So this is fun! I just gave Adahlia her first acupuncture treatment. Now, we’ve been doing Japanese acupressure for awhile (Shonishin) with favorable results. But today, Adahlia was having a tough time with her mood. She was irritable. Persnickety. And so I asked if she wanted some Shonishin. (She calls it “tapping and magic”.) She said yes.
We went to the clinic room and she stretched out on the table. I began the regular Shonishin routine, adding in some muscle release work and shiatsu at the base of her skull and along her trapezius. (There are some very important points here, especially related to behavior, depression, and the marrow.) She immediately passed out.
This is not so uncommon. Such deep relaxation is a sign of a very therapeutic treatment. But my response this time was new. As I continued doing shiatsu down her affected channels, loosening constrictions of fascia and opening flow for energy and blood circulation, I decided to gIve Adahlia her first few needles.
I decided to do them on two areas that her body was advertising could use the help: Her two dark brown “freckles” hidden in her hair.
Whaaat? you say. Freckles and moles and “beauty marks” are pathological?
No. Not pathological. Indicators of areas where there is a blockage. A stasis. They are surface-level expressions that something isn’t flowing right underneath them.
They are the body’s way of saying, “HEY YOU! DOCTOR WITH ALL THE THEORIES AND COMPLEX MUMBO-JUMBO OVER THERE IN THE GLASSES SWEATING ABOUT THIS SUPER-COMPLEX CASE THAT YOU CAN’T FIGURE OUT!! YES! YOU!!!!! CAN YOU SEE ME??? HELLOOOO!!!! THE BIG PROBLEM???!!! IT’S RIGHT HERE!!!!
It’s a pretty clear message.
Don’t believe me? That’s okay, you don’t have to. But to learn more, visit my website and sign up for my newsletter so I can email you when my blog is active. One of the posts will be about the subject of beauty marks, moles, freckles, and what they tell us. It is fascinating! 🙂
At any rate, Adahlia has two blackish-brown freckles on her scalp over her left ear hidden by her hair. They are on the gallbladder channel — not surprising at all to me (though that probably is baffling to anyone who doesn’t know much about gallbladder energy, where it sits energetically in the seasonal/clock cycle, or its connection to the marrow, but that’s okay. And oh, that’s right… DBA is considered a bone marrow failure disorder. Would it surprise you to know that the brain is considered the Sea of Marrow?) Those two little fellas received two needles each. She didn’t stir, so I continued to do acupuncture: some points in her ears, some on her scalp, some at key points on her Du Mai (Governing Vessel). I added in some acupressure point stimulators at other key points for marrow and blood and did some reiki.
And she’s still passed out. (That’s why I’m writing this.)
Adahlia is almost four years old now. Naps such as these are rare when she’s not anemic, and she just received a blood transfusion last week, but I don’t think she sleeping because of a growth spurt.
I think she is sleeping because she is healing.
We are in the process of a great integrative medicine experiment. Now of course, we’ve been working in an integrative medicine fashion since she was born. But recently, I’ve really stepped it up. I dove in. I decided it was now or never, read and researched everything I could get my hands on from the GAPS to the SCD to the paleo- to the autoimmune to no-sugar diet, and created a diet of our own.
When we first started this experiment nearly 9 weeks ago, Adahlia went from never napping to napping nearly every day. One day during the first two weeks, she napped twice for a total of five hours. And yet, she was not doing worse in terms of anemia – she actually went 5 weeks between transfusions.
In many very important ways, she is doing better than ever before:
Adahlia sleeps more deeply now at night, not shallow or fitfully. She has fewer nightmares. Now, she usually reports no dreams at all or she says something like this: “I took a deep breath and dived down, down, down into the ocean with a mama and baby sea turtle and held the mamas shell and then we came up and took a breath together!”
Her liver enzymes are both completely within normal range and have stayed in normal range for the 8+ weeks. Is it important that her liver is no longer leaking the enzymes it releases when it is under stress or falling apart on a cellular level? Um, YES.
Her ferritin is down to 320 ng/mL — a HUGE drop from 660, which is where is was approximately 8 weeks ago. In the past, the lowest Adahlia’s ferretin has ever been was the mid-500s, and every time we’d seen it drop below 600, it would rise again to the mid-700s or higher the very next month. Yet now it is steadily dropping. We have broken through some sort of plateau.
Now, typically in DBA we read ferretin as a measure of iron overload, but it also is a marker for viral infection and inflammation. And in this case, I have a strong suspicion that the drop in ferretin is not just iron. I believe what we are seeing is a massive drop in systemic inflammation. This is HUGE. Why? Because systemic inflammation is implicated in nearly every chronic, complex, life-ending disorder.
Overall, Adahlia’s digestion is better — her belly rarely hurts after eating and she doesn’t lift her shirt anymore to put her belly against the cold tile floor or cool bed pillows, saying, “my belly is hot.” Suddenly, now, she’s an eater. In a mere 2 months, my former super-picky eater now eats beef. It’s shocking. She eats meatloaf. Quiche loaded with spinach, basil, garlic, bacon, and random vegetables. She’ll come running to eat the salted bone marrow from the stock of broth that’s been on the stove for the last 48 hours. And she eats right up to and through her anemia and transfusion, when she used to refuse food about a week prior to being due for transfusion.
She’s also less moody. Yes, she’s still a toddler. But she’s less “crazed.” She’s definitely happier and more bubbly. It is kind of hard to describe because it is a bit intangible, but it is like she is being driven less and is driving more. Make sense?
And the biggest clincher? Adahlia has gotten SOLID. Yes, I mean as in, “she’s a brick house… she’s mighty-mighty…”
Now, don’t get me wrong. Adahlia isn’t chubby. Never has been. Except for right before she was first admitted to the hospital, (at 6 weeks old, when she was severely anemic and at approx the 30th percentile for weight-for-height and she rebounded almost immediately once she received blood,) she has maintained almost exactly the 50th percentile for weight-for-height since birth.
Guess where she is now? Nearly the 80th.
That’s right. In just over 8 weeks, she jumped from the 50th to the 80th percentile. We’ve measured her twice in that time and her weight-for-height has only climbed. She’s stronger and more solid than ever before.
This is HUGE.
Would you be surprised to learn that DBA children often have muscle tone and muscle weakness issues? I wasn’t.
This is amazing!! you say. Does what you are doing make sense?
Yes. It makes sense from both Eastern and Western medical philosophies and perspectives. It makes sense from oriental, natural, and conventional medical treatment approaches. It combines the wisdom and medical contributions of intellectual, scientific, meditative, holy, and intuitive doctors, medical pioneers, and masters.
How exciting! What does this mean?
I don’t know yet. Theoretically, it could mean I’ve found a key on the path of reversing the pathology that has lead to her DBA. It may mean that one day she will begin producing her own red blood cells again. Then again, it may not. I don’t know. She is not yet retic’ing. Time will tell.
But at the very least, I have a child who is stronger physically, mentally, and emotionally.
I’ll take that.