There is an emotional element to all pain. The emotional pain may be too much for you to handle so your physical body takes the overload. We believe that you are laid flat on your back in order to make you look up!

If our lives are going in the wrong direction, destiny gives us a ‘tap on the shoulder’. It may only be gentle like a small accident which makes up stop and think: ‘Where am I going?’; ‘Is that where I want to be?’

If we ignore this tap, then the reminder becomes a much more painful experience when we are forced to take notice. There are many people who will tell you how a serious accident completely changed their lives. Intense pain prompted them to reassess their priorities in life. It’s a fact that we are sometimes forced to suffer before learning life’s lessons.

An example of this is Cry of the Damaged Man by Tony Moore. This is the story of a doctor who learnt from a very painful accident. For the first time he became the patient and his story of this experience is poignant.

We don’t have to hurt. By listening to our emotions, we learn to recognise the pitfalls awaiting us. Test yourself while doing a job. What is your overriding emotion? Is it anger or resentment that you have to do the task, or thankfulness that you have the capacity/intelligence/good luck to be asked to do it?

Pleasure is the opposite of pain. Finding how to handle one is often the path by which we find the other. Release resistance to pain, don’t run away from it, size it up. Pain can drive people to suicide, so it is important to diagnose the cause.

Therapies recommended for emotional pain come from the homoeopathic repertoire. A very detailed picture of the whole person’s background, the general and specific symptoms and knowledge of the chronic or acute situation must be thoroughly detailed before classical remedies can be prescribed. This is a

challenging and rewarding task when you involve yourself with this 200-year-old therapy. Homoeopathics recommended for pain cover pages of the repertoire. The dosage is also exacting as the more diluted the remedy, the more effective the treatment. Emotional pain is treated with the high dilutions of 200x or greater.

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Here’s a short list of emotions affected by each element:

Wood aggression, anger, irritability, restlessness, instability.

Fire joy, happiness, hysteria, excessive laughter, sadness (lack of fire energy

minimises our joy etc).

Earth sympathy, concern, worry, tension, depression.

Metal crying, grief, sorrow, negativity, parsimony.

Water groaning, reverence, awe, wonder, fear, alarm, timidity (again, appreciate the need for correct energy balance).

Too much or too little of these emotions can cause problems. Acupuncture is a simple means of correcting energy flow. By balancing these important energy levels we can ease emotional tensions almost instantly – just a few small needles quickly and expertly inserted. It’s so much better than drug dependency.

Susan’s story-Susan came to my clinic, very tense and shaken. She was teary and couldn’t sit down while she relayed her story to me. She had had a fight with her husband followed by a minor car accident. I gave her drops for shock and lay her down, then checked the pulses in her wrist to see how her body was coping. Stress, in my opinion, was the only real problem, and I quickly inserted acupuncture needles in the correct positions. Very soon after that she calmed down and her heartbeat returned to normal. I was quite comfortable that a day’s rest was all she would need — if her husband didn’t abuse her over the cost of fixing the car.

Homoeopathy takes in the total picture of the suffering person’s family history, the past health history, trauma in their life, medications masking illnesses or reducing immunity, sensitivity to weather, movement, heat and cold, sleep patterns, food preferences and so much more. These details give the homoeopath an overall idea of the type of patient you are, and the special picture you represent.

Tim’s story–Tim was brought to me for help with his attitude to school and life generally. I shook his hand and noticed that his grip was soft and clammy. He was a sandy-headed, freckle-faced boy, a little overweight (though that is not a problem in a growing boy who is about to shoot upwards and has no emotional problems). His mother told me that he was always forgetting things and could become very obstinate when he liked. He was quite well when he first woke up but by the end of the day everything seemed an effort. He often complained that his head was hot and developed a cold easily if he was caught in a weather change.

After taking a comprehensive case history, and checking his spine for structural misalignment, I decided to use homoeopathy, especially as he said he freaked out at the idea of needles! So we agreed on some drops under the tongue.

To a homoeopath, the diagnosis was obvious. Inability to absorb calcium in the young will often present these symptoms and more. Calcarea carbonica is a constitutional remedy par excellence and works very well indeed, especially with children. One dose a day for a week showed gradual improvement in his overall health and very definitely in his emotional attitude. We decreased the drops until one dose per week was all he required.

