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Ok, I've lurked a little bit following my roomate around here, and I thought I would pass this by you guys since you seem intelligent and willing to discuss things without going berserk.
I was talking recently with a good friend of mine. Just a little bit of background, he was in the military for over 22 years, doing special operations across the board. He started in Vietnam and ended in the gulf war, and along the way picked up a Chinese father in law from a very unknown tradition, who taught him to do all sorts of interesting things. The military also had my friend medically trained as a doctor, and he's done everything from take care of colds to open heart massage under adverse conditions (the boy lived).
He has recently gone back to school(after bludgeoning the governemnt into admitting he IS owed benefits) and while there met a woman in one of his classes. I'll call her Sarah. Sarah has MS. Not as bad as some people, but she hasn't been able to stand up straight for years, bent over at a horrible angle, and she's been going back and forth from walkers and wheelchairs. She's usually in some serious pain. She developed MS as an adult, and has been to many doctors looking for relief. All she gets is prescriptions for morphine and vicadin (sp?), and told that, of course, there is nothing they can do, her condition will continue to degenerate.
A quick run down on MS as it was explained to me: The body goes ape and attacks the tissue sheath which surrounds the nerves, exposing the nerves, and causing lesions. Hence the severe pains. the nerves become misaligned and don't fire correctly, making proper movement difficult. The body continues to deteriorate in this fashion. They can give medicine to slow the attacks on the tissue, but they can't really stop it.
My friend met her this summer, and decided he liked Sarah, became friends with her, and put his knowledge of medicine, both chinese and scientific, to use. By the time I met her, she was standing straight, running up stairs for the first time in years. She's gotten rid of her wheelchair and walker and refuses to use them ever again. She introduced a friend of her's to my friend. This other guy also has MS and had to walk with the aid of a cane. Within the first day of meeting my friend, this guy threw away his cane.
And it was simply done. Specific excercises force the body to realign the nerves (so they can fire correctly) and which help the body to regenerate the tissue around the nerves. It doesn't stop the body from attacking the tissue, but between the medicine which slows it down, and these excercises, Sarah and her friend are ok, because as quickly as the tissue is harmed, it is rebuilt.
Of course, her doctors refuse to admit this can happen. They can't explain it, so they ignore it. Her family did the same thing. She explained it to them, and they shrugged it off. A minor unexplained miracle, can't be repeated. Sarah's grandmother is in severe pain and deteriorating. Help was offered, but the doctors said that nothing could help her, so she refuses to admit the possibility exists. I keep encountering this attitude. "Hey! Look! Isn't this cool? there IS something that can be done!" "No there isn't, my doctor says so." "But look at me! I used to be like you, and now I am fine." "Impossible, can't happen."
SO what do guys think? Luna and I discussed it, and how people will not even pursue the opportunity when it is presented them because their medical doctors insist it isn't possible. and how the doctors insist it isn't possible when it is not a one time occurence but something which has been repeated over and over.
Any angle of this you want to discuss i would like to hear. What do you guys think? (Shatouska, don't let me down, i want at least one snide comment http://www.hostboard.com/ubb/wink.gif)
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namesake of a rascally tabby, courtesy of Eden
"Damn, tyle, I didn't know you contain atomic material."-Wiloe
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To me it is simple and so very sad: People fear the unknown. This manner of healing has my respect and support as it eases (if not totally heals) "incurable conditions" So many healers have to fight ignorance and the "system" prior to receiving recognition and being able to grant relief to people suffering. Sad! http://www.hostboard.com/ubb/frown.gif
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There is no death. Only a change of Worlds
My Open Diary
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lol, tyle....
i am saving my (usual) cynicism for later in the show...but i do have this one question.
i will post this question because i think this question pertains to so much more than the subject at hand.
no one person (with the exception of few) will answer this question the same way, twice.
here are a few 'buffer' questions i'm gonna post before i post THE question:
what are the long-term affects of such a treatment? is immediate relief greater than later complication?
(are we that hedonistic???)
so my main question is:
is a person's individual comfort the issue when it comes to medical treatment?
the reason i ask is sheathed.
but i am sure, judging by my experience with present company..., you all know what i'm getting at.
(tee hee)
and don't worry, tyle...
plenty of cynicism is running amuck between these ears...lol.
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~~share some greased tea with me~~
General Philosophy
Discuss This...
The Acropolis
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Basically, it boils down to, as Noam Chomsky so elegantly put it...
"...willfull and dedicated ignorance."
I'm a Reiki Master. For those of you who don't know what Reiki is, it's a Japanese method of chakra healing, using the energy of the whole earth to fascilitate healing, using the chakras in the human bodies as pathways. It worked wonders for me, and since becoming a healer myself, I've had numerous opportunities to help others, all of which have been wonderfully successful.
In a situation a lot like the one tyle described above, I've got a friend with cystic fibrosis. Different disease, same result - a lifetime of pain and disability, with no hope of a cure (outside of lung transplantation). Well, about a year ago, I offered to do Reiki on her. When I was done, she felt about as good and 'clean' as she's felt in years, and this lasted for several weeks. So I've kept doing it. And like above, no one else (including her husband) believes her or me.
More later, when I'm not rushed before work.
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If you can't get what you want, change what it is that you want.
