Reiki Me Up, Buttercup!
Hello and welcome to my blog!
Today I wanted to take some time to discuss a very important service offered at my office; reiki. I have a lot of patients who are surprised that I offer reiki at Dr. Super’s House of Health. My patients know me to be evidence-based, analytical, and skeptical. They wonder why I would have a treatment that seems to be “too voodoo” as one patient described. What they don’t know is that there is a load of scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of reiki! This, along with my own personal experiences with reiki have me convinced, without a doubt, that there are benefits to energy work! Everything I do at my office, every treatment, every therapy, every technique is something I have experienced as a patient and found effective. I hope that by telling you about my first reiki experience and providing the scientific evidence, your mind can be opened to the healing potential of reiki. The body’s and mind’s power to heal what sometimes seems to be incurable is truly amazing.
It was August 25th, 2017. This was the day of my white coat. This is the day we get to graduate into the clinic and begin our rounds in different chiropractic clinics on and off campus. Everything we did over the last few years has been to get to this point; where we can treat patients and develop our skills, techniques, and art. I had a few hours before the ceremony and decided to donate blood with the Red Cross. I was rushed for time and the only bed open was one where they could draw blood from my right arm (I am right handed and would have preferred blood taken from my left arm). A retired army nurse of 32 years was confident they wouldn’t injure my right arm and palpated for a vein. I’ve donated blood plenty of times but this time was different. As soon as he stuck the needle in my arm, I felt a searing pain that felt like lightning and my elbow and hand flexed and snapped the needle. The nurse went to straighten my arm to pull the needle out and bandaged the incision site. We both realized he punctured my median nerve which innervates a large portion of the skin on the forearm and muscles that let you move your hand and wrist. For 5 minutes.. then 10 minutes.. and 15 minutes we waited for the pain to stop or the ability to move my hand to come back. After 30 minutes I had to leave to go to the whitecoat ceremony and all I could think about was how do I use my arm tomorrow in the clinic? I took some ibuprofen and hoped it would feel better the next day.
Three weeks later it felt worse. I could hardly move my elbow at this point and needed a sling. It was three weeks of trying to adjust one handed in the clinic and to convince patients that I was fine and I could care for them. The school started me on a physical therapy program to try to improve nerve function again. I underwent cold laser therapy, therapeutic ultrasound, Graston, Upper Extremity Peripheral Nerve Flossing, and adjustments 3 times a week for three months. No change. I was doing my best adjusting one handed, but it was really putting me behind and limiting my ability to treat patients. I was even considering dropping out of school after all this hard work! I didn’t know what else to do! The Red Cross told me after the injury to “keep icing it and it would heal in a few weeks”.
It had been eight months now since the injury and I wanted to cry every day. Wind on my skin felt like fire. Washing was difficult with one hand and the feeling of water on my skin burned due to the nerve irritation. I would randomly yelp in class if my hair brushed against my arm because it felt like being electrocuted. Any movement of my hand or elbow felt like liquid metal was being injected through my arm. I had to keep my arm in a compression sleeve and a sling most of the day just to get through basic activities. I was living off of aspirin and hoped that it would heal at some point. At the time, I was doing a lot of research in nerve regeneration and nerve growth after an injury. The literature was not my friend and despite trying supplements that seemed to have some promise, nothing was improving the condition. I also had a camping trip coming up and was considering canceling, but my husband convinced me that we needed to get away and relax.
At the camp I was surprised to find that the owners were having a holistic healing arts convention in the barn on their property that Saturday. I was curious to see if they would have any chiropractors there. We went to the small gathering and poked around. No chiropractors were there, but they had guided meditation, massage therapy, chakra readings, tarot readings, and reiki. I didn’t buy into any of that and hated when my husband attempted to make me meditate. He wanted to try chakra readings next and while he had someone waving a pendulum in front of his stomach, a woman in the corner caught my eye. I decided to go over and ask her what she was offering and she said she was doing reiki treatments for donations. I asked her how long $10 would get me and she said 10 minutes. I sat down in the chair in front of her and explained to her that I had a nerve injury in my arm that hasn’t been healed by anything yet. She asked if I could gently place my arms on the table and we sat across from each other. I watched as she closed her eyes and placed her hands a few inches above my arm. It was strange because I didn’t expect to feel any sensations besides the usual burning pain, but I was feeling a strange tingle, as if my arm was falling asleep.
At this point she opened her eyes and told me she doesn’t usually share this, and she wasn’t sure how I would take it, but she kept having visuals pop into her head when she was performing reiki on me. She said she didn’t recognize the image because it looked like a medical symbol, but it was a person with wings instead of two snakes and she asked if I belonged to some type of church. I laughed and told her that was the chiropractic symbol and that I was in chiropractic school. She smiled and said, “they know you need your arm to heal people”. I had no response to that, but she had already closed her eyes and began working again. I was a little shaken trying to figure out how she guessed I was a chiropractor and thinking about who “they” were, when she said she was finished. I said thank you, and without realizing it, pushed myself up using both of my hands. No pain.
I slowly bent my wrist. No pain. I stretched my arm to a fully extended position for the first time in eight months. No pain. I gently touched it, no burning, no electric fire coursing through my nerves. I was again surprised that I had very little sensation when I touched my arm, like it really was asleep and I couldn’t feel anything. No sensation was better than eight months of nerve pain! I cried and asked if I could hug her and we embraced. My husband came over with a green malachite he bought to open up his heart chakra and asked why I was crying. I went to hug him and he stopped me, worried about touching my arm. I told him about the reiki I received and the lady with her vision and the tingling. It all seemed too unreal to explain. I turned around to take my husband over to her and her chair was empty. She was gone.
