Saturday, August 29, 2015

Dental work can be painful. Even very painful


Dear friend of Centers for Healing,

Let’s face it. Dental work can be painful. Even very painful. And, in the case of dental revision, the pain can be brutal.

Healing Light

For this reason, within several days after the completion of revision work, we may suggest using the Anodyne machine. Anodyne treatment is a type of infra-red light therapy designed to stimulate increased circulation. And increased circulation means reduced pain.

In the case of the Anodyne machine, it specifically stimulates the body’s immune system to release nitric oxide. And, since it does this by means of infra-red light, it’s non-invasive.

Nitric, Not Nitrous

Don’t get confused here. I said “nitric,” not “nitrous.” Some dentists use nitrous oxide (i.e., “laughing gas”) for what we call “twilight zone” treatment. Nitric oxide, on the other hand, is a nitrogen-oxygen compound naturally produced by the body.

Essentially, nitric oxide makes it easier for red blood cells (remember last week’s post: each of us has anywhere from 12 to 25 trillion of these cells) to penetrate injured tissue and deliver the oxygen critical for healing.

Bruising

Dr. Huggins used to relate having seen post-surgical bruises undergo a 50 percent reduction within just 30 minutes of using the Anodyne machine. Normally, such bruising would take from 5 to 6 days to fully disappear.

Anodyne light therapy helps other blood cells besides red ones. It also helps stimulate the formation of white blood cells. And we’ve seen how important these are for a healthy immune system.

In our offices, much of this bruising is already alleviated by the use of intravenous vitamin Cacupressure, and the simple application of ice packs.

However, even with these precautions, bruising can still occur. So, we generally encourage using the Anodyne machine once or twice daily for several days following surgery.

Other Benefits

Anodyne light therapy helps other blood cells besides red ones. It also helps stimulate the formation of white blood cells. And we’ve seen how important these are for a healthy immune system.

Nearly There!

Next week, we’ll wrap-up our review of our Patient Protection Protocol. It’s been a long ride, but, like I said at the start, the journey to recovered health is too important to be taken lightly.

Always working for your best physical, dental, and emotional health,

Dr. Blanche

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Phase Three of the Huggins-Grube Protocol – Last Week’s Meridian Story


Dear friend of Centers for Healing,

I hope you enjoyed reading last week’s blog post as much as I enjoyed writing it. It’s been years since I first read Bernard Lown’s remarkable book, yet I still get goose-bumps every time I re-read his account of having witnessed open heart surgery under acupuncture.

So, my thoughts? Well, I just gave you one of them. 

Sheer marvel over the image of such a simple, unpretentious meeting of Eastern and Western medicine. I can only imagine the look of stunned disbelief on the faces of the attending physicians, as just 2 carefully placed needles effectively replace the use of general anesthesia, with a patient’s life literally hanging on the expertise of his surgeon’s hands.
 Phase Three of the Huggins-Grube Protocol – A True Meridian Story

Admittedly, Lown continues by noting that the Chinese have since admitted that acupuncture is not an apt replacement for an anesthetic in all cases. However, this admission doesn’t detract in the least from the case reported.

Secondly, we see the need for continued integration of all medical wisdom into one, balanced approach to healing. This means taking the truth wherever we find it, as we find it. 

In the specific case of biological dentistry, it is based – like all genuine medical practice – upon hard science. However, science itself is based upon facts. So, whether proof comes from a test tube in a lab or from some verifiable experience of applied meridian theory, genuine science respects and welcomes it. Period.

Thirdly, and finally, I remain ever awed by the wonder of the human body. I mean, just think about it for a moment:

  • Everybody is composed of at least nine major systems, all designed to work in non-stop, integrated harmony: skeletal, digestive, lymphatic, muscular, respiratory, endocrine, nervous, circulatory, and reproductive. Can you imagine if we had to think about each of these activities in order for them to function?

  • That same body is further composed of anywhere from 50 to 100 trillion individual cells, at least a quarter of which are red blood cells. So, in addition to those 9 major body systems to be kept working in tandem, each one of us has (or, more accurately, is) literally trillions of cells that must all work in harmony for the good of the whole body. Again, this all works on autopilot. (Look at your hand: one square centimeter alone contains about100,000 skin cells.)

