SCENAR What?

You may have read of a therapy, called SCENAR therapy, on this blog in some of Lauren's posts. I thought I would post a bit about my experience with SCENAR, so you could understand a bit more about it.

SCENAR was developed in Russia over a 25 year period from the 1970's after a research company was commissioned to invent a therapy to keep the cosmonauts healthy in space. It was a combination of Ancient Chinese energetic therapy with modern bio feedback technology. It has been used in Australia for the last 6 or 7 years.

I was introduced to the therapy when I attended treatment for the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome I was suffering. After the first session I felt different. Brighter, less fuzzy in the head and I started to wake up in the morning feeling somewhat refreshed for the first time in many years.

After I'd had 5 sessions, Lauren (who was quite pregnant) started to kick me to get up to our 13month old instead of her (I was that good I could do this with no real problem). I was also sleeping in the multi layer therapy blanket (more about this in another post).

I was able to exert my body in exercise & be recharged after only a short rest. I could do a lot more in a day without getting sick the next day. All this after 5 sessions of therapy over only three weeks. All the other therapies I had tried had taken months if not years to make an effect. The improvements I have made with SCENAR have been permanent & I continue to improve.
It has made a HUGE improvement in my health.

I subsequently trained in SCENAR therapy & use it in my physiotherapy practice for the effective treatment of a very wide range of complaints. Many, many problems are resolved quicker & more fully than with conventional techniques.

Good websites for more info are SCENAR HEALTH USA & SCENAR HEALTH CANADA & SCENAR HEALTH AUSTRALIA.

SCENAR HEALTH Australia was where I went for treatment. SCENAR is also in other countries just not with SCENAR HEALTH, you could Google it.

Phew!

No crash, Craig's made it through the worst with a few timely day sleeps, extra supplements & a lot of SCENAR.

We have also made a pact to go to bed early & this has resulted in a few early morning exercise sessions. Brisk 10 minute walk, 7 minute run & 10minute walk home.

Perhaps it's the sunshine returning that has inspired him but it is nice to see that he doesn't seem to crash & burn anymore.

There is hope.

Will the Crash Come?

I'm watching Craig closely at the moment.

He is working incredible days. His business has taken off in the last month into the crazysphere. His receptionist retired & his is waiting for the new one to start in September. He has a ten week old baby, a 3 year old son & an almost 2 year old son, a breastfeeding wife and a sore throat.

His opportunity for down time is so insanely reduced that I can see a crash coming on.

We are supplementing, SCENARing and doing Yoga whenever we can.

Being self employed is not really good for you at this point.

Exercise... is this really happening?

Craig has had some pretty huge exercise breakthroughs in the last two weeks. (Just in time for the new baby to stop him in his tracks!)

Last week he played an impromptu, Sunday afternoon, game of soccer with our church. It was perfect for whetting the appetite for more 'aggressive' participation in sport. It was about 25 a side with lots of kids on the field. So nothing too tiring. But there was opportunity for the occasional burst of un-heart monitored 'speed'.

Then 2 nights this week he has managed 60 laps of the 15m pool in our complex without negative after-effects. The second night he says he pushed a lot harder.

So far so good.

Exercise is the last frontier for Craig. He has always tried to do something to be 'active' & maintain a basic level of fitness. Starting at walking from the bedroom to the bathroom and reaching about 20 slow laps of the ocean pool or a medium paced, heart-monitored walk.

We've heard success stroies from two monitored, exercise programs;

1. Start at 1minute of activity a day & add a minute every day for ten weeks. This one has succeeded in getting people back to pre-CFS jogging levels.
2. Start at 1 minute of activity (walking, swimming, cycling) per day. Build it daily by 1 minute until you are up to 24 minutes. Then have a day of rest. Then continue at 24 minutes every second day for 30 days. Then increase as desired.

If you've tried any others with success (or without success!) or have any other suggestions for people, please comment.

We never bothered with a monitored program. Craig just did it himself. Being a Physio he knew the benefits of movement &, being Craig, has been diligent throughout his time with CFS with gentle aerobic exercise and strengthening exercises so his muscles don't atrophy (Way more than me).

I read a book at one point about starting a walking program that said just get up 30 minutes earlier every day & start walking. 30 minutes moving will be better for you than those last 30 minutes of sleep.

So once Craig was at a point where he could exercise, beyond work, we started a morning walk routine which became 45minutes of medium paced walking with a heart monitor. That lasted until our second son refused to sit in the pram & since then we have struggled to exercise together. Craig has been swimming, on the way home from work, with varying regularity.

Craig has needed to maintain a strong body so that he can work. He has a physical job so his motivation is huge. His problem has been getting his heart rate over 120bpm. If he ever pushed himself a little too hard the result was always sore throat and big glands by morning.

But these last two weeks have been different & that's in spite of a very recent, severe virus. He reckons it is all because of SCENAR. He has been working really hard to treat himself since he got sick last month. He says that if he didn't have SCENAR he would be still flat on his back and sleeping 20 hours a day. But, because we started treating him the moment he got sick, he has had a really fast recovery. It seems that possibly it has helped him get over the lingering post exertional malaise dimension of his CFS.

Lets hope this is for real! We'll keep you posted.

If you want more info about SCENAR this is the web address for the people who treated and have since mentored Craig. http://www.scenarhealth.com/ Really nice people & very passionate about making SCENAR more accepted in the mainstream medical world. (In Russia it's used in hospitals but here they think we're weirdos - typical)

Maybe this is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.....(part 5 SCENAR)

Craig returned to Physiotherapy part time in June /July 2004. In October he began looking to buy his own practice so he could be in charge of his own hours permanently. In December 2004 we purchased a small practice on Sydney's Northern Beaches.

At this point Craig was at about 85%. Able to work and rest and play a little. Over the next 2 years focusing on his health he made it to about 95%. Able to exercise regularly but still needing a heart monitor to avoid a sore throat after exercise. In May 2006 we had our first son. A wonderful answer to prayer and possible due to our healthier lives. However, as most parents know, with this great blessing comes a new kind of exhaustion - sleep depravation.

Craig’s CFS symptoms worsened. We negotiated that Lauren would do the night shift & week day shifts alone so that Craig could have extra sleep. When our son was 6 months old we fell pregnant again. Enabling Craig’s extra sleep became difficult with the new pregnancy. So when we heard through the Physiotherapy Association of Australia (APA) about a new kind of treatment out of Russia called SCENAR, that helped the body to heal itself, we decided to give it a go. We longed to get Craig’s CFS get out of the 80-90% rut.

Craig had 5 sessions of SCENAR treatment and purchased a multi-layer therapy blanket to sleep in. His therapist said his condition appeared to be the result of his body being “stuck” on “fight and flight mode” and being unable to switch on to “rest and recovery mode”. He said all his efforts to care for his body naturally had been worthwhile and his body was in great condition, just needed reprogramming! After the treatment he began to be refreshed by sleep for the first time in 8 years! One day after the fourth session, he ran up the stairs. He started telling jokes again. We knew things were different when we went to a social event with strangers soon after the treatment. For the first time Lauren could remember there was no need to negotiate or plan how Craig would recover from the event. We simply enjoyed it.

Lauren also now sleeps in a multi-layer therapy blanket as she found it helped her be refreshed by sleep, despite there not being a whole lot to be had with 2 boys under 3 and being currently 7 months into our third pregnancy. Craig has trained as a SCENAR Therapist and uses SCENAR in his practice. He now treats a much broader range of patients.