DocRobert

18/11/2025

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A menudo resulta difícil explicar el dolor a las personas porque nos han inculcado la idea errónea de que el dolor debe ser "causado" por algún tipo de lesión física en el lugar donde se siente, o al menos en los tejidos que lo originan (como en el caso del dolor nervioso, por ejemplo, la ciática). Si bien este es un escenario común, también existen otros en los que resulta completamente erróneo. Por ejemplo, la intensidad del dolor, desde la ausencia total hasta la agonía, depende en gran medida de la sensibilidad del sistema nervioso en ese momento. Una mano, por ejemplo, puede ser normalmente completamente funcional, sin dolor y cómoda, incluso si técnicamente existe algún problema menor en una de las articulaciones, tal vez una lesión antigua o un punto de artrosis. Pero si algo sensibiliza el sistema nervioso sensorial —quizás un accidente o un estado emocional negativo intenso, como una fuerte discusión con la pareja—, de repente la mano comienza a doler. No relacionamos ambos sucesos porque, como la mayoría, hemos sido condicionados a pensar en el dolor de una manera muy mecánica.

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It is often challenging to explain pain to people because we were taught the mistaken idea that pain must be "caused" by some kind of physical lesion in the place where the pain is, or at least in the tissues which lead to the pain (as in nerve pain like sciatica). Of course, this is a common scenario, but there are also other common scenarios in which it is a complete red herring. For example, a lot of variation in pain, from zero to agony, depends on how sensitive your nervous system is that day, week, or month. Your hand, for instance, may normally be entirely functional, pain-free and comfortable even though technically there is some minor issue with one of the joints, maybe an old injury or a spot of arthritis. But if something happens to sensitise the sensory nervous system - perhaps an accident or a strong negative emotional state like a big row with your spouse or partner - then all of a sudden your hand becomes painful. You do not connect the two events because you, like most of us, have been indoctrinated to think about pain in a very mechanistic way.

17/11/2025

Healthy sleeping rhythms....

Once, men and women did not sleep as we do now. The notion of “eight hours straight” was foreign. In the Middle Ages, the night unfolded in two distinct breaths: the first sleep and the second sleep.

As the sun dipped below the horizon and the sky turned to dark velvet, people would retire early, surrendering to the hush of night. After four or five hours, their eyes would open—not from anxiety or disruption, but from rhythm. This pause in the night was a quiet, secret world.

By candlelight, they prayed, leafed through worn books, or sipped spiced wine. Some crossed the street to knock on a neighbor’s door, while others lingered in the kitchen, telling stories to their children, hands wrapped around warm cups. It was the heart of the night, and yet life moved gently—intimate, unhurried, profound.

When the invisible clock of darkness signaled, they returned to bed. The second sleep carried them to dawn, when the rooster’s crow marked the beginning of the day.

For centuries, this was the rhythm of rest—recorded in diaries, stories, even medical manuals. But the 19th century arrived with street lamps, factories, and the clamor of urban life. The middle hours of the night lost their enchantment, and people began to sleep “all in one go.”

By the 20th century, the memory of segmented sleep had faded. What was once a natural rhythm became misunderstood. Today, we might call it insomnia.

Then… it was simply the most human way to live in harmony with the night.

06/11/2025

Osteopathy and the great flu epidemic...

“Here in influenza (and other infections) you have the master-tissue of the body - the nerves - pinched and pressed upon by tissue-tension at its very exit from the great central power house, the spinal cord, and tension there is important. If the osteopath lowers the tension and removes the block by loosening the tissues along the line from the skull to coccyx, we can fairly well account for his quick results in influenza in the following way:

1. The toxin of influenza has entered the blood, and has made rigid ( among other muscles) the muscles of the spine.
2. The body cells of the influenza patient are making antibodies as fast as they can.”

M. A. Lane, Dr. A. T. Still, Founder of Osteopathy, 1910.

13/10/2025

This page is from the book Narziss and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse. I first read the book when I was a "young" man(!) and I find it just as captivating and worthwhile (or more so) the second time. The story takes place in the German Empire in the fourteenth century, and partly during the years of the Great Plague (1347 to 1351). The highlighted text is interesting in the light of a reflection on human nature and its manifestations during our most recent "plague"...

