Redbridge For Mental Health

A cyst is a severe form of acne that is filled with bacteria, white blood cells and dead skin. Cysts can be very painful and extend inside the skin damaging the skin tissue. In nodulocystic acne, cysts and nodules form together. Some experts say that cysts are severely infected nodules and should be called as such. Treatment of cysts is a challenging task. Because cysts invariably form scars, they need to be treated as soon as possible and before they damage more skin cells.

Acne Treatment – stages of acne

Acne begins with plugged skin pores and develops in stages. In the first stage, acne usually begins in the form of whiteheads and blackheads (caused by plugged pores of the skin). Blackheads are called open comedones. Whiteheads are called closed comedones. The blackheads and whiteheads are the first stage of acne. The second stage is pimples or zits. They are medically known as papules and pustules. Pimples form when the acne gets inflamed. Some people suffer from third stage of serious acne, called as nodules and cysts. These are very large and deep lumps of acne. Skin develops scars if acne progresses to second and third stages.

Acne Treatment Regimen For Cysts-

In severe form of acne, you develop nodules and cysts that are all inflamed. Treating this acne takes more time and patience. Your doctor will treat you with combination therapy to control and cure the acne while trying to take care that minimum scars form. The treatment regimen for severe acne may include physical as well as oral and topical treatments. The options may include- isotretinoin, oral antibiotics, oral contraceptives for female patients, injecting corticosteroid in the lesions and surgical procedure.

Acne Treatment – Isotretinoin:

Isotretinoin is one of the most potent treatments for severe form of acne which has not responded well to other therapies. Isotretinoin is a retinoid which is a form of vitamin A. Isotretinoin helps treat all the four reasons of acne formation-

a. Excess oil,

b. Clogged pores,

c. Inflammation, and

d. The bacteria p.acnes.

The normal course of isotretinoin is one or two pills a day for up to twenty weeks. Your dermatologist will decide the dose. Don’t take Isotretinoin without medical supervision.

Side Effects Of Isotretinoin:

For women, it is very important to be in constant contact with their doctor because isotretinoin can cause damage to development of fetus. It cannot be given during pregnancy and before the treatment begins, all possibilities of pregnancy have to be eliminated. Talk to your doctor in detail about this and follow his/her instructions very strictly. The other side effects of isotretinoin may include joint pains, headaches, nausea, depression and others. You must not miss your appointment with your doctor while taking isotretinoin.

Acne Treatment -Oral Antibiotics-

Broad-spectrum antibiotics can reduce the bacteria P.acnes substantially. With reduction in the population of this bacterium, inflammation reduces. The antibiotic may include drugs such as – tetracycline, erythromycin, doxycycline, etc.

Acne Treatment -oral contraceptives for women-

Overactive sebaceous glands produce more sebum and are one of the main causes of acne. Some oral contraceptives can reduce the production of excessive sebum. These drugs should be taken only under medical supervision. Sometimes, you may have to consult the gynecologist, for which your doctor will advise you.

Acne Treatment -injecting corticosteroid

In this treatment, a mild steroid is injected in the cyst. The steroid reduces the acne substantially within a few days. This treatment also prevents scarring as it reduces the possibility of bursting of a cyst and dries it totally. Your doctor may find it necessary to cut open the acne and drain it. This procedure needs skill and patients should not try this themselves.

This article is only for informative purposes. This article is not intended to be a medical advise and it is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult your doctor for your medical concerns. Please follow any tip given in this article only after consulting your doctor. The author is not liable for any outcome or damage resulting from information obtained from this article.

Shamanism is not a system of belief or faith, it is a system of knowledge, and divination is one of the paths to gain direct knowledge. Direct knowledge can be defined as that which is experienced first hand by the senses. Divination is not ‘fortune telling’, it is a way to a deeper understanding of events and influences surrounding a situation or person. Divination has always been an integral part of shamanism. One of the most important roles of the shaman has been to seek revelatory knowledge from visionary sources, which may be for healing purposes, “why has this person become ill?” “what medicine does this person need?, or important communal needs “where are the herds of caribou?”, divination is also often used to get meaning from dreams and visions.

