The Road less Travelled; natural approaches to health and healing.

I have borrowed the title of the famous book by M Scott Peck not to talk about self improvement, and psychology like he does, but to look at naturopathic approaches to health and healing. I went to
 an interesting talk on Saturday by Naturopathic guru's Joe and Lara Pizzorno (authors of the seminal Textbook of Natural Medicine) about Acidiosis, Mercury toxicity and Osteoporosis and natural approaches to reversing these issues.

The approach is basically one of supporting the body's detoxification systems - specifically the liver - rather than suppressing symptoms with increasingly dangerous drugs. For example in osteoporosis the available pharmaceutical methods are pretty much all very harmful - one class of drugs the bisphosphonates - e.g. Fosamax and other trade names... promotes cancer of the jaw and oespophagus!) In the US, dentists are refusing to treat people on this class of drugs because of potential litigation..

No. 1 recommendation was to alkalise your diet, reduced salt (sodium competes with Calcium in the bones) and stop drinking sodas/fizzy drinks - diet or not, the phosphates in these are very damaging to bone rebuilding activity . If you  mess with this process either by not having enough Calcium to build the bone or having too much toxicity in your blood (heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants - 'POP's' from water, etc) or worse, taking the pharmaceutical medicines !! you will end up with osteoporosis.
Top recommendations are; Add sea-algae to your diet, reduce grains and sugars and supplement Betaine HCl to help your stomach to digest properly (> 40& of postmenopausal women are deficient in this vital stomach acid and Calcium in the diet cannot therefore be absorbed).

Use milk thistle to support the liver, make sure you do de-stressing activities to balance your system and prioritise sleep as this is the time when we do our vital detoxification.
There is so much you CAN do to help yourself. . If anyone is interested in ordering my downloads on various subjects with specific recommendations for different conditions then please see my website www.alchemytherapies.co.uk

Chronic Pain and TMS – the hidden cause

When, in my mid-thirties I became struck by a mystery illness which rendered me incapable of more than 3 hours work a day, I feared the worst. The symptoms were very varied but began with incredible fatigue. Then my joints swelled up so that walking became painful. I had unexplained rashes and itching, dizziness and headaches, it went on and on. I went back and forth from the GP and various hospital and blood tests. They could find nothing organically wrong with me and left me with a 6 months prescription for painkillers telling me it would probably get better of its own accord!

So, I determined I would find out more about chronic pain and fatigue and see if I could unlock whatever it was with alternative methods. I tried acupuncture (which was helpful), homeopathy (which was not – for me anyway). Then I tried massage and chiropractic and finally some Chinese herbs which were incredibly effective as they detoxified my body and enabled it to begin to heal. I started to see that health and wellbeing was more than curing myself of disease. It was about bringing my body back into balance.

Fast forward 15 years and I am now a fully qualified therapist specialising in Chronic pain, specifically TMS or Tension Myositis Syndrome (which is closely related to Chronic Fatigue syndrome although they may manifest differently). It is a stress-related illness – by which I don’t mean necessarily due to an obvious stressor but it can be accumulated, low-level stress like being in the wrong job, relationship for you, or by burying your emotions of loss, grief or anger. Men and women are different in this respect as their emotional landscapes are different which may explain the huge preponderance of women with CFS/ME as compared to men. Men on the other hand may get unexplained back pain, or auto-immune diseases. Modern medicine calls these conditions different illnesses, and attempts to treat them symptomatically. This doesn’t work as the central cause isn’t in the affected part but in the brain.

Now, here’s where this gets tricky as people in pain do not like being told ‘it’s all in the mind’. That isn’t what I’m saying at all. The pain is very real and there is real physical disturbance in the tissue causing that pain. However, the ultimate causation is in the imbalance in the nervous system which comes from undischarged emotion. It is a simple biological fact that we are hardwired for emotion – the two most primitive are fear and defensive anger (rage). In the animal kingdom (of which we are part from an evolutionary perspective) animals will display these emotions as a survival tactic. If we didn’t have fear we would be incautious and perhaps get eaten, if we didn’t have rage we couldn’t stand up to our attackers with the same result. The part of the nervous system that controls this is the autonomic nervous system and it is composed of two parts; the sympathetic and the para-sympathetic. They are like the accelerator and brakes respectively that modulate the body’s responses to outside stimulus. But they also response to internal stimuli – our feelings and emotions.

