So, I have decided to upload something completely different today. Many people know having a positive mindset has great benefits but I have seen many who struggle to find a way to do so. Thus, in this article, I aim to share my approach to staying positive. It has been very effective for me and I hope it will also be useful for the readers. I will intentionally write in a thought provoking way to really draw out the feeling of ‘gratitude’.

We all take things for granted – it is a natural human behaviour. It is only when we lose something that we realise that what we have been ‘used to’ is not something everyone enjoys. It is when this occurrence of ‘taking things for granted’ continues that we ditch the most important element in maintaining a positive mindset – An Attitude of Gratitude.

How can we become more grateful then? For me, the sense of empathy was a great tool to utilise. It is important that you actually imagine someone else’s feelings and emotions. So, turn on your empathy sensors to the max and consider the following points:

•   How many meals have you had today? I won’t deny it, I love food and I cannot imagine going through a day without eating. However, I feel guilty saying this because I know that millions of people today cannot even afford 1 meal a day, let alone have access to drinking water. Imagine going through every day trying your utmost to gain access to the basic necessities of life. Did those people choose to be in poverty? No.
•   What if you were born in a country where human rights are virtually nonexistent. Many people are not aware, but even today there are some countries where the citizens have no freedom, treated as slaves and tortured for no reason. Did they have a choice which country to be born in? No.
•   Imagine if you were living in the medieval times. With lack of advances in medicine people had no idea what to do during outbreaks of plague. People abandoned families, even their children during the Black Death. Did they have a choice when to be born? No.
•   If you are reading this, you are one of the lucky ones who can see. So many people do not enjoy this privilege.
•   If you are reading this, you are one of the lucky ones who have access to the internet. Again, so many people do not enjoy this privilege.
•   If you are reading this, you are one of the lucky ones who can read. So many of us take education for granted but in some places even basic level of education is not available.

Those are just a few of the points to ponder on. There are many more but I will keep it short – hopefully that list should be enough to get my point across. I do think it is a shame that our gratitude can come from comparing ourselves to the less privileged but that’s just the way we are. We are vain, shallow and dumb because we don’t remember the most important thing unless we are constantly reminded of it – ‘Living’. Anything extra is a luxury really, isn’t it? For which we should be grateful, right?

There was a time when my life was so miserable because of the ‘limitations’ from having constant pains and chronic fatigue. I always compared myself to my friends who were healthy and enjoying their life. Then, when I started to experience Dystonia symptoms I felt so anxious about my career going downhill whilst everyone else strived to achieve their goal. However, I realised that those things making me worried were really nothing compared to what some people go through. Yes, I had Dystonia but it wasn’t life threatening. Yes, I was in pain but at least I was able to enjoy most part of my life without pain. And yes, I had strange muscle contractions and probably looked strange to other people but I still had my family and friends who supported me. It definitely was a great opportunity to reconsider the values in life and it allowed me to focus on what I was able to gain from my experience, not on what I was losing. It also made me realise that there are always two sides to a situation, positives and negatives.

Is the glass half empty or half full? If your answer was ‘empty’ why not try changing it to ‘full’? The situation may not change but we can still change the way we view things – it certainly has great effects. What is even more amazing is that it does not cost anything and it can be done right now.

Thus, let’s tone down the ‘negativeness’ and think for a moment; name each and every thing or person you should be grateful for. Imagine what your life would be like without it/him/her. Take 2 minutes before you go to sleep and list 5 things every day. You might struggle at first but once you start, the list will go on and on. Only downside, it might make you cry… lots. But, don’t be put off and keep at it! I can assure you positive thinking will become easier. I must admit, I still find it difficult to always think positively but I believe in the saying ‘practice makes perfect’ so I will definitely practice every day.

I really like this quote by Hugh Downs, an American TV broadcaster. I hope the readers would also appreciate this great quote:

“A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.”

Research Article

Case Series of an Intraoral Balancing Appliance Therapy on Subjective Symptom Severity and Cervical Spine Alignment

PDF FILE

All patients who receive FCST, experience something called ‘Deflections’. I decided to upload a post on this because it is a very important part of the treatment process and all patients need to be aware of it.

There are two points to be aware of first:

1) deflection occurs within one hour for majority of patients – it occurs when the optimal balance of TMJ achieved during treatment (CBA fitting) is no longer optimal due to the structural and muscular changes in the rest of the body. When this occurs, patients are asked to take out the CBA and switch to the standard device -TBA or OBA until the next treatment.

