Rieki

[IWin]

Has anyone tried Reiki?

[Katrina]

I have not even heard of it....what is it?


Hopefully someone else can help you.


:kiss:

[IWin]

Out of the ICN Patient Handbook.....

Reiki is a body, mind, and spirit healing which balances and strengthens the body's energy, promoting its ability to heal itself. Reiki can reduce pain, illness, emotional trauma and tension. Reiki also enhances creativity, vitality, and productivity. It has the ability to aid in the release of negative habits, and promoting positive wellness, love, compassion, peace, and serenity.

Reiki is laying-on of hands healing technique administered by a Reiki master/teacher. Reiki practitioners channel energy in a particular pattern to heal and harmonize.

There are many types of Reiki but the two principal ones are: "the Usui System of Natural Healing" and "the Radiance Technique".

The Usui System of Natural Healing, named after Dr. Mikao Usui, addresses the body, mind and spirit, which balances and strengthens the body's energy. The Radiance Technique is the official reiki program and seems to have more of a focus on teaching the client the means to enhance their own healing energy.

Reiki has many other benefits when combined with other therapeutic strategies. For more information please refer to: Combination Treatments: Reiki With Other Holistic Therapies


This still doesn't really tell me what it is, or how it might help IC. I'm just thinking about alternative treatments that might be used along with what I'm already doing. I think the diet and Elmiron have the IC getting under control. The doctor thinks the problems that I'm still having are PFD......maybe an alternative treatment might be what I need for this.

Anyone????

Thanks.

[liznazz]

I have been doing reike for 2 months now. If anything, it has made me much calmer and relaxed. I was very skeptical at first, I found a wonderful woman who does the reike. She is also a nurse and volunteers her time 2-3 times a week to do reike for cancer patients at the hospice near us. I go once a week, and it took me about a month before I felt any calmer. Even if it just helps me to cope with IC I feel it has been an added plus. liz

[IWin]

Liz,

Does your insurance pay anything towards it?

I guess you knew of your practicioner.... but do you know how I would go about finding one? What questions would I ask?

Thanks for all your help.

[liznazz]

Iwin:

Insurance does not pay for reike. I found my practitioner through word of mouth... my neighbor's brother has MS and finds that some symptoms have been relieved by doing reike. The best way to find a reike practitioner is through local health fairs, alternative medicine sites, natural food/vitamin centers, and there is a magazine (do not remember the title of it) something about health and wellnes naturally that offers different seminars and such on yoga, reike, etc. YOu might even ask some holistic/naturapathic pracitioners if they know of any. I hope this helps. liz

[yvette]

I had gone for a while a few years back...I feel calmer, my physical symptoms improved (not gone -- but a bit better!)I just felt really good afterwards.... I should go back ....I even thought about taking a class, and learning to do it myself. :)

[Ginny]

I have tried it twice. Did not help.

Ginny

[windwalker]

I have gone for reiki off and on for three years, not for IC though, since I was recently diagnosed. Best I can tell you is like the others, I did feel calmer and more relaxed, a little more positive also. A couple of the hospitals around here do reiki, its not covered by insurance, but I go to a little store that sells new age things and has reiki a cpl nights a week.

[poetgirl]

I'm a Reiki Master Teacher and life coach. Some of you who have been around the IC boards since around 2003 may remember me. I know, I know. It's been a while! :hi:

I started doing Reiki in 2006 and I believe that it helped me go into remission. I was experiencing a lot of improvement with my IC/VV symptoms with the medications, but once I started practicing Reiki regularly, I noticed that I wasn't having IC/VV flare-ups anymore. No symptoms, nothing. So I decided to go off the meds to see what would happen - and have not gone back on them. (I still have mild neurogenic bladder, but I was born with that.) Since then, my bladder rarely is an issue for me. I had a day-long flare about 2 years ago that was more annoying than anything else, but resolved by the next day. Sometimes I will ingest food or drink that irritates the bladder a little, but if I drink sufficient water, I can flush it out. But I do not consider myself to have active IC symptoms anymore and I no longer have recurrent UTIs either. My VV symptoms are pretty much non-existent too. I have one area that is slightly tender if palpated by the gynecologist, but I don't notice it otherwise.

I had mild-moderate IC, which may have helped faciliate my recovery. But I have no other way to explain how I was able to go off the meds and stay off them - even after a pregnancy and an emergency c-section (with major complications that included being catheterized for 6 days.) Our bodies do have the capability to heal themselves; sometimes it is just about finding the right combination of remedies - both traditional and alternative - that your body responds to. I also made some other changes in my life that helped me immensely too. If you're stressed out because of a bad relationship or other life situation, your body is going to deal with it by becoming sick in some way. It's a lot about finding mind/body/spirit balance.

As a result of my healing experience, I did decide to start practicing and teaching Reiki professionally. Energy healing is not a cure-all, but it can help reduce stress by allowing the body to relax more deeply, and recent clinical studies are demonstrating that it helps reduce pain and anxiety. I've read about veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who are learning to do Reiki on themselves to help reduce their PTSD symptoms, pain from injuries sustained in combat and reduce their dependency on narcotic medications.

Some of my clients have responded quite dramatically to Reiki - I have a client with Fibromyalgia who says it significantly reduces her pain and allows her to be more active. With other people, the effect is more subtle - they feel relaxed and less stressed, which is in and of itself a benefit. At the very least, it is worth trying but know that you may not experience dramatic changes at first. This is the same for any bodywork, though. A massage may help you feel looser and more relaxed, but you're not going to have lasting relief unless you have the work done more consistently.

I'm not talking about this to advertise my services. In fact, I've largely avoided coming on here because for a long time I wanted to leave that difficult and painful part of my life with IC behind. It's still hard for me to talk about sometimes. But I recently started connecting with people who have been living with IC and I felt encouraged to start talking about my story and how Reiki helped me. Also, my mom developed chronic bladder pain and inflammation after a lengthy hospital stay where she was catheterized (with no positive diagnosis of IC yet...) and we've recently started doing weekly Reiki sessions to help her with her bladder and sacroiliac joint pain.

I think if you're open to trying Reiki or other forms of energy healing, it can be a wonderful addition to the various strategies you're already employing for managing your symptoms. It is not a replacement for qualified medical care or treatment, and should be used as part of your overall self-care program.

[Katarina8349]

[QUOTE=poetgirl;529938]I'm a Reiki Master Teacher and life coach. Some of you who have been around the IC boards since around 2003 may remember me. I know, I know. It's been a while! :hi:



This is a lovely and encouraging post. Thank you!

[poetgirl]

All of this inspired me to write the following post on my blog:

http://dragonflyreiki.net/2010/02/reiki-and-interstitial-cystitis-my-healing-story/