Divination is as old as humanity, but unfortunately in mainstream Western society it has been regarded as something primitive, irrational, and pandering to superstition. Divination is simply a way of revealing the truth. The diviner reveals or uncovers to their client hidden truths about themselves, or the circumstances surrounding them. In societies outside the West, divining continues to play an important role, revealing that which is hidden, easing anxiety, and helping in coming to terms with challenging circumstances that may demand the implementation of difficult decisions.

In divination, the role of the shaman is to act as a mediator or ‘middle-man’. The shaman by exploring and providing the initial reading and interpretation allows the seeker of this information to avoid projecting personal wants, desires, and wishes if the question or situation is emotionally charged.

The Multi-dimensional Cosmos of the shaman

In shamanism, there is another kind of time, not linear or sequential but a time which is one single moment. This vast ever moving moment has no boundaries which separate the past, present and future. This is a time in which anything which has ever happened to anybody anywhere, somewhere it is still happening. The shaman travels ‘outside’ of linear time into this vast unending ever-moving moment to seek the information at the place where this event is happening.

One of the main gateways to this vast moment of time or universal consciousness is our own powers of imagination coupled with the three fundamental principles of expanded perception;

1.Intention All actions begin with an intention, a desire for a specific outcome. The principle of intention operates on two levels, the obvious , ‘this is what I want to do’, and the subtle level , i.e. it is a signal or alert to energy to be prepared to move to a certain destination.

2.Trust Trust is an ineffable quality, it is experienced in the body, not the mind. Trust takes time, and to get trust we need feedback which either directly or indirectly validates our experience. With trust our experiences and confidence in our actions increase significantly.

3.Attention This is about the application and focus of energy and intention. Attention is not ‘hard-work’ yet it needs consistency, to place your awareness at the interface of events or places….. Energy flows where Attention goes.

Divinatory methods

The shamans used many diverse methods for divination, either ways seeking patterns in natural objects and events, or using techniques to directly obtain hidden knowledge. An example of the former could be the practice of divination with rocks.

Rock Divination To do this the traditional practice is for the seeker looks for a rock whilst holding the question in the mind, eventually there will be a rock which stands out or ‘metaphorically’ shouts out “me, me!”. Here is an opportunity to practice the principle of trust!. As a helpful tip the more faceted and inner forms the rock has the better as more facets and patterns mean more detail will be available to the reader. The seeker should then give the rock to the shaman or practitioner and state the question. The shaman (who knows as little as possible about the questioner or the circumstances regarding the question) will gently focus on the rock and allow patterns to form within the imagination. The shaman may ask the seeker to state the question a few times as this helps to deepen the trance state of awareness, to the place where the shapes and patterns in the rock become a ‘gateway’ directly into the universal field of energy, and images, pictures, words, feelings will start to form within the shaman’s being. Each rock face represents a different aspect of the question, and the initial response is generally “where the questioner is at this moment”, and this leads to other rock faces, each rock face exposing and presenting an expanded view of the answer. To me personally this work is awesome, mysterious and poetic, and I have found that is as if a person’s life story is contained in a rock.

Sunbeam Divination Journey An example of a specific technique to discover hidden knowledge is the Sunbeam divination journey of the Labrador Naskapi shamans. This journey has a single specific purpose to find out the physical location of a person, object, or place where an event will take place. In this practice no information will be given about the object, person etc only it’s location. One can see the usefulness and practicality of this technique, for example to help hunters locate game animals, or the to find out and rescue a lost member of the tribe and so on. I have used this practice many times often to locate lost keys or the wallet of a client!

An Exercise – Naskapi Sunbeam Divination Journey.

First meditate or reflect on what you want to locate or know the whereabouts of, remember the first principle of Intention. When ready, find a place where you will not be disturbed for half hour or so, darken the room, and lay down and relax. Note: It is best if you have tape for shamanic journeying drumming (which will smooth the transition into expanded states of awareness). In the imagination, the launch-pad into multi-dimensional perception, go to a place where you can visualise, perceive, or sense being in the open landscape. Sense being fully in this place, experience your feet on the ground and the ground pushing up against the soles of your feet, experience the air and the wind on your face, become fully present in this landscape, and when ready look up to the sky where the sun will be, with the question firmly in your mind, ask the sun to show you the location or whereabouts of what it is you are searching for. Typically a particular sunbeam will either shine brightly or capture your attention in one way or another, follow this beam of sunlight, you may even experience yourself flying over the landscape, and where this specific sunbeam touches the ground, that is where the location is. When you recognise the location, and can correlate it to an actual physical place, it is then time to return. So turn around and go back to the place where you started from, and when you have returned, gently feel yourself back in the physical world, and gently open your eyes.

