Reflexology Foot Chart

Romney’s MS Scare Highlights Variable, Unpredictable Disease

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, left, stands with wife Ann as they arrive to speak at a town hall, in Youngstown, Ohio, March 5, 2012. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

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By CARRIE GANN (@carrie_gann) , ABC News Medical Unit
April 26, 2012
Ann Romney’s struggles with multiple sclerosis kept her away from her husband’s campaign shortly before Super Tuesday.
The wife of the presumptive GOP’s presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, told “Entertainment Tonight” about a “health scare” she had in the days leading up to the marathon day of primaries in March.
“I was quite fatigued, and I knew I couldn’t quit. I didn’t tell anybody I was tired,” Romney said.
As she continued her work on the campaign, she said her symptoms worsened.
“You know, what happens with me is that I start to almost lose my words. I almost can’t think. I can’t get my words out. I start to stumble a little bit and so those things were happening and I thought, ‘Uh oh, big trouble.’”
Experts say Romney’s experience with MS is fairly common for the majority of people who deal with the symptoms of the disease, which is characterized by variable, often unpredictable symptoms.
Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disorder in which the body’s immune system attacks the protective covering, called the myelin sheath, surrounding nerves in the brain and spinal cord.

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When the nerves in these key structures are damaged, the impulses controlling basic functions like movement and cognition become distorted, producing a wide range of symptoms, some minor and some severe.
“MS is the most variable of serious neurologic diseases,” said Dr. Fred Lublin, director of the Corinne Goldsmith Dickinson Center for MS at Mount Sinai Medical Center. “It can be very, very mild, to the point where some people don’t know they have it, and it can be very debilitating for others. And everything in between.”
Romney’s experience with MS has become a central part of her husband’s presidential campaign. The Romneys often discuss her 1998 diagnosis at age 49, and how she dealt with the disease while raising her five sons. Experts say a number of things about Romney’s current schedule and role in the campaign may have aggravated her symptoms, producing the effects she described.
“Those who have MS have some underlying damage to the nervous system. If their system is off — if they get overheated or stressed a lot or unusually tired — the symptoms may manifest themselves” by making the transmission of impulses along the already-frayed neurons even worse, Lublin said.
According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, about 400,000 Americans and 2.1 million people worldwide live with MS. Most experience a range of symptoms that can come and go, but for some, the disease worsens progressively and becomes physically disabling. Romney herself has said she once feared that she would be confined to a wheelchair and would not be able to cook or care for her family.
MS is chronic, and there is no cure. But experts say the treatments for MS have vastly improved since the 1990s. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved eight medications, half approved in the last five years. The drugs work to block the immune system’s attacks on the brain and prevent relapses of the disease.
The drugs have been fairly successful in treating people like Romney, said Tim Coetzee, chief research officer at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
“The unmet need is tackling the need of people with more progressive, debilitating forms of the disease,” he said.
•
• Romney has said she keeps her MS under control with traditional medicine, but also uses a combination of alternative therapies, such as reflexology and yoga, to keep her symptoms in check. Romney is also an avid horseback rider, which is actually also a treatment for MS.
• “It’s known that horseback riding is particularly good for MS patients,” said Dr. Adam Kaplin, an assistant professor of psychiatry and neurology at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute in Baltimore. “It helps people coordinate their balance and train their muscles.”
•
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•
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• Generally, experts say any exercise is helpful for managing symptoms of MS.
• Although a stressful, tiring lifestyle can take its toll, many patients are able to keep their symptoms in check by staying tuned to their body’s signals. They said there’s no reason to think Romney’s MS will keep her from fulfilling her responsibilities to her husband’s campaign or her potential role as First Lady.
• “There are scores of people with MS in highly active and stressful positions. They do just fine,” Lublin said.

Studies regarding the use of reflexology for Autism. Does it help?
In a nut shell, yes, reflexology does help. But you can do some simple
techniques every day at home. Improvement may be unnoticeably gradual so a third
party observer might help in assessing effectiveness.

Work on the pituitary, pineal and brain reflex points on the feet and/or hands,
which ever your child best tolerates.

Not many charts on line show the pineal reflex point. Hold up your thumbs
straight up in front of you. On the side of the thumb on the outside (the left
side of the left thumb and the right side of the right thumb), half way down the
nail on the edge of the thumb is the point you are looking for. It’s beside the
nail, not on the nail.

Work the pineal and pituitary reflex point with your thumb or finger. Pressure
should be firm but not painful. I prefer to use the edge of my thumb and “hook”
in an upward (or towards the tip) motion without sliding off the point. Don’t
use lotions at this point because you want grip, not slip.

The technique for working the brain reflex is called thumb rotation. Hold the thumb, fingers or toes firmly with one hand, and rotate your thumb on the tip of the fingers/thumbs/toes with the other. Make 3 circles in one direction, 3 the other, then 3 more in the original direction. I
don’t think you need to spend more than 20 seconds on each.

