My birthday hike

We hiked up the river to the beautiful Cedar Grove. Here we are at the entrance, exiting the forest. My two kids, the neighbor kids, and me :) behind the camera. I love this spot where the air shifts from a loamy cool to a sweet warm syrup.
We stopped to gaze at a spider.
We stopped at the wishing tree.
I stayed behind to watch a grasshopper sing with it's wings.

The Grandmother Cedars were stunning as always, whispering stories of the ancients.
The water was refreshing and clear, renewing my spirit.
Little spikes of blue flowers cooled the hot meadow. Lobelia of some kind?

The Blue Cohosh has set out berries.
I watched the butterflies dip deep into the Bee Balm.
I harvested some, as well as some Yarrow flowers.
I watched my girl lead the pack into the water. She's a river girl too.
I love the butterfly weed.

the turkey tails on this old log were florescent green!
I got my (blurry) photo taken on a rock.
I discovered a mini-monarda Mountain Mint I hadn't known before. Adorable!

And.... I took over 150 photos. :)

..... it's not over yet, I'm headed up feather path to horsetail mountain now ... where the black raspberries grow. yum! so far it's a good summer b-day.

I Have Sciatica Why Are You Grabbing My Foot

It is 5 am in Badwater, CA. There are approximately 100 runners toeing the chalked line. There is 135 miles, over 10,000 ft in elevation gain and 120 degree heat under the Death Valley sun between them and the finish line. I see my runner crossing the horizon towards our support car, his stride looks shortened, but smooth for mile 60. Over the next 75 miles we take turns passing off race essentials. At 4 am, as a team, we cross the finish line at Whitney Portal.

So how did this journey begin?

From the moment I met him I could hear the “thud”. It was the sound that his foot made as it he walked through the clinic.  He tells me he is a runner, but not just a runner, but he is running in the Badwater Ultramarathon in July. 135 miles of “thudding” into the ground! To bring the pressure up a notch, this is going to be his 11th consecutive finish. As I watched him move and walk, I can't stop focusing on the stiffness of his foot which is causing the "thud". But how do I explain his lack of foot mobility is contributing to what he is actually coming to see me for… SCIATICA?

What is Sciatica?

Sciatica is a general term used to describe inflammation of the sciatic nerve or nerve roots which comprise it. Sciatica can be caused by a disc injury or stenosis (narrowing of spaces of the spine), which puts pressure on the nerve roots. When our foot hits the ground force is transferred up the leg and into our lower back. Our foot is designed to pronate upon impact to allow for shock absorption.  The bony anatomy of our foot and ankle causes a biomechanical chain reaction. This generates a rotation in the leg then into the pelvis which helps to recruit the gluteals to provide the stability of the back. However, if the foot remains supinated, ground reaction force is transferred into the spine instead of being absorbed through the foot and leg. When the mobility of the foot is limited, the lower back is forced to move more to compensate for the lack of motion. The increase motion of the back decreases the amount of space the nerve has to pass through the spine.

When the foot pronates it causes a rotation up the leg which
helps to dissipate force and maintain good motion of the back.

When the foot remains supinated the foot remains rigid forcing
the back to rotate more which decreases space for the nerves.

To improve his foot mobility I begin to facilitate pronation of his foot. IT worked! His sciatic pain decreased.  I worked on it some more and his pain was gone! He was able to walk and jog in the clinic without his symptoms. 

From the moment I helped his foot become more supple and pronate, his sciatic pain got better.

So when you foot hits the ground: is it supple (pronated) or rigid (supinated)?

             

You can even see from the pictures above the difference in the position of the pelvis.

Techniques

Mobility

The technique is performed to increase mobility of the foot to reduce stress to the lumbar spine. This will help minimize your risk of sciatica. Stenosis is narrowing of the canal in which the nerves exit the spine. If you have a herniated disc, this is NOT a technique for you.

For forefoot runners, it is also important to have a mobile foot. The motion of supination and pronation occurs in the forefoot instead of the mid and rear foot.

Strengthening
After mobilizing the foot, it is important to retrain the muscles and joints in this new motion. This allows the newly acquired motion to be recognized as a movement path. If your body doesn't use this motion, the foot and ankle will become stiff again.

Here are examples of exercises which use the muscles and joints in all 3 planes of motion to retrain the body.

Please consult with a health care professional prior to performing these exercises. If it increases your pain, STOP!

My River

I love this river. It is sacred water to me. Ever flowing, each morning I look out my window to greet her. Swelling with the fall of spring tears and receding with the summer heat, she is incredible to me. Magickal and alive. Making moist soil for hundreds of feet around her, wetting the feet of all my plant allies. Cooling our spirits and washing away worries, this river is a deep friend.

