Healing and Healing Power

Healing and Healing Power

Yes, healing power is a myth.

You are born with it and it is more often than not interfered intentionally or unintentionally.

Often doctors and their attendants are to be blamed.

Let me state a few facts.

Healing power is inborn and fast in the faetus.

Placenta more so than in the faetus.

Any derangement in the faetus, it leads to fibrosis before immune cells are formed or associated with minor congenital abnormalities.

I have done some research work on the placenta and yet to figure out the exact mechanism.

There is a very large nano-molecule called fibronectin and I have coined the name molecular glue for its eternal virtue.

It is both a healer and a protector molecule.

I call it a protector since it can attenuate immune reactions orchestrated by the placental mechanisms.

Do not confuse this with fibrin which can be seen without a microscope.

Healing is faster in kids and slower in the elderly.

In the elderly, it is compounded by metabolic syndromes, poor blood and nerve supply.

Healing is faster in the head and it gradually slows down as one reaches the foot.

The bottom line is any injury heals by itself within 6 weeks the most, unless it is interfered with by an external agency (doctors, their attendants, more so in this country by the well wishers).

Now how one can apply this knowledge.

I will give you few stories.
 

First and foremost one has to give a psychological booster.

I undertake to heal by a fixed time scale.

I add two weeks one upfront and one afterward (usually 10 days in the beginning and 4 days at the tail end of the healing process).

I add 2 weeks and it is a farce by the nature.

But I have my reasons.

Often, they have gone to quack healers.

I need to assess the damage done.

I clean it myself (never delegate) with liberal quantity of saline and never with soap and water.

Water is hypotonic and causes intense pain and hypertonic saline deforms young and dividing cells.

The detergent in soap is antithesis to healing.

It dissolves the cell membranes and the cells bust in no time.

Of course, the soap can be used to clean the normal parts.

The nurse if attending has to count the swabs used and disposed and I estimate the volume of saline used.

That is to make the viable cost in private practice.

Never use antiseptics but rarely Betadine (an iodine solution, good antiseptic and very expensive and never in thyroid patients).

Cover with absorbent material (not available in this country) and a swab on top and ask them to come back after 10 days.

If things warrant 10 day supply of standard antibiotics in full course (they only buy 3 day supply and that is what is intended by me).

Case one

This was a poor farmer from Maiyanganaya.

Bitten by a snake while harvesting (cutting) paddy.

The tip of the ring finger gone and bone exposed but healthy.

He was covering his finger with his handkerchief.

I took the handkerchief and put it in the dustbin and said no handkerchief until I tell you. 

Bit of authority (psychological in part) and get the compliance well attended, on the first day.

I told him in eighty weeks (8) it will be all back to normal minus the tip.

Did the cleaning and and put the sterile absorbent stuff and anchored it safely.

Gave a sling and he has to wear it with hand upwards (prevent oedema an inherent anti-healer).

Antibiotics yes with the bone exposed.

Strict instruction “No handling of the wound” and a postprandial blood sugar on the day of the next arrival in 10 days.

He was not pleased and wanted to come back in three days.

Said No and “No Charges” for the first visit. 

He could pay for the second visit in 10 days. 

I wanted him to come back to me; not go to another guy.

He has to buy only the antibiotics from the nearest pharmacy.

Sure enough he came back, the bone that was exposed was almost covered with skin.

I was pleased.

Skin cover is essential for healing.

(If you want to know about in depth healing go to a burn unit and see for yourself. It is a different kettle of fish).

Come back in another 10 days.

In three visits it was all but healed.

Healed in 40 odd days and he did not have to come back for the last visit.

I had two bonus weeks as intended.

Case two

It was simple matter, a carpenter had got his thumb trapped in a machine.

He came with the wound exposed with part of the skin of the tip of the thumb missing.

Where is the skin?

My opening question.

Put it in a bin.

Go back and bring it and no treatment without it.

He came back with the skin, curled up and dry.

I put it in a saline dish and told him to sit there until I am ready to put it back.

With difficulty, I figured out the orientation (finger prints were not useful).

10 days antibiotics, a sling and come back in 10 days.

Thumb is important and any infection whole hand is gone.

Well this was the fastest healing, in two weeks he was OK.

I was a miracle healer for him.

Case three

The case three was bizarre.

Wound in his leg diagnosed as a non-healing squamous cancer.

I looked at the pathologist report and tore it to pieces.

I told him, I can even heal cancers but I need three months.

His problem was he was a mild diabetic (on oral diadetic treatment) with a wound.

He has to come daily for insulin and post insulin blood sugar which I changed to once in three days when the correct estimate of Semilente was made.

Yes, it took three months to heal and he always came back to me.

I was a cancer healer in his mind.

The fourth case illustrated the most bizarre episode.

One should not live near to a hospital or far away places like Maiyanggana.

Both have adverse effects on healing.

She was an old lady.

