Wednesday 2 February 2011

Touch Talks

I went for a massage tonight.

I went last month and that was the first time since I had been badly ill months and months before. Despite the gap in time, the lympathic was not painful and it seemed my body had been doing well. Except my ankle, which is what drove me back, that was out of alignment and needed putting back....

This time I knew it would be different - my IBS had flared up and the lurking virus. And it hurt, my word it hurt! But by the end, my stomach had deflated and I could feel things were happier.

Going to her has helped me understand that bodies need to be touched and manipulated in order to deal with aches and pains. Left un-tended they turn in to huge problems. People live with the lingering affects of accidents and they don't have to...

So now when I go, I tell her where every little twinge is and then they go away. The pain in my back - twisting my upper body while sat at my desk and reaching at the same time. The niggle in my elbow - excessive computer time and mouse clicking. Then they go away. Sometimes, she shows me some stretches to help avoid future problems. Sometimes I use them to, when i can feel a problem brewing.

At the end though, she turned to me and said that she wished she could get me the tests I need, the sympathetic medical practitioner I require to find out what is wrong with me. My body sends little messages, all is not well, but I don't know how to find out what it is that is wrong. One day, I am going to cost the NHS a lot of money. I am heading towards so many health problems. And they themselves will be mere symptoms of some subtle unhappiness in my body.

Maybe one day I will be rich and able to afford to go private.....

But why can's Doctor's touch injuries? Surely touch is important in diagnosis? Why are there no answers? Why do scientists and medical practitoners care about finding answers for me? Why can I not find them myself?

2 comments:

mel said...

it's too bad that medical care tends to be so exclusionary -- one discipline not communicating with the other. if people were truly treated holistically...then ALL evidence and diagnostic tools would be used together.

as it is..it's mostly a pissing contest.

((((Hugs))) be well with yourself...you're the only you we've got!!

xoxoxo

Rose said...

I know.... as if a Doctor would listen to a Sports masseuse about anything other than muscles and tendons and ligaments and bones.....

I am well, i have lived with illness for so long, not that many would see me as ill, it nibbles at me. But I am also a fairly pragmatic sort of a person and I know that one day, ignoring all this is going to leave me pretty ill, and still the Doctor's won't get to the root cause, they will just treat each symptom....

*hugs*