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If you want to feel what a muscle is like when it’s relaxed, start by recognizing what it’s like when it’s tense. Probably the easiest muscles to tense and relax are the muscles in your hands, so that’s where we’ll start.

Relaxing your hands, arms and shoulders-Clench both your fists as hard as you can, holding them up in the air. Now you’re ready to relax. Keep up the tension in your hands as hard as you can while you take a deep breath through your nose, counting to three slowly. Now blow out your breath through your mouth as though you were blowing out three candles, set one behind the other in front of you. As you blow, release the tension and let your fists drop and your hands fall back on the bed (or the sofa, or the floor or wherever you are). It will be a great relief to be without all those tight sensations in your hands and wrists. Lie still and check that all the tight, aching feelings have gone or are going. If they’re still there after a couple of minutes, clench your fists again and repeat the process. Then get your friend to check how relaxed you are. A really relaxed hand is absolutely floppy. The fingers curl into a natural curve. If you are on your own, prop up a mirror so you can see yourself and check on the position of your hands. After a while, your hands, lying on the bed, will begin to feel quite heavy.

Now relax your arms. Lift your hands and arms off the bed and tense them right up to the shoulders. You will feel the tension in your elbows, which will seem to be trying to push their way through from the outside to the inside of your arms. You’ll probably ache along the inside of your upper arms, too, and across your shoulders. Take your deep breath, blow out your three candles and let all the tension in your arms go so that they drop back heavily onto the bed. If you’re really relaxed all the tight aching sensations should soon start to melt away. Get your friend to check that your arms are relaxed by gently lifting them up and supporting them with both hands. A relaxed arm is floppy and quite heavy to lift. Lie quietly and check that there isn’t any tight, uncomfortable feeling anywhere along the length of either arm.

At this stage, tackle your shoulders. Most of us hunch our shoulders just a little bit, most of the time. It’s a sure sign of tension, but we don’t usually recognize what we’re doing. If you now hunch your shoulders right up into your neck as far as you can, you’ll feel tension in the back of your neck, under your chin, and down your back along both shoulder blades. Once again take a deep breath, tensing your shoulders as much as you can, and then breathe out, blowing through your mouth. Let your shoulders drop as though your arms were falling out of their sockets. Now drop them a bit further still.

You might well find that you’re not comfortable on your pillows now, and you’ll need to get your friend to readjust them. You may need to wriggle around a little until you’re comfortable again. When you’re settled, check that your hands and arms and shoulders are still relaxed.

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In the mid-1950s, William Petersen came to me as a patient, complaining that eating a single commercial apple would cause him to have a severe headache. Petersen was fed on apples twice in my office after having avoided this food for a week, and on both occasions was struck with searing attacks of head pain. I naturally diagnosed him as allergic to apples.

Petersen was an inquisitive man, with a determination to understand why he reacted in the way he did. He lived in a nearby state which had a large fruit-producing belt. Upon returning home, working on a hunch, he slipped into an abandoned orchard and gathered some apples from the trees. These apples had not been sprayed or cared for in years. He picked about half a peck of sound ones and took them home. Surprisingly, he was able to eat these unsprayed, untreated apples with complete abandon: he ate three or four of them at a time, every day for a week. He had no headache or any other reaction whatsoever. He then reported the result of his experiment to me.

I therefore obtained my own source of unsprayed apples and tested Petersen on these in my office. Again, he had no reaction to unsprayed apples but responded with a severe headache to any commercial variety. Petersen went on to eat apples thereafter, provided he obtained them from uncontaminated sources. He didn’t have an apple allergy at all; he had something else, something which still did not have a name.

To extend this observation, in 1953 I obtained samples of apples sprayed with several major pesticides from the horticulture department of the College of Agriculture of the University of Illinois. By using these apples, as well as completely unsprayed and untreated ones, the problem of the “multiple fruit sensitivity” was finally worked out. The majority of the patients who reacted to these fruits were usually not allergic to fruit at all. What they were susceptibile to was the chemical pollution of fruit. The unsprayed fruit could be tolerated quite well, but the commercially available varieties, such as are obtained in supermarkets and fruit stores, caused chronic health problems such as arthritis, colitis, nervousness, and depression.

This observation raised a host of questions about health and sickness, questions which struck at the basis of much of Western technology.

How safe is our present chemical environment? To what extent does it contribute to chronic illness? How much do we know about the long-term effects of such by-products of “progress” as the chemical pollutants in the air of our homes and cities, chemical additives and contaminants in our foods, water, cosmetics, and drugs?

Supposedly these environmental chemicals had been tested and found safe.