I never did see her again and I wish I could have because I had so many questions. Was this a placebo effect? Would it last forever? Would I ever get full feeling back in my right forearm and hand? How does reiki work exactly? How did she heal me when she didn’t even touch me? Why was it that nothing else worked, but this did? I had to investigate and find out what happened to me that day.
After doing some research, I found out that reiki has been around for thousands of years. As a quantum physics nerd, I already have a deep appreciation for energy, sound, and vibration and how this affects the world around us in ways we cannot sense. Reiki is considered to be a vibrational, subtle energy work that can be facilitated by light touch, or no touch, and is used to balance the biofield and strengthen the body’s ability to heal itself (Miles, 2003). Like chiropractic, reiki requires only your hands. With reiki there is no need for technology or specialized equipment, it is non-invasive, is appropriate for all ages, and has no known medical contraindications (Jurkovich, 2020). Sounds like it’s a sister therapy to chiropractic!
Since reiki is safe for anyone, anywhere, it is used to alleviate symptoms related to stress, anxiety, pain, depression, and wound healing (Vitale, 2007). I find that when I receive reiki treatments, I am better able to handle my mood, energy levels, chronic pain, and fatigue! I was concerned about all of this being a placebo effect, but research says otherwise. Scientists measured and found a reduced heart rate, reduced blood pressure, and increased heart rate variability in patients who received reiki (Vergo, 2018). Reiki has been proven to be more effective than placebo treatments and is believed to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is our “rest and digest” system (McManus, 2017). Without proper access to this part of our nervous system, we cannot allow our body to fully heal injuries. The parasympathetics allow your body to connect to your mind in a way that allows your body access to its highest healing self. I tell my patients who live in “Fight and Flight” that when your body thinks it’s running from a bear, it isn’t worried about healing mental or physical traumas, it is just trying to escape a bear. Due to reiki’s ability to activate the “rest and digest” system in our body, it can take us out of this “fight and flight state” and can be used to manage chronic health conditions and postoperative recovery in hospitals (McManus, 2017). Hospitals are also increasing their use of reiki with cancer patients and have found reiki to be more effective than rest alone when looking to improve fatigue, depression, and chronic pain (Tsang, 2007). If it is good enough to be in a hospital setting, it is good enough to be in my private practice.
I have a lot of patient’s who try medical massage for symptom relief and are surprised when I suggest they try reiki as well. Wouldn’t massage have more benefits since it’s a hands on technique? That’s not always the case! “Reiki and massage clinically provide similar improvements in pain, nausea, fatigue, anxiety, depression, and overall well-being while reiki improved fatigue and anxiety more than massage therapy in a hospitalized patient population” (Vergo, 2018). If you are someone who has a lot of chronic pain related to fatigue and anxiety, reiki might be a better option for your relief! When it comes to anxiety, we have to realize that it’s not just an emotion or feeling, but that anxiety, stress, and depression all take a serious toll on your body’s physiology and function. Over the last few decades, researchers have learned that the mind-body connection is vital for healing the body. I know several patients who resist medicating themselves for mental health, because they do not like the side effects of the medications, or maybe there is a stigma that keeps them from using pharmaceuticals. Fortunately, researchers have found that mind-body interventions may be low-stigma options that can serve as effective alternatives when psychopharmacology and psychotherapy are unavailable (Bandealy, 2021). Reiki has been shown to help patients better manage generalized anxiety disorders, panic disorder, and social anxiety disorder! It should come as no surprise then that reiki has also been shown to improve GI symptoms such as IBS, and was also accompanied with the improvement of various outcomes, including depression, anxiety, and overall improved quality of life (Wang, 2017).
What surprised me the most about reiki was its use with children or babies who suffer from chronic diseases or who are born with an illness. In one study, two 24-minute reiki sessions were completed at the children's home. 8 verbal and 8 nonverbal children. Reiki therapy did decrease pain, anxiety, heart, and respiratory rates in children suffering from chronic illness (Thrane, 2016). In another study, scientists looked at babies who exhibit symptoms of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) and were born to drug-addicted mothers. Reiki was used to manage withdrawal symptoms, and reiki was demonstrated as being safe when administered to these high-risk populations (Radziewicz, 2018). It makes sense that from the moment of birth, you are sensitive to these energy fields and they can be used to help regulate your nervous system function. For children, this could be especially helpful since their ability to verbalize their discomfort is limited. As a mother, I know I would try anything to help alleviate the pain and suffering of my child, but especially if the literature supports the therapy!
I still don’t feel like I fully understand the scope of reiki, and what it can help with, but I am currently exploring and receiving treatments more regularly to help heal my body and I am surprised at the changes I see every time! Every treatment has been different, but each has been rewarding in its own way. Sometimes I go into a treatment with a specific injury in mind, while sometimes I go in with the goal of relaxation. Each person has their own goals for treatment, and reiki is a great way to establish a healthy mind, body, and energy connection. I know that when my body is “stuck” in an injury pattern, my first thought is of reiki and how it can help my body access its own ability to heal. I will never forget my first reiki treatment and how it saved my ability to practice chiropractic. I hope that this article gave you some food for thought when it comes to reiki, and maybe, you’ll give it a try!
Feel well and do good,
ADIO
Dr. Tabetha Super
P.S. Did you know that pets can get Reiki too? I’ve been having Ann perform Reiki on my pup Leo and it’s been a lifesaver to help manage his chronic IBS and Pannus symptoms!
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