I find acupuncture acts quickly to unwind the overwrought internal tension. For those with Bach Flower remedies on hand, take rock rose whenever you are suffering. Easy to buy at any health food store is the combination Bach Flower remedy for panic, Rescue Remedy. Homoeopathy will be useful later when you can discuss the situation with a practitioner skilled in the art.

Feeling misunderstood-There can be nothing more annoying than getting your wires crossed when you are trying really hard to get on with people. They just don’t understand you. The message here is that you are not trusting your own self-evaluation but listening too much to the opinions of others.

Meditation is recommended for ‘centering’ and contacting your real self. My favourite flower remedies are cerato, centaury and walnut when you feel no one understands you. Three days on these drops and you forget to take them because the problem is usually solved!

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The best part of this therapy is that you don’t have to go through the explanation of your circumstances to eliminate the cause of the pain. You can but you don’t have to! It is a process not a ‘grilling’. Many counsellors are using this technique today as part of ‘accelerated processes’ with excellent results. There are books easily available to provide more information on NLP. (See bibliography.)

Neuro-Linguistic Programming is not a technique for the unqualified. It requires an experienced therapist. I would think all capital cities have access to these practitioners.

I appreciate the fact that in time of crisis many people may need expert help. These trained therapists bring hidden emotions to the surface and free the associated tensions by understanding and working through them with the patient.

There are many excellent books which help you recognise, and explain, how we find ourselves in these emotional situations. But I must say, attending a self improvement course can make living a lot easier. You have the chance to make new friends – each of whom is going through their own personal crisis.

We are told that our emotions are messengers and the meaning of the message is reflected in our feelings. When someone says something to you and you react emotionally, you are receiving a message. What it is, and how you can translate the emotion, is important.

We are bombarded by the media with tragic sensational news that shocks, depresses and angers us in frustration and despair. Laughter clinics are being established in hospitals in England and the USA as well as in private practice here. They teach us to find joy in our hearts again as an important way to regain health. May the alternative modalities also help you find a way … by giving you more choices in your search.

I will list the emotions in alphabetical order. In actual fact many overlap and run concurrently. Do read the whole section first and then go back to those problems that are appropriate to you.

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Surgery is a definite option but we prefer to handle this painful condition chiropractically by first checking the nerve supply to the area which is in the lower lumbar vertebrae. Trouble here as a teenager can allow years of progression of this condition before it is diagnosed.

Acupuncture is a very important therapy for this pain. It not only eases the painful cycle but more importantly regulates the hormonal activity, thus controlling the condition. Then homoeopathics suited to the individual woman are recommended.

Dietary corrections are made with emphasis on sugar metabolism and adding mineral/vitamin supplements to balance the adrenal output necessary for the hormone cycle.

Groin Pain-This pain is an indicator of a pelvic injury involving the sacroiliac joint due to a ligamentous stretch or tear. Mostly it is a female condition due to stretched pelvic ligaments after childbirth. It is a weight bearing injury nearly always accompanied by emotional stress associated with a feeling of faintness. The patient fears that there must be something very wrong when the medical practitioner can’t find an answer and they feel so exhausted and teary.

Occasional headaches can be a clue that this joint is in trouble, but few will recognise the symptom. Invariably a previously undetected strain is made worse by applying heat – hot baths or the electric blanket in winter.

Sitting aggravates this condition as university students know, with their long hours at lectures. Three-day conferences where you sit all the time also tell you that you have the problem. Office workers find it difficult to keep going to work with this complaint. Women who wear a panty girdle last the longest without treatment as the joint is supported. There is a special chiropractic technique, unknown to other professions, for this pelvic torsion. It is simple but effective when other techniques fail.

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Firstly, the acute pain must be settled, then the compensation must be straightened out. The patient says, ‘You’ve fixed my back but now my neck is sore.’ True and normal. The neck is the compensatory curve and is the second adjustment.

It is natural for the back to be sore after the first adjustment. After all, something was done to it, even if it didn’t hurt. Nearly all adjustments make a satisfying noise in a healthy spine. The chiropractor can tell so much about the condition of the spine from the sound made at the time of adjustment. There is no need to fear the sound. The expert produces no associated pain. Many people play the piano, few are concert pianists.