Remembering the second principle of trust, check the information out, try and get verification of the validity of the journey, keep on doing this until you have developed trust and the confidence will then follow.

Shamanic Trance Postures.

Another form of specific techniques is the body of work known as Shamanic Trance Postures. They take the form of certain precise bodily postures. These postures are gateways to an altered state of consciousness, and visionary experiences. This body of knowledge originates from ancient civilisations and many indigenous cultures throughout the world. Rediscovered in the 1970’s by the renowned anthropologist Felicitas Goodman, these postures are a piece of living history from our heritage of spiritual tradition.

It involves holding non-strenuous, but precise physical positions together with an accompanying rhythmic sound eg. Shamanic drumming or rattling. There are a number of specific postures for divinat
ory purposes, for example the Nupe people in sub-Saharan Africa, use these ritual postures, and in the one that their divinatory shamans work with gives the experience of detachment and a dispassionate persepective of the question.

An Exercise – Nupe Divination Posture

Once again meditate or focus on your question, as with this work it really helps if the question is sharp, no ‘ifs’, ’shoulds’ , ‘but’ and so on, get your question as razor honed as possible.

Sit on the floor, leaning toward your left and supported by your left arm. Hold your left arm rigid, with your hand at a right angle to your body. Place your left hand at a spot three to five inches to the left of your body and just behind a straight line drawn along the back of your buttocks. Bend both legs at the knees with both feet pointing to the right, positioned so that your left foot is resting just to the left of your right knee. Place your right hand on your lower left leg, where the muscle indents about halfway down your calf. Move your head slightly to the left, so you are looking over your left knee, and close your eyes.

If possible listen to a shamanic drumming or rattling tape, as this will enhance the visionary potential and makes the experience smoother, and more powerful. Allow the visionary imagery , or just simple ‘knowing’ to take place, when you have a sense of an answer (even if you do not understand it rationally) just gently release yourself from the posture, and come back fully into the present. If an answer is not immediately understood, incubate it, play with it, draw or paint it, this is important as the answer is not always addressed to the rational mind. Being with the imagery or vision will often lead to a deep and profound revelation.

To conclude there are many other ways of divination in shamanism many which underlie well known practices eg; divination with quartz crystals, casting of objects, Scrying.

As the Tungus shamans of Siberia say “we are all connected, we are all one”. So is it no wonder that we can discover ourselves through the natural world.

A list of some of the alternative medicine practices you’re likely to encounter in the United States. Some of these are considered border-line acceptable even in the professional medical field, and many understand that this is unfortunate.

Mostly these are just scams, quackery, and nonsense, which unfortunately gullible people believe in if they are desperate and grasping at false hope. Keep your eyes peeled for any of these, and be prepared to stamp out the harmful ones.

Doman-Delacato Treatment

This approach, also called “patterning,” was developed during the mid-1950s and is still offered at the Institutes for Human Potential in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its proponents claim that the great majority of cases of mental retardation, learning problems, and behavior disorders are caused by brain damage and poor neurological organization. The treatment is based on the idea that high levels of motor or sensory stimulation can train the nervous system and lessen or overcome handicaps caused by brain damage.

Parents following the program are advised to exercise the child’s limbs repeatedly and use other measures said to increase blood flow to the brain and decrease irritability. In 1982 and 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued position statements concluding that “patterning” has no merit, that its proponents’ claims are false, and that the demands on families are so great that in some cases there may be actual harm in its use. In 1996, neurologist Steven Novella, M.D., reviewed the scientific literature and concluded that “patterning” was a pseudoscience.

