Let's discuss Alternative Healing.

[Pathwalker]

Since it is part of this Group's Mission Statement, and several posters indicated an interest in this subject on the thread I wrote about threads everyone would like to see, I thought I would start a thread about this very interesting subject.
Soooo....here's a thread to discuss it.

I must confess that I don't know much about this - except that I would like to know more. If you use an alternative Healing method, could you share your experience with us? Tell us about that method, and why it works for you.
If you don't know anything about an Alternative Healing method, but have questions, post them here, and hopefully someone will answer those questions.

I'll start:
1: How does one go about finding a Homeopathic practitioner? How will I know if/when I've found the right one for me?
2: Can someone please tell me more about "Flower Essences"? How does that work?

Who wants to chime in?

[LWolf]

1. Ok, let's!

My response to your questions:

1. LOL. I've met with a homeopath for several years that I met at a friend's place; we met socially, I got to know her socially before professionally, and knowing something about who she is led me to meet with her professionally. Currently, I'm 900 miles away moving into a new place, and will be looking again. I started in the yellow pages; one was listed with no information. Then I googled the city and "naturopath" and "natural healing," and came up with several websites of local practitioners. I've browsed through those, and sorted them into "no" and "maybe" based on the information available, the different types of services they offer, and the general "feel" I get. The next step will be to call a few, ask for more info over the phone, and maybe stop by a few offices to talk; based on the energy I find, and, again, the range of services, I'll narrow the list further. Then I'll probably try a few, and settle in where I am the most comfortable.

2. Not being an expert on flower essences, (my homeopath and another friend both are, so I've always just asked them), here's a place to start:

http://www.flowersociety.org/

A very simplified version: they work like homeopathic remedies, in that they are diluted and potentiated, instead of using the flower directly.

My experiences:

I have used Reiki, cranial sacral therapy, homeopathy (including flower essences), chiropractic, acupuncture, diet, and herbal remedies instead of western medicine or drugs or over the counter remedies to treat every day small things, and to treat concussion and nerve damage after a significant accident. I tend to be healthier than most people I know. I have a great immune system. There are a few things I haven't addressed satisfactorily; allergies, muscle spasms, arthritis. I've never actually focused any attention on them; life has been too busy. It's on my list, once I get all settled into the new community, to add all of those issues together and take them to a homeopath. The first thing I want to find is a new chiropractor, because all this pushing, shoving, and lifting has me crooked, unable to stand up straight, and spasming.

The next goal is to find a yoga class and work on physical conditioning. Then the allergies; they are worse every year, and, since I don't take drugs to mask the symptoms, I have to wander around with a giant box of kleenex always at hand.

[Nancy Waterman]

2. I have been using homeopathy for over 30 years

I also just recently have gotten some cranial sacral work. If you go this route, go to the Upledger Insititue website and find a parctitioner in your area. It has cured my TMJ, which was so bad I could hardly open my mouth to eat.

To find a homeopath, you might try a local health food store if it has a bulletin board or a place where people leave business cards. You could also talk to the customers and ask for their experiences or referrals. I would look for a classical homeopath, who doesn't use a bunch of remedies at once, but tries them one at a time to see what really works. You could also contact the National Council of Homeopathy. They have a list of practitioners all over the country. I think they are still in Alexandria, Va., and they must have a website.

I use flower essences in my own psychotherapy practice. I usually combine 5 or 6 in a small bottle with some spring water and brandy for preservative. Each essence helps restore balance in one area of emotional imbalance. A few drops of the combination remedy a few times a day can do wonders for people's chronic emotional issues. I mostly use the Bach essences but also use the Flower Essence Society remedies from California and the Australian Bush essences.

[Dover]

3. I think all 'alternative' healing addresses the necessity to relate

holistically to the body/mind/spirit, which modern medicine does not do (though it is slowly becoming more inclusive and integrated). We seem to be responding to a feeling of loss...the loss of relationship to ourselves, others and to Life. We are out of synch with cycles and our deepest wisdom. Thus the imbalance.

Of course there's plenty of politics and economic incentives driving and reinforcing this modern approach (which is also obstructing the the development of all things 'sustainable' and therefore not focused on outcome and profit so much as process and prevention). People seem to be, consciously as well as not so consciously, seeking to reconnect and reclaim their relationship to the Earth and all of life.

