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The Healer Part II

I am the first to admit I was a sceptical cynic (which is probably an oxymoron but I like the sound of this ‘near’ alliteration so kindly piss off and don’t point out my grammatical flaws) about the idea of seeing a Healer. But when it came to actually meeting my lovely Lady Healer her genuine and warm personality, not to mention her instantly heating hands, melted my inner cynic and started to win me over.

[You can read about my first appointment here if you haven’t already clicked on the many links imbedded above.]

So, it was with a glad and open mind that I returned for my second visit. And, quite conveniently, I had a rather nasty migraine coming on. For the purposes of ‘science’ I decided it would be interesting not to take my usual medication. Let’s really put Lady Healer to the test, I thought. As the hour of my appointment grew closer, however, the pain got worse. So much so, Mum cancelled her own plans and insisted on driving me to the Healer’s house. She said it wouldn’t be safe to let me loose on the London Underground. I’m still not sure if she was worried for my safety or that of the general public…

By the time I arrived for my appointment I had caved and taken some pain killers, not my usual triptan (Zomig) which I would normally have taken by this point. I was doing this for 'science' after all - i.e this blog. Lady Healer wrapped me up in a blanket, stuffed cushions round me so I was comfy, and let me lie on her sofa. Intuiting that her usual interesting chatter would not be quite so welcome today, she just quietly got on with it! I didn’t want her to touch my head yet, so asked if she’d work on the sore shoulder muscles instead.

Before long the hands that were cold upon greeting me were toasty warm and had done wonders relaxing my muscles. I seriously think she should market her hands as some kind of non- nuclear heating devises, she could be the answer the national coal shortage. Anyway, despite her heater hands, the migraine was still on its menacing way. Then Man Upstairs arrived. If you remember, this is the guy with the MRI vision. I sat up and he did his thing again. As if looking through me, he said my left side was in spasm beause the right side was all out of kilter: collar bones were in the wrong place, cervical vertebra were twisted etc etc. He said he could ‘see’ the pain. Personally, I was mainly concentrating on not trying to feel it. I was beginning to feel quite sick and kept having to remind myself to breathe the pain was getting so bad, despite all Lady Healers magic hands were doing for the muscle spasms.

In an attempt to distract me, I think, he asked me what my blog was called and beacuase I wasn’t quite with it – I stupidly told him! And right there and then he wipped out his iPad and read the blog entry  about my last visit there!!! Pleading with him not to, I despearely tried to remember what I’d written about them… but he then started to read passages aloud while Lady Healer slowly put her hands around my neck.  I wondered if she had the power to kill at will.

Luckily, he seemed pleased with my blog post but has asked that I point out that his MRI/X-ray eyes is not a gift, it can be learnt, and that he is also a hands on healer. What he does is also far more complicated and intricate than I can explain here – but it does seem quite clever.

Having decided that I hadn’t completely derided both of them he continued to intruct my Lady Healer where to place her hands to get my bones and muscles in the “right place”. I really could feel things very gently beginning to move, even though her hands barely touched me. The muscles seem to first relax then shift. She really just lays her hands on you and it’s as if she’s willing things to move; she doesn’t force a manipulation in the way that a Chiropractuer does, for example. It’s all quite soothing. They both agreed it would indeed take more than 3 appointments to get me better but that, together, they could.

Before they could work too much on my neck I asked them to stop as even though it is very gentle things were moving a lot. I have an uber, uber sensitive neck (my neck can go into spasm just from tilting back to put my hair into a ponytail) plus I’m hyper mobile so I wasn’t sure I wanted people mucking around with "Gwyneth Paltrow swan neck" (that's what Dad calls my neck,) especially when I was well on my way to a migraine. They had, apparently, re-alligned my collar bones and I must say the migraine pain did waver, as in dimmed somewhat, while I was there.

Standing up to go, I was shocked at how stiff I felt, like the old granny my 11 year old niece is always at pains to remind me I am. Once safely home, however, I inhaled my precious Zomig and under piles of ice packs and hot water bottles passed out into oblivion.

As before Lady Healer and Man Upstairs had warned me I’d feel stiff, but the next day I felt bizarrely stiff, like I’d ran a marathon. I’m slightly wondering if this is all a bit too much for me – I already work quite hard with my physio, do my swim walking and pescribed exercises about three times a day. I have a pretty robust treatment plan already in place. I do think we migraineurs should be fairly methodical in how we approach our ‘get better’ plans so:

a) we can assess our progress and
b) so we know what is actually working and how.

But I was just quite curious about all this Healing malarkey, which is kind of why I went in the first place. But I do wonder if I’ve simply got too much on already with physio/Topamax/nerve blocks etc etc. I am starting to make slow progress after after all and I'd hate to jeopardise that.

But I have booked into see them again and will go – as will all migraine preventatives and treatments there are no quick fixes and you can’t make quick judgement calls. Conversely, you can tell quite quickly if something is harmful. But then again, as I did note when I started physio, often when you use new muscles you sometimes feels a bit worse before you see progress (sometimes, I believe, the same is true of preventative medications.) God I’m full of useful tidbits and am annoyingly indecisive today!

Here endeth the life lesson from Victoria. But I’ll be sure to keep you updated on how I go with my next session - and if I can make a decision on committing to it.


Past Posts you might enjoy:
Getting Rich And Skinny Off Topamax
How I Made A Trainee GP (Nearly) Cry

Remember if you want more information about Migraines check out:
National Migraine Centre
 Labels: Healer, treatment methods and plans, zomig