So, if we are afraid, our heart rate increases, our breathing is rapid, we are geared to the so-called  ‘fight or flight’ response which involves the brain and endocrine (hormone) system. If we have a situation where neither of these is possible we can exhibit a freeze response where our body is in perpetual slow motion – lacking energy and vitality. This is probably the basis for Chronic Fatigue syndromes – much more common in women whose nervous systems tend to freeze more than they fight. [i]That our mind can create this may seem nonsensical until you begin to understand our evolutionary heritage. As animals, our mind is incredibly complex and designed to deal with threat- it cannot differentiate between real threat and perceived threat – perception is everything! So, for instance we can get anxiety because our mind is interpreting a situation as threatening even when it is relatively innocuous. This is because the brain is a pattern recognition machine and it links certain events together by their associated senses or emotions. So, for instance a certain smell will evoke a memory as will feeling fearful – but the associations may be unconscious, so for instance your boss may remind you of someone you once feared so they trigger that response in you causing unconscious stress.

TMS is the physical response of the body to that cumulative, low-grade stress. It inhibits blood flow to the tissues casuing local ischaemia (or oxygen deprivation). The tissues become hypoxic, lactic acid builds up and pain and fatigue is the result – especially in muscles and tendons. There only needs to be a small amount of reduction too to have serious effects. If the nerves are affected then the pain may be accompanied/replaced by tingling or odd feeling sensations. But because the root cause – stress – is never addressed all physical approaches be they massage, physio, pain killers and surgery will never work. It has been noticed of instance that in people with Fibromyalgia most pain killers are ineffective.

There has been a lot of research into TMS but the main author who first coined the term was Dr john Sarno[ii]. He was in rehabilitation medicine for 30+ years and began to notice patterns of trauma in his patients that, if he encourage them to highlight and address their unprocessed emotions, they were able to reduce or remove their pain altogether. He hypothesised that the mind was creating pain as a diversion to these uncomfortable emotions – in the mind’s view physical pain is less damaging! He also noticed  that the pain could shift and move around when these feelings were addressed. Combined with his research into normal pathology of the spine and tissues with ageing, he came to the conclusion that the root cause was not physical but emotional.his work has since been furthered by clinicians such as Dr James Alexander[iii] who being a psychologist, was able to hypothersise how this mechanism might be mediated.

I have written extensively on this in other blogs and won’t repeat here, but mindbody medicine which acknowledges that we are both mind AND body is really the only logical way forward to solve the epidemic of mindbody disorders that we are currently seeing. These include in no particular order; CFS/ME, auto-immune disease, IBS, anxiety/panic disorders, headaches/migraines, insomnia, etc. In my practice I work with people on a mindbody level - we investigate the whole person not just the physical symptoms.  I use massage and Reiki to stimulate the body and rebalance the energy system, and then various psycho-somatic techniques such as EFT (tapping ) and EMDR within a hypnotherapeutic framework (which emphasises safety and self-empowerment).

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[i] Peter Levine:  ‘In unspoken voice- how the body releases trauma

[ii]Dr john Sarno: ‘The Mindbody Prescription’ and ‘Healing Back Pain’

[iii] Dr James Alexander; The hidden Psychology of Pain’

Medical contributions to psycho-genic pain

Further to my first blog on reading The Hidden Psychology of Pain by Dr James Alexander, I thought I'd add some more thoughts. I thoroughly agree with his contention that the medical establishment contributes in no small part to the perpetuation of the notion that pain can only have a physical cause. The idea that emotions can cause pain is dismissed in the main, especially since both physician and patient make the mistake of thinking that this means the pain is 'all in the mind' and therefore not real!. Psychogenic pain is completely real - it has a physical manifestation - which can be due to lack of oxygen supply to the tissues or over-contraction (spasm) but the over-riding cause is an emotional memory which has not been released and continues to replay the motor action that was in place at the time that the encoding traumatic event first occurred. So, in simple language the body holds the trauma in memory and, as this is never discharged, chronic pain ensues.. This may take the form of back pain, shoulder pain or in very severe cases, fibromyalgia and other chronic fatigue-related syndromes. There is usually complex childhood trauma at the heart of these syndromes.

