So, I’ve decided, with a little cajoling from a friend, to resuscitate my blog.  My poor blog has been lying dormant and now it’s time to blow off the dust and restore some dignity.

I thought long and hard about what shape this blog should take. As an osteopath, should I just be writing about osteopathy?  As a doula, do I get to include thoughts about childbirth and labour? Should I be strict about keeping it a professional page, because I am also a mother and a wife, a friend, a daughter and a sister, too. Should these important parts of my life be excluded?

Osteopathy is about wholeness and ‘seeing the whole’: treating the whole. It is a lifestyle perspective, much like yoga is, so I decided ‘the wholeness’ of me could be explored in this blog.  The wholeness of Osteopathy includes everything I do. I cannot stop being an osteopath once I step from the confines of my clinic so, surely this blog can include ‘parts of the whole’.

I guess I am a philosopher at heart because I find relaying, for instance, the mechanics of a rotator cuff injury, or how the sciatic nerve runs down underneath your piriformis to supply your leg, a little dry. I’d much rather discuss how discomfort or pain changes your personality or impacts the way you live your life. Or, if you feel there is a psycho-social aspect to your pain/injury or maybe, even an old pattern learned as a pre-verbal tiny person, that could be understood within the context of your dis-ability.

You can find reams of websites, blogs and you-tube clips that will take you through the mechanics of injury and the anatomy of pain. I think I will leave that sort of information to those who love to write about it. 

I just wanted to let you know, today, that my blog is back. I feel like she will have the opportunity to morph into an interesting place for you to visit.  I have cleaned have cleaned her proverbial carpets and thrown open the shutters.

I look forward to sharing with you. And a little nervous. Please don’t  be too judgey! 

I think this is a great way to change the way you think about food.

From the bestselling author of The Omnivore's Dilemma comes In Defence of Food and the Omnivore's Solution for a new way of eating in the New Year...:

1: Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognise as food

2: Avoid foods containing ingredients you can't pronounce

3: Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot

4: Avoid food products that carry health claims

5: Shop the peripheries of the supermarket; stay out of the middle

6: Better yet, buy your food somewhere else: farmers' markets or the CSA

7: Pay more, eat less

8: Eat a wide diversity of species

9: Eat food from animals that eat grass

10: Cook and, if you can, grow some of your own food

11: Eat meals and eat them only at tables

12: Eat deliberately, with other people whenever possible, and always with pleasure

There has been a lot in the press of late about depression and whether the best way to tackle such a difficult problem is to reach for the anti-depressants. They are not aways as effective as we would like them to be. In What Doctors Don't Tell You, a magazine published by Lynne McTaggart and Brian Hubbard, they have itemised a list of alternative ways to treating depression. In the November issue, they highlight the fact that the serotonin theory was never actually proven. This feels alarming but, sadly, not all that surprising. What I like about this article is how they have mentioned other ways  to think about treating depression. In their research, they uncovered these things:  One in five sufferers of chronic depression were also found to have and under active thyroid. This is easy to check. Take your armpit temperature for 10 minutes first thing on waking. If it is consistently below the norm (36.6-37C), go and have your thryoid checked. Low blood sugar can happen if you eat alot of processed and sugary foods. Your blood sugar will yo-yo up and down as your body tries to regulate the sugar levels with insulin. Reducing sweet and starchy foods and replacing them with whole foods and natural unprocessed foods may help in lifting your depression. Low levels of vitamin D has been linked to depression; a relatively easy thing to remedy by visiting your local nutritionist. Mouldy, damp environments appear to be linked to depression, as well as allergies either to certain foods or allergies like hayfever. They also mention Coeliac Disease, irritable bowel disease and belly fat (the tendency to put weight on around the middle) can all be triggers for depression.  To me, these are all diseases that can be reduced in severity by a good nutritional turn around.  We need to start listening to our bodies.  We would never dream of putting diesel in our petrol run car, but we expect no complaints from our body when we put the wrong fuel in!

www.wddty.com  What Doctors Don't Tell You, November issue, page 29

For years, I used a teaspoon or two of honey as a natural cough medicine for my children. It aways seemed to soothe them enough to allow them to fall to sleep and it prevented me from having to use a synthetically formulated over-the-counter cough suppressant.  Well, now I feel vindicated for my madness. A double-blind randomised placebo controlled study was published in Pediatrics, 6 August 2012 showing a significant improvement in symptoms using honey as a cough suppressant over dextromethorphan or nothing at all.

There are, however, warnings published about using honey for the under ones for fear of Infantile Botulism which is a rare but real threat if the honey is contaminated.

So here is what I used to do when the children were small. I cannot remember where I even read about this but it always appeared to do the trick. I would soak half an onion in a bowl of local honey overnight. In the morning, I would strain the onion out and then, the onion-tainted honey would be used as a natural cough medicine. It tasted horrible but reduced the cough!

According to an article in Scientific American this month (June 2012), the bacteria that live in and on us are actually vital components to our complex  human ecosystem. They are involved in many of our basic physiological processes, from synthesizing enzymes in order to make vitamins to being a crucial player in keeping the immune system in balance.

Far from being horrible invaders that we need to keep at bay, there are ten times more bacterial cells in our body than there are human cells! And we need our bacteria!! There is a delicate choreography between our physiology and its interaction with bacteria and overuse of antibiotics can disturb this. This article uses H. pylori as an example. H pylori is a bacteria in the gut thought to be the cause of gastric ulcers.  Treated with strong antibiotics over weeks, H. pylori would be eradicated from the gut and the ulcers would heal. However, new research suggests that H. pylori plays a key role in helping the body regulate appetite and, once it is reduced to negligent quantities in the gut, the hormone cascade that is supposed to tell you when you have had enough to eat is disrupted.  This paper suggests that this could be one of the causes of the dramatic rise in obesity. Several generations ago, eighty percent of Americans happily harboured H. pylori but now, the number of American children who test positive for it is less than six percent! So, there are no more little gremlin bacteria shouting, "Stop eating! You have had enough!" Adding to this picture, is the multiple rounds of antibiotics children get as they are growing up. The scientists think that this may be upsetting the delicate balance of bacteria needed in the gut to help cells differentiate into different kinds.  If there is an imbalance in the bacteria of the gut, this may be interfering with normal cellular signalling and leading to the overproduction of fat cells.

This is only one example of how upsetting the proverbial bacterial apple-cart can wreak havoc in the gut! I'm betting they will find this scenario in all body systems  - from the skin to the cardio-vascular system.

So, love your bacteria! They are keeping you healthy!!

(photo from EPA). To read the full article: Ackerman J. (June 2012) The Ultimate Social Network. Scientific American. vol 306-6 pp. 22-27.