Each case, however, is unique and the homoeopath must work out the appropriate remedy. Totally different homoeopathic medication may be required by each patient even though they have similar symptoms.

When it comes to nutrition, vitamins are well known for the: importance they have in emotional health, especially the B complex ones. Deficiency of these vitamins may be brought on through stress of any kind, such as poor nutrition, overwork, smoking, insomnia. Special times of need, such as breastfeeding, or after surgery, accidents and trauma will soon upset the delicate vitamin balance.

While I was listening to a patient one day, I noticed that he was nervously wiping and hiding his mouth with his hands. It was an unconscious movement, and although it first annoyed me because it prevented me from hearing what he was saying, I realised I was seeing first hand a vitamin B deficiency. It became clear that he was suffering work stress which wasn’t being recognised. I advised a course of vitamin B complex with each meal for at least a month. Eventually his nervous symptoms disappeared and he could talk to me with confidence. He learnt that vitamin tablets would benefit him and his family whenever they suffered stress.

There is a wonderful world of Bach, and now Bush, Flower remedies which do wonders for emotional stress, pain and their associated problems.

Dr Edward Bach (1886-1936), a Welsh pathologist, bacteriologist, homoeopath and herbalist, was the first to derive these remedies from flower extracts. He treated the mental states which govern our physical wellbeing by using simple flower dilutions. They are available from any naturopath and are totally safe, being correctly distilled and professionally prepared.

There are thirty-eight Bach Flower remedies. The first twelve represent the emotions of: fear, mental torture/worry, terror, indecision, indifference/boredom, overconcern/anxiety, weakness, self distrust, impatience, over-enthusiasm, pride/aloofness.

Here, in alphabetical order, is a list of the flowers whose extracts immediately treat emotional symptoms: aspen, beech, centaury, cerato, cherry-plum,

chestnut-bud, chicory, clematis, crab-apple, elm, gentian, gorse, heather, holly, honeysuckle, hornbeam, impatiens, larch, mimulus, mustard, oak, olive, pine,

red-chestnut, rock-rose, rock-water, scleranthus, star-of-Bethlehem, sweet chestnut, vervain, vine, walnut, water-violet, white-chestnut, wild-oat, wild-rose, willow. A special five of these blended together form the well-known Rescue Remedy.

My own story-A little while ago I desperately needed a holiday. I feel a fool telling you this but, having finally organised a few days off, I couldn’t make up my mind what to do with them. Should I go to the beach and breathe in the salt air and bask in the sunshine? Should I head for the Blue Mountains and walk up and down the country trails? Should I book in to a five star hotel and indulge myself with theatre? I couldn’t decide. Should I stay home and ignore the telephone and catch up on the filing?

I drove myself crazy trying to make up my mind. I actually packed a bag and got into the car not knowing where I was going. An hour on the road and I was back home! Finally I woke up to myself and took a dose of scleranthus for indecision. Within three minutes I knew I had to stay put and book in to see my dentist, chiropodist, hairdresser, beautician and masseuse and indulge myself with treatments I deserved and needed!

My belief is that everyone should have their own Bach Flower remedy kit at home and self-medicate when necessary. Emotional states not heeded lead to more complicated body stress patterns requiring expensive therapy. Why not short circuit the process by taking responsibility for your own emotions with simple therapies?

All naturopaths, however, believe in the principle that for optimum health we should eat the foods grown in our own area as we are chemically adapted to them. Dr Bach, therefore, would have agreed with the latest development of the Bush Flower remedies for emotional problems as they are extracted from Australian flowers and developed for Australian conditions.

Symptoms addressed by these remedies include: burn-out, frustration, rigidity to change, annoyance, loathing, disgust, impatience, obsessions, pining, holding onto the past, inability to cope, worry”; resentment, bitterness, fearfulness, insecurity, lack of courage, lack of confidence, insensitivity, terror, panic, apathy and many, many more.

