Working as a pharmacist and twisting bottle caps for these years, as well as being on the computer too much, well my wrist is old beyond it’s years. It’s sore, tired, spent. Sometimes it gets so sore that I wear a wrist brace which holds it in place and makes it feel better. When I bend my wrist forward there is a lump and when it’s at its worst it’s sore and hurts and I can’t touch it. And when I have to keep using my wrist at work, despite the pain, I try and ease the pressure off of my wrist and I can feel other muscles compensating and being strained, such as my upper arm, shoulder and back.

I’ve never gone to a doctor for this. In fact, I rarely go to doctors. I’ve always been that way and now even more because I don’t really think that they are trained to do much for it. In fact, in my early twenties I started getting this weird itch behind my neck. Then it was slowly spreading. I was headed towards a weekend white water rafting trip, so I figured, hoped actually, that it would go away. During the first day of rafting it kept getting worse. This was way before my days as a pharmacist, so I had no idea what I was dealing with. I went to the drug store and got some hydrocortisone cream and some for cream for poison ivy. I went to sleep that night in a tent, hopeful it would be gone by the time I woke up so I could enjoy the last day of rafting. Not quite. When I woke up I this itchy rash had spread to everywhere, including my face and the palms of my hands. I finally went to the emergency room where they said it was an allergic reaction and gave me an epinephrine shot as well as diphenhydramine and prednisone. Turns out that this cheap new laundry detergent I was using was the culprit.

So that’s my thing. I never rush to the doctors. Even though my father was a medical doctor and a surgeon, and I’ve been around it all my life. As a pharmacist, I understand how drugs make a patient feel better, and I understand that doctors and pharmacists are not trained in much more than drugs and surgery. Although I obviously should have gone to see a doctor earlier back then when I had my rash, I can’t imagine the doctors having much more to offer me for my wrist. So generally I ice it, I ease off of it when it starts getting sore, or keep it in the brace to protect it.

So a few weeks ago I did a triple whammy of alternative health on it.

First I met Dr. Stewart Edrich who is a chiropractor but also uses a wide range of techniques to diagnose as well as treat his patients. He truly uses a holistic approach when dealing with patients. He does muscle testing to I went to his office to meet him and see what he’s about so he could participate in one of our monthly mixers as a featured practitioner. He showed me a combination of Chinese Medicine and advanced vibrational energy medicine by pushing on different pressure points in my hands and arm.www.holistichealthsolutions. com

Then later that evening I went to Peter’s mixer in West Hollywood. Art San, “The Pain Eraser” released muscles along my hand, arms, shoulder and back.  Art has worked on me many times in the past, and he releases tight muscles which can often give more relief than many people realize. www.thepaineraser.net. And then Reiki practitionerBen King performed some Reiki on my wrist, and I could feel the energy and heat coming out of it. He even leaned back afterwards slightly exhausted from the passing energy. http://www.basicsofhealth.net/

Since then my wrist has been so much stronger. Before it would feel better, but I would also feel like I needed to be careful with it, and when I pushed it too hard it would return to being injured. Now I feel like it can get better and stronger than it has in a long, long time.  I’m not sure which of the three was the most helpful, or if it was a combination that was key. But I know that it’s feels like it’s getting stronger and on the path to healing. I know there are many other ways to treat conditions than doctors and drugs.