Posted by Q (198.64.206.92) on September 12, 2000 at 09:41:23:
In Reply to: You know what Q? posted by August on September 12, 2000 at 03:52:56:
Preventatives and abortives "work" because they address physical symptoms. Each medical treatment is designed to address a specific symptom. The medical goal is to stop an attack with an abortive or to prevent a cycle with a preventative. The symptoms being treated are just that, symptoms. So, the attacks and cycles repeat. Nothing was cured. That is why we don't call these relapses and remissions.
Common mainstream medical practice is serving us an injustice here. They work with the tools at their disposal and in narrowly defined domains. Most practitioners mortgaged their brains at the medical school doorstep and have thereby lost the critical ability to see a larger picture. It is not their fault, that is how the system works. But that is someone else's fight.
Step back and look at the forest, the big picture. Symptoms are trees. The pattern of symptoms, all of them, are the forest. What force is entirely capable of setting forth the chain of symptoms that solve the complex set of symptoms CH evidences. Setting aside God, Aliens and that ilk of ideas, nothing short of the mind itself will do. That is where the ROOT CAUSE is, because there is no other rational answer. All the symptoms cataloged with CH can be adequately sequenced as symptoms of a underlying mental process producing physical symptoms and, there, we will find the real CURE to the condition. Any other explaination leaves too many exceptions, which means either, (1) that what we consider as CH is actually many different discret conditons each with its own cure, or (2) that we do not have a clear understanding of what we are looking at, as in the blind men and the elephant.
So, what to do and how to treat the root cause to cure the condition for good? I am not a medical or psychological professional, but there are those who are working along this line of investigation and, in due course, the theory will either be proven or not. Until then, it stands as a working theory addressing a comprehensive cure to CH. Should a more compelling comprehensive theory be presented, I will listen with an open mind as my goal to find a root cure more than advance this particular theory.
A word about the meaning of the word "mental" in this context. I believe that many people take offence at the connotation of CH being rooted in the mind, for any number of personal reasons. I do not believe that "I" have any more control over the part or parts of my mind that are or may be at the root of the CH condition than, say I have to will a spoon to bend. I do not know if the mental state that would control the CH conditon is an advanced, retarded, damaged or enhanced mind condition. The point is that I am not at fault in any case. I do not, at any level I know how to control, will the CH attacks, but a portion of my mind beyond my current skills, can and might be doing so.
Sure, I use abortives and preventatives, but my goal is to find a cure, not just treatments to individual symptoms, and not just for my self, but for the rest of us as well. At least I am working to be of service in that regard. To that end a Non-profit Corporation with Tax-exempt Private Operating Foundation tax status is being established with the charter to sponsor study groups whose goals are to investigate root cause solutions to the CH conditon. The work of the CH Study Group, along with the website itself, is being donated to the corporation. The study groups will be formed as multi-disciplinary teams to avoid the varied problems associated with too narrow a focus.
Am I obsessed with this? I think not. My close circle of friends and advisors keeps me in check on this.
Am I serious about finding a cure and committed to a course of action? You bet, but it was more than likely not what you were thinking. The scope of theories that have been cataloged and considered at the CH Study Group Website is wide open, but if they don't measure up in the fit-analysis, they are then classified as only partial theories, which are generally good only for treating a narrow set of symptoms.
So, August, I hope this clears things up a bit. PFD&N to all.