What's fascinating to me about this trend is it's general direction......toward an understanding of 'energy' and energetic healing...much of which came to our Western sensibilities through East Asian as well as ancient animistic sources. We all long for the 'mystical connections' to ourselves and life. Naturally!
We are like a flock of birds who has lost its bearings and direction.

I want to expose myself more to the subtle energy work that is now being practiced, and which has taken many forms.....from Reiki, to Core Energetics, and Chakra Balancing, etc....in order to stretch and develop my own intuitive and heart energy.

I discovered just how subtle yet powerful this energy work is through my early experiences with Acupuncture and Acupressure as well as Feldenkrais. One uses four ounces to deflect on thousand pounds.
Less is really more....and though subtle, the effects are comparitively immense.

Since these experiences the healing arts have continued to move toward these more subtle forms, and with it knowledge and acceptance of the etheric body. It's exciting!

______________________


For those unfamiliar with Feldenkrais here's a little more info. It teaches one to concentrate and focus one's awareness in very specific ways...like a laser beam of energy....on points in the body:

THE FELDENKRAIS METHOD®
The Feldenkrais Method is a unique and sophisticated approach to human understanding, learning and change. The effectiveness of the Feldenkrais Method lies in its ability to access the nervous system's own innate processes to change and refine functioning. It is of benefit to everyone wishing to move and lie more comfortably, and to such diverse groups of people as those with restricted movement, chronic pain, psychological and neurological problems, performing artists and athletes.
Through personal experience we adopt patterns of physical and psychological behavior to assure our biological and social survival. These patterns are deeply embedded in our nervous system and often become outmoded or dysfunctional. The Feldenkrais Method utilizes functionally based variation, innovation and differentiation in sensory motor activity to free us from habitual patterns and allow for new patterns of thinking, moving and feeling to emerge. Movement is utilized to explore the biological as well as the cultural aspects of attention, intention and cognition and to delve deeply into how human development, learning and movement interrelate.
The Feldenkrais Method is an unusual melding of motor development, bio-mechanics, psychology and martial arts. It is recognized for its demonstrated ability to improve posture, flexibility, coordination, self-image and to alleviate muscular tension and pain. It consists of two compelling and versatile applications: Awareness Through Movement® and Functional Integration® modalities harness the nervous system's ability to self-organize towards more effective and intelligent action.

Awareness Through Movement®
Awareness Through Movement (ATM) consists of verbally directed, gentle exercise lessons involving sophisticated movement sequences. The lessons directly engage our natural intelligence in a gentle and pleasurable way. ATM accesses the sensory motor processes of the brain and involves attention, perception, imagination and cognition. There are hundreds of lessons, addressing every joint and muscle group in the body and every human function.

Functional Integration®
Functional Integration (FI) is a one-to-one approach to working with people. Learning, change and improvement are achieved through the use of specific skilled manipulation and passive movement. Functional Integration is painless, effective and widely recognized for its ability to successfully address serious muscular-skeletal and neurological problems.

DR. MOSHE FELDENKRAIS
Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, D.Sc., (1904-1984) was a distinguished scientist, physicist and engineer. For many years he was a close associate of Noble Prize Laureate Frederic Joliot-Curie at the Curie Institute in Paris, France. He was also a respected Judo instructor and author of several books on the subject. However, it was in the relationship between bodily movement and the ways we think, feel and learn that Dr. Feldenkrais personally trained a small number of practitioners to continue his work and today there are nearly 3,000 certified Feldenkrais Teachers around the globe. Feldenkrais' insights contributed to the development of the new field of somatic education and continue to influence disciplines such as physical medicine, gerontology, the arts, education and psychology.

Books in English by Moshe Feldenkrais

The Potent Self. New York: Harper&Row, 1985.
The Master Moves. Cupertino, CA: Meta Publications, 1984.
The Elusive Obvious. Cupertino, CA: Meta Publications, 1981.
Body Awareness as Healing Therapy: The Case of Nora. Berkeley, CA: Frog Press/Somatic Resources, 1977, 1994.
Awareness Through Movement: Health Exercises for Personal Growth. New York: Harper Collins, 1972.
Higher Judo: Groundwork. New York: Frederick Warne & Co., 1952.
Body and Mature Behavior: A Study of Anxiety, Sex, Gravitation and Learning. New York: International Universities Press, 1950, 1980.
Judo: The Art of Defense and Attack. New York: Frederick Warne & Co., 1944, 1967.

http://www.feldenkrais-resources.com/
______________________________________________________________

[DemExpat]

4. Classic Homeopathy here since the 1980s....

My search started when I got pregnant with my first child in 1980, with having a Macrobiotic grocery store around the corner from my house - from advice there, to books to lectures - my eyes were opened to a new look at food, evergy vibrations, and life force.