Some of the essences available are: banksia robur, bauhinia, billy-goat-plum, black-eyed susan, bluebell, boronia, bottle-brush, bush-fuchsia, bush-gardinia, bush-iris, cowslip-orchid, crowea, dagger-hakea, dog-rose, five-corners,

illawarra-flame-tree, flannel-flower, fringed-violet, grey-spider-flower, hibbertia, isopogon, jacaranda, kangaroo-paw, kapok bush, little-flannel flower, macro-carpa, mountain-devil, mulla-mulla, old man-banksia, pawpaw, peach-flowered tea tree, philotheca, red grevillea, red helmet, red lily, sheoak, silver princess,

slender-rice-flower, southern-cross, spinifex, sturt-desert-pea, sturt-desert-rose, sundew, sunshine wattle, tall yellow top, turkey bush, waratah, wedding bush, wild potato bush, wisteria.

These essences must be professionally prepared for consumption and government regulations ensure the strictest of standards.

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My working life is much better to manage and I can face each day confidently. At home my family all say I am easier to live with and I am, without such awful pain. Now that the pain and discomfort have gone I really wonder why we put up with such unnecessary agony for ourselves and everyone around us. Treatment changed my attitude, renewed my confidence, and gave me a new life.

Painful periods are often an indication that the pelvis needs realigning. By the time menstruation commences, there has been ample opportunity for sporting sprains to have thrown the pelvis out of correct alignment.

My clinic is near an ice skating rink. I have witnessed a considerable number of falls onto the hip joint. This is one of the ways that the pelvis is sprained and if left uncorrected will, and does, result in painful periods when girls reach puberty. An adjustment corrects this pelvic strain so that the natural flow is unimpeded. If your daughter suffers from dysmenorrhoea, watch and see if she usually stands on one leg with the other knee bent. This is one indicator of a pelvic problem.

With acupuncture the needles go into the ankles and the pain and cramp stop immediately. The points between the first finger and thumb complete the combination for the acupuncture treatment.

The relief from pain is wonderful and I give the girls therapy for three weeks consecutively, then, once a month, the week before the flow. That just about solves the problem. Pain is never normal. Menstruation should be regular and painless. If not, see your chiropractor or osteopath. Find one who does acupuncture too!

Rhonda’s story or the past so many years – so many that I couldn’t begin to remember my periods have meant almost a fortnight of misery and pain.

My cycle would begin with feeling bloated and heavy, breasts swollen, headachy, cranky, irritable and generally negative for about four or five days. For the next four or so days, I would have spotting before my period would actually begin. The onset would be accompanied by a rather severe headache, lasting from a day or two at least and anything up to ten days.

Sometimes I would work on trying to concentrate with my head pounding and my eyes burning. When it got really bad I would go and lie down on the bathroom tiles. I think I have almost lived on period pain pills for the past ten years or so and I really wonder what they do to your body.

My period would then last for five to seven days with a rather heavy flow and at least two ‘fioodings’ in that time. On the first day I would usually have to spend a couple of hours with a hot water bottle to ease the pain.

I had to get up and change through the night for at least four nights or if I did sleep through, there would be a big ‘clean up’ session. Then it would finish with another headache before a few final days of spotting to end it all.

Then I went to my natural therapist for treatment for a painful shoulder. In conversation I mentioned my headaches and painful periods and it was suggested I try acupuncture with chiropractic.

I had treatment a couple of times and almost instantly felt better. After only two treatments, my headaches have disappeared completely (which is so wonderful that no-one could really believe it).

My periods last only a week now and the flow has settled down considerably. There is only slight discomfort at the beginning with some pain, but certainly not enough to complain about.

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There are true short legs which occur from difficult fractures in the pelvis or leg bones, or where polio or some such disease has affected growth. Then there is the ‘apparent’ short leg which occurs through muscle cramp, or, more usually, distortion of the pelvis due to injury. These latter problems can be – and

are – corrected by our work every day.

One mistake made is when people self-diagnose and put in heel-lifts without the chiropractor’s expert opinion on their necessity. Over a two-year period, the resulting tilt to the pelvis creates a spinal rotation. Then we have to unwind the painful situation. Please check with a chiropractor first.

How to lift correctly:

First centre yourself.

Face the object squarely.

Bend your knees.

Drop if possible to a squat for low lifts.

Use all your body in the motion.

Hold the object close to your body.

Rise using your arms, trunk and legs.

Lift the object front on.

