Down Under Today

         MALAYSIA WATCHING CLOSELY ON AUSSIE ARRIVALS

AUSTRALIANS visiting Malaysia will be closely watched as they arrive at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

This is because they come from a country that is affected by swine flu, or officially known as A/H1N1.

Some of the Aussies will be screened only once, but others depending on their appearance such as looking ill, may have to be screened at least twice.

Reports I received from my contacts in Malaysia say that more health officers have been assigned to the KLIA to ensure that “strict checks” will be maintained on tourists, especially from Australia, the United States, Mexico and the Philippines.

Malaysian health authorities are concerned that more Australians are believed to be suffering from the swine flu, which reportedly has killed seven people.  But the deaths have not been confirmed as due to swine flu.  Some of the victims are understood to have also other ailments.

Five of the deaths were from Melbourne and the remaining two from Perth. 

In recent weeks more than 1,000 students from various private senior high schools had been told to stay at home as six of them had been diagnosed as having the A/H1N1 virus. 

But what is surprising, though, it is not known yet how the six students had caught the disease.  They had not been overseas or interstate recently where swine flu is more prevalent. 

They have been among the 70 confirmed cases of swine flu in Western Australia. Throughout Australia the total number of A/H1N1 confirmed cases has increased to 1515.  

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon says the the spread of the disease to other parts of the country is inevitable.

However, medical authorities have cleared some of the schools and students were allowed to return from their unexpected holidays.  There is still some uneasy feelings.

Roxon also announces that a swine flu vaccine would become available next month.   What is available now is antiviral drug called Tamiflu, which generally costs $60.

For those who can’t afford to buy Tamiflu, there is still a hope.  It is an alternative treatment using a Chinese spice, one of the ingredients normally used in Chinese cooking, according to my contact Manuel Dorall quoting a Chinese doctor. 

The doctor’s “prescription” is: Get nine pieces of star anise, put them in an earthen pot, pour six cups of  water into it and boil for about 30-40 minutes until the water is reduced to about four cups and drink half a cup of the boiled water  twice a day until the flu is over.  Do not use a metal pot.

To add flavour to the drink, add a couple of red dates to the concoction when boiling, but remove the seeds first.

The doctor says that judging from the reported characteristics of the swine flu, it is a warm-type of epidemic, which develops quickly and kills quickly.

“The best thing to do is strengthen your immune system, stay healthy, drink lots of warm water, vitamin C, sleep well and stay away from crowded places,” he adds.

“The star-anise water may make you feel a little dizzy for a few minutes but it is all right.”

According to the doctor this alternative remedy is just as effective as any Westeren drug available for swinbe flu.  

But I would suggest that you consult your own doctor before using this alternative treatment as each individual may have some other ailments which could cause complication. – Jeff Francis.

            CANCER VICTIM CLAIMS ‘MIRACLE’ CURE

IT is not often we hear of miracles.  Even, if we did, a miracle is a phenomenon that needs to be investigated, thoroughly examined or analysed and proven to be so.

Only then will the medical authorities or the Church accept a sudden and inexplicable cure as a miracle.

But this is not to say that a miracle does not happen.  It has.  Yet it is something that the authorities cannot explain how or why it happens.

The story of Christopher Long of Singapore is such an example.  He honestly believes that his cure from the insidious fourth stage lung cancer with metastases to the fifth backbone vertebrae and his worsening, inoperable lung tumour of 8cm by 5cm is indeed a miracle.

Doctors had earlier told him when they examined him last July that he had eight months to live if he did not undergo chemotherapy.  Even if he went for treatment immediately of six cycles of chemotherapy and 10 consecutive days of radiotherapy, his life span might only extend a further three or four months.

But the doctors did not tell him that his quality of life, already weakened by the cancer, would get even worse.

The cancer had “eaten up” his backbone so much that it was pressing on the nerve.  He was in agony and it was impossible to endure without morphine every two hours.

“I could still walk slowly and carefully, though, with my crutches,” he said, according to an email I received.  “But I would get tired after just 10 or 15 minutes due to the lung tumour.”

Long felt he was going downhill pretty fast.  He looked miserable and felt miserable.  He has lost more than 15kg in weight from his normal 90kg plus.

Then something happened to him.  For some reason, he said to himself, if he had the strength to go anywhere, he would rather go to a church than anywhere else.

It was on November 1, 2008 – the All Saints Day, an important event for the church.  As he listened to the priest’s homely at the Star of the Sea Church in Yishun about Mother Mary and her Miraculous Water at Lourdes, he said silently to himself:  “I’m sorry, Mother.  I can’t go to Lourdes.”

