Lorenzo's Oil. Jackson's Water: Our Incredible Nervous Systems and Common Causes for Collaboration

Don't we all love the movies? And who hasn't seen and loved Lorenzo's Oil? While Lorenzo's family tree had a rather rare disorder that he inherited, there are a lot of commonalities with his story and condition with the majority of families in the US (and beyond). That is, if you look at things in an overall, broad way with 'things that affect myelin'. Allopathic medicine has separated things into separate groupings which compounds the difficulties for patients and all concerned, in my opinion. Functional medicine or 'outside the box' providers and consumers have an advantage in seeing things differently, again, in my opinion. 

Or what about if you push things out a bit further and think about autism 'spectrum'? We're now at one in fifty boys, I have heard reliably lately, being diagnosed and the rate is going to continue on the path it is on until it's virtually one in one. This is the same information I've heard about overall 'environmental illnesses', it's currently less than one in two but will become virtually everyone if we don't change the path we're on as a society. Now, I'm just one person in the society, as are YOU -- so everyone has the opportunity to NOT become one of the herd that gets caught into the box of medicine treatments that causes the illnesses. Lumigrate provides leads for education for people on a variety of topics, and mostly supports YOUsers becoming effective leaders of their medical team. 

A lot more people are looking at 'myelin' these days, because of the newfound numbers becoming aware of chronic Lyme disease and other chronic conditions, the potential causes, and the commonality of the myelin 'taking a hit'. So I thought I'd bring this topic into the offerings for our YOUsers at Lumigrate. To remind, our cornerstone for our YOUsers at Lumigrate is our YOU! Model:             

I was thrilled to find a study guide at the website that's affiliated with/mentioned at the end of Lorenzo's Oil, created to help people who watch the movie Lorenzo's Oil step through the many important concepts shown in this beloved film from 1992. I remember being in the occupational therapy program and talking with my group of classmates about getting together to watch it together and discuss: I don't recall that we did that but here I am, 20 years later, writing about it for our YOUsers because I'm still inspired by the story. 

Here's the link to the PDF at the website for Myelin.org. Please consider looking it over, and watching the film, for the first time or 'once more'.  I recently saw a meme on Facebook asking people to share about any movies they'd viewed over 100 times. I was shocked that people have watched the same movies that many times in the first place, then to see some of the answers lead me to wonder what would have happened had they spent half that time looking into educational films that might lead to better health for themselves or the society overall. But everyone is creating their own reality, or the reality for those they are responsible for. There aren't words for the respect I feel for those who have someone under their care like Lorenzo who do as his team did for him.

www.myelin.org/images/Study_Guide_for_Lorenzo_s_Oil_Kit1.pdf

I can't help, as I re-watched Lorenzo's Oil today, what might have happened had an integrative medicine team been available to them, providing functional medicine. There were many elements that occurred because the parents thought 'outside the box' and they kept following what their 'gut' told them. The people who weren't a 'fit' to the mission either left or were asked to go.

The father is shown awakening having had an 'aha' in the time spent in bed -- it made me wonder if there were aspects to the story they were afraid to specifically tell us about how they were so innovative. This was taking place in the mid 1980s, but was being filmed in a time when it might have been 'too much' outside the 'lines' to show what the American public couldn't grasp. In seeing how they were retraining the brain/body connection, I can tell you I wished they had a good occupational therapist working with them! 

But I can't help but thinking about how much this movie helped pave the way. 

Showing the research in 'higher animals' for remyelination after Lorenzo is improving, to fund research in dogs, leads to mixed emotions for me. I've worked near the research facility where dogs were used for cancer research, and was friends and coworkers with the daughter of the head of that program. 

When they famously include the conversation 'we scientists are competitive' -- and Lorenzo's father's response is that if it only took 28 months for the Manhattan project to built the atomic bomb, "certainly they can come together to remyelinate some puppy dogs", I hope people realize that what we've been lead to believe about much of history is perhaps not exactly how things occurred in reality. But the point is made, that COLLABORATION and not COMPETITION would streamline things a great deal.

Ironically, he received his first dose of "Lorenzo's Oil' in the timeframe I was beginning my first encounter with seizure disorder, and in the next seven years I began my first and biggest immersion into the conventional medicine system as a consumer -- that of signficant other/spouse/wife. So many people have suffered so many various conditions for way too long and longer than was necessary, because of 'the system'. Clearly, I have created Lumigrate as my humble offering to shift the system and teach things that are outside the box yet in all probability valid, at least for some.

A year ago today I was having an "April Fools Day" that started out in a foolish way: my normally sweet, smart, fun cat had once again had a 'fit' of what was at the time a baffling, rare condition. It was a hard day, week, month, as it was almost a two week wait to be seen by the only veterinarian who apparently knew what it was that she had. The euthanization went beautifully and the whole experience lead me to learn about amazing products that weren't oil but water ... Reiki water and plant essences to be specific. Spirit Essences is a product line owned but not used or shown in use by Jackson Galaxy, famously on Animal Planet's My Cat From Hell. When it's an animal that doesn't seem to have the ability to be influenced by if something's 'real' or 'placebo', and they respond to treatment, it certainly is impressive. I also had good results with Bach Flower Remedies, particularly when we got past the 'mix' that's convenient but not as specific  known as "Rescue Remedy". But in the end, in the room for the euthanization, was sprayed Rescue Remedy and calming essential oil was waved around me. It helped. And overall I learned that there's just as much division and lacks of progress in the veterinary medicine world and 'the system' as in the human medicine world. At least we have it in common, and I hope there will be collaborations between human and veterinary medicine as we move forward to new systems that will replace the old. 

So I'm dedicating this topic to SpoildeyCat. I only wished there had been a solution, or if there is one, that I'd learned of it. While Lorenzo lived and his story was eventually written and told, it appears that hers offers much that can be learned posthumously. Reiki anyone?