Tag: stress

Search High and Low

I watched an interesting show this morning on allfour (after forgetting to record it last night). I was expecting (perhaps wildly) a sharp focus on a new treatment or at least a Search High and Low ethos that perhaps didn’t involve further damage to an already damaged body.

The Search for a Miracle Cure

I’d read an article about arguably the UK’s most well known solicitor on his investigation into a treatment option. The Jewish Times (fleshed out a press release?) in the summer.

Very good at his profession to which Rupert Murdoch (News of the World closed thanks to Lewis’s court actions) and columnist Katie Hopkins (forced to say sorry!) can testify

Lewis said he wouldn’t go down without a fight against MS.

On the programme he didn’t appear to be considering the physical side of his being at all?
His long suffering partner helped him out so much he barely needed to move?

Perhaps having a career that involved lots of thinking and inhabiting the brain (whilst getting paid handsomely to do so) has helped him leave his body all the more?

In the show Mark Lewis wondered about stress playing a part in the progress of his disease. He seemed to be almost questioning whether anything as ‘simple’ as stress and emotion could have an effect on the functioning of his body!

After watching, I felt fairly sure that his somewhat chaotic early years had had a part to play in his body developing MS. Gabor Mate goes into this question very well in his book, When the body says No.

An exercise ball that is good to lie on the ground and rest your legs on whilst exercising them. Look on the page for further explanation.

In the programme he was hoping to get good results from a stem cell trial being carried out in Jerusalem. He needed to visit the country twice for two treatments (one was real and the other was a placebo). To keep the study resembling science it was ‘double blinded’ neither the doctors or the patients knew which injection into his spine was of stem cells harvested from his bone marrow on an earlier visit to Israel.

After the first treatment he was more mobile and wondered if he had the active injection of his stem cells. He was walking more easily, didn’t require a stick so quickly. His balance was better and life was easier all round.

6 months later when it was time for his 2nd injection he felt the first injection MUST have been placebo as the effects wore off after a time. Unfortunately we never found out how the 2nd treatment left him.

I think the solicitor was missing a trick.

Lewis didn’t appear to search high and low for help with his MS.

his body, all on its own  (functioning as the placebo) helped things work better without any active ingredient Joe Dispenza has written a very intriguing book You Are the Placebo which I mention in an earlier post.

The improved mobility could have been prolonged if he’d done some exercise to build up the muscles that have been inactive for a decade at least.

I don’t have the brains/doggedness to continue working as he obviously does but I do have the doggedness to not let my body go down without a fight.

A handful of sites  to continue our search high and low for healing from MS

  •  Bob and Brad (focussing on fall reduction for elders
  • a lady from Birmingham  working for Move it or lose it and looking at improving balance 
  • Trevor Wicken from the MSgym on facebook is under the age of 40 (unlike the others)

It’s not sexy or attractive

to be looking at fall reduction, but it can save us!

I keep a browser window open for all of them to encourage me to exercise (I was never a big exerciser even before MS). I get far less exercise these days. I’m sure none of these guys will mind me pointing out that none of them are wearing a speck of lycra or encouraging us to ‘feel the burn.’ They do break down (in their own ways) what processes go into the art of walking.

A few years back I was meeting with a Feldenkrais practitioner who handily, lived a couple of streets away mentioned on these 4 different pages.

SEARCHING (a box at the top on the right of this site) is the best way to make use of these pages. I think my IT literate husband (thanks T) is probably one of my more recent helpers.

Apologies for posts up until now.

I found myself regularly on a search high and low for content: I wrote the bl**dy things!

I will get better at categorising! Thank you for sticking with me!

stress and pedalogate!

My lack of speed in getting a post out allows me to refer to stress and pedalogate and roll a couple of subjects together that I think are related.

One of them has a more English sensibility to it and the other is global in its appeal. Both, I feel are worth thinking about a bit more thoughtfully as human beings.

The first is Pedalogate! The British media had a field day when the newspapers were full of stories that highlighted some of the NHS’ more surprising expenditure.

Our national Health Service was paying for leisure activities (instead of questionably effective pharmaceutical treatments?) for some patients with various types of long term illness. At the bottom of this post will be a link to an article from the Daily Mail. Our chances to experience escapism should never be looked down on. whether through a James Bond movie, a good book or creating imaginary worlds!

escapism pure and simple a snail has a trail of light

My recent researches investigating psychoneuroimmunology have included the findings from the endocrinologist Hans Selye in the 1930s. His groundbreaking work looked into the effects of stress on the immune systems of lab rats.

His General Adaptation Syndrome examined an organism’s ability to take stress in its stride.

As an exquisitely balanced organism we’re designed to be resilient  and thrive under fire from the slings and arrows that life has in store for most if not all of us.

The breakdown of this bouncebackability happens over long term exposure to a stressor.

It seems this crucial piece of research that is now coming back into prominence hasn’t necessarily been taken to heart by the wider public?

At best, the wide ranging effects of stress seem to be paid lip service to.

But ultimately the research points toward this: We can affect how our body functions by how we think!

How huge is that?

Sitting in a pedalo on a lake and feeling nature around us can help us to think more clearly.

A pedalo trip could give the patient a brief respite from the situation they’re more than capable of getting themselves stuck in by repeating negative thought patterns.

Being given the chance to leave our everyday existence allows us breathing space and the chance to get a bit of distance on a situation that, if we’re off sick from work we could probably benefit from!

This autumn has involved taking apart some of my own negative thought processes some of which go back decades and I hope now I am aware of them, I will be able to examine and change my situation?

The article in the Daily Mail

an explanation of the image (I don’t have one of a pedalo) but its creation represents my efforts at escapism which gives me the chance to take me out of myself, get a bit of distance and think more clearly.