The next day being All Souls Day, he went to church again, this time to the Holy Cross Church in Clementi Avenue.  He had been to this church several times previously but had never really taken notice of a statue of Mother Mary at the far end though he had seen it before.

“As I was early, I hobbled over to her statue on my crutches to say a prayer to her,” he added.  This time he felt a “stunned” feeling that “just gripped” him.

“I realised that her statue was standing in a fountain of water and that it was constructed in such a way that the water appeared to be flowing out from directly under her feet.

“More stunning was the voice inside my head, which said: ‘Silly boy.  You don’t have to go to Lourdes.  Just use my water here to bless yourself.’

“I was stunned and shocked, but without hesitation I just said: ‘Yes, Mother’ and bent down very painfully and used her water to make the sign of the cross over my chest and back.

“And, immediately, from a feeling of sad, resigned and with nothing to look forward to, my attitude changed to a kind of inner joy and happiness from knowing that I was going to be healed or cured or whatever you want to call it.”

Almost every day after that, Long went back to the statue, said a prayer, thanked her and used her water to make the sign of the cross on his chest and back.

And every day thereafter, he felt the excruciating pain in his back was getting lesser and lesser and his lungs were getting stronger and stronger.

He also felt that Mother Mary was taking care of him all the way because a few days later a stranger passed a bottle of Lourdes water to his mother for him.  

He thought how this man knew that he wanted the Lourdes water as he had not told anyone about it, not even his mother.  Also he had not told anyone of his “encounter” with Mother Mary.

Surprisingly, a few days later, another bottle of Lourdes water came from another stranger.  This was followed a few days later by a message that The Knights of Malta were organising a “Lourdes experience” at the Indoor Stadium in Singapore.

Long said: “So, to me, it was like Mother Mary telling me that she would heal me if I used her water to bless myself, then she brought her Lourdes holy water to me, not once but twice, and then she brought Lourdes itself to me.

“Triple coincidence?  I don’t think so.  I think she went all the way to make sure that if I couldn’t go to Lourdes, she would bring Lourdes to me.

“Fantastic?  Amazing?  Yea.  I think so.”

On last Christmas Eve – just over six months after he was diagnosed with lung cancer – Long went to midnight mass without any crutches.  Although the service lasted four hours, he said, he did not feel tired, and the pain in his back had receded so much that he had reduced his morphine doses from every two hours to once every morning.

By January 9 this year, he had stopped the morphine completely and his back pain was about 10% of what it had been. 

His doctor told him after a CT scan that the tumour was still there but it had not grown.  “This was actually excellent news, given that the rapidly multiplying nature of my cancer cells.”

After a second scan in February this year, the doctor did not know how or why the tumour had remained stagnant but he was very happy that the chemotherapy “had suddenly begun to work so well”.

On April 22 this year, after two more CT scans, his doctor told him that he (Long) belonged to a very rare category of people whose cancer does not seem to be moving at all.  There would be no further need for chemotherapy but he had to go for follow-up CT scans every three months.

Last month his inability to draw full breath was gone and he went jogging for about 400 metres because he suddenly had the urge to jog.  He did not feel tired at all.  The pain in his backbone had also gone. 

He felt a little tight though but thought it was simply unbelievable considering that the cancer had eaten away so much of his backbone. “

Even if the combination of radiotherapy and chemotherapy had killed all the cancer cells, treatment does not mend the bone,” Long stressed.  So how did the functioning of my lungs and backbone come back to normal?

“Thanks to God’s miracle and Mother Mary’s holy water.

“And I want to stress that everything I have said is accurate and not exaggerated nor embellished in any way.  Every word is true and much, much more incredible things also, which I will record…”

As proof of his experience, I have also received some of Long’s photos, including tof blood stained cloth.  But, without forensic evidcence to support them, it is difficult to determine the true nature of the samples in the photos.  I will take his word for what it is worth.

  

The importance of our nervous system

‘EVERY thought you’ve had, movement you’ve ever made and sensation you’ve ever experienced, has all been dependent on nerve messages flowing freely through your body.  Your brain and spinal cord are protected by your skull and the 24 movable bones of your spine.’

So says Dr Jennifer Baham-Floreani, a chiropractic expert of more than 30 years, whose explicit description of the important yet largely misunderstood profession is one of the best I have come across in my brief study on the myths about chiropractors.

