The Wellspring. No.18
“Understanding
is a Wellspring of Life to him that has it.”
(Proverbs.
16:22)
Occasional papers by Arthur & Rosalind Eedle
Repetitive Strain
Injury (RSI)
A short while ago I wrote about Cancer being a
"deficiency disease". I would now like to take this a stage further
and refer to another modern complaint, known as Repetitive Strain Injury, or
RSI for short. It is a condition that afflicts a large number of people,
rendering them unable to operate fully and effectively with their hands. Let me
explain by referring to personal examples in our own family.
Two years ago my wife, Rosalind, spent a
morning painting a ceiling in part of our house, using a wide brush, and
emulsion paint. After this had been successfully completed, she began to find a
strain in her wrist that prevented her from using her right hand for various
operations, such as mixing and kneading the dough when bread-making. The
condition was a great nuisance factor, as anyone would testify who had suddenly
lost full use of a hand. She visited our local Hospital in the Casualty
Section, and they diagnosed RSI, but said that it couldn't have come about
purely as a result of the painting. On further questioning, she revealed that
for years she had been an inveterate letter writer, in the days when she
preferred to use a pen rather than our typewriter, or more recently, the
computer. They said that the constant repetition of wrist movements in such a
lot of writing had produced the strain, which was suddenly made acute by the
vigorous use of the paint brush. She was supplied with a wrist splint, and told
that "in time" the condition would ease. One year later she went back
to the Hospital to ask for a new splint, because the old one had more or less fallen
apart after many washings and usage. They were surprised that the condition
hadn't eased, and suggested a visit to our local doctor. She didn't follow that
up, and continued to make do with the old splint. There had been only a minimal
improvement. The Hospital said that no one had any idea how to affect a cure of
this (very common modern) condition. One asked in bewilderment why authors of a
century ago, who wrote their manuscripts entirely by hand, didn't all suffer
from RSI. But no, this condition is something that has emerged in recent days,
and is causing numbers of people to lose their jobs as typists.
Our son-in-law, Robin Phillips, has two
abilities which produce a slight envy in me! One of these is his ability to
"touch-type" at a fantastic speed. The other is a profound gift of
musical composition, exhibited by his piano playing. For my own part, I have
always used two fingers for typing ever since I first started in my College
days over 50 years ago. I can get up quite a speed, but it's nothing compared
to Robin's performance. Likewise, with the piano, I can play quite well, but do
not have any gift of composition. However, all that is beside the point. About
two years ago, Robin began to find that his wrists and fingers began to pain
him after a short exercise on the piano or at the computer keyboard. It
gradually worsened until, in a state of profound wretchedness, he realised that
he couldn't play the piano any more, neither could he type. Eventually he
visited the Hospital, and they shrugged their shoulders and were unable to give
him any advice or comfort in his condition. "Rest your hands and
wait." "How long?" "Who knows? We have no idea.
There's nothing we can do." In order to be able to continue with his
writing, (he was actively engaged in writing his book entitled "The Way of
a Man with a Maid") he obtained a Voice Recognition Programme for his
computer, and learned to use it fairly satisfactorily.
We have persistently tried to find some cure
for this condition, but until recently nothing was found in any of the
reference books we used. But now, suddenly, the truth has emerged. From a
certain suggestion in a book, that was not directly connected with RSI, the
author suggested that certain muscle conditions resulted from a deficiency of
Silica. Now Silica is just sand, or quartz, the stuff from which Silicon Chips
are made, used in all our computers. We decided to give this a try, and within
a short space of time, Rosalind and Robin both began to find an improvement.
Today, Rosalind is fully able to use her right hand again, and Robin is back at
the piano and computer keyboard, almost as strong as he used to be with his
hands.
From this, it emerges that mankind is being
influenced by yet another deficiency, this time a simple mineral substance,
Silicon Dioxide, which has been leached out of the soil by over-active farming
that lacks regeneration of trace elements. We ourselves are surrounded by
farming land, in fact a wheat field is so near to our house that when the
plough comes by in late August, the whole house vibrates. We watch the
application of fertilisers, and collect some of the plastic bags in which it
comes, so that we can use them for trash. On the side of these bags is the
composition of the fertiliser. It is rich in nitrogen of course, and puts back
into the soil what used to be obtained by clover during a fallow year, but the
wheat had extracted from the soil many other trace elements that are never
replaced. As a result, after years of farming in this fashion, the fields are
left in a condition of very poor quality. What is true of the wheat fields is
equally true of all other crops today. Even the cow manure that is spread every
three or four years is incapable of replenishing the losses.
The lack of these trace elements is causing a
number of conditions to appear these days that were never known even half a
century ago. RSI is therefore on this list, and now that we have been able to
pinpoint the critical agent, it is possible to recommend a cure. Health Food
Stores usually stock Colloidal Silica, often called Silicea, or Bamboo Gum.
We want to emphasise that we are NOT medical
people. We have no qualifications in that direction. But these days, it seems
that one has to by-pass all the usual medical channels to get to the root of
certain problems. We pass on to our readers what we have found in our own
experience. What we have said is not theory, it is proven fact. It is
something that has actually worked. If any of you have experienced RSI, we
recommend trying Silica to ease the condition.