Mickel Therapy Review & The Hypothalamus
The following mickel therapy review (formally known as mickel reverse therapy)
is by Neil, a regular visitor to the sleepydust web site, forum, and subscriber
to the free Sleepydust Emagazine.
Please be aware that any facts stated in this review have not been verified
by Sleepydust, and anything expressed in the review are not necessarily
the views and opinions of Sleepydust.
Here's Neil's review...
Before I begin, please keep in mind that I am only a Mickel Therapy
patient ~ I have no medical training (well apart from a First Aid certificate!!)
I do not have anything to do with the business of Reverse Therapy or
Ok, so where do I start?
My First Encounter
With Mickel Therapy
Like most of us ME / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome sufferers, I have been
promised a cure by many outlandish treatments for our illness. Some
had no effect on me, others helped me a little bit, but none cured the
ME/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or improved my condition for long.
So I had a healthy scepticism when my Mum first told me about Mickel
Therapy (formally known as Mickel Reverse Therapy). She told me how a friend of a friend of hers, who had been wheelchair-bound
with CFS/ME , had been recently cured by Mickel Therapy.
Intrigued, I researched Mickel Therapy on the web & eventually
called a Mickel Therapist. I started my Mickel Therapy treatment a
full 4 months after my mum first told me about Mickel Therapy .
Ok I hear you all saying, "Shut
up Neil & tell us about the treatment!"
Ok, calm down & I will, now gather round!!
My 'Take' On
Conventional treatment finds the symptoms & then tries to treat
them ~ sleeping tablets for insomnia, painkillers for pain etc...
... but this masks the symptoms & doesn’t remove them.
Mickel therapy treats the root of the cause of all these symptoms, which (if you follow the Reverse
Therapy way of thinking) is a dysfunctional Hypothalamus gland. Mickel
Therapy also confirms that ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia is a physical illness, not a psychological
Ok, now your saying, 'How can a tiny
gland (the size of a pea) cause all these symptoms I have?'
Let me try to explain...
& The Hypothalamus
The hypothalamus gland is the true master gland of the body. It controls
all the glands regulating everything from body temperature and adrenalin
production, to feelings of thirst & hunger (either directly or indirectly).
Mickel Therapy (formally known as Mickel Reverse Therapy) states that
your symptoms are communications from your body. It is based on the
principle that when your symptoms are interpreted, translated & responded to positively, they will go away...
.... & so the illness will go too.
Mickel Therapists are trained to do these interpretations & translations.
This is NOT a type of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia occurs when the hypothalamus gland goes into overdrive &
doesn’t take its foot off the pedal. This does explain some of
the symptoms of the illness, which they prefer to call Hypothalamitis.
When ‘infected’ the hypothalamus thinks the body is under
attack, so it will tell the body to produce chemicals to prepare muscles
to run away or fight. This creates a chemically induced state of exertion,
even when you’re asleep ~ hence the twisted sheets when you wake
up, the feeling of tiredness etc.
Now the hypothalamus should
read the feedback from the body, that all is well & that it can
stop producing these chemicals. But the hypothalamus isn't
working properly so...
... it doesn’t respond to the signals & continues to produce
more chemicals! This in turn makes the muscles work even more, producing
lactic acid as a by-product, making your muscles sore & you feel
But you can’t sleep because your body is pumped up with adrenalin
because it's 'defending itself'. And then when you do
sleep, the muscles are still working chemically!
It’s a vicious cycle.
Another symptom of the illness is increased mucus production in the
sinuses & ears (which changes hearing sensitivity & can cause
pain &/or tinitis), increased lymphatic fluid in the glands &
mucus in the throat. This is due to the hypothalamus thinking that the
body is about to be attacked by viruses (yes the hypothalamus is preparing
for attack from both physical & virus forms!)
The hypothalamus tells other glands to prepare to defend the body against
a viral attack & they produce the mucous/lymphatic liquid. Since
the hypothalamus never stops this message, the immune system keeps on
preparing for this attack.
With some people, their whole immune system crashes from overwork &
they get loads of colds etc. But for other ME/CFS or Fibromyalgia sufferers, their
immune system crashes and then bounces
back & they become relatively cold-free ~ everyone is different.
Anyway that’s some of the reasoning behind why the hypothalamus
is responsible for ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia. Now for how mickel therapy treats it...
Of Mickel Therapy
First of all a wee story ~ when I was younger & had done something
bad (e.g if I'd fought with my brother [he started it every time, honest!!],
playing football indoors & breaking a vase & so on), my mum
would shout my full name, including my middle name.
Well ever since then, my body thinks that every time it hears someone
shouting my full name (the trigger) I’m in trouble & it prepares
to do a runner (the symptom).
Those are the principles of how mickel therapy works.
The First Session
The therapist finds what triggers the hypothalamus into hyper drive
- everyone has a different trigger.
In the first session, the mickel therapist explains the ethos behind
mickel therapy (better than I am doing here!) & tries to find the
message that your body is trying to tell you ~ in the example above
the message would probably be to stop being a pain to my parents!
Usually at the end of the first session you are given the message “My
symptoms are here to remind me…”
Mostly there is only one message for all your symptoms. For many people
the message is something they knew they were doing but did not know
it was causing the ME/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Fibromyalgia .
When I read my message for the first time, I nodded saying, 'Of
course,' and then started to cry!
Therapy Sessions :
Keeping A Diary
From then on you are encouraged to keep a diary of your symptoms and
what you were doing before the symptoms started. Slowly (or hopefully
quickly!) you become aware of what makes your symptoms worse.
In your next few therapy sessions, your therapist will ask how you
got on, and figure out the purpose of your symptoms & what needs
to be done to stop them (hence the journal).
Personally I’ve changed the way I’ve done things &
handled certain situations differently & Mickel Therapy is working
Written by Neil, ME/CFS Sufferer,
On His Experiences With Mickel Therapy
Thanks Neil for that review!
Category: Mickel Therapy for ME /CFS (Mickel Therapy for Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome / Myalgic Encephalomyelitis ), hypothalamus
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