Turn your feet, not your spine, before you lower the object.

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We know, too, that reducing animal fats in our diet is an important correction of our eating pattern for heart trouble. Also it is thought that ‘bad’ cholesterol is mainly caused by stress and the effects of animal fats.

Foods known to decrease unwanted cholesterol are garlic, fish, barley, oats, gooseberries, mushrooms and prunes. Don’t forget the bad effects of stress on the heart. Walking daily is the safest exercise.

The damage done to our bodies through impure air, water and food, leaves us with the real need to help clean out our systems with increased vitamin intake. Vitamin C is the great cleanser of toxic metals in the bloodstream. Homoeopathic plumbago clears out the lead.

Chelation Therapy is a process to bind and eliminate heavy metals. Certain metal ions and other chemical substances (EDTA) are introduced intravenously to clean out toxic metals and plaque which accumulates in the blood vessels. (Chelation is described thoroughly in Alternative Medicine by Diane Wiesner.) It must be done by a medical practitioner involved in nutritional solutions to health problems.

Scars resulting from heart operations interfere with energy flow and need to be acupunctured, especially when the patient is not doing much exercise. Acupuncture quickly relieves tension and nausea.

If the patient has had scars from other operations, then the accumulated energy blockage is more severe and the patient will have divergent symptoms that also need to be relieved by correcting the energy flow. Insomnia and depression are two of these. Often there is a sense of pressure around the chest, or a feeling that the legs are bursting out of their skin. Tiredness and heavy limbs annoy, together with an internal stress that doesn’t ever let you relax.

You can’t blame the surgeon for these side effects. He has done his job well. After all he’s saved your life, but now it’s our turn to balance the chi vitality. It is a simple acupuncture procedure nothing at all to fear.

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Fortunately, treatment for glaucoma is effective, but it’s important to start it as soon as possible, in order to minimise damage to the sensitive retina. Because a retracted iris blocks the drainage holes and increases the pressure, we want to keep the iris contracted and the pupil small, so that the muscle of the iris keeps out of the way of the drainage holes. Therefore, your doctor will give eye drops that cause the iris to close up to a pinpoint. Frequently a drug called pilocarpine, or another called timolol, are used to do this. Either or both are given regularly, as drops may be all that is necessary to ensure that the pupil remains small.

If the drops don’t work, a drug called acetazolamide can be given in tablet form, to reduce the pressure by reducing the formation of aqueous humour. Sometimes even this is not enough, and then an operation (a sclerectomy) to make a small, artificial drainage hole may be necessary. After this operation, even if the iris does dilate in dim light, it will not block the drainage holes

Self-help

As with anything, prevention is better than cure. If you have a family history of glaucoma, then make sure you get your eyes checked regularly.

It’s important to have your glaucoma diagnosed, because you can do many things to reduce the number of attacks. Anything which causes the iris to relax and the pupil to open decreases the drainage of the aqueous humour and may cause an attack. Low levels of light cause the pupil to open up, but there’s no need to go around constantly seeking bright surroundings, because the eyedrops will constrict the pupil very adequately.

More importantly, many drugs have the side-effect of relaxing the iris. Atropine is one. Some medicines have atropine-like side-effects, including many antidepressants. Your doctor will be able to tell you about any possible side-effects that the drugs you are taking might have.

If you have glaucoma, it’s worth reminding your doctor about it every time he prescribes for you. It’s easy for your doctor to forget you’ve got glaucoma when he’s treating you for, say, abdominal pains.

What about treatment of the acute attack? Fortunately, acute attacks are rare, now that we detect and control chronic glaucoma. Obviously, in an acute attack you need the doctor urgently. In a sudden attack of glaucoma, heat is sometimes effective. You can apply heat safely to the eye in the following way. Get a bowl of near boiling water, and a wooden spoon. Wrap some cotton-wool around the end of the spoon, dip it in the water and gradually bring it near to the closed eye, keeping the eye as hot as you can bear. When the cotton wool pad starts to feel cool, dip it back in the water and repeat the process. Also, a pad over the affected eye will stop light getting in, helping in those cases where light itself is painful.

Both these methods should only be employed to relieve the pain while the eyedrops are taking effect. They should not be used instead of proper medical treatment.

