Sheila's Blog (or Glog - Gut Log)

I have decided to put the blog first in the newsletter and let you know what is coming up. Generally, in each newsletter I write about the office and have an educational piece. Then in the blog, I relax about what is on my mind.

In the last 2 newsletters, I advertised a kayaking trip which I lead in Florida in Jonathan Dickinson State Park. The August trip was highly successful, great exercise and a paddle through the exquisite beauty of the mangroves, bald cypresses, wild ferns and lilies of southeastern Florida.

This month under Education, I have done some research on specific conditions that clients have presented. Some people are given a diagnosis and do not know what their condition means or how to deal with it. Lymphocytic colitis and arachnoiditis are 2 examples. The languaging of the information is rather medical however, I have been promoting for years the diet that reduces inflammation. In addition, I now carry Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Campbell-McBride, MD at the office. It is the sequel to Breaking the Vicious Cycle by Elaine Gottschall which I also carry at the office. I work with these 2 diets frequently as they are anti-inflammatory and calm down a lot of ugly gut symptoms such as gas, bloating, constipation, malabsorption syndrome and many neurological disorders such as autism, depression, dyslexia and ADD.

One client came in last week and brought a copy of the magazine First. She found it on the stands as she was checking out of the grocery store. It has one of the better articles on colon hydrotherapy for fatigue. The title is Break Free from the Tiredness Trap. According to the woman who shared her experience, "Colonics have been a life-changing miracle." Are you ready for a miracle in your life! If you'd like to read more, the date of the magazine in which the article appears is September 1, 2008 on page 36. I have written the company to see if they will give me a PDF link so that I can provide the article to you.

Equinox is coming up Monday, September 22. Usually the changing of the seasons is the time to take on a cleanse - be it GI, liver, parasites or kidneys. What I am seeing now is that people are embracing cleanses year round. Clients are much more concerned about overcoming their destructive habits much sooner; being in the moment and not waiting any longer. For those of you who might be sitting on the line, this is your time. Give us a call and I can give you a hand in deciding on how to take on your first cleanse or what might be the appropriate cleanse to do at this time.

In case you are wondering about the effects of what you eat on yourself, I found this article taken from the Organic Consumers website:

Lesson of the Week:
School Lab Rats Freak Out on GE Food

Schools in Wisconsin are showing kids the dangers of genetically engineered (GE) junk food with some unique science class experiments. Sister Luigi Frigo repeats the experiment every year in her second grade class in Cudahy. Students feed one group of mice unprocessed whole foods. A second group of mice are given the same junk foods served at most schools. Within a couple of days, the behavior of the second group of mice develops erratic sleeping schedules and become lazy, nervous and even violent. It takes the mice about three weeks on unprocessed foods to return to normal. According to Frigo, the second graders tried to do the experiment again a few months later with the same mice, but the animals have already learned their lesson and refuse to eat the GE food.

(Read the full article at www.organicconsumers.org)

I hope you enjoy this newsletter. I love hearing from you each time I do a newsletter broadcast. Life is exciting, especially when my gut feels good. Let's give a fall cheer to a happy, healthy gut!

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At the Office

What Are Clients Doing?
I love that my clients are so proactive. One woman desiring to lose weight is doing a 21-day detox program with a local Tucson Chiropractor. She is highly motivated and fun to work with. A number of clients are doing the Master Cleanse, a book by Stanley Burroughs. Many are doing the Arise and Shine 7-Day Cleanse that I sell at the office. That program works really well and everyone can manage 7 days without sugar or whatever your weakness may be. One client is doing the Ultimate Cleanse and then a liver flush after that. She is doing great.

Brenda Watson's Fiber 35 Diet, 21 Pounds in 21 Days by Roni De Luz and Natalia Rose's Raw Food Detox Diet are all still very popular and effective with clients. It helps to have a program and a goal. Behavior modification does work. You lay new tracks, you develop new behaviors, and you let go of what is not working for you.