13/10/2025

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¡AFINAR UN CUERPO ES (un poco) COMO AFINAR UNA MANDOLINA!

Al afinar un instrumento de cuerda, se aumenta o disminuye la tensión de cada cuerda para que cada una cumpla su función a la perfección (toque la nota correcta) en armonía con las demás. Pero cada vez que se aumenta o disminuye la tensión de una cuerda, se modifica mínimamente la curvatura del mástil, aumentando o disminuyendo así la tensión de las demás. Esto ocurre especialmente en instrumentos como la mandolina, que está diseñada para tener una tensión de cuerdas relativamente alta. Lo que ocurre es que, tras afinar una cuerda, se afina la siguiente y luego la primera ya no está exactamente afinada. Para afinar todo el instrumento, hay que revisar cada cuerda tres veces, ajustando cada vez las desviaciones de la afinación producidas por el propio proceso. Al final, se obtiene un conjunto equilibrado de tensiones de cuerdas, lo que significa que el instrumento está finalmente afinado.

Algo similar ocurre cuando ajustamos el cuerpo con tratamientos osteopáticos, y esta es una de las razones por las que es absurdo esperar que un solo tratamiento resuelva algo que no sean los problemas más simples de reciente aparición. En mi experiencia, cuando hay problemas que se han desarrollado durante mucho tiempo, puede llevar hasta 18 meses de tratamientos regulares, primero semanales y luego bimensuales, para optimizar el cuerpo. Por supuesto, esto no es económicamente viable para la mayoría de las personas, así que hacemos lo que podemos, lo cual suele ser suficiente para reducir los síntomas a niveles aceptables en cuanto a frecuencia, intensidad y duración, o incluso mantenerlo asintomático durante largos períodos.

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TUNING A BODY IS (a bit) LIKE TUNING A MANDOLIN!

When you tune a stringed instrument, you do it by increasing or decreasing the tension in each string so that each string serves its purpose perfectly (plays the right note) in harmony with the other strings. But every time you increase or decrease the tension in a string, you change to a minute degree the amount of bend in the neck, thus increasing or decreasing the tension in the other strings. This is particularly the case with an instrument such as the mandolin, which is constructed to have relatively high string tension. So what happens is that, having put one string in tune, you tune the next string and then find the first string is no longer exactly in tune. To get the whole instrument in tune you have to go through each string three times, each time adjusting for the deviations from good tuning produced by the tuning process itself! In the end, you have a well-balanced set of string tensions, meaning the instrument is finally in tune.

A similar thing happens when we adjust your body with osteopathic treatments, and it is one reason why it is absurd to expect a single treatment to resolve anything but the simplest issues of most recent onset. In my experience, when there are issues that have developed over a long time, it can take up to 18 months of regular treatments, first weekly then twice monthly, to tune the body to the best it can be. Of course this is not economically viable for most people, so we do what we can, which is often enough to reduce your symptoms to acceptable levels in terms of frequency, intensity and duration, or even keep you symptom-free for long periods of time.

30/09/2025

Things don't have to be complicated...

“Man is an animal, and his happiness depends upon his physiology more than he likes to think … Unhappy businessmen, I am convinced, would increase their happiness more by walking six miles every day than by any conceivable change of philosophy.”

—Bertrand Russell

25/09/2025

Medicinal benefits of yarrow...

23/09/2025

[ESPAÑOL más abajo] DO WE NEED TO TAKE NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTS?

In general I am not a big fan of nutritional supplements. There is a lot of hype that is not backed by science, fed by the supplements industry and self-styled health gurus. I think that under normal circumstances one should be able to get all the nutrients one needs from a varied diet*. (What a boring, mainstream viewpoint!) I consider advising supplements only if there is a very good reason to suppose a person is or is likely to become deficient, or if a particular nutrient taken in high doses has a proven therapeutic benefit for the patient's specific health issue. However, there is a clear exception to this. We live in a polluted world - air, water and soil - we cannot avoid it however much we try. In our bodies many pollutants cause what is called oxidative stress, and the result is damage to our cells, increased vulnerability to illness and accelerated ageing. Antioxidants -Vitamins A, C, E, polyphenols, carotenoids, glutathione, ubiquinone, alpha-lipoic acid, and certain trace elements like selenium - help protect against oxidative stress. But such a high degree of chemical pollution in our environment is a relatively recent thing in human evolution, and our bodies cannot have evolved so quickly in order to deal with it with the amounts of antioxidants available from our diet. Thus daily dietary supplementation with antioxidants is not a bad idea.