Complementary treatment

Acute glaucoma is a medical emergency. If you are suffering from any of the symptoms, contact your doctor immediately. While awaiting attention, belladonna can be taken in homoeopathic doses every fifteen minutes. Pain and fear can be controlled by Bach flower remedies, especially Rescue Remedy, which can be rubbed into the temples while waiting for help.

Because eye drops and, in severe cases, a minor operation, deal so effectively with glaucoma, there hasn’t been a great need for the alternative options found in complementary medicine.

However, acupuncture can deal with any pain following attacks, as can Shiatsu. Both claim to open channels within the body, hopefully preventing further blockages.

Elder/lower gel can relieve any pain or discomfort caused by glaucoma. Lavender, camomile, melissa, basil and clary sage in the bath or in a vapouriser will help to relieve the headaches caused by glaucoma. Wormwood on cotton wool reduces eye inflammation.

See the post-illness suggestions in chapter Nine, for general tips to recovering from sudden attacks on the system, and maintaining health and well-being

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Pain immediately after a head injury

A lot of things can happen from a blow to the head. Firstly, there’s local bruising to the skin, fat and muscles overlying the skull, each of which will cause pain. The bones of the skull may be bruised or broken, which is another source of pain. The brain may undergo a shearing force, pulling and stretching its nerve fibres; surprisingly, the brain hasn’t got any sensory pain fibres in it, so it can’t feel pain directly from this, but headaches often occur after concussion for other reasons. Bleeding into the skull raises the pressure inside the head, and this can cause an intense headache.

Any injury to the skull is likely also to injure the neck to some extent, and there may be pain from muscles and ligaments which have been over-stretched, joints that have been moved into abnormal positions, and bones that have been broken.

Obviously, not all of this happens in every head injury, but it does give an idea of the large number of different sources of pain that can follow after a single blow.

One of the most potent sources of pain after a head injury comes from the neck muscles. Often a simple head injury traumatises the neck sufficiently to cause all the muscles to go into spasm. This can occur after relatively minor blows; for example, on banging your head under a shelf.

Type of headache

The headache immediately after a head injury is usually throbbing, with tenderness locally at the site of the injury; it is frequently accompanied by a generalised headache, from spasm in the neck muscles.

Treatment

Treatment following head injury depends on exactly what injuries have been sustained; see the relevant section above for each type of injury.

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Aromatherapy is a good way to prevent circulatory problems, and strokes in particular. Oils pass quickly into the bloodstream, when used in massage, and there are a number that you should find helpful. Black pepper, juniper and marjoram will stimulate the circulatory system locally, while cypress, neroli, lemon and rose will improve circulation generally.

Royal jelly is thought to lower blood pressure. Vitamins C and F aid the whole circulatory system, acting as anti-oxidants. In America and Finland, studies have indicated that low levels of selenium in the blood are linked lo strokes and to heart and circulatory diseases. However, selenium is potentially toxic, so do consult a registered practitioner before using it. Selenium is often used with Vitamin E. Do note, however, that the effects of selenium are blocked when Vitamin C is ingested at the same time.

Niacin (Vitamin B3) also lowers blood cholesterol, and protects against cardio-vascular disease. Niacin may actually be capable of reversing some arteriosclerosis, in many cases a forerunner to strokes. Niacin is, however, toxic in high doses; a niacin flush – hot, reddened skin, a tingling and burning sensation in the face, neck, arms and chest area – indicates toxicity. Consult your GP or clinical nutritionist for a sensible dose.

The Feldenkrais method, which is a new kind of learning system that uses movement as a means to change and develop a more healthful way of using your body, helps those who have suffered strokes.

Stress-reduction techniques are essential to help prevent strokes, and gentle

exercises — like those involved in T’ai Chi or yoga – keep the circulatory system in good order. Acupressure, acupuncture, chiropractic and osteopathy can help deal with the pain of headaches, and the anxiety that can exist following stroke. The muscle spasm in the neck and shoulder areas that is common in stroke victims benefits from physiotherapy or soft-tissue manipulation (osteopathy) and the headaches and psychological effects that often follow a stroke may react well to cranial osteopathy. Music, dance and art therapy can teach the patient to use weakened limbs and reflexes, and provide distraction from the pain, fear and depression that may ensue after the illness.

