Ulcer Pain Quotes

Being conscious of having done a wicked action leaves stings of remorse behind it, which, like an ulcer in the flesh, makes the mind smart with perpetual wounds; for reason, which chases away all other pains, creates repentance, shames the soul with confusion, and punishes it with torment.

I've Got A Little Problem And I'm not really sure how to fix it. Not really sure I need to. Not really sure I could. Life is pretty good. But once in a while, uninvited and uninitiated anger invades me. It starts, a tiny gnaw at the back of my brain. Like a migraine except without pain. They say headaches blossom, but this isn't so much a blooming as a bleeding. Irritation bleeds into rage, seethes into fury. An ulcer, emptying hatred inside me. And I don't know why. Life is pretty good. So, what the hell?

Come, what do we gain by evasions? We are under the harrow and can’t escape. Reality, looked at steadily, is unbearable. And how or why did such a reality blossom (or fester) here and there into the terrible phenomenon called consciousness? Why did it produce things like us who can see it and, seeing it, recoil in loathing? Who (stranger still) want to see it and take pains to find it out, even when no need compels them and even though the sight of it makes an incurable ulcer in their hearts? People like H. herself, who would have truth at any price.

Why do I do it, when it always hurts me? Why must we test the pain? Tongue the ulcer, rub the blister, pick the scab?

Which would give her an ulcer first? All the aspirin and prescription pain medication she took, or Jack Carlton? Then again, that left only one cause, since he was the reason she needed the drugs to begin with.

Why did God do it? or is there really a Devil who led to the Fall? Souls in Heaven said "We want to try mortal existence, O God, Lucifer said it's great!"—Bang, down we fall, to this, to concentration camps, gas ovens, barbed wire, atom bombs, television murders, Bolivian starvation, thieves in silk, thieves in neckties, thieves in office, paper shufflers, bureaucrats, insult, rage, dismay, horror, terrified nightmares, secret death of hangovers, cancer, ulcers, strangulation, pus, old age, old age homes, canes, puffed flesh, dropped teeth, stink, tears, and goodbye. Somebody else write it, I dont know how.

It smells boys ulcerating to be men, paining like great unwise wisdom teeth, twenty thousand miles away, summer abed in winter’s night. It feels the aggravation of middle-aged men like myself, who gibber after long-lost August afternoons to no avail.

By not talking about death with our loved ones, not being clear through advanced directives, DNR (do not resuscitate) orders, and funeral plans, we are directly contributing to this future ... and a rather bleak present, at that. Rather than engage in larger societal discussions about dignified ways for the terminally ill to end their lives, we accept intolerable cases like that of Angelita, a widow in Oakland who covered her head with a plastic bag because the arthritic pain of her gnarled joints was too much to bear. Or that of Victor in Los Angeles, who hung himself from the rafters of his apartment after his third unsuccessful round of chemotherapy, leaving his son to discover his body. Or the countless bodies with decubitus ulcers, more painful for me to care for them even babies or suicides. When these bodies come into the funeral home, I can only offer my sympathy to their living relatives, and promise to work to ensure that more people are not robbed of a dignified death by a culture of silence.

I love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the subject or feel that choosing science means you cannot also choose compassion, or the arts, or be awed by nature. Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it. —Robert Sapolsky, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, p. xii

Science provides us with some of the most elegant, stimulating puzzles that life has to offer. It throws some of the most provocative ideas into our arenas of moral debate. Occasionally, it improves our lives. I love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the subject or feel that choosing science means that you cannot also choose compassion, or the arts, or be awed by nature. Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it.

Some team! The Chief was doing so many jobs alone. I’d fix on the Chief’s raw, rope-burned palms or all the gray hairs collected in his sink, and I’d suffer this terrible side pain that Kiwi said was probably an ulcer and Ossie diagnosed as lovesickness. Or rather a nausea produced by the “black fruit” of love—a terror that sprouted out of your love for someone like rotting oranges on a tree branch. Osceola knew all about this black fruit, she said, because she’d grown it for our mother, our father, Grandpa Sawtooth, even me and Kiwi. Loving a ghost was different, she explained—that kind of love was a bare branch. I pictured this branch curving inside my sister: something leafless and complete, elephantine, like a white tusk. No rot, she was saying, no fruit. You couldn’t lose a ghost to death.

The path to health, for an individual or a society, must begin by taking pain into account. Instead, we silence pain when we should be straining our ears to hear it; we eat too fast and too much and take a seltzer; we work too long and too hard and take a tranquilizer. The three best selling drugs in the United States are a hypertension drug, a medication for ulcers, and a tranquilizer. These pain-mufflers are readily available because even the medical profession seems to look upon pain as the illness rather than the symptom.

