Skin Ailments
Pinky’s three young children make her itch—stress inflames her chronic eczema. Will bio-energy healing and meditation calm the flare-ups? Swimsuit model Victoria is desperate to deal with her dermal dilemma—white patches caused by vitiligo. Can acupuncture and herbal Chinese remedies actually restore colour to her skin, or will her herbal homework prove too hard to swallow?
Seeking a remedy are:
Pinky, a stay at home mother of three daughters (7, 4, and 9 months old), who has had eczema all her life. The rash comes and goes, but the itching is constant. It shows up in patches around her body, including on her arms and face. It flared badly when she had her first child and has gotten worse with each pregnancy. It also flares up when she is stressed. She has been to GPs, allergists, and dermatologists who suggested medication, but she doesn’t want to go that route. She currently uses steroid cream, drinks a lot of water, avoids coffee (which she loves) and takes Benedryl at night. She knows how to control it, but it still persists, gets worse when she is stressed, and is constantly itchy. Cleaning the house is an ordeal for her, as the dust and cleaning products aggravate her skin.
Not only does she want a solution for her problem, but her two oldest daughters have recently begun to show signs of having the same thing. Pinky wants to be “the guinea pig” to find a possible cure for her daughters’ eczema so they won’t have to experience what she has gone through with it.
Victoria, a special education assistant and competitive bikini model who suffers from vitiligo, a chronic skin condition that causes a loss of pigment, resulting in irregular pale patches of skin. The cause of this condition is not fully understood, but it could be a combination of autoimmune, genetic, and environmental factors. Stress may also be a factor. Victoria first noticed her vitiligo in 2003 while in Mexico on holiday; it has progressed since then—patches have appeared on her forehead, her eye, beside her mouth, and in a streak down the middle of her chest. She copes by covering it with expensive makeup. It makes it difficult to be a bikini model.
Victoria has seen a dermatologist but has had no success with the recommended treatments. She had some light therapy (which resulted in a serious burn, bubbling, and blistering), and has tried a psoriasis cream (to which she reacted badly.) Victoria is very concerned that the vitiligo will end her bikini modeling. She also gets nervous about having to reveal it to new boyfriends.
The CAM practitioners they consult are:
Michael D’Alton, Bio-Energy Healing (Jaymie’s practitioner) Michael D’Alton is the architect of D’Alton’s Bio-Energy Healing, which employs ancient Chinese and Indian principles for a dynamic, effective, and totally non-invasive approach to healing. Bio-energy healing involves a series of hand movements (that look somewhat like Tai Chi movements) around the client’s body. The practitioner’s movements work on the body’s energy field, which is like a blueprint of our health. If energy is flowing freely in the body, then our natural state is to be healthy. But due to stress and problematic thoughts and feelings, we hold energy blockages in our system. Michael works directly with the body’s energy field in order to get his clients’ focus back to their internal body so that it can heal itself.
Michael’s background is in mechanical engineering, but he suffered from eczema and asthma and received a bio-energy treatment that changed his life. It worked so well that he left his career and became a bio-energy expert. For over a decade he has taught and practiced bio-energy healing; he has led clinics in Dublin, Edinburgh, and London, and conducted treatment sessions in The Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Spain.
Padma, Meditation (Pinky’s practitioner) Padma is one of Canada's leading teachers of meditation and yoga. She devoted herself to eight years of full-time study of meditation in the Himalayas of India, and has practiced yoga for over twenty years. She spent two years in Japan studying Zen Buddhism. She learned to read and master the original Sanskrit texts of meditation and yoga philosophy, and is authorized by the director of the International Meditation Institute of India to teach meditation and yoga philosophy.
Padma has developed a unique yoga meditation program that unites ancient eastern wisdom with modern western living. She hosts a daily national television series on meditation and yoga, Living Yoga with Padma, that she also developed and wrote, and has produced a DVD set of her own yoga meditation program. She is the former director of the Padma Yoga and Meditation Center in Vancouver, and was a board member of the Yoga Association of BC (YABC). She continues to write for the newsletter and consult YABC as a senior teacher. She does 10 – 12 one-on-one sessions each week, in addition to some classes. She also does meditation and office harmony for corporate clients as well as workshops on meditation and its philosophy.
Dr. Liang-Li Yu, Traditional Chinese Medicine (Victoria’s practitioner) Dr. Liang-Li Yu studied western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine in Beijing, China, where she practiced neurology at Tong Ren Hospital from 1983 to 1990. While treating patients with western medicine, she also used traditional Chinese methods such Chinese herbal and acupuncture treatments, and found these treatments to be very effective. She further studied traditional Chinese medicine and, after immigrating to Canada, began to practice traditional Chinese medicine in Surrey and White Rock, BC in 1996. She has successfully treated many patients with a variety of illnesses at her current clinic in White Rock.