The water element is respected and honored in every energetic and religious system around the world and throughout history. She is known for her adaptability and force. Her powers of regeneration and birth are common sense, but nonetheless, nothing to be careless with. She nourishes our Earth's body and our own. She reflects the pull of the female spirals ... waxing and waning with each Moonlit sky. She quenches our need for depth, self-perception, dreams, and the mysterious. She teaches respect for the female - lashing out angrily at the overly yang destruction of our planet, resulting in horrific storms and resentful waves. She teaches us to honor our mother and to honor our own bodies.

Last year at the Women's Herbal Conference, I had the pleasure of attending classes and an intensive with an extraordinary woman Shaman from Ecuador. Her name is Rocio ..... and she spoke with clear reverence for the naturally occurring hot springs in her native Jungle, which she called "Pogyos" or sacred waters. These waters are sought out to cleanse - (and I use this word carefully as in the effect of being reborn or dissolving energies no longer serving us) our souls and to restore homeostasis of the physical body. As we know, natural hot springs are a well of minerals that heal, sulphur, maganese, iron, etc, which can remove a variety of ailments, everything from arthritis to acne to chronic fatigue.

But they do not just look at a map, walk there, and jump in. They have no map. They intuit the way there, and conduct extensive prayer and ceremony before even daring to touch the water. They introduce themselves, offer gifts and special oblations, prayer, and ask humble permission to enter and receive healing. Only when they are certain they have offered sufficiently and received permission do they enter. Should they fail this process, they will fall terribly ill in punishment or at the very least, get nothing in the way of healing or rejuvenation.

My river is a sort of Pogyo for me and my family. Although it is not a hot spring, it is certain magic. It hosts Swan, Mallards and Great Blue Heron, Red Cedar Trees, Wild mint, and hundreds more plants..... and it flows through protected land, so remains quite untainted and full of life force.

There are days when the sun is glinting so bright on the water's skin that I swear the fairies were unable to resist, and have exploded out from hiding for an exalted day of water dancing and celebratory splashing.

I Hate Christmas Thats My Truth

December 3, 2012

Dear Diary,

I hate Christmas.

I hate the lights, the fake cinnamon smells they blast at the store entrances, I hate the pressure, I hate the deadlines. 

I hate the feeling of a monumental annual failure. I hate the sugar overload, the ugly colored cookies, and the snow.

I especially hate the songs. Every last tinny jingle.

That's my truth. 

This is not an inspiring post,

or a post that suggests you should feel any other way than you do.

It's a post that is about truth.

Unedited, radical, shameless truth.

I hate Christmas.

And it's ok if you do, too. Or not.

This year, while I know I must and will go along and try to make some things go well for my family and I, I wish for myself a place of solace on Solstice. 

I ask for a bonfire, ceremony, special people, hot tea with strong herbs, and a moment of magickal stillness in the newborn sunrays.

I wish for a moment of intimacy with nature. A moment to say thank you. A moment to touch the moss and smell the bark. To put acorns in my pocket.

I wish for a chance to model truth and simple spiritual connection for my children.

My hope for you is that you dare to ask for what you really want.

Love,

Ananda

When Unqualified Government Affects My Neuropathic Pain Relief

Today's post from painnewsnetwork.org (see link below) looks at the current medication abuse debate from a slightly different angle. It seems that government itself (at least in the States) is ganging up on chronic pain sufferers who rightly receive strong drugs to control their symptoms. US senators claim in a recent letter that patients get their pain-relieving drugs far too easily in hospitals, thus by definition laying the blame on the patients themselves rather than the prescribing doctors, who's job remember, is to treat patients' complaints. What is going on in the States? If it's true that there's a prescription drug crisis leading to addiction, criminality and turning the whole nation into slavering junkies, then what role do the doctors have to play in this and why aren't they arguing their case that chronic pain is a feature of our age and they have to treat it with the best means available? Because that is the case. It will be a tiny minority of health professionals who give out too many opioids and fail to maintain close observation of their patients; the vast majority prescribe drugs according to the severity of the complaint. So what's behind the current hysteria and daily headlines of a drug-addicted populations trawling the internet for criminal drugs? Can it really be money? We know that health costs are spiralling out of control and in this sort of crisis, the first reaction is to look for a scapegoat. As patients, we also know that the real problem lies with the greed of pharmaceutical companies who are stretching health budgets to snapping point by continually hiking up the price of their drugs but nobody in government dares take them on. As a result of these and other pressures, it's very easy to pick out one group of easy targets and take the spotlight away from what the real problem is. This article concentrates on the current opioid argument and features the genuine patients who are suffering as a result. Worth a read.