[* And while there is a difference between nutrient levels in conventionally grown and organically grown vegetables and fruit, the difference is very small. One should be able to get all one needs even from conventionally grown foods. The problem with them though, is that they do contain significantly more pesticide residues and other pollutants.]

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¿NECESITAMOS TOMAR SUPLEMENTOS NUTRICIONALES?

En general, no soy muy fan de los suplementos nutricionales. Existe mucha propaganda sin fundamento científico, alimentada por la industria de los suplementos y supuestos gurús de la salud. Creo que, en circunstancias normales, uno debería poder obtener todos los nutrientes necesarios con una dieta variada*. (¡Qué perspectiva tan aburrida y convencional!). Considero recomendar suplementos solo si hay una razón muy sólida para suponer que una persona tiene o es probable que tenga deficiencia, o si un nutriente en particular, tomado en dosis altas, tiene un beneficio terapéutico comprobado para el problema de salud específico del paciente. Sin embargo, hay una clara excepción a esto. Vivimos en un mundo contaminado (aire, agua y suelo); no podemos evitarlo por mucho que lo intentemos. En nuestro cuerpo, muchos contaminantes causan lo que se llama estrés oxidativo, y el resultado es daño celular, mayor vulnerabilidad a las enfermedades y envejecimiento acelerado. Los antioxidantes (vitaminas A, C y E, polifenoles, carotenoides, glutatión, ubiquinona, ácido alfa lipoico y ciertos oligoelementos como el selenio) ayudan a proteger contra el estrés oxidativo. Sin embargo, un grado tan elevado de contaminación química en nuestro entorno es relativamente reciente en la evolución humana, y nuestros cuerpos no pudieron haber evolucionado tan rápido para gestionarla con la cantidad de antioxidantes disponibles en nuestra dieta. Por lo tanto, la suplementación diaria con antioxidantes no es mala idea.

[* Y aunque existe una diferencia entre los niveles de nutrientes en las verduras y frutas de cultivo convencional y orgánico, la diferencia es muy pequeña. Se debería poder obtener todo lo necesario incluso con alimentos de cultivo convencional. Sin embargo, el problema es que contienen una cantidad significativamente mayor de residuos de pesticidas y otros contaminantes.]

28/08/2025

Cuando sale el sol... / When the Sun Rises...

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Leí en Facebook algo muy tierno sobre cómo la tribu navajo de Norteamérica enseña (¿enseñaba?) a sus hijos que cada mañana, cuando sale el sol, es un nuevo sol, nacido esa mañana. Vive un día y al anochecer muere para no volver jamás. (Originalmente escribí: «Vive solo un día», pero luego borré el «solo».)

A la mayoría de los comentaristas les gustó, pero alguien dijo que era un cuento de hadas para ingenuos, como Papá Noel, y otro dijo que «por suerte» sabemos que el sol es una gran bola de fuego como todas las estrellas y que seguirá ardiendo durante al menos otros 5 mil millones de años.

No puedo evitar pensar que a esos dos comentaristas les faltaba algo.

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I read somewhere on Facebook a sweet thing about how the Navajo tribe of North America teach (taught?) their children that every morning when the sun comes up each day it is a new sun, born that morning. It lives for one day, and in the evening it will die, never to return. (Originally I wrote, "It lives for just one day", but then I deleted the "just".)

Most of the commenters liked this but one person said it was a fairy tale for the simple-minded, just like Father Christmas, and another said that "fortunately" we know that the sun is a large firey ball like all stars and will go on burning for at least another 5 billion years.

I can't help feeling those two commenters were missing something.

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[Photo by Jason Frels: https://jasonfrels.com/2021/04/09/desert-sunrise/]