The brain is able to create physical symptoms via the combination of limbic system (deep brain) which triggers the Hypothalamus, Pituitary, Adrenal (HPA) axis mediated by the autonomic nervous system; the body is flooded with stress chemicals (mostly cortisol from the adrenal glands) and the stress cycle begins. Cortisol will cause most of the symptoms seen, especially if it is released continuously.

Unfortunately, when a person is misdiagnosed with a physical cause of this (via increasingly sophisticated technological scans which reveal 'pathology' of the various tissues), the belief that there is indeed something physically 'wrong' is corroborated. What you are not told is that many people who are not in pain have the same 'pathology', but since they do not consult their doctors, this is rarely appreciated. However, there are many reliable studies that have confirmed this, it just does not fit the current model. If the pain was caused by the structural abnormalities then why doesn't everyone who has these abnormalities have pain? It just doesn't make sense.

With some chronic pain/fatigue syndromes like CFS/ME the symptoms are so varied that it is hard to see how they relate at all. They can range from cognitive disorders, digestive issues, cold hands and feet, postural hyptension (low blood pressure when standing up), etc, etc. The brain lies at the heart of all of these symptoms via, as we have said, the HPA axis and excess cortisol but for someone suffering it is hard to believe this.

I recently had  a client tell me that she has finally got a diagnosis of Menieres disease, a disorder of the inner ear that affects hearing and balance. It causes sudden attacks of vertigo (a spinning sensation), tinnitus (a loud ringing in the ears), and a temporary loss of hearing. She seemed relieved that at last there is an explanation for the very disabling symptoms she has been experiencing. However, I am not convinced that this 'disease' is not simply another manifestation of the autonomic nervous system imbalance. Sadly, it is hard to contradict the medical view as it is so supported in our culture, and, for someone in pain, they need to have an explanation or they fear that people will think they are making it up or 'swinging the lead' as it used to be called. Being told by a doctor that you have 'x disease' and then, worse, being told it is bad enough to merit investigation, usually by tests (in this case MRI), further traumatises the patient and ensures the symptoms will continue and usually get worse. For traumatisation to occur requires that the person be helpless. There is nothing like being subject to medical investigation with complex interventions by 'experts' to make a person feel helpless. They are totally disempowered from their bodies, their self-determination and become stuck in the anxiety loop.

Unless they are able to work with a trusted holistic/mindbody practitioner who can demonstrate the real meaning of these symptoms and give them tools to alleviate the stress, the likely prognosis is poor. We have seen people die from these chronic fatigue related diseases, and most live a thoroughly reduced quality of life. It takes a lot of courage to break free of the medical model, with its round of tests and specialists who each corroborate the view that this is lifelong and nothing much can be done. And the social care model, that only pays disability payments to those with defined conditions simply adds to the burden that these people feel. If they then get better does that mean they never had it in the first place?? how will they live while they are recovering but are still not well enough to work? This places such a pressure on people that they are unlikely to step outside the system, especially since this means losing the little certainty they had.

It is a very challenging field in which to work. But I have no doubt medical science and psychology will eventually unite and prove that this psycho-genic model is the correct one. We will in the future be able to understand our emotional fallibility without blame - and have a collaborative healthcare team to work with us to re-write the programme and release us from pain.