Poem for My Father You closed the door. I was on the other side, screaming. It was black in your mind. Blacker than burned-out fire. Blacker than poison. Outside everything looked the same. You looked the same. You walked in your body like a living man. But you were not. would you not speak to me for weeks would you hang your coat in the closet without saying hello would you find a shoe out of place and beat me would you come home late would i lose the key would you find my glasses in the garbage would you put me on your knee would you read the bible to me in your smoking jacket after your mother died would you come home drunk and snore would you beat me on the legs would you carry me up the stairs by my hair so that my feet never touch the bottom would you make everything worse to make everything better i believe in god, the father almighty, the maker of heaven, the maker of my heaven and my hell. would you beat my mother would you beat her till she cries like a rabbit would you beat her in a corner of the kitchen while i am in the bathroom trying to bury my head underwater would you carry her to the bed would you put cotton and alcohol on her swollen head would you make love to her hair would you caress her hair would you rub her breasts with ben gay until she stinks would you sleep in the other room in the bed next to me while she sleeps on the pull-out cot would you come on the sheet while i am sleeping. later i look for the spot would you go to embalming school with the last of my mother's money would i see your picture in the book with all the other black boys you were the handsomest would you make the dead look beautiful would the men at the elks club would the rich ladies at funerals would the ugly drunk winos on the street know ben pretty ben regular ben would your father leave you when you were three with a mother who threw butcher knives at you would he leave you with her screaming red hair would he leave you to be smothered by a pillow she put over your head would he send for you during the summer like a rich uncle would you come in pretty corduroys until you were nine and never heard from him again would you hate him would you hate him every time you dragged hundred pound cartons of soap down the stairs into white ladies' basements would you hate him for fucking the woman who gave birth to you hate him flying by her house in the red truck so that other father threw down his hat in the street and stomped on it angry like we never saw him (bye bye to the will of grandpa bye bye to the family fortune bye bye when he stompled that hat, to the gold watch, embalmer's palace, grandbaby's college) mother crying silently, making floating island sending it up to the old man's ulcer would grandmother's diamonds close their heartsparks in the corner of the closet yellow like the eyes of cockroaches? Old man whose sperm swims in my veins, come back in love, come back in pain.

For he alone, as the only all-gracious Son of an all-gracious Father, in accordance with the purpose of his Father's benevolence, has willingly put on the nature of us who lay prostrate in corruption, and like some excellent physician, who for the sake of saving them that are ill, examines their sufferings, handles their foul sores, and reaps pain for himself from the miseries of another, so us who were not only diseased and afflicted with terrible ulcers and wounds already mortified, but were even lying among the dead, he has saved for himself from the very jaws of death. For none other of those in heaven had such power as without harm to minister to the salvation of so many.

role of the pain syndrome was not to express the hidden emotions but to prevent them from becoming conscious. This, he explained, is what is referred to as a defense. In other words, the pain of TMS (or the discomfort of a peptic ulcer, of colitis, of tension headache, or the terror of an asthmatic attack) is created in order to distract the attention of the sufferer from what is going on in the emotional sphere. It is intended to focus one’s attention on the body instead of the mind. It is a response to the need to keep those terrible, antisocial, unkind, childish, angry, selfish feelings (the prisoners) from becoming conscious. It follows from this that far from being a physical disorder in the usual sense, TMS is really part of a psychological process.

Though she thou lovest now be far away, Yet idol-images of her are near And the sweet name is floating in thy ear. But it behooves to flee those images; And scare afar whatever feeds thy love; And turn elsewhere thy mind; and vent the sperm, Within thee gathered, into sundry bodies, Nor, with thy thoughts still busied with one love, Keep it for one delight, and so store up Care for thyself and pain inevitable. For, lo, the ulcer just by nourishing Grows to more life with deep inveteracy, And day by day the fury swells aflame, And the woe waxes heavier day by day- Unless thou dost destroy even by new blows The former wounds of love, and curest them While yet they're fresh, by wandering freely round After the freely-wandering Venus, or Canst lead elsewhere the tumults of thy mind.

Medicine once consisted of the knowledge of a few simples, to stop the flow of blood, or to heal wounds; then by degrees it reached its present stage of complicated variety. No wonder that in early days medicine had less to do! Men's bodies were still sound and strong; their food was light and not spoiled by art and luxury, whereas when they began to seek dishes not for the sake of removing, but of rousing, the appetite, and devised countless sauces to whet their gluttony, – then what before was nourishment to a hungry man became a burden to the full stomach. 16. Thence come paleness, and a trembling of wine-sodden muscles, and a repulsive thinness, due rather to indigestion than to hunger. Thence weak tottering steps, and a reeling gait just like that of drunkenness. Thence dropsy, spreading under the entire skin, and the belly growing to a paunch through an ill habit of taking more than it can hold. Thence yellow jaundice, discoloured countenances, and bodies that rot inwardly, and fingers that grow knotty when the joints stiffen, and muscles that are numbed and without power of feeling, and palpitation of the heart with its ceaseless pounding. 17. Why need I mention dizziness? Or speak of pain in the eye and in the ear, itching and aching[11] in the fevered brain, and internal ulcers throughout the digestive system? Besides these, there are countless kinds of fever, some acute in their malignity, others creeping upon us with subtle damage, and still others which approach us with chills and severe ague. 18. Why should I mention the other innumerable diseases, the tortures that result from high living?   Men used to be free from such ills, because they had not yet slackened their strength by indulgence, because they had control over themselves, and supplied their own needs.[12] They toughened their bodies by work and real toil, tiring themselves out by running or hunting or tilling the earth. They were refreshed by food in which only a hungry man could take pleasure. Hence, there was no need for all our mighty medical paraphernalia, for so many instruments and pill-boxes. For plain reasons they enjoyed plain health;

