TROUBLESOME MISERIES-CLUMSINESS

If you suffer from the aching miseries, then life at school can frequently be very difficult. To be suddenly and inexplicably clumsy can have dire results, especially if you are usually neat and deft. Your handwriting may degenerate, no matter how hard you try to keep it tidy, with the result that you get lower grades and teachers disapprove. You may be suddenly unco-ordinated, so that you walk into desks instead of round them, or do badly at games, or you become a menace in the science labs. That doesn’t improve your popularity either, which in its turn will make you feel even more upset and vulnerable and off-balance.

If you’re clumsy like this, one trick is to try to do everything slowly. Breathe in a lower, deeper gear as described and take a few minutes to relax as much of your body as you can. You’ll find the more relaxed you are, the less clumsy you are likely to be. Try to make a joke of your clumsiness if you can. But above all, keep that chart going, so that you can predict your clumsy times and try to avoid some of the more tricky situations. Obviously it’s a good idea to keep out of harm’s way as much as you can. It’s not a good time of the month to be working backstage, or putting in overtime in the labs or shifting PE equipment about. But most important of all, let your ally on the staff know what you’re doing. Show her the chart. She could be the one who will explain to your other teachers that you are not being lazy or bolshie, or going out of your way to produce poor work, or letting the side down, or whatever it is.

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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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Think R.I.C.E. for first aid treatment for ankle pain.

R: rest (three days)

I: ice (10 minutes every hour while painful)

C: compression (use a support bandage)

E: elevation (allow swelling to drain).

After the sprain has been treated with ice, rest and an ankle support, then it is important to have the joint corrected and adjusted back into its original position.

This rarely happens so the joint becomes weak and often resprains at the first opportunity. We have found that if the joint is adjusted quickly, it heals faster and regains its normal position, resulting in a strong, secure joint.

This is important. We are only as strong as our lowest supporting joint. Because of the effects of gravity we are an accident waiting to happen if we are not correctly balanced. Athletes, particularly, cannot afford this risk.

Acupuncture now will halve the pain and time of healing. Everyone prefers a well shaped ankle. Let your chiropractor/ ♦osteopath adjust it for you as soon as possible.

Bill’s experience-Last December my left ankle became very painful and swelled up to twice its size. My medical doctor prescribed antibiotics once . . . no reaction . . . twice . . . then after some four weeks I had an adjustment some acupuncture and the ankle was back to normal in two days.

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The diaphragm muscle is susceptible to being strained by twisting type injuries. This state of affairs can irritate the nerves around the diaphragm, resulting in an aggravating dry cough.

Adjusting the ribs is crucial to halt coughing that may not evolve from a mucus condition. Sometimes the diaphragm muscle along the ribs is in spasm and triggers the coughing reaction. Massage around here is beneficial.

The edge of scars, such as those from gall bladder removal, needs to be acupunctured to release the energy flow trapped there, which also causes tension to the diaphragm. Few people realise that this is a problem and that it can be treated with surprising and beneficial results.

George’s story-I took my friend to see the osteopath. He was exceptionally bad tempered and had had a hacking cough since he had been trapped under a tractor some years before. The doctors had done all they could to cure him of his cough without success.

The osteopath said that he had been a very sick man for years with intercostal muscle spasms. Though it took weeks, his chest was worked on freeing the tension and he was cured. He is once again very thoughtful and caring, and no longer suffers from the cough.

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There are many side-effects to orthodox medical treatment that can be relieved by complementary therapies. Radiotherapy often causes itching skin, soreness around the area being treated, and a general feeling of tiredness. Cystitis, diarrhoea and fear, are also common symptoms. Chemotherapy can cause nausea, loss of appetite, hair loss and soreness of the digestive system (ulcers and lesions). The trauma involved with all of this, as well as the general debilitating effects on the system, can cause headaches as well.

While complementary therapies do not (or at least should not) claim to cure cancer, certain therapies can help the body fight the disease, and recover from orthodox treatment. It is important to talk to your doctor and your complementary therapist about all the treatments you are undergoing. In disease as serious as cancer, mismatched treatments can be fatal.

Aromatherapy is an excellent way to relax and recover, but should never be undertaken immediately after chemotherapy. Bathing and massage can often irritate sore skin. ‘The best means of using the oils is inhalation – a vapouriser or a gentle bath blend – perhaps rose and geranium, which may help fight fear and depression, and fennel to help with nausea. Niaouli and tea tree have been used in Europe to reduce surface burning during radiation treatment, and lavender has been used to treat radiation bums. Rosemary is said to stimulate re-growth of hair. Lavender applied to the nostrils or in the bath with camomile, can reduce the headaches linked with brain cancers.

