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February 7, 2005

Cellular Immune System

Here is an explanation of the cellular immune system. It points to the specific part of the immune system that attacks pathogens that have gotten past the white cells in the blood. The first paragraph sounds complicated, so I have tried to make it understandable in the numbered paragraphs that follow.

Cell-mediated immunity is an immune response that involves the activation of macrophages and NK-cells, the production of antigen-specific cytotoxic T-lymphocytes, and the release of various cytokines in response to an antigen.

Translation: The cellular immune system protects the body by:

1. activating specific white cells (T-lymphocytes) that are able to blow up body cells that have foreign material attached to their surface, such as virus-infected cells, cells with intracellular bacteria, and cancer cells displaying tumor material;
2. activating other specific white cells (macrophages and NK cells), enabling them to destroy intracellular pathogens; and
3. stimulating cells that influence the function of other cells involved in adaptive immune responses and innate immune responses.

Cell-mediated immunity is most effective in removing virus-infected cells, but also participates in defending against intracellular bacteria.

The idea here is that the cellular immune system is stimulated by the Samento so that the body can defend itself and destroy infected cells and their contents of pathogenic material.

Posted by Laureen at 3:38 PM | Comments (2)

February 16, 2005

My Entry Into “Energy Medicine”

It was in September 1999, before my first crashes. I heard of a woman who was a “Medical Intuitive”. She could read the aura surrounding your body and tell you what was wrong with you. I made an appointment with her for a private reading. She told me that there was nothing seriously wrong, all I needed was “a little tune-up”. I continued to get sicker until finally I couldn’t get out of bed. My opinion was that she had gotten it wrong – there was something very seriously wrong with me.

Then about a year ago I read about a woman located on the east coast who could tune musical instruments without touching them. The writer of the article said that this woman could tune instruments even long distance and that the owner of the instrument (the writer in this case) even benefited physically from the tuning. I still have that article and have never called her. I felt embarrassed to call her without an instrument to tune.

My third brush with energy medicine was about 3 years ago, when I was very sick. My husband drove me to Calistoga. The twenty-seven mile distance was brutal for me to tolerate. I visited with a practitioner who treated me energetically. She muscle tested me to find the initial insult to my health. It was an early memory of an argument between my mother and my father when I was very young and still in a crib. She treated me with flower essences. I found that for a few weeks, I had vivid long intricate dreams. I wrote them in my health notebook. I had a second visit with her, in which she found that my third chakra was wide open and energy was pouring out. She closed it for me.

I liked her and her “flower child” type of treatment, but I was running out of money and the trip was so difficult and so long and sadly, I didn’t go back.

Recently, I enrolled in an energy medicine research project. I signed a confidentiality contract. So with some previous good experiences and some not-so-good experiences, I again put my faith in connecting with the energies of the Universe.

Posted by Laureen at 5:16 PM