As their white blood cell counts collapsed, infection crawled across the skin of the young operators and firemen: Thick black blisters of herpes simplex encrusted their lips and the inside of their mouths. Candida rendered their gums red and lacy, and the skin peeled back, leaving them the color of raw meat. Painful ulcers developed on their arms, legs, and torsos, where they had been burned by beta particles. Unlike thermal burns caused by heat alone, which heal slowly over time, radiation burns grow gradually worse—so their external beta burns expanded outward in waves from wherever radioactive material had touched them and ate into the tissue below. The men’s body hair and eyebrows fell out, and their skin darkened—first red, then purple, before finally it became a papery brown-black and curled away in sheets. Inside their bodies, the gamma radiation ate away the lining of their intestines and corroded their lungs. Anatoly Kurguz, who had fought to close the airlock door to the reactor hall in the moments after the explosion and was enveloped in steam and dust, had so much cesium inside his body that he became a dangerous source of radiation. He

A number of clinical trials have shown benefits (though sometimes modest) of dietary supplementation with omega-3 fatty acids in several inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, psoriasis, lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, and migraine headaches. In fact, in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, supplementation with fish oil led to substantial improvements in joint swelling, pain, and morning stiffness and enabled them to reduce their use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Supplementation is beneficial because it helps correct the balance of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acid intake. The Paleo Approach goes one very important step further because it focuses not only on increasing omega-3 fatty acids (from whole-food sources such as fish, shellfish, and pasture-raised meats) but also on decreasing omega-6 fatty acids (by avoiding processed vegetable oils, grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds). Achieving the proper ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids will contribute substantially to the management of autoimmune disease and to overall health.

Stomachs that were merely cauldrons of acid, bubbling, foaming, always shooting spears of sliver-thin pain into our chests. It was the pain of the terminal ulcer, terminal cancer, terminal paresis. It was unending pain … And we passed through the cavern of rats. And we passed through the path of boiling steam. And we passed through the country of the blind. And we passed through the slough of despond. And we passed through the vale of tears. And we came, finally, to the ice caverns.

If the pain is caused by your stomach that dislikes what you ate, a beginning ulcer, or your liver that has a challenging task ahead, anxiety is not going to fix any of that. Since we eat/drink things that our body dislikes, since we catch viruses and more, pains are possible. I always go for full acceptance and when a symptom persists, I have it checked and try to figure out what’s causing it.

But once in a while, uninvited and uninitiated, anger invades me. It starts, a tiny gnaw at the back of my brain. Like a migraine, except without pain. They say headaches blossom, but this isn't so much a blossoming as a bleeding. Irritation bleeds into rage, seethes into fury. An ulcer, emptying hatred inside me. And I don't know why. Life is pretty good.

For many years I was under the impression that TMS was a kind of physical expression or discharge of the repressed emotions just described. In fact, this is what I suggested in the first edition of this book. I had been aware since the early 1970s that these common back and neck pain syndromes were due to repressed emotions. Eighty-eight percent of a large group of patients with TMS had a history of other tension-related disorders, like stomach ulcers, colitis, tension headache, and migraine headache. But the idea of TMS as a physical manifestation of nervous tension was somehow unsatisfactory and incomplete. Most important, it did not explain the repeated observation that making a patient aware of the role of the pain as participant in a psychological process would lead to cessation of pain, to a "cure." (page 56)

It was a psychoanalyst colleague, Dr. Stanley Coen, who suggested in the course of our working on a medical paper together that the role of the pain syndrome was not to express the hidden emotions but to prevent them from becoming conscious. This, he explained, is what is referred to as a defense. In other words, the pain of TMS (or the discomfort of a peptic ulcer, of colitis, of tension headache, or the terror of an asthmatic attack) is created in order to distract the attention of the sufferer from what is going on in the emotional sphere. It is intended to focus one's attention on the body instead of the mind. It is a response to the need to keep those terrible, antisocial, unkind, childish, angry, selfish feelings (the prisoners) from becoming conscious. It follows from this that far from being a physical disorder in the usual sense, TMS is really part of a psychological process.

I remind them (patients) that the musculoskeletal system is not the only one where the brain can set up a diversion. It can do the same thing in the gastrointestinal tract; the head, with tension or migraine headache; the skin; the genitourinary tract. The brain can cause mischief in any organ or system in the body, so one must be on guard. I advise my patients to consult their regular physicians if a new symptom occurs but to let me know about it since it may be serving the same purpose as TMS. For example, stomach ulcers should be treated with proper medication, but it is almost more important to recognize that they are coming from tension factors. (page 112)

It was a psychoanalyst colleague, Dr. Stanley Coen, who suggested in the course of our working on a medical paper together that the role of the pain syndrome was not to express the hidden emotions but to prevent them from becoming conscious. This, he explained, is what is referred to as a defense. In other words, the pain of TMS (or the discomfort of a peptic ulcer, of colitis, of tension headache, or the terror of an asthmatic attack) is created in order to distract the attention of the sufferer from what is going on in the emotional sphere. It is intended to focus one's attention on the body instead of the mind. It is a response to the need to keep those terrible, antisocial, unkind, childish, angry, selfish feelings (the prisoners) from becoming conscious. It follows from this that far from being a physical disorder in the usual sense, TMS is really part of a psychological process. (page 56)

She knew. We’d been friends since the sixth grade. She was well aware of my three-week-long menstruation nightmares. I got an ulcer junior year from taking too much ibuprofen for the pain. I’d missed prom because my cramps were so bad I couldn’t even stand up. She’d driven me to the ER more times than I could count.