Reflexology may assist the muscles to relax, and relaxation therapy will be tidal if you are tense. As post-stroke therapy, reflexology can help patients recover more quickly and return to regular living. Strokes can make patient ess in control of his emotions, which can well up in a childlike fashion. Relaxation techniques and perhaps psychotherapy might be appropriate here.

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Shingles produces much the same sort of crusty abrasions as chicken pox, except that whereas chickenpox occurs over the whole body, shingles occurs only along the distribution of one single spinal nerve. So, typically, the little marks of shingles will appear in a band or a patch round the trunk; or down the arm; or over the buttock; or down the leg. Occasionally, the nerve affected is the one which supplies the forehead region, or alternatively the eye itself. Shingles here can cause severe head pain.

Although chickenpox and shingles are essentially the same virus, the infections themselves couldn’t be more different. Whereas chickenpox is usually a mild infection leaving no after-effects, shingles can be a very nasty infection indeed. For a start, it’s painful; and what’s more the pain of shingles can continue for years in the area of skin supplied by the nerve that has been affected. Secondly, although chickenpox is a disease of the young, shingles generally affects those who are older, and those whose immune system isn’t working properly (the ‘immunocompromised’). This included sufferers from AIDS, and those who are on certain types of medication such as for cancer.

Shingles has been very aptly described as ‘a belt of roses from Hell’. The pain of shingles doesn’t have to persist afterwards, but in a good proportion of cases it does. Shingles can be very unpleasant, but fortunately we have a number of drugs that can counteract it. The secret of good treatment is to use these drugs as soon as the condition is diagnosed, and to make sure that the treatment is fully carried out. The less that the virus in the nerve endings is allowed to proliferate, the less pain will occur in the future.

One of the classic places for shingles lo occur is over the forehead and around the eye. It starts with an odd sensation in the skin over one side of the forehead and scalp, which then gradually turns into pain, but at this stage there is nothing to be seen and both doctor and patient may wonder what is happening, or where the severe pain is coming from. Then the skin lesions begin to come out – typically, little cyst-like blebs which soon crust over. The blebs can be few in number, but in severe cases they can cover the whole area supplied by the affected nerve, and so one side of the forehead can become a mass of ulcerated abrasions. Typically, new crops of blebs appear each day while the older ones start to crust over. Eventually, no more new vesicles are formed, and the crusts finally drop off, often leaving skin which is red, peeling and very tender to the touch. The skin symptoms of pain and sensitivity may persist some time after its colour and consistency have gone back to normal.

Even if you don’t get post-infection pain, shingles is a very debilitating disease and it may take three months before you feel back to normal.

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The pain is often constant, but it can be throbbing; it can be worse with movement or exertion, and sometimes keeps time with the pulse. It can also go on for days at a time – which is why tension headaches are so upsetting.

Tension headaches are seldom severe; at least, not by comparison with the sort of headache experienced by a migraine sufferer, but they are prolonged and nagging, like toothache, They can also cause considerable worry. Why am I having the pain? What sinister illness does it indicate? The fact that it won’t go away, even with painkillers, is often what frightens people most. They feel that it must be the tip of some deadly iceberg. Just to make things worse, worrying about the cause of your tension headache merely serves to increase your general level of stress and make your tension headache worse …

Sometimes tension headaches can make you feel sick or nauseous; and because of the way that neck muscles in spasm can affect the blood supply to the upper part of the spinal cord, tension headaches can often make you feel dizzy, woolly-headed, and off-balance.The changes in tension headaches sometimes cause the arteries in the muscles to open up, exposing the smaller arteries to the full force of the blood pressure. Tension headaches of this sort are often pounding, in time with the heartbeat.Typically, straining or exercising exacerbates the headache, as the blood pressure rises even more during these activities.

One of the typical features of tension headaches is that once they go they are usually gone for good (at least for that day). As we discussed above, this is simply because the ‘vicious circle’ nature of tension headaches means that they are a self-perpetuating mechanism, and once the vicious circle is broken the headaches go away. Tension headaches can often be worse on waking, especially after sleeping in; and are often exacerbated and triggered off by minor degrees of neck injury.

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