I make no secret of the fact that my relationship with conventional medicine is generally just a professional one. It is what I do…not what I believe in for myself. Of course it has its place, but I feel that its role is limited. It is simply too much about symptom management and pill popping, and not enough about searching for the root cause of illnesses for my liking. I love to learn from those who have deep insight into the human body as a perfectly functioning organism. That’s not something I ever discovered at nursing school. Conventional medicine just doesn’t do that, with the odd exceptions of course. Alternate healthcare isn’t for everyone, but for me…it’s the real deal.
I recently saw a healer in Ubud, Bali. A man with many hats. He was a cranio-sacral therapist, a chiropractor, a kinesiologist and an all round peaceful, healing soul. A great friend recommended I see him, just to experience his marvellousness, and he was indeed marvellous.
I spoke to him mostly about a feeling I have, that my body no longer copes with stress as it once did. I imagined he would confirm that my adrenals were screwed, and that my path to slowness wasn’t having the effect that I had hoped for. He proceeded to do a full assessment of me, clearing one system after another. My adrenals were fine, my immune system was great. I had no nutritional deficiencies. Fantastic. But when he came to assessing my pancreas, it was a different story. He said it was severely inflamed, which was causing internal issues which made it difficult to be calm on the inside essentially. He mentioned a casein intolerance. Then as he held my head for what seemed like an hour, working his cranio-sacral magic, all he could feel was pressure. My sinuses were full, as they often are. Hayfever I thought was gone forever, after a couple of years of diet and health experiments, was still there. The only time it has ever disappeared completely, was while I was in the throws of doing the GAPS introduction diet, which is essentially an elimination diet. I had no dairy for a couple of months, but because I was so focused on gluten being the culprit, I had overlooked the real problem. There you go. So, some inflamation in my belly, and very full sinuses. Both factors capable of unsettling a person.
Lots of thoughts flowed through my pressurised head. A hospital admission I’d had for severe abdominal pain a few years back. I thought it was my appendix, but I left the hospital none the wiser, after being bombed with every antibiotic in the book. It may have been my pancreas, but it was never tested, and would never have occured to me. I had random times where my entire belly wall was abnormally tender. I had no idea what it was. I could feel the pieces of the puzzle clicking together in my mind.
Since I’ve come home from Bali, I’ve been doing my best to stay completely dairy free. For anyone who knows me, it’s a big ask. I’ve always been an enormous cheese head, a massive fan of milk, cream, butter, butter and more butter. It is easier to eliminate something when you think it’s doing you damage though.
Hopefully I am on the right track, and some answers will come, as I embark on yet another experiment along the road of my slow living adventure. A road to happiness, inside and out.
Linked with Grace from With Some Grace for FYBF