Orthomolecular Therapy

Orthomolecular therapy is defined by its proponents as the treatment of disease by varying the concentrations of substances normally already present in the human body. Its proponents claim that many diseases are caused by molecular imbalances that are corrected by administration of the “right” nutrient molecules at the right time.

Orthomolecular therapy dates back at least to the early 1950s when a few psychiatrists began adding massive doses of nutrients to their treatment of many severe mental problems. The original substance was vitamin B3, and the therapy was termed “megavitamin therapy.” Later the treatment regimen was expanded to include other vitamins, minerals, hormones, and dietary supplements, any of which may be combined with conventional drug therapy and even electroshock treatments. A few hundred physicians now use this approach to treat a variety of conditions, both of a mental and physical aspect.

Raw Milk

Raw milk is milk in its unpasteurized state. Public health authorities advocate pasteurization to destroy all disease-producing bacteria that may be present. Health faddists claim that it destroys the essential nutrients. Although about 10% to 30% of the heat-sensitive vitamins, which are vitamin C and thiamine, are destroyed in the pasteurizing process, milk is not a significant source of these nutrients in the first place.

Contaminated raw milk can be a source of harmful bacteria, including those that cause undulant fever, dysentery, salmonellosis, and tuberculosis. “Certified” milk, obtained from cows certified as healthy, is unpasteurized milk with a bacteria count below a specified standard, but it still contains significant numbers of disease-producing organisms.

Rife Frequency Generator The Attorneys General of Wisconsin and Minnesota have sued to stop an unlicensed woman, Shelvie Rettmann, of Prior Lake, Minnesota, from representing that she cures cancer. In December 1997, Wisconsin Attorney General James Doyle showed that a Wisconsin resident who was diagnosed with advanced colon and liver cancer used Rettmann’s services after being told that she could cure the woman’s cancer. Although medical doctors had recommended chemotherapy, Rettmann had told her otherwise.

At their first meeting, Rettmann photographed the woman and her daughter with a Polaroid camera and put the photos in a cup fastened to a radionics machine. After informing the mother that she had colon and blood cancer and the daughter that she had breast cancer, Rettmann allegedly advised both to have treatments with a Rife Frequency Generator, a special diet, dietary supplements, a regimen of baths, and something called ‘foot zoning’, which is a type of foot massage claimed to break up accumulated deposits at the end of foot nerve endings in order to help heal the body.

VAX-D Therapy

The VAX-D Therapeutic Table is a motorized traction device which is used to stretch the lower back. VAX-D is an acronym for “vertebral axial decompression.” The device is a two-part table in which the upper part is fixed to the table frame and the lower part slides back and forth to provide sudden intermittent traction. The patient is then anchored to the lower part by a pelvic harness.

VAX-D therapy is usually provided on an outpatient setting for the purpose of relieving back pain. Its providers, including chiropractors, medical and osteopathic physicians, and physical therapists, commonly recommend twenty sessions of 30-45 minutes, with a total cost of several thousand dollars. During the treatment, the patient lies face-down with the upper part of the body on the stationary portion of the table, and with arms overhead, grasping handles attached to the this part of the table. A pneumatic cylinder drives the two parts of the table apart and together to provide gradual stretching alternating with relaxation of the stretching. A typical cycle includes a minute of each half.

Auditory Integration Training

Abbreviated as AIT, this was developed as a treatment for autism by Guy Berard in France in the 1960s and since was introduced into the United States in 1991. It has also been advocated for children and adults with learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, depression, migraine headaches, and many other mental conditions.

Proponents claim that individuals with these disorders have hearing that is disorganized, hypersensitive, different between the two ears, or otherwise abnormal. The first step in AIT is an audiogram, a diagram that determines the auditory thresholds to more frequencies than are typically measured during hearing tests. Suitable individuals then undergo training sessions, which are typically two half-hour sessions per day over a 10-day period, that involve listening to music that has been computer-modified to remove frequencies to which they are hypersensitive.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Audiology have warned that no well-designed scientific studies demonstrate that AIT is of any use. AIT devices do not have FDA approval for treating autism, attention deficit disorder, or any other mental condition. In 1997, the FDA banned the importation of the Electric Ear or any other AIT device made by Tomatis International, of Paris, France, and they are now illegal.