It was a psychoanalyst colleague, Dr. Stanley Coen, who suggested in the course of our working on a medical paper together that the role of the pain syndrome was not to express the hidden emotions but to prevent them from becoming conscious. This, he explained, is what is referred to as a defense. In other words, the pain of TMS (or the discomfort of a peptic ulcer, of colitis, of tension headache, or the terror of an asthmatic attack) is created in order to distract the attention of the sufferer from what is going on in the emotional sphere.

Chlorophyll: builds a high red blood cell count helps prevent cancer provides iron to organs makes the body more alkaline counteracts toxins eaten improves anemic conditions cleans and deodorizes bowel tissues helps purify the liver aids hepatitis improvement regulates menstruation aids hemophilia condition improves milk production helps sores heal faster eliminates body odors resists bacteria in wounds cleans tooth and gum structure in pyorrhea eliminates bad breath relieves sore throat makes an excellent oral surgery gargle benefits inflamed tonsils soothes ulcer tissues soothes painful hemorrhoids and piles aids catarrhal discharges revitalizes vascular system in the legs improves varicose veins reduces pain caused by inflammation improves vision

If you’re like most people, a string of nerve-racking incidents keeps you in fight-or-flight response—and out of homeostasis—a large part of the time. Maybe the car cutting you off is the only actual life-threatening situation you encounter all day, but the traffic on the way to work, the pressure of preparing for a big presentation, the argument you had with your spouse, the credit-card bill that came in the mail, the crashing of your computer hard drive, and the new gray hair you noticed in the mirror keep the stress hormones circulating in your body on a near-constant basis. Between remembering stressful experiences from the past and anticipating stressful situations coming up in your future, all these repetitive short-term stresses blur together into long-term stress. Welcome to the 21st-century version of living in survival mode. In fight-or-flight mode, life-sustaining energy is mobilized so that the body can either run or fight. But when there isn’t a return to homeostasis (because you keep perceiving a threat), vital energy is lost in the system. You have less energy in your internal environment for cell growth and repair, long-term building projects on a cellular level, and healing when that energy is being channeled elsewhere. The cells shut down, they no longer communicate with one another, and they become “selfish.” It’s not time for routine maintenance (let alone for making improvements); it’s time for defense. It’s every cell for itself, so the collective community of cells working together becomes fractured. The immune and endocrine systems (among others) become weakened as genes in those related cells are compromised when informational signals from outside the cells are turned off. It’s like living in a country where 98 percent of the resources go toward defense, and nothing is left for schools, libraries, road building and repair, communication systems, growing of food, and so on. Roads develop potholes that aren’t fixed. Schools suffer budget cuts, so students wind up learning less. Social welfare programs that took care of the poor and the elderly have to close down. And there’s not enough food to feed the masses. Not surprisingly, then, long-term stress has been linked to anxiety, depression, digestive problems, memory loss, insomnia, hypertension, heart disease, strokes, cancer, ulcers, rheumatoid arthritis, colds, flu, aging acceleration, allergies, body pain, chronic fatigue, infertility, impotence, asthma, hormonal issues, skin rashes, hair loss, muscle spasms, and diabetes, to name just a few conditions (all of which, by the way, are the result of epigenetic changes). No organism in nature is designed to withstand the effects of long-term stress.

I'd been to see our family doctor for chronic stomach pains several times that semester. I didn't have an ulcer yet, so he prescribed Tums, stress reduction, and no more Diet Coke. My mother remarked that when she was a child, there was no such thing as stress. Back then, she said, it was just called life. It's good that the doctor gave us multiple options, because stress and Diet Coke were not leaving my routine any time soon.

DENGUE FEVER (BREAKBONE FEVER) Dengue fever is a viral infection found throughout Central America. In Costa Rica outbreaks involving thousands of people occur every year. Dengue is transmitted by aedes mosquitoes, which often bite during the daytime and are usually found close to human habitations, often indoors. They breed primarily in artificial water containers such as jars, barrels, cans, plastic containers and discarded tires. Dengue is especially common in densely populated, urban environments. Dengue usually causes flulike symptoms including fever, muscle aches, joint pains, headaches, nausea and vomiting, often followed by a rash. Most cases resolve uneventfully in a few days. Severe cases usually occur in children under the age of 15 who are experiencing their second dengue infection. There is no treatment for dengue fever except taking analgesics such as acetaminophen/paracetamol (Tylenol) and drinking plenty of fluids. Severe cases may require hospitalization for intravenous fluids and supportive care. There is no vaccine. The key to prevention is taking insect-protection measures. HEPATITIS A Hepatitis A is the second-most-common travel-related infection (after traveler’s diarrhea). It’s a viral infection of the liver that is usually acquired by ingestion of contaminated water, food or ice, though it may also be acquired by direct contact with infected persons. Symptoms may include fever, malaise, jaundice, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. Most cases resolve without complications, though hepatitis A occasionally causes severe liver damage. There is no treatment. The vaccine for hepatitis A is extremely safe and highly effective. You should get vaccinated before you go to Costa Rica. Because the safety of hepatitis A vaccine has not been established for pregnant women or children under the age of two, they should instead be given a gammaglobulin injection. LEISHMANIASIS Leishmaniasis occurs in the mountains and jungles of all Central American countries. The infection is transmitted by sand flies, which are about one-third the size of mosquitoes. Most cases occur in newly cleared forest or areas of secondary growth. The highest incidence is in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca. It causes slow-growing ulcers over exposed parts of the body There is no vaccine. RABIES Rabies is a viral infection of the brain and spinal cord that is almost always fatal. The rabies virus is carried in the saliva of infected animals and is typically transmitted through an animal bite, though contamination of any break in the skin with infected saliva may result in rabies. Rabies occurs in all Central American countries. However, in Costa Rica only two cases have been reported over the last 30 years. TYPHOID Typhoid fever is caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated by a species of salmonella known as Salmonella typhi . Fever occurs in virtually all cases. Other symptoms may include headache, malaise, muscle aches, dizziness, loss of appetite, nausea and abdominal pain. A pretrip vaccination for typoid is recommended, but not required. It’s usually given orally, and is also available as an injection. TRAVELER’S DIARRHEA Tap water is safe and of a high quality in Costa Rica, but when you’re far off the beaten path it’s best to avoid tap water unless it has been boiled, filtered or chemically disinfected (iodine tablets). To prevent diarrhea, be wary of dairy products that might contain unpasteurized milk; and be highly selective when eating food from street vendors.