Perhaps you belong to a support group and you could hire a reflexologist for a
day to go over what I just gave you. It is difficult to teach reflexology
online, but the techniques are simple to learn and there is no need to take out
a second mortgage to pay for weekly sessions when you can do most of it at home.
When you have a ASD child, you do want to try everything. Speech is the thing we are working hard on. We used to have some speech, and then lost it. So I tried Reflexology and I have to say I am starting to see some progress…..
Reflexology techniques are used throughout the healing world along with Naturopathy, Homeopathy, Massage, Chiropractic’s, Acupressure, Nutrition, Magnetics, etc. These techniques have been practiced for years and are becoming more popular every day due to the results that are being achieved.
Because reflexology’s ever growing popularity there are more and more people getting involved and learning this practice. There are courses and conferences all over the world, from Jordan to Jamaica! In fact, Jamaica will be hosting a conference in February 2012 so please keep this in mind. Moshe Kruchic, Martine Faure-Alderson, Farida Irani, Chris Stormer and Lone Sorenson have tentatively agreed to attend. Beryl Crane is a friend of Jamaica and will also try to make it. There will also be some course held either before or after the conference so start saving your pennies for a wonderful learning experience.

I shunned IVF for reflexology

“I THOUGHT you were a clever girl. If you think paying 50 pounds for someone to fiddle with your feet is going to get you pregnant….

When Andrea Sennett shunned conventional medicine in her bid to have a baby her doctor was doubtful to say the least.

But as she cuddles her beautiful baby girl, the proud mum is certain that Niamh is the magical result of the alternative therapies she turned to to achieve her dream.

I am absolutely certain that the reflexology helped me to get pregnant, she smiles. And being a mum is incredible. Niamh is magic. She is just starting to talk and becoming a real best friend. She is great company and really giggly.

Like many women, Andrea had always assumed that when the time came to want children she would be able to get pregnant. She had discovered, at 16, that she had polycystic ovaries (a condition which limits ovulation) but was told that it could cause problems conceiving not that it would.

Neil and I got married quite young, at 24, and we wanted to enjoy each other at first. But a few years ago we decided the time was right to have children.

When she failed to get pregnant after a year Andrea and Neil went to see their GP but were relieved when they were told that, other than the inhibiting factor of her ovaries, there was no reason why they couldn’t conceive. But, a year later, nothing had happened still. We were told that drug therapies and IVF were the only option, but I didn’t want to go through IVF and drug therapies, at least not until I had exhausted every other avenue.

It’s such an emotional rollercoaster to go through, and I already felt I was on one. I wasn’t prepared to put my mind, body and relationship through that. You can’t understand how hard it is until you’re in this situation. It becomes the most important thing, you plan your whole life around it.

Andrea, a customer relations manager for a software company, went to see clinical reflexologist Tracey Turton at the Natural Fertility Clinic, based at Cheshire Natural Health in Warrington.

Reflexology uses gentle pressure on precise points of the feet, ankles and hands that influence corresponding parts of the body, soothing away tension and eliminating toxins to encourage the body to revitalise itself.

Within months she became pregnant and broke the news to Neil on their seventh wedding anniversary. I can’t stand anyone touching my feet and, when I first went for reflexology, I thought I was going to hate it. Tracey didn’t just focus on fertility. But she would ask if I had a sore shoulder and I would think, how did she know that?. Eventually I just let her get on with it. And it was incredible.

Andrea and Neil were due to go on holiday to Las Vegas and had decided that, after the holiday, they would begin the IVF process. But that was not going to be necessary. I knew before I did the test. The night before the 14 days were up to do it I couldn’t sleep all night and I got up at 6am and I was like, woo-hooo, I’m pregnant.

I had terrible morning sickness for which I went to Tracey and pre-eclampsia at 31 weeks, but Niamh was worth all the worry and effort. Tracey says: “With reflexology, you treat the person as a whole. It induces a deep state of relaxation.

Tension can have an effect on the hormonal balance and blood sugar which is important with polycystic ovaries. If people are stressed the first thing that’s affected is the reproduction system because that is not essential for survival.

We work on meridians (energy channels). When there is a blockage, that stops the energy flowing through the body and leads to ill health. Reflexology clears them and allows the energy to flow and the body to function well.

As Andrea is happy to confirm: I have a wonderful baby daughter. And I hope she’s not my last!