"We're lonely and isolated. We live in hairless bodies without exoskeletons - so fragile even thoughts can hurt us." -- Chilimuffin
In some far off place / Many light years in space / I'll build a world of abstract dreams / And wait for you -- Sun Ra
Apparently, 2+2=5.
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This reminds me of O.J. Simpson and Nicole Brown...although video wasn't quite as advanced back then, no one told Nicole to document the physical abuse she suffered via a secret video camera.
(By the way, I'm pretty sure Nicole got some licks in via verbal abuse.)
I think testimonials from friends, professors, classmates, life-long friends creates a trail of documentation that over time makes a credible trail of evidence.
Show those tapes to the doctors.
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Alex
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I believe with this type of 'thing' many people believe that doctors are gods and can do no wrong and know everything. I believe this sort of mentality is especially prevalent in the lower socio-economic classes. Once someone becomes a doctor or knows someone who is a doctor or works for a doctor, you start to see that everyone and everything is fallible. Doctors are not supreme beings and I say that it is the lower classes who do not grasp this or are ignorant of this because they do not have close relationships with doctors. All they see is (usually) being healed by someone with a medical degree and so you start to eliminate the fact that there are answers outside the power or knowledge of doctors.
That was a little piece of my mind to the matter regardless of the authenticity of the original post.
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Shatzy, would you check the number and dial again.
Just offer your opinion, not your opinion of what you think of the question you may want to ask is going to result in.
sheesh!
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Alex
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sheesh, alex...
why don't ya rip me a new one?
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~~share some greased tea with me~~
General Philosophy
Discuss This...
The Acropolis
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i think its senseless to jump onto a treatment simply because of the short-termed goals.
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~~share some greased tea with me~~
General Philosophy
Discuss This...
The Acropolis
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by SHATOUSHKA:
i think its senseless to jump onto a treatment simply because of the short-termed goals.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
That's whacked, Shatzy.
If the short term relief gives one clarity to forge a new solution, then I disagree with ya.
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Alex
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there is no clarity when chemical reactions are induced.
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~~share some greased tea with me~~
General Philosophy
Discuss This...
The Acropolis
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But there is no clarity when one is sick with pain, and in pain from sickness. To me, there is no clarity in our human situations, in any facet of them, and this is why we get multiple opinions, to keep from bias and to compare views to see what is real and right.
I think that short-term relief is fine. And I also think that the comfort of patients should be a goal if not THE goal of the medical community. It seems to me that if you aren't trying to increase the quality and longetivity of the human lifespan, then what's the point of the medical profession? Why prolong life if it is still nasty and brutish? What I like especially about tyle's story is that it is a solution that doesn't involve drugs, but I think that if drugs are the only way to ease pain, then fine with me. I don't think that it is hedonism that prompts this, just an unwillingness to see people suffer when it is unnecessary.
The reason I think short term relief is ok is that in most of the cases that I know, doctors will not promote any sort of drug or treatment that they know DOES cause a later complication. Most of the drugs used now are tested and retested, and are "safe" insofar as they won't later kill a patient or bring a resurgence of their condition.
At any rate, with the story above, I would say this about the treatment: the woman has MS, which is a crippling and often lethal condition. She was already nearly unable to walk. Even if the excercises were to hurt her eventually, I think I would have made the same choice as she did, since according to her doctors, she was NEVER going to get better in their care. At least with tyle's friend, the girl was able to enjoy a quality of life comprable to what she previously enjoyed, something she never thought she would be able to do again.
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Never ask a man if he is from Texas. If he is, he will let you know. If he isn't there is no use in embarassing him.
[This message has been edited by La Luna Unita (edited January 24, 2002).]
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>But there is no clarity when one is sick with pain, and in pain from sickness. To me, there is no clarity in our human situations, in any facet of them, and this is why we get multiple opinions, to keep from bias and to compare views to see what is real and right.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
i agree with everything you have said...except for the last three words. http://www.hostboard.com/ubb/wink.gif
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~~share some greased tea with me~~
General Philosophy
Discuss This...
The Acropolis
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As far as I understand of science and medicine, the basic reason why Doctors do NOT condone 'alternative methods' of healing has little to do with anything other then the need for them to understand the pathways of such endeavors, the manner in which the purported TREATMENTS work.
This is a bit like the E.S.P. debate that has gone on in private in the scientific world for a little bit of time.
I read a good treatise on it, and the most fundamental problem was that when the pathway of solution is not understood endorsement leads to all kinds of practitioners practicing something that may, or may not, work.
All of this is relative to the knowledge of the practitioner. A person may claim to be a mentalist, and might be quite capable of performing the feat.
But, without a provable scientific methodology for demonstrating the manner of the action, endorsements of the practice opens the doors to any who would make the claim, and there is no method for separating those who actually can do the job, and those who will willingly fake it for the money!
The methods of the "others" have not been completely examined, not been completely understood on any other basis then faith.
Scientific studies have demonstrated that placebos are quite capable in curing some people, because they believe that they will be cured, that throws a great monkey wrench into the anecdotal histories of successful solutions.
This does not state that I do not believe that some of these methods don't work, but, in consideration of just what is at stake, validations, IMHO, are to be attached with a big "buyer beware" sign cause there are lots of people out there who will take your money and run!
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My Teacher is in all people, but not all people are my Teacher
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Definitely true enough. Caution to the winds is never a good idea in medical situations.
