Monthly Boost February 2009

A case of eczema
Esme an eight month old girl was brought to clinic due to her eczema that was on her neck, upper arms and back. Her parents wanted to ‘treat’ it by natural means if possible.

Esme was exclusively breast fed until 6 months of age, was not vaccinated and was being weaned onto solids without the introduction of any ‘allergenic’ type foods yet, namely wheat and dairy. The eczema started when Esme was 4 months (16 weeks) of age. Esme’s sweat test and hair mineral test although indicated slightly low zinc did not indicate anything else out of the ordinary.

The eczema started when Esme started to sleep through the night at 16 weeks. On further questioning, three nights before Esme started sleeping through the night she was left to cry herself to sleep (which was between 2-3 hours), as both mum and dad thought that she had gotten into a bad habit of being rocked to sleep. Following these three consecutive nights of crying Esme developed eczema. Since then she never really cried much but became more of a ‘hyper-sensitive and restless’ baby.

I prescribed her one dose of a homeopathic remedy called tuberculinum. Following that dose Esme cried for 4 hours (thankfully in her mother’s arms this time) then fell asleep. She woke up 3 hours later and her eczema had completely gone. This infant’s eczema was a skin condition that was actually triggered by what was perceived by Esme’s brain as a ‘trauma’…in other words being abandoned (left to cry).

A baby is not able to manage its ‘stress’ hence cortisol (a stress hormone) levels without external support. This can lead to the inability of the body to ‘deal with’ stress. This unregulated stress results in the body over-compensating in whatever way it needs to in order to ‘survive’.

In this case Esme was becoming emotionally ‘switched off’ (not crying) but physically more hyper. We see this pattern regularly in older individuals with poorly regulated cortisol levels, such as involuntary twitching of muscles also known as tics, ADHD, anxiety, depression etc. . There are many other manifestations of inappropriate cortisol control which I share in my book (available at www.khushmark.com)

A case of Symphysis Pubic Dysfunction (SPD)
Vanessa, a 38 year old mum-to-be came to see me with SPD 19 weeks into her pregnancy. SPD is a ‘condition’ that occurs in pregnancy whereby the body produces too much of a hormone called relaxin and therefore the pelvic bone becomes very relaxed and stretchy (too relaxed and too stretchy!).

This can be immensely painful to say the least. Vanessa came to see me as she wanted natural anti-inflammatories to help her with the pain as her doctor had suggested avoiding standard pain killers and trying yoga.

It was Vanessa’s first pregnancy. The SPD kicked in at 14 weeks of her pregnancy. Vanessa did not want children and this pregnancy not only came as a shock but a bitter disappointment. She was at the ‘peak of her career’ and had plans to grow her business internationally. Her husband however wanted the baby otherwise he wanted a ‘divorce’. Vanessa decided to ‘keep the baby’ and was interviewing potential ‘Nannies’ to start working for her on the arrival of her baby.

During the session Vanessa talked about various disappointments in her childhood and her underlying fear of her husband leaving her. I prescribed her a remedy for primarily the ‘shock’ (aconite) and then her current emotional state (nat mur). When she came back for the second session four weeks later, she no longer had the symptoms of SPD and we continued to work on her emotional health.

In this case if we look at the mind-body connection, her body was trying to ‘let go of the baby’ by producing too much relaxin because on a mental level she did not want the baby. By the time she came back for the second session, she was in a very different place emotionally. She now wanted the baby and her fears were more about working on her relationship with her husband.

As I have mentioned in earlier Monthly Boosts the field of Psycho-Neuro-Immuno-Endocrinology (i.e. mind-body link) has been scientifically proven and it is now time that we open our minds to such a way of thinking (if not already) and enjoy great health.

To a healthy mind

Khush