Even many medical doctors do not understand the work or chiropractors or do not want to accept them as part of the general health care in society.   They have created myths that undermined the practice of chiropractors and that these myths have lingered on far too long.

In her book, Well Adjusted Babies, Dr Barham-Floreani points out that a person’s nervous system can be likened to "an information highway that delicately balances self-regulating mechanism”.

But the nerve messages could be interrupted or affected by vertebral subluxations (joint and nerve dysfunctions) which occur when there are misalignments of one or more vertebrae.

Many people are not aware of the dysfunctions because some subluxations are painless.  They do not realise the presence of the subluxations in their body. 

If the defects are not specifically treated and adjusted, the nervous system would not be able to coordinate with all bodily functions, including breathing, digestion and immune responses.

Dr Malcolm Rudd, who is treating my right thigh and neck, emphasises that the brain continuously produces vital messages that are decoded into electrical impulses, each with a purpose of performing an important function in a specific place within the body.

Millions of these messages are sent every second of a person’s life, passing from the brain to the body cells and then back to the brain.

Anything that interrupts the proper flow of electrical impulses through the nervous system should set off loud, beeping alarms in the body.   But often it does not until a certain amount of damage has been done.

That’s what happened to me.  I did not know what caused the pain in my right thigh.  Neither the medical doctors nor the physiotherapists to whom I sought help mentioned any presence of subluxation or referred me to a chiropractor.

I had my regular morning exercises for years and my weekly massage.  By any reckoning, I should be fit and, in fact, I am still fit. 

Yet the pain occurred two years ago when I felt excruciating pain in my thigh.  I had suffered in silence until my masseuse Eileen Reynolds insisted that I see a chiropractor.  

 Now, thanks to her and Dr Rudd, the pain has subsided considerably.   It only appears when I sit too long at my computer.  Otherwise I do not have any discomfort.

Dr Rudd tells of two interesting recent cases in which a man and a woman had their problems solved to their amazement.

For years the man had been able to climb a hill but could not come down from it without walking sideways in small steps at a time.  

After some specific chiropractic treatment, he was able to walk up or down a hill without any problem.

The treatment on the woman has dramatically changed her from a very depressed state for years into a life of happiness and excitement that brought a remark from her husband: “You have given me back my wife.”

What is surprising to me is that chemical toxicity from foods, medications and the environment can cause reflexive stress to the spine.

Too much alcohol, sugar, preservatives and breathing environmental pollutants upset the body chemistry which, in turn, disrupts the tone of both muscles and ligaments resulting in vertebral subluxations.

I am told that regular consumption of sugar, which is commonly used in almost every kind of food, including breakfast products, biscuits, chocolate, coffee and tea, can depress the immune system.  Its effectiveness can be reduced by 25% with as little as six teaspoon of sugar a day.

A child suffering cold or running nose consistently may find its cause at taking too much sugar daily.   A tube of smarties, for example, contains 7.5 teaspoons of sugar.

The point here is to avoid sugar as much as possible and not to encourage children to take sugar in their early ages.

The question then comes to why a newborn baby needs to see a chiropractor?

Researches in numerous cases show that on average 85% of newborn babies have some forms of nerve dysfunctions or subluxations due to constraint or abnormal positioning in the uterus or spinal distress of the mother during delivery process.

The babies need to be checked and their spinal adjusted by chiropractors to enable them to grow healthy in their adult life.

Those interested to know more about a chiropractic guide for wholistic parenting from pregnancy through to early childhood should read Dr Barham-Floreani’s Well Adjusted Babies.

 

               CHIROS FACE TOUGH CHALLENGE OVER MYTHS

FOR nearly two years I have been suffering excruciating pain in my right thigh.   At times it was so painful that I could hardly take a step forward.

When this occurred, I had to hold on to a chair with my left hand and squeeze the thigh several times with my right hand until the pain eased off.  And this was happening increasingly and annoyingly, not to mention my utter frustration.

I had been to the doctors and the physiotherapists several times and had my leg x-rayed.

Finally, I was told nothing could be done about the pain and that I had to learn to live with it because of some degeneration in my thigh bone.

Degeneration of the bone, surprisingly, can occur to anyone, even as young as a 12-year-old boy or girl.   But I was not prepared to surrender my fate to the pain, however excruciatingly it may be.  It would certainly make my life miserable. 

So I continued my search for a cure or some permanent relief.

While having my weekly massage one Monday morning, masseuse Eileen Reynolds suggested that I should see a chiropractor about my thigh.

