On a personal note

[karen]

Since we've been talking about allopathic medicine and alternatives and deciding which to use, I thought I'd share a bit of personal history that illustrates why I made the choices I did.

 

Twelve years ago, I was in septic shock (blood poisoning), and would have died in a matter of hours or minutes if I wasn't in the ICU where Vancomycin and massive fluids were being pumped into my bloodstream, and a machine was breathing for me.

 

Everything that was done over the 10 days I was there, and the following month that I was on the regular hospital ward being treated for the complications of that intervention (lungs filled with fluid, congestive heart failure, cardiomyopathy, etc.), were absolutely necessary.

 

The reason I developed septicemia to begin with was because I had a catheter going into a major vein to the heart, and that became infected. For 10 years I had had multiple tubes surgically implanted in my chest for intravenous feeding, since I couldn't digest enough on my own to sustain myself. I was being treated by the best TCM practitoners, and doing spiritual practices for years already at that point. But I kept declining, and being near death from starvation, I found out about and immediately chose the life-saving intervention courtesy of mainstream medicine.

 

The question isn't which approach is generally right or wrong.. In a rational system of medicine, there really aren't two opposing camps, mainstream or alternative, but an understanding of which approach is appropriate for any given situation. And usually it's not an either/or choice, but a matter of understanding where each tool fits in.

 

When the body is being assaulted and acutely overwhelmed by microbes, then life-saving measures are needed to kill them and suppress the symptoms. In such an extreme situation, the natural healing power of the body that would otherwise come into play with methods that balance, just can't compete with the invader, and you have to rush in with anti-pathic measures not just homeo-pathic.

 

After I was out of the woods, I had a long recovery, but allopathic medicine had nothing to offer there. It continued to keep me alive with intravenous white liquid "nutrition" pouring into my veins, but even then, my body was starting to reject the catheters. It was time to sink or swim, shit or get off the pot. Conventional medicine had nothing to offer to take me past that impasse, nothing to help me overcome the complex, underlying problems.

 

I had been researching natural healing relentlessly, and continued having just about every type of treatment no matter how obscure (which I had been doing before, since around 1980). Nothing touched it, including classical homeopathy that I had for about 8 solid years.

 

But after a little over a year with a system that could map out the homeopathic remedies I needed in the sequence I needed them, my 10-year dependence on intravenous feeding was over. I no longer needed to be a full time medical patient, and I had my appetite and my body back again.

 

(Living without tubes for the first time in 10 years brought a profound experience of gratitude, although I actually learned something about gratitude first while in the ICU, where the circumstances pushed me to discover that grace is everywhere even in that horrendous experience)

 

The system I used helped to remove the underlying disturbances and provided the map I needed for the real journey of deep healing. But it's not exclusive of mainstream medicine - it incorporates the understanding of "jurisdiction" - If you're bleeding uncontrollably, or if you're in septic shock, you get to the hospital. Ideally, a homeopath could be there in addition to give remedies that are brilliant for shortening recovery time from all sorts of acute injuries, infections, etc. And then to brilliantly address the deeper issues over the longer run.

 

I became a homeopath not because of an attachment to it or an emotionally charged aversion to drugs, but because I recognized a kernel of truth there. Through formal study, I began to understand its real jurisdiction. So I do my best to keep developing my capacity to resonate with the truth, wherever that takes me, without attachment to a particular tool.

 

On a lighter note!...

 

<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="

name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="

type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>

[dragonfire]

Allopathic is only for when you are about to die. I call it the extreme medicine. You

only use it in extreme situations like car accidents, gun shots, stabbings, poisonings, etc.

 

It definitely has its place in society.

 

They are not the first line of defense.

 

I consider Allopathic really a branch of true medicine, which is natural - TCM. You wouldn't hear

that from the allopathic community because they aren't too spiritually developed. If there

is a allopathic Dr that became spiritual, he is no longer allopathic. He/she is TCM. More and

more are becoming spiritual.

 

The first line of defense is TCM. You do TCM to keep healthy and prevent yourself from

having to see an allopathic Dr. In early China, most families had TCM doctors that kept

them healthy. It was the TCM dr's job to keep them healthy. If they got sick, the doctor

did not get paid. Today it is reverse. You pay the doctor to fix your problem and not from

keeping you from getting ill. It seems people are waking up and see the true reality of things.