The words got round I was a healer.

I told her I cannot treat her.

She asked why?

No answer from me.

My reason was if I took over this case, the attendant doing the wound dressing in the nearby General Hospital would be very cross with me.

Besides she was related to him.

I get all this information from the nurses.

I never ask probing questions.

Then with one of the nurses insistence, I took over her treatment.

First the post-prandial blood sugar was normal and that was a bonus.

The tendons of the back of her leg muscles were exposed and it was deep and skin cover was all but nothing.

The attendant had done all the damage to the granulation tissue.

Stuffed it with absorbent material which I got as a gift from the pharmacy when I left New Zealand.

She has to have strict bed rest and out only for toilet.

No antibiotics.

See me in 10 days or if the absorbent material is smelly.

She came back in 5 days, it was in good shape early signs of skin growing but redressed the wound all the same with new absorbent material.

Come back in 10 days.

This went on till the skin cover was complete and my absorbent material was over. It was very tender skin cover and I told her it will take another six months for the skin to be rough and do not come back to me if she injures it again. 

She never came back and it was my last healing session.

Episiotomy
Word of caution about the incision that is made at the time of normal delivery to prevent perineal injury.
Please do not get a raw intern to stitch it up (they can learn it elsewhere) since most of them have no idea.
Demand a senior guy in attendance, if your GP is not available, to finish the job.
 

Sensory System and Psychology of Pain

Sensory System and Psychology of Pain

This is the medical stuff for a layman to understand pain and pleasure principle.

The reason for me focusing on this is that two guys on the YouTube try to impose their own interpretation in a convoluted manner (confusing even for a medical guy in retirement) of the brain and its function.

The bottom line is, even if one studies the brain and its nervous system, the entire life, he/she would not understand them fully.

Equally, in one hour verbal presentation one won’t do the justice to the enormous amount of work and research done including meditation (mind you not the transcendental meditation of the New Age guys).

I hated neurology and the study of anatomy of the brain.

My professor of anatomy tried to teach us over three hundred cross sections of the brain “by heart” without its application to clinical work in the first year. 

We had to study it overnight and answer his question.

I got my worse Viva Vose rating of E (out of 5 A to E) on a Friday afternoon.

After this I went to my advisor and told her that I am going to leave the medical faculty for good and pursue a better career.

She was flabbergasted and ask me why?

I told her what the heck of learning all this stuff if I am going to a be a simple general practitioner and not a neurologist.

She took me to the professor who is no more and presented my concern and the stern action of mine that would follow.

He asked me are your serious (not the same outburst as of Tennis Star John McEnroe's)?

Yes was my answer.

I do not remember the next part of the dialogue (with the heat on) but I remember him saying you need to know only 10% of it at the examination.

I ask him why don’t you do that?

He had no answer and asked me to read the Clinical Anatomy by Ellis.

He also advised me not to divulge the conversation to my fellow beings, which I never did till we left the anatomy block.

Now I will dispense 1% of that 10% to you but before getting to the boring stuff let me tell you a real life story.

We had a small gang of Ceylonese doctors in our locality and we used to have frequent dinner parties and wine. 

Yet, I could not meet one of the very senior guys who worked alone in the remotest location as a G.P.

One day, I got a call and he invited me for lunch and closing the conversation he asked me for a favor.

He said his wife is mortally fearful of pain and I should remove the big toe nail, of one of her legs (cannot remember which) causing problems for her for some time (caused by bad footwear).

I said no problem and make it a day on a Sunday, I was not on call.

He wanted to come and pick me up and I said I did not want him to leave her at home by the time he goes back the local anaesthetic effect would wear off.

We had a book on local anaesthesia and peripheral nerves in the casualty and I photocopied the detailed innervation (mind you our undergraduate training was not at its best) of the particular side, (one photocopy was enough, the other side is a near enough mirror image) of the big toe.

When, I went there lunch was laid out and I said let me have cup of tea and finish the job first.

I looked at her face and told her I could take it out in a flash without local and she almost “flashed out” that very moment.

That was my preparation of the brain analgesics and how ever much, I inject local anaesthetics, she would panic, all the same.

I started with injecting all the big nerves first with the tiniest needle I took with me and closed on with (mind you big toe has complex innervation) near enough tiny peripheral nerves.

I told her it takes few minutes for the local to act and had some beer with, now my friend, in the meantime.

Finally, as a precaution I injected local around the toe and in a whisk, I took the nail out in one go, when she was not, focusing on it.

Is that it?

She asked me.

I told her I could now take the other toe nail out without a local (as a post surgery booster of her anti pain chemicals).

We had a quiet evening that day and all they wanted me was to stay in New Zealand.

By then, I have decided to come back home and that was the biggest mistake I have made in my life.

Mind you pain is 5% physical and 95% psychological.

These guys on YouTube are fear (psychological, too) mongers and do not listen to them.

They confuse your inner feeling and your self.