2) deflection reaction (also referred to as Myung Hyun reaction) means the physical changes experienced by patients as deflections occur during the treatment process.

Patients should overcome these ‘deflection reactions’ as efficiently as possible for successful treatment. I have also observed this in other patients and myself (including Dystonia and Tourettes sufferers) – those who handle deflections well recover much faster than others who don’t. Sometimes, the extent of deflections are severe and many patients doubt the treatment taking it as signs of getting worse. This situation is called the ‘Healing Crisis’ because it can lead patients to discontinue the treatment altogether.

Here is a detailed explanation of ‘Deflections’ from Dr Lee:

Patients receiving Functional Cerebro Spinal Therapy (FCST) are asked to be aware of various physical changes (‘myung-hyun’ reactions, deflections in English) that occur during the treatment process until their symptoms are completely cured.

The human body responds to medical treatment through what is called the Law of Cure, as explained by Dr. Constantine Hering.
In regards to the intensifying process of diseases, when a chronic disease is being cured, its process goes back, in exactly the reverse order as the symptoms have appeared (or been suppressed). In
other words: “When a human body changes from a ‘state of disease’ to a ‘state of health’ through treatment, the chronic disease disappears and the body regains its normality. In this process, new
symptoms occur, and the body experiences a ‘rewinding process’, which replays the same process that the disease had gone through while intensifying, but now backwards.” Hering explains this as
the ‘Law of Cure’ enticed by the ‘Law of Rewinding’.

When a disease is being cured, the human body finds a way to let the disease out. This process occurs from the top part and downwards to the bottom part of the body and is the exact reverse of how the disease had manifested itself.

Dr. Lee also states that the Law of Cure applies to most cases of chronic diseases being naturally cured. He calls it a type of physical change, or myung-hyun reaction, and that it is a positive sign that
the body’s immune system is being normalized.

However, whereas the myung-hyun response could often be refreshing and comfortable, it could also be very uncomfortable and sometimes painful. In the former case, most patients accept it easily because they think it is a visible result of their current treatment. In the latter case, patients start to question the doctor’s treatment and
sometimes even start to lose faith in the doctor. Dr. Hering defines this as ‘healing crisis’, and observes that in this crisis patients may feel the urge to stop their treatment.

Depending on the progress and intensity of the original disease, the severity of the physical reaction (myung-hyun or deflection) is proportionate to or even greater than that of the disease itself .
Therefore, if patients experience uncomfortable and painful physical response during the treatment process, they should recognize this as a ‘healing crisis’. Talk to your doctor about this, and keep up
the treatment.

As temporarily refreshing and comfortable physical reactions must occur as part of the healing process, so must temporarily uncomfortable and painful reactions. If you are going through FCST and have read this, I believe that you now understand the concept of ‘healing process’. Especially if your disease is a chronic, painful, major, or hard-to-cure one, our body will experience a rapid increase in energy, accompanied with major physical changes.
Moreover, as Dr. Hering stated that the healing crisis is a natural phenomenon that occurs as the immune system is being normalized and the spirit and morale of the body fiercely fight back against the
disease.

In the same sense of Dr. Hering’s explanation, during the FCST treatment process invented by Dr. Lee, patients experience a healing process with ‘deflections’.
As harmful stimuli accumulate in the body over a long time, the structures of the cranial, spinal, and nervous system gradually collapse. At the same time, painful diseases and symptoms form. This
makes it impossible for the body to recover completely after only a few sessions of simple treatment.

Therefore, to normalize the physical structure and system, scores of, or even hundreds of gradual treatment sessions are essential, depending on the types of symptoms and the intensity of the
disease. In FCST, thus, a deflection is defined as ‘every one step toward healing’, and the ‘correction of the deflection’ as ‘treatment’ or ‘healing’. In Cerebro Functional Medicine (CFM) and its treatment FCST, Dr. Hering’s ‘healing crisis’ is explained as ‘the great deflection’, when symptoms flare up more intensely than with just a simple deflection.

In short, in cases of chronic and hard-to-cure diseases patients must experience the ‘great deflection’ during treatment every time the energy level of the body increases. The painful symptoms that
accompany the great deflection are positive signs that the disease is being cured. Therefore, for every great deflection, both the patient and the doctor should keep faith in the treatment so that the
treatment process progresses successfully.

I hope that you now understand the idea of deflections, or myung-hyun reactions, and the great deflections. The more severe your deflections are, the greater your physical changes. However
painful, they are only temporary and part of the healing process. Healing crises, or the great deflections, are to be grateful for; take them as an opportunity to have more hope in a healthier you.
For all of you who are reading this, if you want fast healing, please keep a positive attitude for everyone around you. Be thankful, love, and forgive.

