New additives are all tested very thoroughly, although there are rarely tests on humans – rats, mice, bacteria and human cells cultured in a test tube are the main subjects used for testing. There are quite a few reports of illness among food-workers handling certain additives, which raises the question of whether humans might react differently from these test animals. There has also been some concern about how well tests are carried out. A commercial laboratory in America, which was reponsible for over 30 per cent of the world’s safety testing, was found to have been fabricating their data for many years. Although the laboratory was closed down, many of the additives that were passed as safe on the basis of their tests are still in use.

Concern has also been expressed over the possibility of ‘cocktail effects’ – the unknown impact of eating two or more additives together. A single meal can contain as many as 60 different additives, yet, surprisingly, the effect of additives in combination is never taken into account when setting safety standards. Very few tests have been carried out in this area,

because of lack of resources. One test, in which two preservatives were tested together, showed that they had a much greater effect in combination than when eaten separately. A public health specialist, writing in a book on additives published by the European Commission, comments: ‘It is not scaremongering to say that the possibility cannot be ruled out of two substances, both harmless by themselves, interacting to yield a product which is toxic.

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If you get a reaction to any food, stop eating it immediately. You may be able to abort the symptoms by taking a mixture of sodium and potassium bicarbonate. It is not known how or why this works, but it appears to do so. However, it is only effective if you are clear of symptoms at the outset – it cannot be used as a general remedy for food-induced illnesses, and in any case, it should not be taken too often. Mix two level teaspoons of sodium bicarbonate (bicarbonate of soda) with one level teaspoon of potassium bicarbonate, dissolve in a small glass of warm water and drink as quickly as possible. Potassium bicarbonate should be obtainable from your chemist, although it may have to be ordered – if you want to try this remedy, rather than just sweating it out when you get a reaction to a food, then you should buy some in advance. Do not test any more foods until the symptoms have completely subsided.

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A bottle-fed baby, or one that receives solids before three months of age, is exposed to large quantities of ‘foreign’ proteins entering the bloodstream, and there is ample evidence that these can cause allergic reactions. Even a baby that is never bottle-fed is not entirely safe. Proteins from the mother’s food can be absorbed intact from her gut and pass into her breast milk. Although the quantities involved are small, there is little doubt that these can sensitize an atopic child. In fact, the most violent reactions to cow’s milk are seen in children who have been sensitized via breast milk, rather than those that have been bottle-fed from birth. This might seem like a good argument for bottle-feeding, on the face of it, but bear in mind that these violent reactions are rare, whereas the less acute but very troublesome symptoms that might result from bottle-feeding are far more widespread.

The advice generally given to parents of high-risk babies is to feed the baby on nothing but breast milk for the first four to six months of life. Weaning should then be conducted at a very gradual pace, with breast-feeding continuing until the child is a year old if possible. If breast milk is still supplying most of the baby’s food needs, then the amount of solid food eaten can be much less.

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One aspect of colic is difficult to explain from either viewpoint – the fact that the symptoms tend to disappear or diminish at about three months of age. The traditional explanation is that all mothers with colicky babies – regardless of what sort of people they are or what else is happening in their lives – suddenly become more confident and relaxed at this point. This seems implausible, to say the least, but is there an alternative explanation that is compatible with food intolerance? One possibility is that the colic represents an initial ‘crisis’ reaction as the child is exposed to large amounts of cow’s-milk or other foreign proteins. The child later ‘adapts’ to the problem foods, and the colic apparently clears up, but its sensitivity continues in the form of other, less acute symptoms, such as eczema, asthma or diarrhoea. There is ample evidence from case-histories that this might happen – and the retrospective study described above supports the idea.

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All of us, patients and doctors alike, are conditioned to think about food and other aspects of our environment in a particular way. As civilized inhabitants of temperate climes, we can indulge in the luxury of regarding ‘nature’ as safe and welcoming, and of thinking of food as entirely wholesome and beneficial. These attitudes are part of our culture, another luxury that we simply take for granted, like armchairs or motor cars. If we are to understand food intolerance, some of these accepted ideas need to be challenged.

Much of the medical prejudice against food intolerance is rooted in the idea that food – as long as it is part of a balanced diet – ‘cannot be bad for you’. What is often forgotten is that our foods were not designed specifically for human consumption, but were drawn from a pool of wild plants and animals that were domesticated by the first farmers.

In the wild, most food items are reluctant food items. They do not want to be eaten, and their efforts to stay off the menu are part of what Charles Darwin called the ‘struggle for existence’. Most animals can run away, or fight back, but plants do not have this option.

Their defence is based partly on thorns and prickles, but far more important than these is the array of invisible chemical weapons that pervade almost all plant tissues. Some of these simply taste bad, others cause vomiting or other ill-effects. A few even mimic the hormones of insects or mammals and thus disrupt their growth or sexual development.

Plant-eating animals have, in the course of their evolution, simply adapted to these chemicals in their food. They can detoxify them sufficiently to be able to feed on their chosen food or foods, and the plants can ward them off sufficiently to stay alive. It is rather like the situation between criminals and the police, where each side becomes increasingly cunning, better armed and more ruthless, but neither side ever wins and obliterates the other. The term ‘biological arms race’ aptly describes this situation.

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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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In The Odd Couple, Felix (the control freak) is always chastising Oscar (the slob), telling him to pick up after himself, wash his dishes, clean his room, eat better foods (not junk foods), and generally act more mannerly. Felix not only gets to order Oscar around, he also continually assumes and expresses moral outrage at Oscar’s slovenly ways. Oscar, meanwhile, continually foils Felix’s attempts to control him and shrugs off his companion’s moral outrage. If Felix picks up after Oscar and gives him a lecture, Oscar almost immediately—and not always absentmindedly—drops something else. Hence he defeats all of Felix’s attempts to control him and ends up infuriating his tormentor. In fact, the two are playing out the role of the scolding parent and the recalcitrant child.

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The husband may have to continue this game for days— even weeks. Sometimes his “headaches” will occur with respect to small matters, such as emptying the trash, and sometimes with regard to bigger things.

“Why aren’t you getting dressed?” the wife asks.

“I’m sorry. Going to the theater gives me a headache.”

“You never got headaches when we went to the theater before.”

“That’s true, but I’m getting them now.”

“You know, this game of yours is no longer amusing.”

He places his hands on his temples and looks as if he is about to faint. “And I’m getting sick and tired of you not taking my headaches seriously. You think I’m faking, don’t you, because I want to get out of going to the theater? I wish you could respect my feelings just once. Is that too much to ask? All you think about is your own needs—never mine!” (This little speech should be an imitation of one of her repetitious tirades brought on when he formerly approached her for sex.)

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