“Chiropractor?”  I queried with a voice in somewhat disbelief.    

“Yes, chiropractor,” she replied softly.

“But doctors, generally, don’t recommend chiropractic care for their patients,” I said. “They believe chiropractors are quacks, who knock the bones in your body, pretending that they have the healing power.  The doctors would rather refer their patients to a physio.”

“I know, Jeff, but you go and see Dr Malcolm Rudd and then decide for yourself,” she insisted.

And I did. 

As I sat in the reception area of Dr Rudd’s Leeming Chiropractic Centre, waiting for my turn to see him, I watched a video on the history of chiropractic treatment, the researches that have been carried out to verify their work, the successes that they have achieved over the years and, more importantly, how they treat the spinal cord, which has much to do with the pain we suffer because the blood is not flowing properly from the brain to that painful part of the body.

Here, I thought, lay the solution to my wn problem, although I was still sceptical despite the great amount of information I had learnt from the video.  Yet it did, indeed, arouse my interest to find out more about it.

It was not until I started asking questions as I talked with Dr Rudd that I realised there were many myths about chiropractors.  Some of these myths include the ridiculous description of chiropractors being “cult healers”, apart from the common and unjustifiable label “quacks”, in spite of their graduation from a five-year chiropractic study at a university.

Obviously, for one reason or another, the medical profession has systematically undermined the chiropractic services for many years, let alone recognise and try to work together with them.  Even today it is rare to see a doctor and a chiropractor in the same building. 

In all fairness, some physicians do refer their patients to chiropractors for alternative treatment; many simply refuse to support or speak about the chiropractic profession.

What is clear, though, is that deep prejudice among the doctors is hard to change even with the overwhelming evidence that prove chiropractors deserve the recognition they are seeking.

For example, in his foreword to a book The Chiropractic Profession, Dr Wayne B Jonas of the Uniformed Services University of Health Science in Maryland, United States, admits he was prejudiced against chiropractors and that referral to chiropractic services was simply not in his “repertoire of care”.

Shockingly, he also discloses that the medical profession had often used highly dishonest methods to undermine the chiropractic profession.

However, when he became Director of the Office of Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health Science, his prejudice softened by his impression of the chiropractors’ sophistication, professionalism, expertise and their keen interest in science.

Perhaps, the greatest service Dr Jonas has done for chiropractors, who have been trying to convince the medical profession that they, too, have a role to play in the general health care, is his comment that chiropractors “have better training and experience than conventional physicians do” in the evaluation and treatment of musculoskeletal problems.

Unfortunately, even such remark, coming from an eminent doctor, has not made much difference in changing the attitudes of doctors, in general, who have refused to meet representatives of the chiropractic profession to clear any misgiving, misunderstanding or suspicion.  That is currently happening in Western Australia.

Further example of this uncompromising stance of the medical profession is also found in the evidence presented to the world’s only inquiry into chiropractic services by the New Zealand government some years ago.

The commission of inquiry report categorically states that chiropractors cannot be regarded as “practising a separate and distinct healing art”.  They are part of a specialised branch of general health care like dentists, psychiatrists, physiotherapists or any other specialists.

Central to the chiropractic treatment is the spinal abnormality, called “vertebral subluxation” or “chiropractic subluxation”, which contributes to pain and other bodily disturbances. 

The chiropractor will identify it and use his manual therapy to correct it.     

Such an abnormality can cause various types of interference within the nervous system.  It not only causes muscular or nerve pain but also becomes a factor in producing other disorders.

This concept of “subluxation” had also been the subject of controversy in which the doctors argued that it “existed only in the chiropractors’ mind”.

But witnesses to the New Zealand commission hearing had testified that they found marked improvements to their conditions after being treated by chiropractors. 

One of them, an auditor, who had suffered constant back pain, had several x-rays taken – only to be told that his problem was due to “wear and tear”.   However, after being treated by a chiropractor, he said the pain had disappeared like a “miracle”.

A farmer, who for 30 years suffered a back pain diagnosed as bone fusion, was persuaded by a friend to see a chiropractor.   He, too, found that the pain had gone forever and he had not been required to see a chiropractor again for 20 years since the last treatment. 

He was healthy and had taken part in vigorous axeman’s events at local sports.

Then there was the matron of a private hospital, who had been suffering a neck problem that was medically diagnosed as a disc lesion. 

After some unsuccessful medical treatments, she went to a chiropractor and she had “never looked back”. 

 NEXT WEEK: Even a baby needs chiropractic care.