Revival - A Holistic Approach to Better Health
Posted on 23rd January 2024 at 20:26
For a change, it’s not me doing the writing for this blog. This is a real-life story of a courageous person who has overcome incredibly tough health challenges, many of which have been stress related.
The reason I joined Revival Health and Wellbeing (a clinic in the village where I live) was because I knew the mind has a strong influence over the body – and spirit. I knew that working together with practitioners of physical health could massively increase the effectiveness of what I do. I wanted to be part of something which delivers better health and hope for those suffering – mentally or physically or both.
Read on to hear about this person’s journey for yourself, and you will see the difference it makes to a life which had been almost unbearable...
"I have been going to Claire for treatment for 3-4 years. She previously helped get me and my temperamental knee up a mountain in Borneo, with great success. However, at the beginning of 2023, I started on a treatment plan which without it would have left me practically house bound.
Severe stress resulted in me having to see a neurologist who diagnosed an over-stimulated nervous system. I had an array of symptoms and was suffering with almost daily migraines with loss of vision, muscle weakness, nerve pain in my neck, shoulders and hips and sensitivity to sound, light, and smells and I was trying to function on 3 hours sleep a night. Trying to go anywhere was almost impossible, everywhere I turned there was a trigger which set-off another migraine."
"At the same time the Neurologist told me scans had revealed a brain aneurysm, but it wasn’t affecting my symptoms, but it did add more stress. Being able to discuss this with Claire helped me so much, any questions I had were answered and these discussions provided me with questions to raise with the Neurosurgeon. Alongside visits to the Neurologist, I also had to visit an Eye Specialist, and unfortunately hypertension due to stress was so bad that it has burst a blood vessel in my eye. Sadly there is irreversible sight loss in that eye, and I now go for regular eye injections in the hope that it will stem the leaking.
In terms of the Nervous System diagnosis, I was lucky the Neurologist prescribed physiotherapy and acupuncture. Thankfully he wanted to avoid simply putting me on tablets. So, I picked up the phone to Claire and in early January 2023 started my first visit, on what continues to be a voyage of discovery."
"The advice and treatment I receive from Claire is as always first class. She explained that I would need regular treatments and that my body was stuck in a severe stress response, it took a long time to build-up to getting stuck, so it would take time and patience to unravel. This is where the multi-discipline approach at Revival Health came into its own.
Claire started with physiotherapy, this ensured proper function of my joints and muscles and allowed my brain the time to relearn how to move properly. I did my homework; exercised religiously and setup a daily timetable of all the things that would help me get better. We then moved onto incorporating acupuncture and this allowed my body and mind time to calm down and strengthen. There is a reason this form of treatment has been around for 1000’s of years - it really does work!"
"In parallel, one of the first recommendations from Claire was to see Alan of Rightmindfulness at the Revival Health and Wellbeing Centre, who started me on the path of learning the positive outcomes of doing a daily mindfulness practice. His approach and knowledge have been invaluable to my recovery and without it I would not have known how to deal with the sleepless nights, constant narrative in my head and complete exhaustion. My mind just needed some much-needed quiet time, something I’d forgotten how to do. I incorporated mindfulness into my daily timetable of activities and continue to do so every day. The power of stopping and taking a moment cannot be overestimated; it not only calmed my mind, but also slowly but surely relaxed the tension in my body."
"I knew that reversing the negative effects of stress would take time, so decided I would do all I could to give my body and mind the best care I could, so after discussing with Claire I decided to see Allison for Kinesiology and nutrition advice. I found the experience of kinesiology extremely insightful, and it works wonderfully with the principles of mindfulness and acupuncture. Allison guided me around the best supplements to support in my recovery, always approaching in the most cost-effective way possible. The addition of the supplements and Allison’s wealth of knowledge has helped me enormously in my recovery and given my system the boost it needed.
As my symptoms started to improve, I wanted to explore a gentle hands-on treatment to support the acupuncture and one that I can continue to have going forwards to maintain the calm and balance I have worked hard to achieve so far. Bowen Technique came up when I was researching something that could complement the other treatments and I found Carole Crowe a registered Bowen Therapist. On our first conversation I gave Carole an overview of my history and told her about the excellent support and treatment I am receiving from Revival Health, to find that Carole was also joining the multi-discipline team in October 2023.
I have since been receiving regular Bowen treatments with Carole and can honestly say it’s helped me so much. I alternate with acupuncture and am pleased to know that Claire and Carole maintain an open dialogue on my progress to ensure the best outcome for me. The Bowen treatment is gentle and very relaxing, I feel like I’ve had a full body massage afterwards and have a real spring in my step, and the sessions have continued to build on the excellent results I’ve had to date. Carole’s knowledge and guidance has been invaluable and compliments everything Claire and the team are working hard to achieve at Revival Health.
As you can imagine this has been a tough year with many downs, but these are by far outweighed by the many positive results I’ve had and I can’t thank Claire and the team enough for all their hard work, advice, and wealth of knowledge, without which I would be a very different person. I have learnt so much from a professional, compassionate team and am in a much happier, healthier place, so here’s to 2024!"
Tagged as: resilience, Revival Health & Wellbeing
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