Symptoms of weak spleen-pancreas qi: loose stools, general weakness, fatigue, pale tongue with a thin white coating, weak pulse, and any of the other general signs of spleen-pancreas imbalance listed above. Imbalances commonly caused by weak spleen-pancreas qi include food sensitivities, nervous indigestion, anemia, chronic diarrhea or dysentery, ulcers, and pain in the upper abdomen.

You don't wait till your case become terminal before you ask for a doctor. If you wait till it becomes incurable you will die without knowing your right. Spiritually put; you don't wait until you have problem before you pray. Pray without ceasing for you do not know when the problem will come. If you can bind headache you can bind cancer. If you can bind fever, you can equally bind ulcer. If you can loss a mentally dreaded man, you can loss and raise the dead.

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori). H. pylori is a bacteria found in the upper gastrointestinal tracts of more than half the people in the world (more in developing nations). While 80 percent of those infected are asymptomatic, H. pylori can cause chronic gastritis, the symptoms of which include nonulcer dyspepsia, stomach pains, nausea, bloating, belching, and sometimes vomiting or black stool. It is known to be responsible for stomach ulcers and increased risk of stomach cancer. It is also strongly correlated with immune thrombocytopenia, psoriasis, and sarcoidosis.

Red: Most yang, warm, and stimulating. Produces heat. Stimulates vital energy and circulation of the blood. Stimulates sensory nervous systems and energizes the five basic senses. Stimulates the healing of wounds without pus. Used in treatment of chronic infections. Too much red leads to anger and hyperactivity. Orange: Gentle yang, tonifies. Stimulates appetite, relieves cramps and spasms, increases blood pressure, induces vomiting, relieves gas, builds bones. When used with blue, regulates the endocrine system. Stimulates joy, optimism, and enthusiasm. Yellow: Yang, and the brightest of all colors. Strengthens motor nervous system and metabolism, and aids conditions of the glandular, lymphatic, and digestive systems. Stimulates intellectual functions; boosts cheerfulness and confidence. Green: Neutral yin. Slightly cooling. Treats conditions of the lungs, eyes, diabetes, musculoskeletal and inflammatory joint problems, and ulcers. Is antibacterial and aids in detoxification. Calms, soothes, and balances. Blue: Yin or cool. Relaxes body and mind, reduces fever, congestion, itching, irritation, and pain. Treats high blood pressure, burns, inflammations with pus and diseases involving heat. Contracts tissues and muscles. Calms and tranquilizes when used on the pituitary and pineal acupoints. Helpful for insomnia, phobias, and endocrine imbalances. Not indicated for depression as it is a melancholy color. Violet: Most yin color. Aids the spleen, reduces irritability, and balances the right brain. When combined with yellow, increases lymph production, controls hunger, and balances the nervous system. Acts on the unconscious.35 Complementary Colors The complementary color pairs are: red-green, orange-blue, and yellow-violet. Together, these colors balance yin and yang. For example, red might stimulate the blood and improve circulation while green calms conditions creating stress. Blue might assuage pain while orange lifts fear or depression causing tension. Yellow will strengthen the nervous system while violet calms it with a meditative state.

The Religion of Pain. The book said straightforward things. Pain was a response to injury. But when pain didn’t go away it was because a deep-seated psychological pattern had been established; besides, back pain hadn’t existed till fifty years before—before that, people got ulcers when they were depressed; where were ulcers now? Replaced by back pain.

There were people with chronic pain, in need of a miracle and receiving only medicine and advice they had probably heard a hundred times before. There were hideous stinking ulcers to clean and dress and lectures to be given to their weary owners about hygiene and exercise and diet. There were people whose descriptions of their symptoms made no sense at all even though he understood all the words. Ingenuous was unable to explain what “He has feathers in his chest” meant, and “My knees are runny”.

I want to marry you, Rosalie Harrow. I want you to be my duchess and my wife. I want to wake with you in my arms every morning. But most of all, I want you to want me…want us. Enough to stay, enough to try this, enough to trust us with your heart and earn the right to love you. And I want this painful moment to be over, and I want you to answer me, because if I’m left wondering if you’ll ever say yes much longer, the ulcer I’ve named after you will burst, and I’ll die, and this will have all been for nothing.

