Acupuncture miracle No.1

This lady came to me with rheumatoid arthritis, diagnosed two months previously. One year previous to that diagnosis she had a hysterectomy. She was told by doctors that she needed to have this done, due to long term endometriosis and the possibility of a growth at the back of the womb being cancerous. She said her periods had always been “horrendous”. She was put on the contraceptive pill to regulate them. It is likely that the pill contained oestrogen but she couldn’t remember which one it was. Many women are oestrogen dominant rather than deficient and it is possible that the pill caused more problems than it solved. Endometriosis is usually caused by an excess of oestrogen. It was probably very long term – impossible to say when it started; it’s often not diagnosed for years – and she started having “procedures” i.e. operations to remove endometrial tissue ten years previous to the hysterectomy. But the endometrial tissue kept on coming and so she had several procedures. Her energy levels were “dreadful” and her emotional state low. She had a stressful job with a lot of responsibility, working for her father’s company. So we started treatment. I always ask people what kind of weather they like and about their own body temperature – are they hot, cool, irritated by wind etc. She said she had been cold all her life. Her brother remembers that when she was born, in August, he (then aged 4) was standing by a radiator, which was on. She was wrapped in a blanket and he was holding her, while their father took photographs. He said he remembers being “so hot”! She said she comes to life and has energy when the sun shines and it’s warm. She said also that she told the doctors that she felt her period problems were due to her poor circulation, because she was cold. When liquids are warm they are thin. As they become cooler they thicken, for instance ice-cream. When water freezes it goes solid. We are roughly 70% water, depending on age and levels of hydration. It makes sense that when we are cold we feel heavier and more solid and we don’t have the energy we do when we are warm enough. Enough is the operative word. When things are cold they coagulate, thicken and harden, inside bodies as well as outside in the environment. Cold weather is the time of year for hibernation and a lack of activity. The doctors didn’t listen. They thought she was being silly. But we know our own bodies best and she was probably right. So I warmed her up, slowly, with needles in particular points and with moxa, which is a dried herb compressed into a cigar shape, which you light at one end, like a cigarette, and then direct the smoke and the heat it produces onto areas on the body. It’s often used on the lower back or the abdomen to heat the core of the body and increase energy. It has taken a while and she is lucky in that she can afford to come every week, but she has improved dramatically. When she last saw the consultant he remarked that she looked like a different person. The pain and inflammation from the rheumatoid arthritis is much, much less. She is still on medication but the consultant says that if she continues to improve and can hold her current level of wellbeing he is happy to look at that possibility. It is not up to me to advise on her medication since I did not put her on it. Now she is warm when everybody else is warm, when it is normal to be warm. When it’s cold she feels the cold like everyone else but she no longer wears gloves to type on the computer, in an office everyone else complains is too hot. She can wear shoes rather than sheepskin boots. This is huge. This is what acupuncture has been able to do for her. I know of no other form of medicine that could do this. This is miracle number 1. (I would like to point out that this is obviously anonymous but I do have the person’s permission to write about her.)