Rheumatoid arthritis
A seventeen year old high school student came to the Lancaster Maharishi Ayurveda Medical Center on two different occasions, each time for a three week stay. She had been suffering from arthritis since the age of nine, with pain and stiffness in the shoulders, elbows, knees, wrists, hands, and ankles. The severity of the arthritis fluctuated and migrated from joint to joint and the fluctuations were often correlated with stress. The joints appeared swollen, warm, red and tender. She was dependent on steroids, since tapering them caused a rebound of pain. During the six months before her first visit to the clinic she had difficulty with the simple daily activities of being a student, stopping all physical activities. Several hours every morning after awakening were required, usually spent in hot baths, until the stiffness resolved enough to start her day.
She began a program involving pouring of soothing herbalized buttermilk on the head with simultaneous warm herbalized oil applications to the body (takradhara) and application to the affected joints of hot, moist boluses of leaves, vegetables and herbs (patrapotali), followed by internal cleansing procedures (basti). She learned the Transcendental Meditation technique and a program of Maharishi Yoga Asanas appropriate to her disability as well as beginning a program of herbal preparations from the Maharishi Veda Chronic Disease Program.
The response was dramatic. Within several days the pain and stiffness had begun to decrease and by the time she left the center, she was pain-free despite being on a reduced dose of steroids. When she returned to her intense academic boarding school environment several weeks later she felt well, but the stresses of her school work with irregular hours, late nights and institutional meals, her arthritis flared. She was started on anti-inflammatories, anti-depressants, muscle relaxants and sleeping pills. Feeling drugged on so many medications, she requested to return to the clinic.
The three week treatment was repeated with similarly impressive results and within one week she was off all her medications except the steroids. She remains free of pain and stiffness and is back in school following her Vedic approach to health as an outpatient.
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This information on "Rheumatoid arthritis" is in the "Lancaster Case Studies" section of AyurvedaMed.com website. To return to the index page of this section, please click here.
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