I want to encourage all of you to take the next step in your intestinal health whether that is a diet change, adding exercise, letting go of coffee, sugar or wheat, stopping diet and soft drinks or taking on an intestinal, liver or parasite cleanse accompanied by colonics. This is the time and this is your time.

Receiving a Colonic
What is it to receive a colonic? I got thinking about the word, 'receive." Very often first timers come in and they express nervousness or anxiety about the session. I began to wonder about that. I feel that the colonic is an opportunity to receive, to receive water, to receive relaxation, to receive time for oneself. During the colonic process, you also receive care and massage.

What kind of attitude could one have when beginning this powerful process of colon hydrotherapy? One could become more meditative, focus more on the breathing. Receive the breath. One could become thankful for giving oneself the gift of receiving colon hydrotherapy. Receiving is a peaceful place. It is an opportunity to bring peace to the elimination process and the GI system.

I want to encourage each one of you as you come for your sessions, to contemplate the attitude of what receiving is for you. This is an opportunity to cultivate an openness, an acceptance, a calmness, and a hopefulness around this process.

It is two-sided. We receive the water, and we - hopefully - release the water and any contents with it. Receiving is the balance of releasing.

The Releasing Side of the Equation
What may take place after the colon hydrotherapy session? I ask people to become aware of what happens as soon as they get off the colonic table as well as what happens to them after they leave the office until their next session. Clients have reported a number of results.

The colonic process begins a releasing. It may occur during the session. For some people, the releasing continues after the session.

Some clients have major elimination in the bathroom after the session. Just when they think they are ready to get dressed another wave of elimination comes. Some return to the bathroom after they are dressed and before they leave the office

A small percentage reports that they pass water after they leave the office. One woman would make one to two stops on the way home and release water. I asked her to get her colonoscopy report from her GI and the report said she had 'multiple redundancies.' A redundant bowel is one that has extra length of intestines that spiral, coil, loop and prolapse (fall) within the abdominal cavity. These cases are more challenging because of the extra length of intestines. In a redundant case, the client has to shift positions and use gravity to allow the water or other contents of the bowel to release.

A small group has some major eliminations after they get home. The colonic initiated this process of evacuation and release.

A few people feel fatigue after the session. Generally, they hold a lot of tension in their gut. They are not used to letting go, releasing, emptying their bowel easily and effortlessly. When they have successful releasing during the session, they are breaking through their conditioning and tensions. They experience the genuine fatigue of holding on and holding in. The colonic becomes a metaphor for releasing and letting go in their life. The colonic becomes a way for them to break through their conscious and unconscious tensions and detoxify in the process of so doing.

A few others say they do not eliminate in between sessions. I ask people to make a note of their first and subsequent eliminations between sessions. I get a better idea of their transit time. Transit time is the time it takes for each person to pass food through their GI tract from mouth to anus. If I cleanse the large intestine for them and they do not eliminate for 2 days, likely their actual transit is 3 days. Ideally, it would be better to have a transit time of 24 hours or less.

You can see that clients respond after the colonic session in different ways. It can be different or consistent for the client each time. The idea is to get in touch with yourself, your patterns, your transit and increase your intestinal health as you progress through the sessions.

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Office Space Available for Holistic Practitioner

I have a beautifully appointed office and private room available for someone in the holistic field. If you are a body worker, acupuncturist, therapist and so forth and need a great space, give me a call at (520) 325-9686 or send an email.