My first comment is that all over-the-counter pain killers lower copper, these are Tylenol, Ibuprofin, and Aspirin.  All three of them cause bleeding, and cause death through bleeding.  All three of them cause bleeding ulcers.  The mechanism of action of causing bleeding ulcers is copper depletion of the stomach lining where the ulcer takes place.

Early trauma—fear or separation anxiety—met with a freeze response due to helplessness—disrupts the ANS in a manner that causes it to dramatically malfunction throughout life by over-functioning or under- functioning—if the corrupted memories are never purged, or discharged. Infant separation trauma can lead to over-sensitization, to colitis, skin problems, allergies, mitral valve prolapse, irritable bladder, ulcers, asthma, immune problems, and of course pain.

Anger may be one of the most important and least appreciated of the emotions we generate. The celebrated psychoanalyst and ethicist Willard Gaylin published a book in 1984 titled The Rage Within, which explored the subject of anger in modern man. Because anger is so antithetical to our idea of appropriate behavior in a civilized society, we tend to repress it at the very moment it is generated in the unconscious and so remain unaware of its existence. There are many reasons, most of them unconscious, why we repress anger. They were enumerated in the psychology chapter (see here). The tendency to repress undesirable emotions is a supremely important element of one’s emotional life, and, again, we are indebted to Freud for the concept. We repress feelings of anxiety, anger, weakness, dependency, and low self-esteem, for obvious reasons. At the other end of the emotional spectrum, there is what Freud called the superego; this is our Moses. It tells us what we should and should not be doing, and it can be a hard taskmaster. In fact, it adds to the pressures that make us anxious and angry and so actually contributes to the tensions within us. As I have said earlier, people who get TMS tend to be hardworking, hyper-responsible, conscientious, ambitious, and achieving, all of which build up the pressure on the beleaguered self. One further observation. Just as there is a powerful tendency to repress undesirable emotions, there seems to be an equally strong drive to bring them to consciousness. It is this threat to overcome repression that necessitates the creation by the brain of such things as TMS, ulcers, and migraines.

I do love Shakespeare, but I relate more to Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, C.S. Lewis. Oh, but Lewis is MAGICAL; reading Lewis is like leaving ground zero and rushing head-on into the universe a child in my heart once more, all ulcers healed and my pain a distant memory...

Along with doubt about the accuracy of conventional diagnoses, there came the realization that the primary tissue involved was muscle, specifically the muscles of the neck, shoulders, back, and buttocks. But even more important was the observation that 88 percent of the people seen had histories of such things as tension or migraine headache, heartburn, hiatus hernia, stomach ulcer, colitis, spastic colon, irritable bowel syndrome, hay fever, asthma, eczema, and a variety of other disorders, all of which were strongly suspected of being related to tension.

For many years I was under the impression that TMS was a kind of physical expression or discharge of the repressed emotions just described. In fact, this is what I suggested in the first edition of this book. I had been aware since the early 1970s that these common back and neck pain syndromes were due to repressed emotions. Eighty-eight percent of a large group of patients with TMS had a history of other tension-related disorders, like stomach ulcers, colitis, tension headache, and migraine headache. But the idea of TMS as a physical manifestation of nervous tension was somehow unsatisfactory and incomplete. Most important, it did not explain the repeated observation that making a patient aware of the role of the pain as participant in a psychological process would lead to cessation of pain, to a “cure.” It was a psychoanalyst colleague, Dr. Stanley Coen, who suggested in the course of our working on a medical paper together that the role of the pain syndrome was not to express the hidden emotions but to prevent them from becoming conscious. This, he explained, is what is referred to as a defense. In other words, the pain of TMS (or the discomfort of a peptic ulcer, of colitis, of tension headache, or the terror of an asthmatic attack) is created in order to distract the attention of the sufferer from what is going on in the emotional sphere. It is intended to focus one’s attention on the body instead of the mind. It is a response to the need to keep those terrible, antisocial, unkind, childish, angry, selfish feelings (the prisoners) from becoming conscious. It follows from this that far from being a physical disorder in the usual sense, TMS is really part of a psychological process.

They are always tired; because they are so exposed to other people's energy, they constantly feel drained and tired. This tiredness is so extreme that even sleep can’t relieve it. Empaths are often diagnosed with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME). They suffer from back problems and digestive disorders. The center of the abdomen is where the solar plexus chakra is located (see chapter 10). Empaths feel the emotions of others in this area, which weakens it and can lead to irritable bowel syndrome, stomach ulcers, and lower back problems. The empath who doesn’t understand their gift will typically suffer from such physical problems. They catch illnesses quickly; an empath develops the physical symptoms of those around them. They often catch the flu, eye infections, and aches and pains in the body and joints. When they are close to someone who is unwell, they often experience sympathy pains.

I don't want to be happy. There is no happy. I am content to wallow in this cesspit for all eternity because it is like poking at a mouth ulcer with the tip of your tongue--inadvisable, painful, but addictive. What I choose to say to my little brother instead: 'Someday. Maybe.