Senators Seek to Silence Pain Patients 
By Pat Anson, Editor February 10, 2016

We’ve run several columns recently about the poor quality of pain care in hospitals and how many pain sufferers are treated as drug seeking addicts. Emily Ulrich’s column about her mistreatment in hospitals (“The Danger of Treating ER Patients as Drug Seekers”) really hit a nerve, generating hundreds of comments on our website and Facebook page from readers who shared their own hospital horror stories.

This makes a recent letter from over half the U.S. Senate all the more striking, because it seeks to silence hospital patients who are unhappy about their pain care.

In the letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and 25 of her colleagues claim that many pain sufferers get opioid pain relievers far too easily in hospitals.

“For millions of patients who are suffering from illness or injury, prompt delivery of pain control which may or may not include opioid pain relievers is proper and humane,” the letter states. “Yet inappropriate use of opioid pain relievers does not provide any clinical benefit and may actually pose a risk of harm. The evidence suggests that physicians may feel compelled to prescribe opioid pain relievers in order to improve hospital performance on quality measures.”

At issue is a Medicare funding formula that requires hospitals to prove they provide quality care through patient satisfaction surveys. The formula rewards hospitals that provide good care and are rated highly by patients, while penalizing those who do not.
 
Collins and her colleagues asked Burwell for a “robust examination” of the patient surveys – and strongly suggested that questions about pain management be eliminated. The Medicare survey has 32 questions for patients asking about their hospital experience, including two that deal specifically with pain management.

“Currently, there is no objective diagnostic method that can validate or quantify pain. Development of such a measure would surely be a worthwhile endeavor,” the letter says. “In the meantime, however, we are concerned that the current evaluation system may inappropriately penalize hospitals and pressure physicians who, in the exercise of medical judgment, opt to limit opioid pain relievers to certain patients and instead reward those who prescribe opioids more frequently.”

Some doctors agree with that sentiment.

“I’ve just had conversations with several physicians in the last week and they were saying they felt pressured by patient satisfaction surveys,” Andrew MacLean, deputy executive vice president and general counsel of the Maine Medical Association, told the Portland Press Herald. “This type of inquiry would be helpful and we applaud the senator’s efforts.”

More people suffer from chronic pain than heart disease, diabetes and cancer combined, and pain is a major reason why people even seek admission to a hospital; so the senators are proposing that the opinions of a large number of hospital patients be ignored, not that it isn't happening already. Pain patients often tell us they go without appropriate pain treatment in hospitals because they are quickly labeled as drug seekers. Some have horrific stories of mistreatment.

“My sister had Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS/RSD), went to 3 different hospitals was treated the same way. Finally she got a doctor that did his job, only to find out she had stage 4 cancer. She died less than 2 months from the time she got diagnosed,” wrote Melissa.

“My 13 year old daughter went in with chest pain and they told me she was having an anxiety attack. They did nothing. Two days later we found out from the children's hospital that she had a hole in her heart and could have died. ER doctors are the absolute dumbest, cruelest people I have ever met,” said Shannon.

“I used to work in an ER. Patient came in with tremors, talked of pain. She was quickly diagnosed as a pregnant drug addict who received no care and was sent home,” wrote another reader anonymously. “Two days later her husband brought her back demanding treatment. Doctor wanted to put her into rehab when she went into labor along with seizures. It wasn't drugs it was meningitis. She and the baby BOTH died.”

“I take Norco for chronic back pain. I go to the ER for a different medical issue and I get the looks and nothing to relieve my pain. I recently herniated a second disk in my back and was given nothing in the ER. I refuse to go to another one. If I am bleeding out or literally dying I don't know if I would go into another ER. All they do is judge because they can't feel my pain,” wrote Mistye Staten.

“Last time I was in the hospital and asked for medicine to control the pain I was told no. I said I at least wanted Ibuprofen and the nurse yelled at me to stop asking for narcotics,” said Amanda Hunt.

A recent study at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia found that the rate of opioid prescribing dropped by about a third, after tougher guidelines were adopted to discourage doctors from prescribing the drugs.

Only 13% of the doctors believe patients with legitimate reasons for opioids were denied appropriate care. A large majority – 84% of the doctors -- disagreed or strongly disagreed that patients were denied appropriate pain relief. Ironically, the researchers did not ask any pain patients what they thought about their hospital care.

http://www.painnewsnetwork.org/stories/2016/2/10/by6zy0jfl3gd41mp6zxh2aiex41lh5