Dancing with Life by Jamuna Rangachari Page A

him twice a day and asked his assistant to pay attention to me for an hour and a half each time. The assistant massaged me and poured curative oil on my head. Then she would leave me alone in a room for nearly an hour. After this, she would return and pour water all over my body. All I had to do was then change my clothes and go home. After dinner there was another session of a different kind. This became my daily routine: Ayurveda treatment in the morning, Ayurveda treatment in the late evening while life went on somewhere in between. My aunt would come to the centre in the night to take me home as I would be too tired to get back on my own. I was told I would feel better after a week and tried this therapy diligently for ten days. But soon the strain of following this routine became visible and began to cut into time that I spent with my family. Post dinner, my children would be asleep when I returned and I was always tired in the mornings.
    ‘Amma, stop whatever treatment you are taking. You are looking really tired and haggard,’ my daughter told me one day. It was as if she had read my mind as I felt I would collapse if I continued like this. That day I called the doctor and told him I could no longer continue with the treatment due to some personal reasons. Later even my aunt’s house help told me she was relieved I had stopped as she too thought I was getting worse, not better with this treatment.
    Once again, I reminded myself that Ayurveda had not really worked for me and decided I would only explore it again at a later stage if I had the time to complete an entire course at a reputed Ayurvedic clinic.
    Siddha Healing
    Siddha healing is one of the oldest systems of traditional medicine in Tamil Nadu. Siddha medicine is mainly based on the five elements that constitute the human body as well as the three doshas – namely , kapha, vata and pitta.
    In 2009, a friend of mine asked me to meet a Siddha healer in Bengaluru who gave me some medicines and advised me to cut out protein from my diet. His instructions were not too difficult to follow as the things he told me to avoid included rajma (kidney beans) and beetroot which were not my favourite foods anyway.
    However even after a while I could not see any improvement in either my issues with incontinence or mobility. Instead my menstrual cycle and digestive system went haywire.
    My next experience with Siddha healing was when my sister-in-law brought some Siddha massage oils for me to try as she had heard that they were beneficial. I tried to follow her instructions but after a while I gave up as they didn’t seem to be working.
    Blood Group Analysis
    One day my aunt forwarded me an email about one Dr Peter D’Adamo, who had written a book Eat Right for Your Type . 1 The foreword said that those whose blood group was B Positive were more likely to get MS. The e-mail contained dietary guidelines for people of all blood groups. According to this doctor, people who belong to the B Positive blood group can consume unlimited amounts of dairy products without a problem which is not so in the case of people who belong to other blood groups. My aunt’s intention behind forwarding this mail was to make me resume consuming dairy products which I had given up due to naturopathy. My blood group happened to be B Positive. I then forwarded this mail to people in MSSI asking about their blood groups. I was trying to check if there indeed was a link between B Positive blood group and MS, and sure enough there were a few but there were also others who had a different blood group.
    While I could arrive at no definite conclusion regarding the link between blood groups and illness I did start consuming dairy products again.
    Chronic Cerebro-Spinal Venous Insufficiency (CCSVI)
    There was and still is a lot of discussion and hype in the media, especially on the Internet regarding the latest ‘breakthrough’ treatments for MS.
    Sonia (*name changed), a mother of two in her