Giving birth at home with a midwife (and my GP, who was an Anthroposofic medical doctor for my second child) and a La Leche breastfeeding support group brought other literature and information to my attention.

My psychiatrist suggested an Astrologer for psycholgical profiles for my children, husband and myself who also administered Bach Flower Remedies....

Since then I have settled with a Classic Homeopath who has helped me tremendously with chronic/acute mental health problems and to allow me to live very comfortably without prescription drugs now for 25 years after being addicted to them for a decade.

Homeopathy has also helped my pets with wide ranging problems from epilepsy to deafness.


I have always sought contact - or "accidently" encountered - alternative practitioners who have sound medical backgrounds (MD, Veterinary, health science degree....etc), so I have never felt that I was totally turning my back on modern, scientific medicine, which I still use for consultation and diagnosis, and for medical emergencies which need surgery, like my son's testicular torsion last year!

I appreciate modern medicine's diagnostic knowledge to rule out certain life-threatening conditions before making my decision which system to use.

I am convinced of the value and effectiveness of Alternative healing practices, but emphasize finding the competent ones - via word of mouth, health food stores, professional alternative regulatory bodies (which they have here in The Netherlands)

In my University studies on Social Science and Human Geopgraphy this year I am taking a mini-break by taking a new sociological course in Perspectives on Complementary and Alternative Medicine which I am very much enjoying!

Good luck on your journey, NB, and hope you get the same thrill out of it as I have! :kick:


DemEx

[Eloriel]

5. My list

* Herbs

* EFT - Emotional Freedom Technique

* Flower Essences

* Chiropractor/ homeopathy / etc.

Many more, but these are the main things I rely on. I lump homeopathy with chiro because my chiro uses homeopathic remedies (most do these days, I think).

[AspenRose]

6. Question about Herbal Supplements and Breast Milk

This is a question originally posted in the parenting group:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=238x1592

I may be able to find my answer here as well. Thanks in advance. :-)

[Eloriel]

10. I looked -- to be saife, I probably wouldn't

There are a couple of herbs on the list which I'm not that familiar with. A couple of herbs that I believe would be perfectly safe. And then a number of herbs I'm thinking, "but a brand new baby doesn't need these...."

I'm just a dabbler. There are many good online reousrces for herbal information, and it's always a good idea (I'm sure we who inhabit this forum are better off saying than NOT saying) to consult your pediatrician.

If it were me, I'd wait until I weened him.

[InvisibleTouch]

7. I've dabbled in herbs and homeopathic remedies...

...and I swear by organic food and vitamin/mineral supplements, which could be considered alternative healing too, IMO.

Herbs I use mostly in the form of teas, though I grow a few of my own plants during the warm months; homeopathy I've used mostly on my dogs. Just recently I bought Bach's "Rescue Remedy" (flower essence) for the first time, and have found it to be very effective for both self and dogs.

I'm big on unfiltered sunlight, which activates the immune system (look up John Nash Ott's work, which has been quietly buried because, after all, the sun is free!) - but all things in moderation, of course.

I've used some acupressure, massage, and Kneipp's hot/cold water treatments - which are very effective for all manner of ailments, but I don't have the discipline to keep up with them for long periods of time.

And I learned long ago to "talk myself out of" a headache or impending migrane. Biofeedback, if you will. I've found that I have a lot of conscious control over bodily sensations that are usually considered autonomous. The mind can make the body sick or well - I'm absolutely convinced of that, because I've seen it happen.

Basically, I don't trust conventional medicine. It's a matter of absolute last resort to me. I feel a lot better about looking after myself and my family with "alternative" methods - which have been tried and true over hundreds if not thousands of years. But you have to know what you're doing, and you have to keep studying and learning. Just because a product is natural, doesn't mean its harmless, or couldn't potentially have a bad side-effect or dangerous interaction. Some herbs can induce miscarriage, for instance, and now that one of my dogs is (hopefully!) pregnant, I'm very very careful about what I give her.

There are a lot of great books out there. There's also a lot of junk. Read, be discerning, and share your experiences.