Ruminations on The hidden Psychology of Pain

Top of my reading list at the moment is The hidden psychology of pain by Dr James Alexander who's ideas support and further develop the ideas of Dr John Sarno re the origins of chronic pain. Sarno's ideas were that a lot of chronic back pain and pain syndromes like Chronic Fatigue Sydrome/ME are a psychologically driven response to unresolved emotions. Sarno's ideas are revolutionary and challenging to current medical thinking but as he is an MD and has treated a lot of people using his protocol, there are many clinicians who are beginning to take him seriously. John Alexander is one of them but he differs in that he is a psychologist so has, perhaps more of an idea on the psychological determinants of this. he has suggested that our response to pain is determined by our thinking about it - i.e. whether it dominates our lives, we catastrophise it, and interpret its meaning as one of 'things getting worse'. Certainly in my clinical practice I have noticed this tendency in the clients who fail to get better and I remember my own experience here too. I think I belong to that category or 'ruminators'. He refers to a couple of Pain Questionnaires1 that help determine these responses and therefore allow us to rate our contribution to pain and therefore suggest ways of re-training the mind (via hypnotherapy, psycho-sensory techniques such as EFT, etc).
My contribution to this debate is that trauma may be at the heart of this 'sensitisation' of the mind. I am coming to believe that all of us have traumatic memory - some small, some large but that the cumulative effect of these poorly processed emotions is one of priming the autonomic nervous system (the fight and flight mechanism) to one of hypervigilance - and the end result of that is that when challenging events do occur in later life (like accidents, viral infection, etc) our system (especially the adrenals) are so severely compromised that the immune system is depressed and we end up in a cycle of pain and worrying about pain...

This then becomes our focus and we start our journey to find external solutions, whether it be conventional or alternative. We fight the notion that the answer is in us as that seems like blaming ourselves for our pain when we feel innocent (which is correct - we are). But we need to take responsibility and begin to explore the old hurts (without endlessly recounting them) so that we can heal. I recommend Eye Movement Desensisation and Reprogramming (EMDR) for this as it heals the hurt without retriggering. It is quite profound.

I myself and having (EMDR) therapy so that
i/ I know what it feels like and
ii/ I can be cleared of my triggers to get my mental attic cleared
Both of these help me to be clearer when helping my clients.

I started by looking at my blood phobia which is something that limits me and makes me embarrassed (I feel faint if I even look at it). This seemed simple enough. But within a couple of sessions other images and ideas popped into my head unbidden and these have to do with my grandmother and mother and certain panic feeling they had. I have no doubt for myself that I have trauma from my early years (ages 2-3) which I don't remember but seems to keep me forever looking out for failure and disaster. This inner exploration is very interesting and has had the useful corollary of reducing my Reynaud's symptoms (white finger) and generally my anxiety levels.

So, I look forward to a day when I am free of these things and hope to be able to use my learning to help clients in pain - those who are willing to go beyond the external search anyway..

1 The Pain Catastrophizing Scale by
Michael JL Sullivan, PhD

Daring Greatly

Vulnerability Researcher Brene Brown claims on page 165 of her book 'Daring greatly' states 'we are still awaiting the neurobiology to show that shame is perceived as trauma'. I have written to her to ask if she has come across the work of Ronald A Ruden MD PhD, a clinical research scientist in NYC. In  his book 'The past is always present' he claims that: Shame, guilt,, etc are reflective emotions linked to attachment - he has described the process of traumatization in the limbic system as being a process of the Basal lateral complex BLC sending a message to the Central Nucleus (Ce) within the amygdala - it is potentiated by the neurotransmitter glutamate (released at the time when helplessness is present - ie. the situation is inescapable - such as being shamed by one you love and trust) - and processing inhibited by norepinephrine (which prevents it being rationalised consciously at the time - and is thus subconsciously encoded). Anyhow he explains it way better than I can - but shame is definitely identified as a trauma trigger by neurochemistry - perhaps one of the most important..
My particular interest is in releasing childhood and adult trauma through bodywork and EMDR to release chronic pain and anxiety states. I am just learning my craft but am doing a lot of research on the subject to try to pull together a full understanding of the process. People find it difficult to understand that physical pain can be caused by emotional triggers but this is also beginning to be described in the literature. Your work on shame and vulnerability has meant a lot to me and when I point them in your direction, my clients. it helps them to understand the meaning of their experiences and how they can move beyond their self-limiting beliefs about themselves. As I work with a lot of academics (particularly women), her work has a lot of resonance from women who have striven to achieve and succeed despite their shame experiences. I aim to move them to a point not just of acceptance but of realisation that they can love themselves not despite but because of those experiences and the understanding and compassion it has given them for themselves and others.
I love Brene's work as it complements my own researches so well and her willingness to connect and share her personal experience. I think she's amazing - a much needed light at the end of a dark tunnel.