Your body only allows so much adjustment to occur at any time, so we give a series of treatments, listening at the same time to what your body has to say: how it responds to what’s being done to help it recover from injuries due to car accidents, sport, and other innocent pastimes.

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Kindergarten teachers are prone to this condition. You can see why, when you imagine all the bending over they do each day looking after small people. Their abdominal organs are squashed up and the diaphragm can and does become slack in this area.

Heavy lifting, above your own normal limit, can also weaken the diaphragm. This then causes a small part of the stomach to squeeze up into the chest cavity. Hiatus hernia can also be a result of large babies or a multiple pregnancy.

There are many aggravations — tension, yeast foods, breads, trifles and sponges, soda water and gassy drinks that fizz like champagne. All these can bring on an attack of pain. The gas builds up and causes distension. You arch the back to ease the pain.

You can’t bend forward, you have to sleep sitting up on pillows, tight belts are unbearable. Life is miserable. You’re exhausted, cranky, your abdomen swells and you feel fat even though your weight is the same!

We do a downward abdominal massage which gradually eases the pain. The massage is very gentle, respecting the position of the stomach and artery. The built-up gases, which are causing you agony, disperse – sometimes to your embarrassment, but not unexpectedly. You can burp and feel good again! Your stomach muscles relax and you wonder why you put up with the discomfort for so long.

Slippery elm powder or tablets are recommended, along with foods that don’t cause gas. Aloe vera is safe to use. Faulty digestion also has to be attended to. Buy digestive enzyme tablets and be impressed with the decreased flatulence. The combination of foods is important, as mixing certain foods is a recipe for abdominal disaster. (See the Hay diet rules under Indigestion in this section).

Homoeopathically, carbo vegetabilis saved my mother much colic from gas pain suffered for many years following an operation for a strangulated hiatus hernia. This combined with nux vomica gave her decided relief. After this, breakfast was always rolled oats with millet, bran and slippery elm.

Acupuncture is a very effective therapy as it relaxes the stomach and allows a return to normal function. Balancing the pulses gives an added sense of wellbeing which is often commented upon.

Trixie’s story-A dear friend was constantly in pain from a hernia. We would settle it down and then, back she would come again. Occasionally she would need her ribs adjusted to free the abdominal spasms, but most times it was just a matter of easing the stomach down.

Then it dawned on her that her hiatus hernia was being aggravated by the action of pulling down the heavy garage door to get the car out.

Don’t let the situation become so bad that a strangulation occurs and you vomit after eating! It is then a medical emergency, and you are out of our hands.

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Normally our eyes work well, bringing an image of what we’re looking at into crisp focus on the retina at the back of the eye. Objects at different distances have to be brought into focus differently, and the way the eye changes its focus is by altering the shape of the lens inside it. Contrary to what most people imagine, most focusing is done by the cornea: the lens merely adds the finishing touches!

The lens is a squashy bag, stretched outwards by being attached round the whole of its circumference to a circular muscle, which is itself attached on its outer margin to the inside of the eyeball. When the muscle contracts it reduces the size of the central hole. This means that the lens isn’t pulled outwards as firmly. As a result, the tension on the lens slackens off, allowing it to change from being thin into being fat and bulky with a more highly curved surface. Because a fat and bulky lens bends the light more, when the lens is fat it can bring nearer objects into sharp focus on the retina. When the muscle relaxes the central hole opens, and there is a greater pull on the outside of the lens, causing it to become less globular and more disc-like.

However, sometimes we don’t focus quite as well as we would like. In older age, the pliability of the lens may be reduced so it can’t focus properly and you may need glasses to see for both distances and close-up. Secondly, because of the way the physics of focusing works, those with slightly smaller eyes tend to be long-sighted, and those with bigger than average eyes, short-sighted.

In addition, the lens or cornea may not be perfectly symmetrical, in which case astigmatism occurs. This means that the eye can’t focus on both vertical and horizontal lines at the same time, further, because of the physics of light and lenses, focusing is more critical if the aperture of the lens is large. This makes it harder to focus in dim conditions, when the pupil of the eye opens and more of the lens is used to collect light. A slightly short-sighted person may find that he can focus on distant objects in bright light, but cannot in dim light. By experience we soon find out that we can see slightly better by half-shutting our eyes and peering. This, of course, tenses up all the muscles round the eye and can cause headaches.