Acupuncture is valuable when dealing with the side-effects of cancers, as listed above, and will help to relieve pain and depression. There are, controversially, reports from China that indicate that acupuncture stimulates our body’s anti-cancer substances. Chinese acupuncturists also claim that it boosts the body’s immune system.

A homoeopath will prepare a package of remedies individually suited to your symptoms. ‘These might include galium album, clematis and echinacea.

Medical herbalism can relieve some of the symptoms of cancer, and encourage the immune system to work against it. All treatment must he tailored to complement the orthodox treatments being received. There will be options for pain relief, depression (St John’s wort) and nausea (ginger, peppermint or fennel), and calendula promotes healing of skin. Echinacea and garlic, taken internally, improve resistance to secondary infections. ‘There are many many options to help your body deal with the cancer and the side-effects of treatment – both of which can cause headaches.

Nutrition is particularly important in cancer. A strong, healthy constitution is much more likely to have a. fighting chance, and to respond better to treatment. Pain can be kept at bay by daily doses of phenylalanine, Supplementation of selenium may also help, under the guidance of a clinical nutritionalist. Some research suggests that it affects enzymatic processes that may inhibit the activation of some cancer cells. There is no doubt that it does have some anti-cancer properties. A good B-vitamin supplement will also help deal with the feeling of malaise, and Vitamin D is said to be useful. Sensible eating, perhaps a macrobiotic diet, is beneficial to some cancer patients.

Reflexology can help deal with the emotional repercussions of cancer, and speed up recovery after an operation.

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Three important questions need to be answered following any head injury.

Has there been concussion or any other form of brain damage?

Is there any bleeding in or around the brain?

Is there a neck injury as well?

As far as the direct head injury is concerned, the following facts are important to take into consideration.

If the victim has been knocked out, or cannot remember the exact incident or the few seconds leading up to it, then he needs to be admitted to hospital for at least twenty-four hours observation. .

An injury from a blunt object (either one that hits you or one that you fall on) that has caused a cut in the skin may have been sufficient to break the skull as well. You will need an X-ray to show whether there is a skull fracture underneath the cut.

If any of the following occur in the first twenty-four hours after a head injury, the injury to the brain may be more severe than previously thought, or there may be internal bleeding. The symptoms are: severe, increasing headache; vomiting; double vision; incoordination; drowsiness. (There’s a great difference between drowsiness and sleepiness: when you feel sleepy you want to sleep, but can be roused to full consciousness. When you’re drowsy, you can’t be roused properly.)

If any of these occur; if there is any odd behaviour; if there is a general deterioration of the patient’s condition; or if there is anything else that is causing concern, you should go to Casualty immediately.

Usually the above symptoms occur within the first twenty-four hours, but in some cases they can occur much later, perhaps over ten days. This is particularly

the case with sub-dural haemorrhages in older people. Even when the injury is several days old, if the patient starts showing some of these symptoms, they should see a doctor immediately.

The only reason why patients are admitted to hospital following a head injury is to be certain that they do not have any hidden bleeding inside the skull causing pressure on the brain, or else swelling of the brain substance itself. Any extra pressure needs to be relieved as soon as possible, whether caused by stoved-in bones in the skull; from high-pressure bleeding; or from slow low-pressure bleeding, as in a sub-dural haemorrhage. An urgent operation may be necessary to elevate stoved-in bones and suck out any blood clots: swelling of the brain substance itself can be treated with steroids.

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Estimates vary as to the proportion of people who get migraines, but figures of between eight and twelve per cent are commonly quoted. There is no racial difference. Migraine affects women more than men.

The number of attacks varies in frequency from sufferer to sufferer, with some people having only one or two attacks a year: others less fortunate may have more than three a week.

It’s difficult to get an ‘average’ picture, because only those patients with symptoms bad enough to consult their doctor get counted! At one of the UK migraine clinics, nearly one in ten patients were having more than three attacks a week; a quarter were having more than one attack per week, and nearly half had more than one attack per month.

Migraine generally starts before the age of forty, and most frequently begins in the twenty to thirty age group, though figures vary. Interestingly, migraine often occurs in childhood; a fifth of migraineurs began having attacks before the age of ten.

It is possible to have true migraines which start above the age of forty, but it’s unusual; above the age of fifty it may well be associated with some other more serious abnormalities such as a tumour. Migraines which start after the age of fifty need full investigation by your doctor.

