Last Updated on July 23, 2017
Now, I am venturing into a new direction- towards alternative healing and health. And I am grateful that I start to come across books and articles that discuss just that. I am now reading books that talks about fad diets and why they do not work in the long term. Instead of books on fad diets. Eliminating a particular food group is not the answer- the answer is in moderation. In the end, if we were to totally deprive ourselves of stuff we love (chocolates, cookies, candies, etc), we will not be happy. Will talk more about that in future postings.
“Spontaneous Healing” by Andrew Weil, M.D, a recent book that I am reading- talks about alternative healing where commercial medicine had failed. The book starts with:
“A man whose lungs are filled with cancer is sent home to die, having being told that medicine can do nothing for him. Six months later, he reappears in his doctor’s office, tumor free. A young woman- diabetic, a heavy smoker- lies unconscious in a coronary care unit following a bad heart attack. Her doctor anguishes over the fact that her cardiac function is rapidly declining and he is powerless to save her. But the next morning she is awake and talking, clearly on the road to recovery. A neurosurgeon tells grieving parents that their son, who is in a coma following a motorcycle accident and severe head injury, will never regain consciousness. The son is now fine.”
Nowadays, people, especially children, are given antibiotics to treat fevers, coughs and flu. Quick fixes that try to kill the virus, and at the same time, some cells in the body. This will greatly compromise their immune system later on. ALL of my friends and colleagues give their kids a course of antibiotic treatment when they have fever, cold, cough or flu. This trend greatly worries me.
Last week, my colleague asked me out of the blue: “Yin Teing, what do you take when you have flu?”. He is a great believer in antibiotics and drinks cough mixtures straight from the bottle with the style of someone who is drinking a can of Coke!
Touch wood, I seldom get flu but I do experience sinus, ie running nose. I just use lots of tissues and when it gets bad, I will down a can of 100 plus (isotonic drink) and eat lots of citrus fruits and drink lots of water. Also I tried to eat lighter food (salad) so that I don’t overwork my digestive system. I self prescribe the same treatment when I get fever. Don’t like the ideal of relying too much on antibiotics and drugs coz they only suppress the symptoms and not heal it. I noticed that when a person relies a lot of antibiotics, panadols, aspirins or whatever medicines that doctors prescibed, the illness increased with greater intensity and longer duration the next time it comes. OK, I admit, when situation gets really bad such as at the risk of infecting others with my flu or the fact I cannot teach a class with stuff flowing out from my nose, I will take a clarytine (supposed to dry up the mucus membrane without sedative effect). But I will make sure I also take lots of fruits and 100 plus.
An ex colleague of mine who was diabetic, relied a lot on conventional medicine. Despite being a diabetic, overweight and losing vision of one eye, she had never wanted to change her eating habits. She takes gourmet coffee (with sugar and cream) with either tuna mayo or egg cheese bun for breakfast, followed by curry chee cheong fun (the stall she buys from puts lots of santan/coconut milk in the curry) for lunch. There are lots of snacks, teh tarik, sweet stuff in between. The way she eats greatly worries me and I had expressed my concerns to her a few times. Of course, I also suspect that the eating stems from a more psychological and emotional level but I was too inexperienced and stressed at work that time to really persuade her to change.
Every week, she has to go for her insulin jabs and she suffers from terrible bouts of migraine that saw an increased frequency in the 18 months that I had worked with her. First, it was 2 panadols, then followed by Ponstan. When the increased dosage of postan no longer works, she was taking some very strong medicine which I do not know the name- the only thing I remembered she said that her doctor had told her that the tablet is the most powerful one that he could prescribe and if one day that medicine no longer works- she will have to live with the pain. Sometimes, she takes jabs for the pain. Often, her migraine was so bad that she could not even come to work. I have a few colleague that suffers from terrible, head splitting migraines.
I read in the September 07 issue of Men’s Health- an article by Matt Goulding. He actually had Crohm’s disease (hope I got the spelling right) and he had 29 inches of his small intestines removed. His health was just going downhill till he seek out the famous Brazilian shaman- John of God.
Matt Goulding used to be a columnist writing about food for Men’s Health and it’s a big blow for him for not able to eat food that he once had enjoyed so much. Matt’s father also used to have that illness but his father, after being so fed up of filling and emptying prescriptions, he undertook the holistic life- yoga, healthy eating. His father coaxed the disease into remission within 4 years with his lifestyle change.
Matt’s disease went into remission after being treated by John of God – something that years of conventional medicines and surgeries could not do.
The danger of relying on conventional medications and not doing anything to change our unhealthy lifestyle (physical and mental health) can lead to very bad consequences. Almost all of us would have know someone who had suffered from cancer, stroke, heart attack, high blood, diabetes and had died from that illness. If we are still in the position to change, why don’t we?
So this new direction does appeal to me a lot- it talks about working with your body’s immune system to heal instead of working against it. This would be the basis of my new research- balancing health in mind and body.
