Resurrection
February 2007
By Sujata Vaidya
An integrated approach to holistic medicine can often heal patients given up by allopathy. one doctor narrates her experiences with healing the integrated way
Alternative therapies work, often in a marvelous manner. Over a year ago, the mother of a friend of mine went through tremendous health problems. Her condition worsened till the doctors at the hospital gave up on her.
My friend, Sudipt, is well read in metaphysics and could not let things be. There began a most astounding journey of recovery beyond expectations. Treatment ranged from passing intense cosmic energy to revive the dying body; aura scanning to evaluate the problem area and restarting the flow of prana by rebuilding the energy meridians; administering ayurvedic enema with medicated oil much to the protest of the doctors and reviving her digestive system; acupressure, prayer, intensive spiritual healing and herbal medication were used thereafter. Not only did Sudipt's mother heal, but she recovered from a broken hip a few months after that. Such were her inner energy evels for recovery.
Sudipt's perseverance, faith in the system, and deep love brought about this result.
This is what integrated medicine can do. Each alternative pathy worked at a specific time upto a certain level. By regularly evaluating the progress and changing treatment, Sudipt was able to demonstrate the impossible in conventional medicine.
Alternative medicine uses a holistic approach and is open to using multiple pathies. The fact remains that most patients use more than one pathy, Often, the doctors they refer to are not even aware and if the medication clashes, the results can be disastrous.
Doctors can be mulish about their line of treatment and there are many cases where traditional treatment has been thrown out of the window as lacking in scientific value. The fact that these help, is overlooked or side-tracked as a fluke.
A few weeks ago, I got a call from a distraught young woman asking for my help for her father. He had been diagnosed with terminal cancer of the liver and the family did not have the heart to tell him. He was willing to try anything. I had to be diplomatic and not tell him the gravity of his ailment, but made him promise to get himself regularly checked up by his regular doctor. I requested his family to speak and inform his doctor about the holistic treatment to be given and monitor the patients progress. My treatment therapy encompassed yoga, pranayama, nutrition, a bit of self-help acupressure and intense sanjeevan (cosmic energy) healing.
A week later the doctor registered changes in the patient but did not pay attention to regulating the medicine dosage as requested since he was not sure what had evoked the change, nor was he willing to accept that a terminal patient could display such progress without medication or surgery. Another week passed and the scheduled biopsy revealed there was no cancer. This biopsy could not be done previously, as the patient�s health did not support even this minor surgery.
I asked the family to challenge the previous report but they were too happy to just know that the disease was not terminal and that it may be only sclerosis, after all. The holistic treatment progressed and my request to urge the doctor to re-evaluate the medication fell on deaf ears. By now, my patient was eating well, looked fresh, could walk unaided and even came for therapy alone. I kept asking him to urge the doctor to do a full recheck and understand the current status.
My patient died 10 days after that. The medicine dosage was so strong for him that water collected in his abdomen. The family did not want to go back to the same doctor, so with old reports went to a different hospital. The patient was accordingly put on very high dosages of medication that totally backfired. The hospital admitted they should have insisted on doing all the tests, but had relied on old reports that indicated the need for immediate action.
If the first doctor had re-evaluated the situation, maybe we could have saved this life.
Take the example of another patient. Lung scleroderma, progressing. No medication was known to help. Her fingers had swollen, hands had turned blue, she could not stop coughing and her voice cracked painfully every few minutes. Her doctor had prescribed maintenance medication as she flatly refused to take steroids, which are the only known medication to reduce the progress of the disease. She heard about our treatment methods from a friend and was willing to try only because they were essentially non-drug based.
'Her medical tests showed improvements within a week. The swelling on her body receded and her enthusiasm increased.'
Aruna faithfully came for each and every healing session. She did every exercise, pranayama, followed a strict diet, took adequate rest. I experimented with new methods of treatment because of her faith and surrender to the system.
In September, on her birthday, four months after she came for the first time to my clinic, she sang the Saraswati Vandana for us at a beautiful party her family had organized. Today, two years down the line, she leads an active life. Her condition is stable. X-ray reports show no progress in the diseased lungs but her breath/ lung capacity has improved, much to the disbelief of her doctors. She swears by Sanjeevan system of healing and whenever her health acts up, we are there to help. Her doctors have been cooperative and do prescribe medication, but only in cases where immediate action is required, like an unfortunate infection that she caught some time back. Her faith in this system has got her whole family and friends circle to rethink the concept of health and well-being.
If only we would listen to our body and understand the signals it sends us, we could avoid falling sick. The body signals in all possible manner, starting from leg and head pain, which, according to Sri.Satchithananda Saraswathi Swamigal of Sri Peetham, Rishikesh, is one of the primary indicators of failing health. He is an authority on Atharva Veda in India today. Atharva Veda is the root literature from which Vedic medicine has evolved.
This includes ayurveda, yoga, traditional herbal medication, drugless therapies, mantra therapy, music therapy, light, sunlight, vibration therapy and all forms of Indian systems of medicine. Taking hands-on training from him has opened up so many possibilities of understanding disease. Knowing the cause often also indicates the possible solution.
We are not alone and the celestial bodies around us have a deep meaningful influence on our health and well-being. Womens menstrual cycles coincide with the lunar cycle. The moon has been said to cause changes in thinking patterns as well as water movements in the body. If this heavenly body can change the tide on Mother Earth, we are but small humans !
Gurpreet came to me looking all swollen, tired, and terribly upset. Her mother was in tears and begged for relief for her daughter�s health. Her husband, a software engineer, had spared nothing to find relief and treatment for Gurpreet�s kidney malfunction. For over three years, she had been taking steroids to control the albumen in the urine, and every time there was a relapse, the case only worsened. Homoeopathy did not work and they were fed up with the side-effects of conventional treatment.
We started with very specific nutritional guidance, yoga, pranayama and crystal therapy. Her medical tests showed improvements within a week. The swelling on her body receded and enthusiasm for life began to return. She came thrice a week and after two weeks, suddenly her health declined. It did not come to the stage where she had to be rushed to the hospital as at other times, but it confirmed my fears that her condition was aggravated by the lunar cycle.
On investigations, her husband confirmed that her health took a downturn with every new moon from the elaborate records he had been keeping. On full moon nights she got restless beyond control, depressed and sulky. When her doctor was told of this and shown the fact sheet, he was surprised, but admitted that it could be so. He investigated the records of other patients in a similar condition and found that the reports did indicate health dips coinciding with the moon phase in many patients.
I asked them to consult an astrologer to see which gem or stone would benefit her in this condition. Since she has not returned, I trust she is well now. The human has been around for thousands of years and traditional medicine prevalent in every part of the world, has sustained society through all these millennia. There are truths about these systems that modern medicine is just beginning to find out.
Even in the huge laboratories of the world, knowledge of human anatomy and physiology is being revised every day. Medicine is changing from symptomatic relief to evaluating the cause of injury, very much like holistic medicine. The mind, the intangible force behind life, has gained ever more prominence in health evaluation, as it rightly should.
We are at the threshold of a society ravaged by stress-induced ailments. Understanding the holistic view and using an integrative system of treatment are the only viable solutions.