Positive Health Online

Treatment for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?

A little while ago you published a letter from a person wanting help/dietary advice, etc for her son who had severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. There are lots of diets written about in books and articles for schizophrenia and autism, but I have never seen anything written about the treatment of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. If you did have any replies in response to that reader's enquiry, I would be very grateful if you could send me some information if you still have it available.
Thanking you for any help you can give.

Name and address supplied

Fractal Acupuncture

I have just read Dr Zude Ye and Zoe Desmond's article on Fractal Acupuncture .

Through work I am doing, encouraging children's creative dreams, I met Zoe and Dr Ye at The Waters Edge Natural Health Centre, New Brighton, near Liverpool in January. Dr Ye gave me a consultation and showed me how to treat myself. Whilst I have been a very responsive patient of traditional Chinese acupuncture for sixteen years, I do have to say that the Fractal method invented by Dr Ye has made a huge impact upon me. Not only physically.

His method allows a huge step forward in positive relationships. What Dr Ye advocates is the handing-over of needles and entire on-going treatments, "for the rest of your life", as he told me. In this process he is trusting the patient and as the article says, giving us a responsibility towards ourselves. The healing ability of that trust could never be measured.

Margie McGregor
margie@creative-inspirations.co.uk

What are the priorities in medical research?

Two years ago this month Grampian Television presented a programme called, 'One in a Million' in which the role of Support Dogs in Epilepsy was featured. The dogs were able, we were informed, to predict and warn their owner in advance of grand mal seizures.

I was particularly interested in this subject and the role of the dog as, a year prior to this I had been researching and developing a skill which, I believe, emulated the skill of the dog and, of greater importance it could be taught to family, friends and carers of epilepsy sufferers.

It was several weeks before I was able to speak directly to Val Strong of Support Dogs; however in the meantime I had contacted various national epilepsy organizations who declared a keen interest in my work and the possibilities of a major breakthrough.

Research organizations were less keen with not one replying to my communications which requested only an opportunity to test my skills. I had made no requests for funding, grant aid, or to have it taken on as a project in lieu of something else already being researched.

My skill either works or it doesn't, and the research establishments had a god-sent opportunity to send me away with 'egg on my face' if it didn't.

If it did work it would constitute a major breakthrough in the field of preventative action with regard to injuries sustained as a result of grand mal seizures.

I felt that the swiftest and most efficient way to test my skill was to spend a week with a working Support dog in co-operation with an epileptic client. Although I only asked Miss Strong to approach her clients and ask for a volunteer, I was advised that this was a breach of confidentiality and finally Miss Strong suggested acting on my behalf and approaching the Medical Ethics Board with my request and she would then contact me with the decision of the board.

After several months of silence I contacted Miss Strong again, who after talking around the subject for some time, when pressed, advised me that the Medical Ethics Board had rejected my request for the names and addresses of clients as it constituted a breach of confidentiality.

This was not what I had requested, clearly laid out in black and white. I had not received either a copy of the request presented by Miss Strong to the Board, or a copy of the decision reached by the Board!

As Medical Ethics Boards are dotted all over the country I asked Miss Strong which particular Board the request had been made to. The conversation came to an abrupt end as Miss Strong advised me that she was not going to give me any more information.

Is medical research so far advanced that it can dismiss out of hand a possible breakthrough or are there other issues at stake? How many other opportunities have been missed in this way? What are the priorities, the clients they are supposed to working on behalf of, or prestige or funding? Obviously not the first option which should be the sole object of the exercise. Considering that the role I was suggesting would be in an area not covered by the Support dogs where was the threat to their project?

In the two years that have now passed how much help has been lost how many opportunities missed, how many accidents could have been prevented?

As my skills have continued to develop, the word has spread to the continent where I have now been invited to teach them. There is also the real possibility that developments in my work may now shed some light on the internal responses of coma victims which are, to date something of a mystery.

My interest lies only in results by which any skill stands or fails, and I am not interested in the magical and the mysterious unless it has a purpose. I also like to understand how it works and whether it can be taught to anyone else. In the case of my own work, yes, it can, and is being taught!

On the second anniversary of the programme which portrayed the good work of Support Dogs I wonder how many other people have skills which may be of use to the medical profession, and, for various reasons are not being given the chance to put them to the test.

Because something is unusual, it doesn't mean that one can take it for granted that it won't work. Or is there a larger issue to take into consideration here?

Are funding and prestige taking priority over care and development? And is prejudice to remain a stumbling block in the continuous search for excellence and advancement in a profession, conventional or complementary, for which there is no substitute?

We cannot turn back the clock, but we can reappraise our priorities.

I believe that the time for this is well overdue.

Yours sincerely
Michael JR Webster
Waveform 2000, P0 Box 5608,
Inverness IV2 4WP
Tel: 01389 742664

Vitamin & Health Supplement Restriction

The letter 'Vitamin & Health supplement restriction' in April's Positive Health, informed readers of an EU Directive which is being prepared on health supplements. I am glad to say that with the support of magazines such as yours, many British MEPs now want us to be able to continue to buy vitamins in useful amounts.

However, some EU countries still want restrictions and reference to Recommended Daily Allowances (RDAs). These are tiny, almost useless amounts, which are only enough to prevent serious deficiency diseases such as scurvy. Many people are short of vitamins and minerals because of chemical faming and de-natured food.

Vitamins are proven over 1,000 times safer than prescribed pharmaceutical drugs. Side-effects from prescribed medical drugs is now the 4th most common cause of death in the UK.

How can the EU allow cigarettes and alcohol, which kill thousands, to be freely on sale, yet restrict health supplements! Perhaps vested interests don't want us to be able to help ourselves with natural remedies?

Consumers for Health Choice want concerned readers who know anyone in an EU country to ask them to contact their political representatives and MEP in their country to press for freedom of choice in variety and dosage of supplements, ie. not the useless RDAs.

Details from Consumers for Health Choice, 9 Old Queen Street SW1H 9JA (sae) Tel: 020-7222 4182.

Best Wishes
A Wells