Constantly refocusing the lens also causes discomfort. If the muscles of the lens are constantly altering focus, they will become fatigued, especially in the case of astigmatism. Just as tiring are the effects of trying to focus on an object that is just outside the normal focusing ability of the eye. The extra muscular effort that we use on these occasions can cause considerable discomfort and pain in the eyes -the so-called ‘eye strain’. This is usually much worse after long periods of reading or other close work, and goes away after a period of rest, when the eyes are used for less concentrated activities. The ache can be in the eyes, in the forehead, or in the temple.

A quick way to check whether this is happening to you is to look at a book at your normal reading distance and then bring it towards you until it’s about half as near. If you feel pain in your eyes when you try to look at the printing at the nearer distance, then you may well be suffering headaches due to eye strain.

People who are short-sighted usually have no difficulty in close work and reading, and it is interesting that the pain of eye strain usually affects only those who are long-sighted, or who have astigmatism. Pain usually occurs only where there are minor eye problems, because only this type of problem can be removed by muscular activity.

Finally, eye strain also occurs if your glasses are no longer right for you; perhaps they are over-strong, or else you’ve had them a long time and they’re too weak. You may also find your eyes aching the first time you use new glasses, but as you get used to them this should go away – by the end of about a week. If the discomfort persists, check with your optician that your glasses have been made to the correct prescription.

Don’t forget, too, that eye-sight can change quite rapidly. Regular visits to the optician are the only way to be sure that your glasses are still appropriate.

The treatment for these eye defects is quite simple; make sure that you go to an optician regularly and, if necessary, obtain spectacles.

Complementary treatment

There are a number of tried and tested home remedies for eye-strain. Try lying down with a cucumber slice on each eye which is cooling and refreshing. A camomile tea compress or rinse eases painful eyes and eye muscles. Witch hazel can be used as a compress for strained eyes. Rosehip teabags over the eyes for fifteen minutes relieves strain.

You can also take eyebright internally to strengthen eyes. Ruta, a homoeopathic remedy, may help relieve eye-strain after reading, etc. Arnica, nat mur or phosphorus may also be suggested.

Relaxation will help ease eye-strain.

Rubbing your temples with jasmine, camomile or lavender essential oils will relieve headaches caused by eye-strain. Shiatsu can ease tired and swollen eyes.

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Assessing post-trauma headaches is not easy, if for no other reason than the fact that any blow to the skull almost certainly strains the neck as well. For example, a car crash which knocks out the driver will probably cause a whiplash accident as well. So is the post-trauma headache due to the head injury or the neck injury? Other than neck problems, true post-concussion headache is by far the most common continuing symptom after a severe head injury. Interestingly, the degree of headache depends on what the patient was doing when they had their injury -head injuries sustained during recreation seem to cause far fewer post-concussion headaches than do injuries sustained at work. Obviously there must be some psychological element in the degree of pain experienced.

One interesting aspect of post-traumatic headaches is that they sometimes don’t start until six months after the original injury. These ‘late acquired’ headaches may be related to depression, especially if the patient has lost their job as a result of their injuries.

Type of headache

Most post-traumatic headaches are over the whole of the head, and are usually accompanied by poor concentration and dizziness. Just occasionally a head injury can start off migraine-type headaches, but this is very rare.

What else could it be?

It’s not always easy to disentangle headaches caused by direct brain damage (concussion), and those arising from injury to the neck.

Don’t forget that it’s quite possible for other types of headaches to occur coincidentally, unrelated to the injury. Unfortunately, the idea that the two things are unrelated is often very difficult for the patient to comprehend. After all, he thinks, / injured my head and then six months later I start getting migraines. Surely the two are related? They may be, but then again, they may not.

Orthodox treatment

Post-concussion headache sometimes responds to mild analgesics, including the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). These are drugs that are commonly used for rheumatism; for example, ibuprofen (also known as Brufen or Nurofen), diclofenac (Voltarol), and indomethacin (Indocid). There are many others. In addition, a small dose of the beta-blocker propranolol may help. This drug is principally used in treating blood pressure and angina, though it can also be useful in cases of migraine. It relaxes the muscle lining of blood vessels in the brain, which may be the way that its anti-headache effects occur.