5. How, immediately after his crime against our Saviour and the other infants, the punishment sent by God drove him on to his death, we can best learn from the words of that historian who, in the seventeenth book of his Antiquities of the Jews, writes as follows concerning his end: 6. “But the disease of Herod grew more severe, God inflicting punishment for his crimes. For a slow fire burned in him which was not so apparent to those who touched him, but augmented his internal distress; for he had a terrible desire for food which it was not possible to resist. He was affected also with ulceration of the intestines, and with especially severe pains in the colon, while a watery and transparent humor settled about his feet. 7. He suffered also from a similar trouble in his abdomen. Nay more, his privy member was putrefied and produced worms. He found also excessive difficulty in breathing, and it was particularly disagreeable because of the offensiveness of the odor and the rapidity of respiration. 8. He had convulsions also in every limb, which gave him uncontrollable strength. It was said, indeed, by those who possessed the power of divination and wisdom to explain such events, that God had inflicted this punishment upon the King on account of his great impiety.

acupressure to relieve ulcer pain, menstrual cramps, lower back aches, constipation, and indigestion.

Let’s walk this out step by step. Let’s say you have a problem with a disease by the label of “acid reflux.” You experience stress. Stress decreases muscle tone around the lower esophagus, because that requires blood and energy, which we are using to fight or flee. Now the acid in the stomach washes back up into the esophagus, damaging the lining of the esophagus. These cells get repeatedly damaged, causing pain and eventually ulcers or cancer. But they only do that because they’re not in growth and healing and repair mode, or they could protect themselves from the acid bath. So you manifest the disease “acid reflux.” The medical solution is to give a purple pill to stop the acid. This works quite effectively for reducing the acid, but the problem is that the acid is needed to digest food. Acid also functions to kill bacteria that we have ingested with the food. In masking our symptom, we’ve created two new problems. The extra bacterial load burdens the immune system. The food remains in the stomach longer until the stomach finally produces enough acid to digest it, but now there’s a longer exposure period of the acid to the esophagus. It becomes a vicious cycle. So, do we want to mask the symptom or heal the source?

James Howard Williams died during an emergency appendectomy. So accustomed to the burning ache of his ulcer, he mistook the new, sharper agony as more of the same. The man who never spoke of his woes stoically bore the pain of a burst appendix until it was too late.

Love is what you call a phantom pain. The poets write of it, our great art represents it, it inspires our musicians, but it does not really exist. Like an ulcer you think you have but the surgeon opens you up and finds nothing there. It is a chemical reaction, Keesy. Hormones. People die for it, but no one has ever proven it exists. ~Poppa

Before she'd worn her first black dress, fear had splintered into a hundred pieces inside her, and each one turned into a painful ulcer. To keep anyone from touching those spots, she'd pulled away before they got a chance.

I can’t explain what I don’t understand. It’s never happened with any other Skill-healing I’ve witnessed. Only between you and me. Whatever injury I take from you appears on me.” He stood, his arms crossed on his chest. He wore his own face, and Amber’s painted lips and rouged cheeks looked peculiar now. His eyes seemed to bore into me. “No. Explain why you hid this from me! Why you couldn’t trust me with the simple truth. What did you imagine? That I would demand you blind yourself that I might see?” “I…no!” I braces my elbows on the table and rested my head in my hands. I could not recall when I had felt more drained. A steady pulse of pounding pain in my temples kept pace with my heartbeat. I felt a desperate need to recover my strength, but even sitting still was demanding more than I had to give. I wanted to topple over onto the floor and surrender to sleep. I tried to order my thoughts. “You were so desperate to regain your sight. I didn’t want to take that hope from you. My plan was that once you were strong enough the coterie could try to heal you, if you would let them. My fear was that if I told you I couldn’t heal you without losing my sight, you’d lose all hope.” The last piece of the truth was angular and sharp-edged in my mouth. “And I feared you would think me selfish that I did not heal you.” I let my head lower onto my folded arms. The Fool said something. “I didn’t hear that.” “You weren’t meant to,” he replied in a low voice. Then he admitted, “I called you a clodpoll.” “Oh.” I could barely keep my eyes open. He asked a cautious question. “After you’d taken on my hurts, did they heal?” “Yes. Mostly. But very slowly.” My back still bore the pinkish dimples in echo of the ulcers that had been on his back. “Or so it seemed to me. You know hun body has been since that runaway healing the coterie did on me years ago. I scarcely age and injuries heal overnight, leaving me exhausted. But they healed, Fool. Once I knew what was happening, I was more careful. When I worked on the bones around your eyes, I kept strict control.” I halted. It was a terrifying offer to make. But in our sort of friendship, it had to be made. “I could try to heal your eyes. Give you sight, lose mine, and see if my body could restore mine. It would take time. And I’m not sure this is the best place for us to make such an attempt. Perhaps in Bingtown, after we’ve sent the others home, we could take rooms somewhere and make the attempt.” “No. Don’t be stupid.” His tone forbade any response. In his long silence, sleep crept up on me, seeping into every part of my body. It was an engulfing demand the body makes, one that knows no refusal. “Fitz. Fitz? Look at me. What do you see?” I prised my eyelids open and looked at him. I thought I knew what he needed to hear. “I see my friend. My oldest, dearest friend. No matter what guise you wear.” “And you see me clearly?” Something in his voice made me lift up my head. I blinked blearily and stared at him. After a time, he swam into focus. “Yes.” He let out his pent up breath. “Good. Because when I touched you, I felt something happen, something more than I expected. I reached for you, to call you back, for I feared you were vanishing into the Skill-current. But when I touched you, it wasn’t as if I touched someone else. It was like folding my hands together. As if your blood suddenly ran through my veins. Fitz, I can see the shape of you, there in your chair. I fear I may have taken something from you.” “Oh. Good. I’m glad.” I closed my eyes, too weary for surprise. Too exhausted for fear. I thought of that day, long ago, when I had drawn him back from death and pushed him into his own body again. In that moment, as I had left the body I had repaired for him, as we had passed each other before resuming our own flesh again, I’d felt the same. A sense of oneness. Of completion. I recalled it but was too weary to put it into words. I put my head down on the table and slept.