 

Gee, do I have a full-blown operation, or try to stay healthy and balanced to avoid such

operations that have life-long ill effects.

[findley]

whoa, holy shit lady !

[Mal]

double post

[Mal]

Western emergency medicine is nothing short of miraculous. The amount of stuff your body can survive if you have access to modern A&E and ICU care is just mind blowing.

 

It's just a shame that since it is SO awesome people seem to have moved away from preventative or defensive medicine systems like TCM. I was talking to a friend who teaches feldenkrais who said. "By the time people come for "healing" they are usually already so far gone that it's hard to help them. And they want a magic cure without putting in any effort themselves." Western medicine with it's pills and surgery doesn't really help that mindset. People have moved away from being responsible for there own healing.

 

p.s. I wish findley would stop using .broken.'s old avatar

[dragonfire]

Many people wonder why they feel like shit and why their body is not healthy or

they have so so growth, or no energy, or headaches, or neck aches, or any

physical problem. They go day-in and day-out thinking they know nothing about why they

are experiencing these problems, when the body has always given them signs. They just choose to ignore it. Its only when it is too late that they

need to be hauled into the ER and get something cut off. For these people,

this is what they deserve. You get what you put in. You have not

taken responsibility for you life. Eating Carl's jr. everyday of the week

is bad. They know it, but they do it. I don't feel sorry

for anybody who does not take actions to care for themselves.

 

We live in an age when TCM is available. Take responsibility for you

life and your families.

 

Its ironic how many MD's are actually getting treatment from TCMs now.

They don't want to take the same crap they dish out to patients.

Edited August 3, 2009 by dragonfire

[goldisheavy]

I concur. Western medicine is great in emergencies when you need to control some symptom right away, especially if the victim is unconscious. In some cases, when you need to control pain, I think hypnosis is still better than anything anesthesiologist can come up with, but other than pain control, western medicine is pretty good. For example, if you swallowed some acid, you might be given some base to neutralize it right away, or vice versa. There are antidotes for venom that work right away and in, more or less, every case. Etc.

 

However, when it comes to chronic issues, western medicine sucks. When it comes to subtle issues, such as auto-immune disorders, it sucks. Western medicine also has frighteningly little to say on how to maintain health if you are already healthy. Western medicine is concerned with diseases far more than with maintaining health when you are already healthy. It's obsessed with pathologies and fails to study healthy people as much as it should.

 

Chronic issues result when the disease becomes embedded within a person's identity. The mind-nature of diseases is relentlessly denied and dismissed by the Western medicine. Placebo effect is considered between "bad" and "useless" rather than being considered a natural and healthy healing effect of the mind. This is a result of a physicalist materialism to which most doctors and researchers hold, either consciously or in most cases unconsciously.

 

Antibiotics are overused. They kill gut bacteria indiscriminately as much as they kill the "bad" bacteria. The end result is that you can die from the medicine if not careful. It's like using a sledge hammer to fix your eye glasses. I will agree that sometimes antibiotics are useful and maybe even necessary, but doctors should not hand them out like candy.

 

I also have a very strong suspicious that no one knows what the fuck is going on with all the mind-altering "medicines" such as Xanax and a ton of other varieties. (I'm going to ignore that they cost 2 cents per pill to make and are sold at many dollars per pill...) Using the happy pills people incorrectly suppress real issues that should be resolved in contemplation. This promotes laziness and lack of responsibility, and ultimately it promotes a state of victimhood and dependency.

 

I don't blindly support any kind of folk medicine either. I suggest trial and error approach based on contemplation and intuition, combined.

 

I don't like homeopathy. I think what homeopaths achieve should be done with hypnosis or certain types of contemplation. Let's drop the absurd idea that the more diluted something is, the more powerful it is. If that's the case, then I am sniffing some very powerful Napoleon farts right now, and so on. It's absurd and it's obvious why. Whatever good effects homeopaths achieve they all have to do with mind, so just approach the mind directly without the trap of homeopathy. Mind based healing is legitimate, unlike homeopathy, which is pretentious.

Edited August 3, 2009 by goldisheavy