Courage, Compassion and connection

This week I have been practising my presentation skills for a talk entitled 'Recovery from ME/CFS'. My plan is to be able to present this sometime in the spring - I want to do a joint presentation with a colleague of mine who is a nutrition...al therapist and iridologist. I think we make a good team. As a Chrysalis Effect Practitioner specialising in these chronic mind-body conditions you need a multi-factorial approach - one therapy cannot do it. One size does not fit all. The team-based approach is one which makes me different and I aim to be promoting this shortly. Ali will be working alongside me as a VIP (Vital impact Practitioner). We will be offering packages of care rather than ad-hoc appointments.. anyhow all looking exciting.

 

While I was thinking about what it takes to be able to present to people, I was reminded of US researcher Brene Brown talking about Shame and Empathy - something that is very much a part of what I do. I listen to people's stories, and I have to learn how to connect without judgement so people are able to tell me things that shame them, and thus release it. Without compassion this is impossible. It's what makes it possible for me to do this work. so it is timely that while looking up some information on Google I came across Brene Brown from a Tedx talk she did which has become an international sensation and launched her career as a speaker/storyteller. She has the most amazing effect on me - mainly because she talks from the heart about subjects that most of us try to avoid. And because this understanding is influenced not only by her research but by her own experience (and subsequent breakdown) when she realised that the quality of the life you live is largely down to how vulnerable you are willing to make yourself. The quality of your relationships, worklife, and spiritual expression are all down to how open you can make yourself to hear others, and yourself, without shame or judgement.  This was very challenging to the person she was and to most of us.

 

Indeed, to do the work I do, listening to people's often painful stories, it requires Courage (talking from the heart- from the French word for heart - Coeur), Compassion and Connection. When I am able to do this I see tremendous shifts in people, who trust me with their shame, who have faith in me to hold the space while they work it through. This is an amazing journey that we undertake together and for all the people that have allowed me to do this, I thank you profoundly. Long may it continue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQiFfA7KfF0 

Catch up with my work on www.alchemytherapies.co.uk

10 Tips to improve your health

Here is some information taken from my studies in nutritional medicine over the years..  

1. Change the fats you consume – use unrefined oils like extra virgin olive oil (for dressing, steam-frying) or groundnut/ coconut oil (for stir-frying). never re-use old oil, keep out of the light and away from heat (decant into coloured glass bottles and store out of light). Use butter or olive oil spread rather than margarine (and don't be fooled by those ads claiming this new polyunsaturated, butter-like margarine is better for you). Absolute hogwash. Organic butter is a natural product full of Vitamin D and A - animals are grass fed and the nutrients get concentrated into the milk. Avoid anything with trans-fats in (sometimes disguised on labels as ‘hydrogenated’ vegetable oil). But you won't always know. Most processed food has it unless is specifically states otherwise.

2.     Buy fresh (preferably organic) food in season – or grow your own. Find out where you nearest farm shop is or subscribe to one of the many vegetable box schemes which deliver. Many offer recipes on their website to help you use the vegetables you are unfamiliar with. Including one or two raw ingredients into your diet per day will make a huge difference e.g. raw carrot sticks with oatcakes and humous for a snack, seeds sprinkled onto your salad or soup. I make my own muesli now to avoid processed cereals (which are not health foods despite the advertising hype!). Use organic oats as the base.

3.     Avoid poor quality processed ‘foodstuffs’ - anything with more than 5 ingredients. These are not foods they are chemical foodstuffs designed for long shelf life/palatability rather than human nutrition. Avoid cheap carbohydrates - (especially fizzy drinks) and anything with health claims. 'Low fat' products are often high in sugar which is stored as fat anyhow. Sugarfree drinks are full of nasty chemicals which actually make you fatter. Drink water, natural fruit juices (not too much) or juice your own vegetables.