I can’t explain what I don’t understand. It’s never happened with any other Skill-healing I’ve witnessed. Only between you and me. Whatever injury I take from you appears on me.” He stood, his arms crossed on his chest. He wore his own face, and Amber’s painted lips and rouged cheeks looked peculiar now. His eyes seemed to bore into me. “No. Explain why you hid this from me! Why you couldn’t trust me with the simple truth. What did you imagine? That I would demand you blind yourself that I might see?” “I…no!” I braces my elbows on the table and rested my head in my hands. I could not recall when I had felt more drained. A steady pulse of pounding pain in my temples kept pace with my heartbeat. I felt a desperate need to recover my strength, but even sitting still was demanding more than I had to give. I wanted to topple over onto the floor and surrender to sleep. I tried to order my thoughts. “You were so desperate to regain your sight. I didn’t want to take that hope from you. My plan was that once you were strong enough the coterie could try to heal you, if you would let them. My fear was that if I told you I couldn’t heal you without losing my sight, you’d lose all hope.” The last piece of the truth was angular and sharp-edged in my mouth. “And I feared you would think me selfish that I did not heal you.” I let my head lower onto my folded arms. The Fool said something. “I didn’t hear that.” “You weren’t meant to,” he replied in a low voice. Then he admitted, “I called you a clodpoll.” “Oh.” I could barely keep my eyes open. He asked a cautious question. “After you’d taken on my hurts, did they heal?” “Yes. Mostly. But very slowly.” My back still bore the pinkish dimples in echo of the ulcers that had been on his back. “Or so it seemed to me. You know how my body has been since that runaway healing the coterie did on me years ago. I scarcely age and injuries heal overnight, leaving me exhausted. But they healed, Fool. Once I knew what was happening, I was more careful. When I worked on the bones around your eyes, I kept strict control.” I halted. It was a terrifying offer to make. But in our sort of friendship, it had to be made. “I could try to heal your eyes. Give you sight, lose mine, and see if my body could restore mine. It would take time. And I’m not sure this is the best place for us to make such an attempt. Perhaps in Bingtown, after we’ve sent the others home, we could take rooms somewhere and make the attempt.” “No. Don’t be stupid.” His tone forbade any response. In his long silence, sleep crept up on me, seeping into every part of my body. It was an engulfing demand the body makes, one that knows no refusal. “Fitz. Fitz? Look at me. What do you see?” I prised my eyelids open and looked at him. I thought I knew what he needed to hear. “I see my friend. My oldest, dearest friend. No matter what guise you wear.” “And you see me clearly?” Something in his voice made me lift up my head. I blinked blearily and stared at him. After a time, he swam into focus. “Yes.” He let out his pent up breath. “Good. Because when I touched you, I felt something happen, something more than I expected. I reached for you, to call you back, for I feared you were vanishing into the Skill-current. But when I touched you, it wasn’t as if I touched someone else. It was like folding my hands together. As if your blood suddenly ran through my veins. Fitz, I can see the shape of you, there in your chair. I fear I may have taken something from you.” “Oh. Good. I’m glad.” I closed my eyes, too weary for surprise. Too exhausted for fear. I thought of that day, long ago, when I had drawn him back from death and pushed him into his own body again. In that moment, as I had left the body I had repaired for him, as we had passed each other before resuming our own flesh again, I’d felt the same. A sense of oneness. Of completion. I recalled it but was too weary to put it into words. I put my head down on the table and slept.

I love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the subject or feel that choosing science means you cannot also choose compassion, or the arts, or be awed by nature. Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it. —Robert Sapolsky, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers,

After his protracted hospitalization in 1998, Abe had controlled his ulcerative colitis. However, he now faced stress at a level unlike anything he had encountered before, with few opportunities to escape from the duties of office. The strains of office grew as he battled members of his own party to keep his job, and then embarked on his swing through three tropical countries at the height of summer. Within a week of the elections, he experienced cramps and loss of appetite that worsened during his travels. In a confessional essay published in 2008, Abe described forcing down "ethnic cuisine" during his trip despite diarrhea and gastrointestinal pain. His condition worsened to the point that he lost nearly fifteen pounds over the course of a month and visited the bathroom upwards of thirty times a day. By the first week of September, he began to think about resigning. His closest aides noticed that something was wrong. Yosano, for example, noticed that Abe was unusually subdued in a 6 September roundtable discussion with editorial writers. His determination to resign was stiffened on 10 September when, while speaking before the upper house, his pain made it difficult to concentrate and he omitted three lines from his prepared text. As he later wrote, "Whether it is possible to fulfill the duties of the prime minister or whether it is possible to respond adequately to the Diet in this condition-considering myself , I am truly sorry to say but I had no choice but to recognize this as impossible.