood pressure reducers called ACE-inhibitors (which stands for Angiotension Converting Enzyme Inhibitor). These block the effects of a hormone called angiotensin which when converted into its active form normally acts to constrict the muscle cells in the arterioles. Blocking the conversion reduces the stimulus on the muscle cells.

    In controlling your blood pressure your doctor may use one drug on its own, or several of them together. Often the control of blood pressure is easier using two different drugs that work in different ways. Diuretics and beta-blockers are often used together; but, in fact, most anti-hypertensive drugs can be combined usefully with one another. Some combinations of drug even come together in one capsule, for convenience and ease of administration.

Once your blood pressure is under control you’ll probably only need to see the doctor once every six months for a routine blood-pressure check.

Once drug treatment has started, it is usually for life. While it is often possible to bring down minor degrees of raised blood pressure by curbing obesity, instituting relaxation therapy, etc., if hypertension remains despite these measures, then permanent drug treatment is likely to be needed. High blood pressure like this doesn’t often come down of its own accord, and although the drugs currently used reduce the blood pressure directly, they don’t affect what causes the alteration in blood-pressure control. So, in effect, they are just ameliorating the effects of high blood pressure, rather than curing it so that it goes away.

Just occasionally the blood pressure does come down again, but this is either after some years have passed, or else after a major event such as a heart attack or a stroke. In these circumstances it may be possible to reduce the medication.

A problem with taking drugs is that occasionally they can give side-effects -dizziness, weakness, coughs, difficulty with erections, etc. As they are being given for a condition which is largely symptomless it’s often difficult to persuade the patient to continue taking the medication, because as far as he is concerned, he feels fine when he’s off the medication, and worse when he’s on it. It is vital to keep taking your blood pressure pills; if you don’t you run tin’ risk of an earlier stroke, which may reduce your life expectancy by several years, or paralyse you.

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