Posts by Hilary Stace
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Stephen - I think what is important is the relationship that is built up between the person seeking wellness and the practitioner. Some doctors are interested in the holistic person (and the social etc factors involved) and some aren't. Most often they just don't have time to do other than concentrate on the body part requiring fixing.
Islander - I am interested in whether you think there is an eczematic personality type. I think that it must affect you if you are born hot and itchy and have ongoing problems with physical sensitivity to your environment, poor sleep from itching (and probably breathing/asthma related problems too). What's more people react differently to eczematic children - they are not so positive about grizzly, rashy faced kids. I was permanently bad tempered (still am), not helped by having cute amenable sisters on either side,and a brother who was a supreme teaser.
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Yes clammy cotton mitts tied on. But to give medical science some credit - non-ionic cream, hydrocortisone and other advances have helped many children and mothers since then.
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Eczema - misery. I was one of those children covered from head to toe, and in those days it involved black smelly coal tar ointment and being swathed in bandages like a mummy. I was administered phenergan by the sickly sweet tablespoon out of quart flagons to soothe the itch, particularly at night. That was the extent of medical intervention then. Apples and tomatoes and wool were banned as allergens. The only thing that really helped was swimming in the sea - first few times in the water in the summer it stung painfully but after a few days started to heal.
Now if I was advising a parent with a child like I was I would recommend Chinese herbal treatment as it treats by cooling an overheated immune system, and that makes sense to me. But I would only recommend going to the person I have been to for years, and have built up a good relationship with. There is always a long waiting list to see her, which indicates consumer satisfaction. And she is not anti-GP or dermatologist - just comes from a different treatment paradigm.
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Over the last few days I've been talking a bit about te whare tapa wha approach to health which is NZ's unique contribution to the world. It's also a bit of a challenge to those trained only in the Global North's scientific/medical model.
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Also 'scientific' medicine doesn't have such a great record in some areas. For example, anything around fertility is best dealt with - in my opinion - by Chinese approaches (or in conjunction with). Homeopathy can be quite effective with fears, phobias or addictions. A consultation is usually quite lengthy (a half hour or so at least) and treatment very personally matched to you.
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Haven't retraced whole thread but has anyone suggested the Aspie link with MJ? Unusual social skills and apparent perception of reality, lived in own world, preference for company of animals or children to adult peers, bit of body dysmorphia, unusual speaking voice, obsessive attention to and skill with music and movement. Such are my amateur observations.
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Catching up with where PA has been lately and found this thread a fascinating organ recital.
Can't really understand the tension between treatment options. It has always puzzled me why 'science' should automatically have precedence over much older paradigms that gave us acupuncture or herbal treatments. And why you must have either/or. The main thing is to find someone you trust as a healer, or a treatment that works for you.
I have an inhaler for my asthma but acupuncture to reduce allergy. My friend has had surgery for spinal cord injury and a magnetic mattress and ruta grav (homeopathic tincture) for a more comfortable sleep. My family has a much trusted GP, and ditto a homeopath, an osteopath, and an acupuncturist/Chinese herbalist. All women, coincidentally. Depends what the problem is, who to consult.
Its like that pain thing. It's personal and depends on context. Pain of childbirth is productive, positive and masked by hormones to a certain extent. Pain of induction after baby has died in utero is totally different.
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James McNeish has a valid perspective, but he didn't sit through the evidence of this latest trial.
I've been following the juggling-for-most-authoritative-position between him and David Colquhoun over Jack Lovelock. These things are not black and white. Only the person/people with the lived experience knows for sure.
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Thanks Steven. I'm going away from my computer for a few days but hope to read more Sea Tales when I return.
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The fact it had to be one of them makes that an uncomfortable point of resolution.
The jury only had the option of an all or nothing verdict. The possibility that it could have been a combination was not considered.