Archive for April 29th, 2009
I have mentioned the difficulty of finding a suitable stimulus which produces pain without too much injury to the tissues. I have avoided electric shock as this is not a natural stimulus in the biological sense. After considerable experimentation I have concluded that burning the skin with the glowing end of a thin piece of string is the most convenient stimulus for severe pain. There are different qualities of string, and they vary in the way that they burn. Select the type of string that burns slowly with the end glowing red hot, but without any actual flame. It is desirable to use as thin a string as possible as this provides an adequate stimulus without causing too much blistering. String is often made from winding together three or four thinner strands. If the string is unravelled, one of these thin strands is very suitable.
We expose our forearm. We light the string and have it glowing red.—We relax completely.—With our eyes only half open we see our forearm, and we see the glowing end of the string.—We are very relaxed.—We see the glowing end moving about over our skin.—If there is hair on our arm, we soon smell it burning.—We are very, very relaxed.— For a moment the glowing end touches the skin.—We feel it touch the skin, but it does not disturb us.—We rest.—We relax again, and repeat the experiment. In general it is easiest to do it on an area where there are not many hairs.
Next day there are little blisters on our forearm.
I must warn you again. Do not say that this is something that you could not do. This is not so. Each step follows easily on the previous one. This follows easily on the experiment with pinpricks. Do not say that this is something that you would not wish to do—that there is something wrong about wilfully injuring your body. Remember that we have to injure the body in many ways to promote healing. We cut the skin to open an abscess. Many drugs act by injuring the tissue or certain organs and thus reducing their output. So in the present case, we injure the skin in order to promote the relief of pain.
The experiment with the glowing string can be done in another way. The string is placed on our forearm, and is held in place by resting a fairly heavy metal object, such as an ash tray, on top of it. About two or three inches of string are left protruding from the edge of the metal object. When the end of the protruding string is lighted, it burns down to where it emerges from the edge of the metal object. It then goes out. But at this point is it in firm contact with the skin, and thus provides quite a strong painful stimulus. It is wise at first to be sure that the string projects upward, and does not lie in contact with the skin, or the pain will be too prolonged for a first experiment. This is a good experiment because it creates the feeling that we no longer have control over the painful stimulus. Once we light the string we have to wait until it goes out of its own accord. Until it goes out, we have to control the pain by the depth of our own relaxation. In this way there is a much closer resemblance to pain as it occurs in ordinary life.
When we find that we can do these experiments easily and naturally and without discomfort, we can make another modification. We bend the string so that it lies on our bare skin for a little way before coming to the edge of the metal object which keeps it on our arm. At first try it with the string lying on the skin for only an eighth of an inch. Then when you have done this, have it lie on the skin for greater distances, up to half an inch or longer.
In the early experiments be sure that you use as thin a strand of string as will burn evenly by glowing. Later on, slightly thicker string can be used and the stimulus will be ‘ more severe.
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read comments (0)DISORDERS OF THE SPINAL COLUMN
Author: admin
The spinal area lies in the right iris 15′-22′ and in the left iris 37-45— in the fifth minor zone. White signs in these areas indicate inflammation and pain. In the case of spinal changes, such as damaged intervertebral disc, one sees white lines which run outwards from the iris-wreath. If the damage has existed for some time, dark lines in addition to the white lines are seen or dark to black points in the skeletal zone, especially in the areas for cervical and lumbar spine. These two regions of the spine lie diametrically opposite to one another in the iris. (Note: Axilla-Loin line.) The pupil in this area is often flattened and/or the iris-wreath is displaced towards the pupil.
Multiple sclerosis is a disturbance of the brain and spinal cord, where the pathology leads to vascular changes and to a degeneration of nerve tissue, in which case connective tissue (hyperplasia of neuroglia) appears. Corresponding to the different regions of the brain and spinal cord affected in this disease, iris signs can appear in the spinal area, cervical area, as well as in the area for medulla oblongata. In such conditions one finds several black small points which lie one under the other.
In contrast to the intervertebral disc injuries, in which usually only one black point is found, and where also small meandering veins run in over the sclera to the corresponding spinal areas, the condition of multiple sclerosis always shows several small points, and the blood vessel picture on the sclera is missing. Next to the signs in the spinal areas or medulla, in cases of multiple sclerosis signs of over-activity affecting the sexual organs and rectum are also found.
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It has to be said straightaway that any medical treatment for period pain will vary according to the doctor or clinic treating you and according to which particular hormone they think is causing the trouble. It would be lovely if someone could discover a magic pill, or’ one easy treatment that would just stop the pain wherever it was or whatever was causing it. But our body systems are just too complicated for an easy solution like that; so complicated in fact that we’re only just beginning to understand how they work. When the late great Dr Winnicott was asked what he thought about sex education in schools, he replied, ‘But we don’t even know why girls have periods.’ And he was right; we don’t. But at least, we are beginning to find out how we have them. And an intriguing business it is, with chemical messengers, or hormones, racing around our bloodstream virtually all through the month. The trouble is that there are so many of them, all different and all with a different part to play in the whole process. And any one of them could be at fault when the system goes wrong.
If we’re to understand what sort of treatments are currently being offered by doctors and clinics, it’s helpful to know a bit about how our systems work. Or at least to be able to identify the hormones doctors think are causing the trouble. So the next section is a potted history of what goes on inside a woman, month by month. If you’re squeamish, or you would prefer not to know, then skip the next bit. But if, like me, you’re fascinated that we should carry such a delicate, complicated, finely balanced miracle inside us — read on.
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