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In a TIA, a tiny clump of cells forms in the blood, then jams in one of the smaller arteries in the brain. This temporarily interrupts the blood supply to a small area of the brain, which immediately ceases to function properly. However, the clump quickly disperses and the blood supply is restored. During the short time the clump is in place the patient experiences the symptoms of a stroke, which then go away again. The difference between a TIA and a stroke is that a TIA spontaneously resolves – usually within twenty-four hours, and often within a few minutes.

We think now that TIAs are caused by little clumps of platelets; these are tiny cells in the blood that initiate blood clotting. Under some circumstances platelets stick together too easily, forming little clumps which are small enough to pass round the general circulation, but can get jammed in the smaller arteries.

Most cells in the body can function for a short time without a blood supply, so platelet clumps like this can block blood vessels in the muscles, the bones, or the skin without causing symptoms; by the time they are likely to cause symptoms they will have dispersed. However, because nervous tissue cannot function for even a few minutes without an intact blood supply, even a small clot interrupts the workings of the brain. As the clot disperses, the blood supply returns, and that area of the brain starts working properly again.

TIAs are exactly like small strokes which come and go. A patient suddenly finds he has lost the use of an arm or a leg; he can’t speak properly or understand what someone else is saying; shortly afterwards the power returns to the muscles, the speech comes back, and comprehension returns.

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There are a number of drugs available – these include idoxuridine, which is applied as paint, and amantidine, which is taken as in tablet form, though others are available. Make sure you tell our doctor if you think you are pregnant as some anti-viral agents shouldn’t be used in pregnancy. Where there is a lot of pain a prescribed painkiller will also be useful.

Herpes zoster infection doesn’t give a true headache as much as severe localised superficial pain. However, in some cases the after-pains may last for a very long time indeed (of the order of years, if not for life) and can be very difficult to treat adequately.

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Typically, tension headaches don’t respond well to simple painkillers – not because they are a particularly severe or dangerous type of headache, or because they are difficult to treat, but merely because the problems of the stiff neck are not just of pain, but also of muscle spasm.

If you try to treat this situation with just a simple pain-killer, all it can do is relieve the joint pain. It won’t attack the muscle spasm – but the muscle spasm is what keeps the vicious circle going. Spasm causes pain and pain causes spasm.

At this stage it is common for patients to come to their doctor in some alarm, saying, ‘I’ve got a headache that won’t go with pain-killers’, which implies that it must be very serious indeed. In fact, it isn’t. It’s quite simple to remove the pain of a tension headache with a pain-killer and a muscle relaxant. (Or else use an alternative method of removing the muscle spasm, such as massage, physiotherapy, heat, etc). Taking both a pain-killer and a muscle relaxant can be like waving a magic wand: and the great thing about it is that once the vicious cycle is unlocked it stays unlocked.

A favourite over-the-counter combination medicine is Syndol, which principally contains paracetamol to stop the pain, and an antihistamine to relax the muscles. However, it may make you drowsy, so don’t drive or use machinery if you’re affected in this way. (It’s also not a good idea to take any kind of drugs during pregnancy; consult your doctor if you are suffering from tension headache.)

There are many other daigs to choose from: your doctor will have a large number of prescription drugs that can be used to reduce spasm. One of these, surprisingly, is diazepam (commonly known by its trade name, Valium). Normally, diazepam is used to relieve anxiety, but it also has a potent muscle-relaxant effect, and in tension headaches it may be helpful to use it in quite high dosage for a short time, together with a pain-killer. Short-term use like this is quite safe and doesn’t give rise to addiction (unless you’ve previously had problems with addiction lo diazepam or similar dnigs).

Note the reasoning behind the use of diazepam – here it’s being used as a short-term muscle relaxant, acting directly directly on the neck muscles. It is not, repeat not being used to treat the underlying anxiety and mental tension that so often triggers off tension headaches. Diazepam could be used in this way – but it would need a much longer course of tablets, and doctors now prefer to avoid using this group of drugs over a long period, as addiction may occur.

Drug therapy is for short-term treatment only. It may abort the headache, which then goes away for some time, if not for good. However, many people have frequent or even constant tension headaches simply because they are constantly stressed and unrelaxed. Dealing with long-term tension headaches like these are quite different, and therapy revolves principally around anti-stress measures and relaxation therapy.

Anxiety and depression are also common causes of tension headaches.

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