4.     Drink more water. Most of us are chronically dehydrated as we turn to sugary drinks, tea or coffee to quench our thirst. This causes more dehydration from the caffeine and will destroy our blood sugar control. Use filtered water to reduce the toxins (nitrates, organochlorines) in tapwater. It tastes nicer! Carry a water bottle around with you so you always have some to hand. Check your feet for a good indication of your levels of hydration - if the skin is dry and cracked it's a pretty good indicator.

5.     Supplement - most people are deficient in vitamins and minerals as our food no longer contains them in sufficient amounts due to intensive farming.  Most importantly Vitamin D₃ which most people are deficient in (it is now known that it is a pre-hormone that is involved in a vast array of processes from immunity, cardiac and bone health and needed in higher amounts than previously thought). Also supplement omega-3 fatty acid EPA - modern diets are so imbalanced in this that even eating more fish might not be enough to redress the balance. A high dose purified fish oil with at least 500mg EPA is best. you will have probably heard the various stories in the press that supplements are a waste of time as they just go through your body and get flushed away - they do if you have enough already - but if you are deficient they are needed. I am not encouraging high levels of supplement-popping as a panacea for a deficient diet. Diet should come first. But please understand that certain vitamins and minerals are commonly deficient - the two highlighted here are the most common but also Magnesium (chronically low in women - causing PMT, restless leg syndrome, etc), iron and the trace minerals. That's why a good quality mult-vit helps redress the balance. But I am also of the opinion that we should use whole-food supplementation more than pills - things like Maca root, raw chocolate, chlorella, etc are storehouses of good things without the chemical fillers in pills.

6.     Aim to cook/prepare at least one meal from raw ingredients every day (even if it’s only you own home prepared muesli!) Try and share meals with friends and family as it makes you more likely to enjoy the social aspect of eating and may encourage you to try new recipes. Sit down to eat and remember to chew properly – this really helps your digestion. I call it ‘conscious eating’. Shovelling down something infront of the TV is counterproductive. As is dieting.. Anything that encourages an unhealthy relationship to food (and restriction and reward is a common pattern for most of us) needs to be broken. Learning to cook, using more natural ingredients takes us out of the passive, processed food consumerist fantasy and into natural relation to the food that we eat.

7.    Start Juicing - blending combinations of fruits and vegetables is an easy and nutritious way of enhancing your diet. With a blender you can consume far more vegetables than you would be able to physically eat and because they are already liquidised they are easily digested. My favourite combination is spinach and orange juice. You can't taste the spinach but you get all the benefit as Vitamin C aids Iron absorbtion. You can experiment with your own combinations or buy a book to encourage you. Juicers are also good though they reduce the fibre, but this may be good/bad depending on your digestive capabilities. The latest bullet-type juicers seem to combine the benefits of both.

8.    Add superfoods to your diet. These are foods that have particularly powerful effects on the body. Examples are; garlic, ginger, broccoli, green tea, blueberries, turmeric, cinammon, raw cacao, chilli, seaweeds (tulse, etc), spirulina and barleygrass. Some of these are protective against cancer, others help balance hormones or blood sugar. You can buy them from health food shops or online and sprinkle them in your juices, cooking, and salads. Add cinnamon to your (natural, organic) coffee in the morning. you don't need to restrict  to enhance your diet. It's all about adding better choices.

9.    Combat stress. Ongoing chronic stress is the modern disease. We are not even aware how stressed we are till we take a break.  This lowers the body's natural immunity (highly implicated in more serious diseases like cancer too). Learn mindfulness techniques or practice meditation - just 10 minutes a day devoted to something relaxing can make all the difference. Do something that you love that stops your incessant thinking.  Deal with your emotional issues that lead to stress. See a therapist if you feel you need help. Mindfulness, Meditation, Hypnotherapy and EFT are all powerful tools which help us to understand and deal with our subconscious influences that cause us to have addictions (smoking, drinking,etc) and to live lives to less than our full potential. Contac me if you would like to know more.

10.   Take responsibility for your own health. Learn everything you can about health and wellbeing – via books, the web and courses. Encourage your friends and family (especially children) to understand why it is important. Maintain your health actively with help from diet, exercise and therapies. Prevention is much more powerful than cure and is our responsibility. Begin now as I have done. Small changes have big results. Don't wait til you get ill to act!