Migraine is not necessarily for life – about half of sufferers no longer have attacks twenty years later, and migraine is relatively uncommon over the age of sixty-five. Reassuringly, when attacks continue, their intensity usually reduces. We used to think that attacks dropped off after the menopause in women, but we now know that some women improve at the menopause and some get worse; some even have their first attack at this time.

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Infections fall into two main groups – those caused by bacteria, and those caused by viruses. Bacteria arc relatively large’ organisms, existing outside the body cells, while viruses are much smaller, and need to get inside the body’s cells in order to multiply. Viruses are responsible for many of the major infective illnesses that still trouble us in the West – the common cold, influenza, chickenpox, measles, German measles, hepatitis, and, of course, AIDS.

Unfortunately, the only way lo stop most viral infections is by preventing them from occurring in the first place through immunisation. Immunisation, however, has to be carried out disease- by disease – a separate immunisation is required for polio, influenza, German measles, and so on, even though sometimes the inoculations can be mixed in one injection. The point of immunisation is to expose the body lo each type of virus, but in a safe, inactive form. This activates the immune .system, which remembers the chemical shape of the outside coal of the virus. Then, if any of the ‘real’ viruses invade in the future, the body quickly recognises them and mobilises the immune system lo destroy them before they can do any damage.

Bacterial infections include most of the infections that produce pus or boils; in addition, such infections as typhoid, gonorrhoea, diphtheria and whooping cough are all bacterial infections. The body’s immune system will fight bacteria, but nowadays bacteria can also be killed off by antibiotics – at least, in most cases. Bacteria are usually quick to succumb once a suitable antibiotic has been given, but sometimes an infection gets too tenacious a hold for antibiotics to do any good, and on other occasions bacteria tan develop resistance to particular antibiotics.

As well as bacteria and viruses there are other groups of infective agents, such as spirochaetes (which in this country cause syphilis and the water-borne Weil’s disease). In tropical climates, infections by worms and other parasites can be common; these include malaria, which is a small parasitic organism that lives in the red blood cells and the liver, and is transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito.

The characteristic sign of an infection (other than very minor ones) is a raised temperature. The temperature rise varies according to your age, and the diseaseitself; as a rough rule of thumb, anything above 101°F is likely to be a viral infection (with the exception of urinary infection, malaria and septicaemia, Commonly known as blood poisoning). Smaller rises in temperature are usually associated with bacterial infections.

The age of the patient has an important bearing on the temperature, too. By comparison with adults, children produce much higher temperatures: in an adult, a minor infection which causes a temperature of 99.5°F may produce a raging temperature of 102°F in a child. In the same way, the temperature rise is usually much smaller in the elderly, in comparison to the middle-aged adult.

often children don’t complain of headaches when they have infections, but perceive the pain to be in their abdomens. ‘I’ve got a tummyache, Mummy’ is the childhood equivalent of the adult’s ‘I’ve got a headache’.

It’s generally true that any illness that produces a fever can produce a headache; it,, headache is worse in the earliest and middle parts of the infection, and usually dies down as the fever starts to wane.

In the specifically childhood diseases – chickenpox, measles, and so on – it is often only when the rash comes out that the parents realise their child is suffering In ‘in something other than a heavy cold or a dose of flu, as intrinsically, there is little difference between the infection caused by influenza and that caused by chicken pox. It really doesn’t matter, anyway, because once a viral infection has taken hold there’s very little we can do except treat the symptoms as they arise, using extra fluids, paracetamol for the temperature (aspirin can be used for adults) and bed rest. For uncomplicated viral infections, ordinary antibiotics are useless and there is no point in prescribing them.

Sometimes a simple viral infection becomes more complex: perhaps a secondary Infection such as a bacterial chest infection develops in a patient who started off With flu. Often it’s obvious what has happened – such as when the patient starts coughing up coloured sputum. In children, a viral infection of the nose and throat can sometimes be followed by an ear infection. Most secondary infections are caused by bacteria, so in these cases the doctor will want to prescribe an antibiotic. Although the primary cause of the illness (the virus) won’t respond to an antibiotic, the secondary (bacterial) infection will.

In a bacterial infection, a headache usually comes on only if there is quite extensive infection. The two bacterial infections most likely to do this are a urinary tract infection, and a chest infection.

However, infections in the face, head and neck areas can produce headaches directly. Sinus infections produce headaches through pressure on the facial bones, dental infections can also produce headaches, and viral infections which affect the lymphatic glands in the neck can cause muscle spasm of the neck muscles.

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