For many months, in the UK, it has become extremely difficult to make an appointment to see one’s general practitioner. Surgeries, once always available for advice have, in some areas, become a thing of the past and patients are lucky to be offered a video appointment, assuming one has a computer, let alone see the doctor face to face. For those with serious health problems this is a national disgrace and needs to be addressed with the utmost urgency. However, for those with minor problems perhaps this is the ideal time to take more control over our own health. Because the National Health Service in Britain is free, people have become used to running to the doctor at the first twinge and in some cases have abused the service at great cost to the taxpayer.
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Before the advent of the UK National Health Service in July 1948, everyone had to pay to see their doctor. If the doctor had to make a home visit it cost in the region of 5 shillings (20 shillings to the £) when an average weekly wage was about £7.00 . For this reason, the doctor was only called if it was urgent or the patient was very ill. The doctor could be relied upon to come the same day.
SELF HELP AT AN EARLY STAGE When some non urgent and seemingly minor complaints are caught at an early stage many of today’s serious illnesses can be avoided and in the absence of advice from the medical profession, it is often possible to find ways of helping oneself before the condition worsens. It is important to remember that the two main stressors of the body are intestinal toxaemia (severe constipation) and dehydration. I have already written in detail about this first main stressor. The second main stressor, dehydration is explained here.. 
ORIGINS OF WATER DEPENDENCE
As mentioned in a previous article, Dr Batmanghelidj (known as Dr. Batman) wrote extensively about the many problems caused by dehydration in his book ‘Your Body’s Many Cries for Water’. He explains that the human body developed from species that were given life in water and this same dependence on the life-giving properties of water was inherited. The role of water in the body of living species, mankind included, has not changed since the first creation of life from salt water and its subsequent adaptation to fresh water. For these early water-dwelling species, life beyond their normal boundaries constituted great stress in case they dried up. This stress established a dominant physiology for crisis management of water. In the now ‘stressed’ humans, exactly the same translation and physiology of crisis management becomes established. The process primarily involves a strict rationing of the water ‘reserves’ of the body assuming that the water supply for its immediate needs is limited. Since every function of the body is monitored and pegged to the flow of water, ‘water management’ is the only way of making sure that adequate amounts of water reach the most vital organs, the brain function taking absolute priority over all other systems. BEVERAGES NO SUBSTITUTE FOR WATER Dr.Batman points out ‘in advanced societies, thinking that tea, coffee, alcohol and manufactured beverages are desirable substitutes for the natural water needs for the daily ‘stressed’ body is an elementary but catastrophic mistake. It is true that these beverages contain water but they also contain dehydrating agents. They get rid of the water they are dissolved in, plus some more water from the reserves of the body!’ CHRONIC WATER SHORTAGE Dr.Batman claims that chronic pains that cannot be easily explained as injury or infection should first and foremost be interpreted as signals of chronic water shortage in the area where pain is registered, a local thirst, before any other complicated procedures are forced upon the patient. Both the patient and the doctor should be aware of the damage that chronic dehydration can cause; ‘It is the root cause of most major degenerative diseases of the human body; the diseases whose cause was not clear until now.’ These chronic pains, according to Dr Batman, include dyspeptic pain (indigestion), rheumatic arthritis pain, angina pain (heart pain on walking or even at rest), low back pain, leg pain on walking, migraine and hangover headaches, colitis pain and its associated constipation. He observes that many modern treatments are only palliative (except for bacterial infections and the use of antibiotics) and none seems to be curative. He suggests that all these pains should be treated with a regular adjustment to daily water intake. |
HOW MUCH WATER TO DRINK No less than two and a half litres in 24 hours should be taken for a few days prior to the routine and regular use of analgesics or other pain relieving medications such as antihistamine or antacids, well before permanent local or general damage can be established and reach an irreversible disease status. He warns that these painkillers can cause severe side effects apart from the on-going dehydration that is temporarily silenced without removing the root cause of these pains, dehydration. A good indicator of whether you are becoming dehydrated is the colour of the urine; it should be almost colourless to pale yellow. If it is dark yellow or even orange this is a sign of dehydration and should be corrected as soon as possible. The dark colour means that the kidneys are working hard to get rid of toxins in the body in very concentrated urine. ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE In Dr. Batman’s opinion “the primary cause of Alzheimer’s Disease is chronic dehydration of the body”. He claims that brain cell dehydration is the initial cause of this distressing disease. In prolonged dehydration, the brain cells begin to shrink. In a dehydrated state many functions of the brain cells begin to get lost, such as the transport system that delivers neurotransmitters to nerve endings. Dr. Batman relates the story of the brother of one of his medical friends who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. He forced him to drink more water every day and in a matter of weeks his brother began to improve; so much so that he began to recover his memory, was able to follow a conversation and no longer frequently repeated himself. DIURETICS WRONG TREATMENT FOR HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE “High blood pressure (essential hypertension) is the result of an adaptive process to a gross body water deficiency”. Dr. Batman explains that it is essential for the blood volume to be maintained but when the body is dehydrated there is no alternative for the blood vessels other than to close their lumen (decrease their aperture) to cope with this loss in blood volume. He claims that, “in water shortage and body drought, 66% is taken from the water volume normally held inside the cells; 26% is taken from the volume held outside the cells; and 8% is taken from blood volume.” The closing of the lumen causes the rise in pressure that we recognise as hypertension. Therefore prescribing diuretics would be totally wrong. SOME DISEASES CAN BE PREVENTED Dr. Batman recommends that the best times to drink water are: one glass half-an-hour before taking food at breakfast, lunch and dinner and the same amount 2½ hours after each meal making a total of 1½ litres per day, with an extra cup of water for every cup of tea or coffee drunk. This, he says, is the very MINIMUM amount of water that your body needs. He advises that, “a well-regulated and constantly alert attention to daily water intake will prevent the emergence of most of the major diseases we have come to fear in our modern society”. SPECIAL NOTE If problems persist you should always keep trying to see your doctor. |