I could go on and on. But I trust you see my point. We are miracles of engineering, pure and simple. And both science and medicine must respect both the miracle and the engineering.

With that, I’ll leave you for now. Look next week for a continued discussion of the particular helps we employ in our Patient Protection Protocol’s final phase.

As ever, we welcome your visits to our Scranton, Pennsylvania office. Wherever your end-of-summer travels take you, take good care.

All the best,

Dr. Blanche

Monday, August 10, 2015

((UPDATE)) Phase Three of the Huggins-Grube Protocol – A True Meridian Story



Dear friend of Centers for Healing,

After writing last week’s post on our use of acupressure here at Centers for Healing, I was reminded of a true story about an even more dramatic application of Oriental meridian theory to contemporary medical practice.

A Distinguished Cardiologist

Dr. Bernard Lown, a world renowned cardiologist, tells the story in his book, “The Lost Art of Healing. Practicing Compassion in Medicine.” Lown has the distinction of being the inventor of the modern defibrillator, now a standard fixture in cardiac units around the globe.

Lown’s story so remarkable precisely because of his status as a classically-trained, Western physician. In other words, the bias against “alternative medicine” is nearly unavoidable.

West Meets East

However, in Chapter 9, “Extraordinary Healing Techniques,” Lown gives an eyewitness account of the use of acupuncture as a substitute for anesthesia in a heart surgery performed in the People’s Republic of China in 1973.

The story is so powerful that I have to quote it directly from the book. I want you to hear it in Lown’s own words, with my emphasis in bold type:

The patient, a young man in his early twenties with a ventricular septal defect, walked into the operating room of a leading Shanghai hospital. After shaking hands with each of the eight visiting Americans, he lay down on the operating table and surgery was performed. The room was bare except for an oxygen tank, a sphygomanometer, and a primitive-looking pump oxygenator. He was draped for the operation, an intravenous was started, and a thin rubber tubing to provide oxygen was inserted in a nostril. Several acupuncture needles were then inserted in his ear and in his left wrist. After about fifteen minutes he appeared to be dozing. He was then connected to the ancient bypass machine to provide external pumping of his blood.

The surgeon was masterfully skilled and extraordinarily quick. In no time at all he had opened the chest and electrically fibrillated the heart to stop its contractions. Ventricular fibrillation is an ultrarapid chaotic rhythm in which heart pumping ceases, enabling the surgeon to have a quiet field for his work. In the absence of an external assist pumping device, the patient would die within a few minutes.

Standing at the head of the operating table, I could intimately observe the patient’s face. The entire scene was eerie and totally unreal for those of us trained in Western medicine. Several times during the operation, the patient opened his eyes and talked, though he was without any cardiac contractions. A distinguished American surgeon standing close by kept nudging me in disbelief and repeating, ‘Are you seeing what I am seeing?’ He whispered that we were being subjected to some Chinese trick of mass hypnosis.

The patient moaned only twice, each time when the surgeon encountered excessive bleeding, which he had difficulty in clamping rapidly. As the patient was surgically draped and could not see what was going on in his own chest cavity, and as the surgeon remained silent, I was mystified as to the cues the patient was picking up. When the surgeon had the situation under control, the patient relaxed as well.

As the operation was coming to an end and they were closing the chest, I began to worry about how they would revert the fibrillating heart, for no cardiac defibrillator was in sight in the technologically empty operating theater. When the thoracic cage was closed, they rolled in a vintage defibrillator, indistinguishable from the one I had introduced more than a decade earlier (see Chapter 13). They placed the electrode paddles against the chest wall and delivered an electrical discharge, which instantly restored a normal rhythm. The doctors and nurses then lined up in front of me, bowed, and said, ‘Thank you for serving the people.’ The patient sat up, once again shook hands with everyone, seated himself in a wheelchair, and was rolled into the recovery room. (pp. 130-31)

The Tale Tells Itself

Wow! I don’t know about you, but this blows me away. In fact, I’m going to save my comments (you didn’t really think I wouldn’t have any, did you?) for next week’s post.
After all, Lown’s story speaks for itself.

Meridian theory, whether applied through acupressure or acupuncture, is powerful stuff, indeed.

Until next week,

Dr. Blanche