However, there were serious questions to be asked about the validity of long-term toxicity studies carried out by government or industry. If only a minority of rats responded adversely to a chemical, were these results averaged out in the final report? What about the minority of people who are similarly afflicted? Were they being similarly ignored or lost in our statistical studies? These were important questions, since even if only one or two percent of the population were made chronically ill by daily exposure to such chemicals, this would still amount to two to four million people in the United States alone, enough to keep all our physicians busy for a long time. We doctors were the ones who had to deal with the unusual reactions, yet the medical profession seemed completely unaware of the potential danger.

Many of the chemicals in common use had become “profitable ventures” by the time anyone began to suspect that they were harmful. They thus became the focal point, individually and collectively, of defensive public relations operations by giant companies.

Indeed, some of the most troublesome chemical exposures have not been adequately described, and there is still no general knowledge of their potential hazards. The chief reason for this is that these materials have become integral parts of our current existence. Since they are so common, they are not usually suspected. Not being suspected, they are not usually avoided deliberately. Thus, not being eliminated either by chance or design, certain common chemical exposures remain unsuspected causes of chronic physical and “mental” illnesses.

There is an element of addiction to some of these chemicals, as well. Even though certain chemical exposures may be suspected of causing harm, avoidance is not only inconvenient, and sometimes expensive, but, because of the addictionlike responses that may be involved, sometimes the victims do not even wish to avoid exposure to the chemicals. Thus, understanding of this problem has been obstructed both by the constant nature of the chemical exposure and the self-perpetuation of the process.

I called this the chemical susceptibility problem, instead of the chemical allergy or sensitivity problem, to avoid prolonged and pointless debates over whether such small doses could cause classic allergic reactions. Whatever their name, such reactions were real and increasingly common, as many cases were to show.

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Colic is any cramp-like, recurring abdominal pain. Colic has a variety of causes and may occur at any age. Most often, however, people use the term to refer to colic that occurs in infants.

Infantile colic, or “three-month” colic, is a specific problem that bothers 10 to 20 percent of babies. Colic is far more common in bottle-fed babies than in breast-fed babies. Colic starts during the first few weeks of life and lasts one to six months (an average of three months).

Signs and symptoms

The signs of colic are seen in the typical behavior of colicky infants. A baby with colic cries for hours a day, particularly in the late afternoon and evening. The child pulls the legs up, clenches the fists, screams, and turns red. The child may feed briefly but soon stops feeding and returns to crying. Rocking and cuddling also stop the cries only briefly. In other respects, the infant is normal; the baby gains weight well, has normal bowel movements, and doesn’t spit up any more than most infants do.

A variation of this classical form of colic is the infant past two weeks of age who wakes frequently (every two hours or so), cries fretfully, takes one to two ounces of formula or a few minutes at the mother’s breast, falls into a fitful sleep, and wakens later to repeat this pattern.

Home care

First check for obvious causes of crying and discomfort other than colic. Look for diarrhea or constipation; loose nappy pins; severe nappy rash; a trapped arm or leg; whether the baby is too hot or too cold; or signs of illness – fever, nasal discharge, cough, reddened eyes, vomiting, hernia (a lump in the groin), or sores on the body. See whether your baby responds promptly to talking and cuddling and remains comfortable. A baby in pain can be distracted, but only temporarily. If breast-feeding, check that the mother’s nipples are not bleeding. Swallowed blood causes cramps. If a breast-feeding mother drinks too much cow’s milk, this can also cause cramps in the infant.

Offer your baby a feeding. If your baby drinks generously and falls asleep comfortably for several hours, the child was hungry, not colicky. Keep the baby partially upright in an infant carrier between feedings to be sure the baby is not regurgitating food in the oesophagus.

If colic still seems likely, applying gentle heat to the abdomen temporarily relieves the pain. First place a cloth nappy over the infant’s abdomen. Then place a heating pad (turned to “low”) on top of the nappy. Giving the child a pacifier may help. Also try inserting a glycerin suppository or lubricated thermometer to induce a bowel movement.

Precautions

• Make sure the formula is properly prepared.

• When bottle-feeding your baby, be sure that the nipple is kept full; this keeps your baby from swallowing too much air.

• Make sure the bottle’s nipple hole is large enough so that the baby can finish feeding in a reasonable time.

• Carefully burp the baby in different positions after each feeding.

Medical treatment

Your doctor will check for signs of illness, such as sores in the mouth or urinary tract problems. A urinalysis may be ordered. Your doctor also may recommend a change in formula to investigate the possibility that the child is allergic to the formula. A breast-feeding mother may need to eliminate all milk products from her diet to see if this is what is affecting her child. The doctor may also temporarily stop any solids already started to determine if the child may be allergic to certain foods.

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