Source: Nov 12 2008 by Janet Tansley, Liverpool Echo

Written by
Lauren Yanks
For Living & Being

Resources
Scott R. Way
Phone: 845-235-9329
Web:
www.scottrway.com

Curtis Momber-Jackson
Phone: 845-399-4010
Web:
astressfreehug@yahoo.com

Everyone longs for more relaxation in today’s fast-paced world; perhaps taking the time for a reflexology treatment could make all the difference.
An ancient healing modality used in a variety of cultures, reflexology is the practice of applying pressure through a range of finger techniques to the feet, hands or ears — usually the feet — without the use of oil or lotion. Reflexology is based on the idea that the feet, hands and ears have zones that correlate with the rest of the body, so working on these zones helps the whole body.
“Reflexology helps to balance all the organs and systems of the body,” said Scott R. Way, a Poughkeepsie reflexologist. “If some part of your body is hyperactive, a session will calm it down. If something is underactive, it stimulates it and in that way creates equilibrium. When the body is in its natural stare of equilibrium, it’s better able to heal itself.”
Way first became involved in reflexology about 15 years ago, when he was suffering from inflammation of the tissues in his foot.
“I went to the doctor, and he gave me the usual anti-inflammatory medication, which addresses the symptoms and not the root cause,” he said. “Then somebody recommended reflexology, so I gave it a try.”
After three sessions with his reflexologist, Way said he was amazed when he was able to get out of bed in the morning without any pain. He kept going back for more because it also made him feel relaxed and centered, and eventually he took a reflexology certification class at Omega in 2003. Way now has his own reflexology and Reiki practice out of The Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center in Poughkeepsie.
“The reflexes in the feet and in the hands are reflections of body parts,” he said. “Their locations and relationships to each other follow a logical pattern which resembles the body itself.”
By applying specific pressures using the thumb, fingers and hands, reflexology can help increase circulation, release toxins and improves the function of the immune system. By helping relieve overall tension, reflexology can also help a person’s mental and emotional state.

Therapeutic bliss from foot scrub, massage, reflexology
AFTER POUNDING THE PAVEMENT for countless hours during the Lenten holiday, whether from doing the traditional Visita Iglesia or simply looking for a cool spot to ease the summer heat, your feet must have withstood a grueling test of endurance and strength. The strain that goes with every stride puts pressure on the feet and entire body.

Now, it’s time to cool your heels and pamper your feet. There are spas that cater specifically to foot care. Their services range from a soothing scrub and relaxing massage to an invigorating reflexology. Whichever treatment suits your fancy, it will not only abate the soreness of tired feet but will also give a relaxing feel to the entire body, especially when it’s done by a skilled practitioner.

Score with a scrub

Too much walking can cause dry patches on feet, resulting to calluses. A foot scrub gently exfoliates and softens rough portions while increasing blood circulation. The treatment usually begins with the feet soaked in gentle and often fragrant solutions that prep rough and thickened skin for sloughing. Peppermint and lavender are some of the more popular foot soaks available today. For a more soothing effect, try an aloe-based foot soak.

After a few minutes of soaking in warm water, the treatment zooms on softening the rough spots with a pumice stone or foot file. This procedure pays special attention to the heels, balls of the feet and toes. Finally, the feet are coated with moisturizing lotion. Top off the treatment with new pedicure.

Maximizing massage

Although machines that massage the feet are fast becoming popular, there is no replacement to human touch. There are several foot massage techniques. A good way to start is to bring back circulation by rubbing the foot. This will also make the foot less prone to injury should you choose to apply deeper manipulation.

After the foot has been warmed up, it can be followed with the thumb walking technique, wherein the thumbs alternately apply firm pressure along the sides of each foot from top to bottom. This area has tendons that are often tense, and easing these knotted tendons can be truly relaxing.

The toes are then gently rotated one by one in opposite directions or they may be pulled upward, followed by kneading the sole of the foot with the knuckles of the fist using rotating movements.

Reflections on reflexology

The theory behind reflexology is there are “reflex points” on the feet that relate to specific organs and glands in the body. Practitioners believe that stimulating these reflex points promotes health in that organ in addition to bringing back circulation to tired and sore feet. If done by a skilled practitioner, reflexology is a deeply relaxing treatment with benefits that can be felt throughout the body.

Reflexology has been practiced for thousands of years in such places as China, Egypt and India. It was around the early 1900s when reflexology techniques were developed and enhanced as we know it today. It is increasingly becoming a popular form of natural therapy as it provides numerous benefits. It can aid in the relief of aches, pains and tension; can aid in digestion and elimination difficulties; can help improve sleep patterns; can increase mental and physical wellbeing; and can induce profound relaxation.

Reflexology is different from massage. Whereas massage is applied to the muscles and soft tissues of the body, reflexology works through nerve-endings. A treatment should not be painful, though there may be uncomfortable or tender areas that are highly stressed. In recent years, reflexologists have begun to incorporate the acupressure techniques of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) into the treatment. The Xiamen-style foot massage is gaining popularity among reflexology aficionados, some even claiming they have gone to “therapeutic bliss” after the treatment.

The next time you embark on a walking spree, be sure to put your best foot forward and be forearmed with the best ways to soothe your sore feet and uplift your tired body.

E-mail the author at spaholics_inq@yahoo.com

I recently came across this video of a Reflexologist giving a foot reflexology. Thought it might be helpful to others to see what all a session with a Reflexogist entails. Aided by the use of a reflexology foot chart this therapist is treating her patient in a comfortable and relaxing way. Please watch and gain some insight !

Can any of you tell which zones she is working on ? A quick look at a reflexology foot chart will help you to see what ailments the client is seeking to get some relief from.