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Continuing Education

Lymphocytic Colitis
From time to time, I am not familiar with a diagnosis given to a client or friend. One day a young female client told me over the phone that she had been diagnosed with lymphocytic colitis. I was puzzled and asked my GI friend, Ken Fine, MD if he knew. He sent me his website address where I found the following information:

The term microscopic colitis was coined in 1980 as a descriptive term for patients with non-bloody, chronic secretory diarrhea who, on biopsy of their endoscopically normal colon, had histologic evidence of inflammation. A similar scenario had been described four years earlier for a patient with chronic watery diarrhea except colonic biopsies from this patient, in addition to containing microscopic inflammation, revealed excess collagen. This entity was called collagenous colitis. The clinical features of these chronic diarrheal syndromes are nearly identical. Recently, the attention of GI pathologists has been drawn to the presence of lymphocytes in the colonic epithelium in this disorder which has spawned the name "lymphocytic colitis" for microscopic colitis without collagen table thickening, even though the numbers of these lymphocytes usually are increased to a similar extent in patients with collagenous colitis. This is why there are three different terms used for what appears to be one syndrome that sometimes shows thickening of collagen under the colonic surface cells. I prefer the term microscopic colitis whether there is excess collagen or not. Treatment response seems to be the same whether or not the collagen is present.

(www.finerhealth.com)

Dr. Fine continues in the article to discuss the relation to celiac disease and the methods of healing the condition. He has some insights on high estrogen doses and NSAID's being part of the cause, along with gluten-containing diets. The gluten grains are wheat, rye, oats and barley.

What I also found interesting in his writing was the association of microscopic colitis with arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, joint and muscle pains and thyroid conditions. Many clients come in complaining of these symptoms.

I am using 2 diets for these conditions. They are anti-inflammatory diets. I carry both books at the office.

Breaking the Vicious Cycle Elaine Gottschall www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info

Gut and Psychology Syndrome Natasha Campbell-McBride, MD www.behealthy.org.uk

Arachnoiditis Here is another one. Again, a young woman came in and said that she had this condition. So, I did some research. I quote from the website. However, the info at the site is extensive.

Arachnoiditis is a chronic incurable spinal condition which causes severe pain and various other problems. It gets its name from the description of what it is: inflammation of the arachnoid layer of the meninges, which are protective layers around the spinal cord and brain. You will no doubt be familiar with meningitis: well, arachnoiditis is a sort of chronic meningitis of the middle layer. Arachnoid because the layer resembles a spider's web in appearance.

This web becomes tangled when it is chronically inflamed. Scar tissue binds the nerve roots together and this causes pain and numbness/tingling in the parts of the body supplied by these roots (which are effectively the channels of information from the spinal cord to various parts of the body). Of course, this information is both incoming (sensations) and outgoing (movement information to muscles) so another problem is weakness. In fact, arachnoiditis causes a wide variety of symptoms.

The pain is the predominant feature. It is persistent, always there. Generally, sufferers describe it as an intense burning, and they often have intermittent electric shock sensations, as well as muscle spasms which can be very painful. Many people complain especially about burning feet or a feeling of walking on broken glass.

Approximately two thirds of arachniacs experience problems with bladder control, sexual dysfunction and/or bowel control. This is obviously highly distressing. Another common problem is excessive sweating and intolerance of heat. In this respect (and others) arachnoiditis resembles Multiple Sclerosis.

The causes of this debilitating condition are most commonly iatrogenic, which means due to medical intervention. This of course means that doctors are not keen on discussing it and often they are reluctant to diagnose it. A leading expert has suggested that arachnoiditis accounts for about 11% of what is termed "Failed Back Surgery Syndrome": that is to say, persistent back or leg pain following spinal surgery. As this Syndrome affects an average of 25% of all people who undergo back surgery, then arachnoiditis from this cause alone will have affected about a million people in the United States in the last 50 years, and probably double that worldwide.

Surgery is by no means the only cause of arachnoiditis. In fact, the commonest cause nowadays is the use of epidural steroid injections, which ironically are used to treat Failed Back Surgery Syndrome. The preservatives in these preparations are toxic to nerves. No one really knows how many people are affected by arachnoiditis due to this treatment. About 30,000 injections like this are performed each year in the UK.

(www.arachnoiditis.info)

I know I have given you a lot of information. However, this is the educational section. I hope some of you might find the info helpful for yourself or others. All the best...

Be in touch.

Sheila Shea