In different sections of this blog I have uploaded a number of posts with medical resources and articles which relate to FCST but I anticipate that some readers may be left feeling confused and possibly sceptical. When I first started the treatment I was also doubtful whether people with ‘incurable’ diseases could be fully cured by this simple process. Perhaps many of us are subdued by the existing medical system which convinces us to think that many diseases are far too complex to comprehend and therefore treatments must also be difficult. As a former patient who has been through the treatment process first hand, here is my view on FCST.

A proper body posture allows normal function of the brain, nerves, hormones, organs, blood circulation, etc which in turn maintains a healthy state. If for whatever reason, there is a distortion or imbalance in the structure, it affects our body one way or another and we generally refer to it as a ‘disease’ or an ‘illness’. Unfortunately, despite thousands of years of history of medicine, many physicians today tend to focus on treating the diseases/illnesses without necessarily knowing the root cause. We typically call the ones that are difficult to treat or have not found a cure for ‘intractable’ or ‘incurable’ disease.

At FCST clinic, they distinguish approximately 200 symptoms that may arise from distorted body structure and many of those symptoms relate to certain ‘diseases’. Ultimately, what this means is when we have a structural problem it can cause upto 200 symptoms, some of which we have given different names to as ‘diseases’ e.g. Dystonia. When I was asked to identify symptoms that were affecting me, I ticked as many as 68. By the time I had my last treatment, the majority had disappeared and only a few remain which do not have an impact on normal life.

As an illustration, I would describe this method of treatment as a ‘T’ balancing arrangement. Whilst the TMJ is perfectly balanced (being the horizontal line of the letter T) the C1 and C2 can be properly realigned allowing the rest of the spine to find its correct place (being the vertical line of the letter T). Therefore, the main aim and technique of FCST consists of the ‘T’ balancing I referred to and it is combined with other sub therapies to help the body find the correct posture, improve physical health by exercising, train the mind to think positively, all of which eventually lead to a proper regulation of our body systems.

Our body is assembled by many bones which are arranged in a structure and they support and work in harmony with other organs. It can be said that the most important ones are temporal and mandible bones as well as the upper cervical vertebrae because they are located very near our ‘control tower’ i.e. the brain. There is no doubt then, that problems with the position of those bones can influence the function of the brain leading to brain and/or nerve related disorders. Not only the brain function and nervous system are affected but also hormonal regulation becomes unstable which in turn can lead to further problems.

We all know that our bones cannot solely work to support the body. Muscles and nerves innervate allowing the body to control movements and function of internal organs. In other words, everything that our body is made up of is connected. Therefore, it is logical to think that if there is an imbalance in position of our bones, it also means our muscles and nerves are directly affected. Not only that, nerves, spine and other organs are all intricately related meaning that a problem in one can influence another and eventually the problem is recognized as symptoms of a disease. In short, what may appear to be a small distortion in the structure can lead to a variety of symptoms and gradually develop as diseases. Therefore, Dr Lee, the founder of FCST, refers to this situation a ‘butterfly effect’ in his book.

Based on this theory (which forms the core principle of CFM), FCST is a simple method of treatment which  can be applied to many patients suffering from different diseases. Consequently, FCST can be viewed as a new paradigm of treatment, hinged upon the basic mechanism of our body which effectively cures different kinds of, what we call, ‘diseases’.

First thing you notice when you enter the treatment room is the half a dozen chairs lined up where patients are expected to sit in military position while wearing a TMJ balancing device and wait for their turn to receive Dr Lee’s therapy. It is probably a scene like no other and might even look ridiculous for first timers (experienced this myself). However, if you consider the flip side of the coin; you are not in a room with lancets (surgical knives), masked surgeons and nurses or in a place where the smell of medical substances dominates. Instead, you are in a cosy room with few other patients who are experiencing similar symptoms to you but who also have different and interesting life stories to share.

For me, it is truly amazing that our complex body can be so simple to understand. Throughout history, humans have been guilty of convoluting uncomplicated facts often leading the majority to be oblivious to the obvious. Perhaps, this is the case for modern medicine. Some may criticize and say there is lack of scientific (visible?) evidence as the saying goes “seeing is believing”. However, I believe that hearing patient experiences and seeing the changes that they go through are more powerful and significant proof.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q36O0Nqg6WQ