[Eloriel]

9. I'm with you,

re not trusting conventional Western medicine, altho I always try to catch myself and remind myself that there ARE healers among them, yada yada.

I rather appreciated Sun Bear's take on the whole matter. He said in one of his books that he liked to use MDs in the same way he used his auto mechanic: he already knows WHAT is wrong and is going to the auto mechanic for the skills to get it fixed.

I also loved his analogy about allopathic medicine: if auto mechanics were allopathic, if your oil light goes on in your car, your mechanic would take a sledge hammer and take out the offending light.

I think Western medicine excels at heroic intervention (surgery and stuff and esp. ER technologies) and in many ways (not all), diagnosis. So, unlike Sun Bear, I prefer the diagnosis and occasional heroic intervention side of Western medicine and then try to do all the rest myself.

[Dover]

8. New article: Acupuncture activates the brain

Acupuncture activates the brain
Andreas von Bubnoff
Medicinal use of needles does more than placebos.



Acupuncture has a measurable, if mysterious, effect on the brain, UK scientists have found. The study adds to evidence that patients benefit from acupuncture not simply because of their expectations.

The research team used brain imaging to show that treatment with genuine needles activates brain areas beyond the ones that light up when trick needles are used. "This is the first brain-imaging study that has shown an effect beyond placebo," says George Lewith, an expert in complementary medicine at the University of Southampton who led the study.

Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese treatment for illness, pain or even addiction, which uses fine needles in defined points of the body. The mechanism behind this is far from understood, and clinical trials into acupuncture have had mixed results. "It has worked in some trials, it hasn't worked in others, it's very complicated," says Ted Kaptchuk, an acupuncture researcher at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts. Many studies have suggested that the placebo effect accounts for most of the benefits seen.

Part of this confusion may be thanks to the use of badly defined controls in acupuncture tests, experts say. Some studies use needles in non-acupuncture points, for example. But this may simply prove that needling is an effective treatment..cont'd

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050425/full/050425-12.html

[Eloriel]

11. Ah, but the traditional Chinese understood that mechanism very well

I love this subject. I think it so perfectly points out so much that is wrong about Western medicine. It's incredibly narrow vision; its mechanistic, reductionist and ultra-materialistic approach to everything; its belief and arrogant insistance that if we can't find "scientific proof" for something, then it can't -- simply can't -- be real, valid, or even exist in some cases.

In the late 1990s (1997?) the National Institutes of Health made it known that some of the studies that it had funded came back positive for effectiveness of acupuncture for some things.

This probably isn't even necessary to point out here, but the various points used in acupuncture are meridian points -- points along the pathways called meridians that are the highways and biways of personal ch'i (or qi). Ch'i isn't physical (in the sense that science can "find" or measure it), and the meridians and acupuncture points are the places on the body where the non-physical energy known as ch'i (which feeds the physical body) and the physical body itself merge and align. Ch'i travels along these 12 meridian pathways, which are named for the organ systems they feed (liver/lung, stomach/spleen, etc.).

So, in short, modern science will never fully get it about ch'i and meridians and acupuncture until/unless it becomes less materialistic. I suppose there will come a day when our modern scientific instruments will be able to measure this lower level of the non-physical. I hope so. There's a LOT our scientists are seriously missing in the meantime. Heheh.

BTW, there was a study done by a Korean researcher -- it's described in a book called Vibrational Medicine (highly recommended, recently updated and revised, and I can never remember the author's name). He injected radioactive dye at the site of some acupuncture points and instead of the dye radiating outward in a circle, as would be expected when injected into muscle tissue, the dye followed the meridian path. And THAT is as close as our modern, all-powerful Western science can come to figuring out what it is about ch'i and meridians.

More things than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio.

[yellowdawgdem]

12. Nothing in particular/foods, supplements

I have tried some different alternative healing methods, but mostly didn't stick with them, except for the chiropractic, because without that I'd have a lot of back pain. I guess I'm healthy enough that I don't need much else besides a good diet and exercise, and whatever supplements seem helpful at the moment. The deciding what to eat part has been complicated, but I have settled on eating meat a few times a week, and milk only occasionally, because I feel better, less bogged down, w/o them. I mainly drink Silk soy milk, at least until I get sick of it. And I try to eat garlic and turmeric every few days, because I feel better doing that. I've gone thru cutting carbs and dealing with high protein, but find that the best thing is just to notice what I have a bad reaction to, and that plus exercise seems to be all that is needed. Knock on wood!