The Magic of SCENAR

The SCENAR never ceases to amaze me, or perhaps I should say, the human body never ceases to amaze me. This began back in 2005 when we provided SCENAR treatments for individuals who were “bone on bone” and scheduled for knee replacement surgery, and they were able to avoid the surgery. Or when a woman was facing amputation of her foot because of poor blood supply, and as a result of SCENAR treatments, her foot was saved. I could go on and on. A new one has happened: a woman with no disc between her cervical three and four vertebrae decided to try SCENAR. Her doctors told her the only option was to surgically implant spacers between her cervical vertebrae. She had difficulty moving her head, her neck and shoulders were painful, and her hands constantly tingled or were numb. After 3 sessions, the pain stopped and her range of motion normalized. After 5 sessions there was only a bit of numbness left at the end of her index finger and thumb of her left hand. One has to ponder what can be happening that would create this kind of recovery in a situation described as structural degeneration.

The Russians believe that the body can heal anything if it has what it needs to do so. I would assume that would include adequate nutrition, hydration, and oxygen. But, the missing link may be energy. The SCENAR actually energizes the tissue, re-balancing the charges of the cells, but it also interacts with the energy fields of the body. Perhaps that is where the mystery lies.

Regardless, I am forever amazed by the recoveries of those I work on. It is demonstrated over and over to me that the healing capacity of the body/mind is far greater than most of us have any idea about. Call us at 337-6854 and see how your body can heal with a little help from SCENAR!

SCENAR and the FDA

In 2002, the FDA accepted the SCENAR into the country as a Class II Medical Device used for biofeedback and muscle relaxation. From what I understand, FDA approval can be gained in two ways: (1)the device is developed in this country and the developers conduct studies and research as to its efficacy which is submitted to the FDA for approval, or (2) a device from another country can be shown to have the same action and effect as a device developed and previously approved in this country.

RITM OKB ZAO is the company that manufactures the RITM SCENAR for Dr. Alexander Revenko who was one of the two lead researchers in the development of the SCENAR in the Russian Space Program. This company applied for approval from the FDA by showing that it is essentially the same machine as the InterX5000 that was developed by Neuro Resource Group, located in Plano, Texas. Appropriate research and studies were conducted by NRG and their device was approved by the FDA. RITM OKB ZAO was able to show that the RITM SCENAR that they originally developed and began manufacturing in 1980 is the same device as the Interx5000 and was granted FDA approval on that basis on May 28, 2010.

Now that the RITM SCENAR is FDA approved, there are new requirements that must be adhered to:

1) To purchase a RITM SCENAR for home use, a prescription from a licensed MD must be obtained. The downside is that few MDs have any awareness of the device, so until they are educated, getting a prescription may be difficult. The upside is that with FDA approval, the purchase of the device may be covered by insurance, which may make it worth your while to educate your doctor yourself in order to get a prescription.

2) Previous to FDA approval, one could purchase a RITM professional device, get trained on it (which can be expensive and difficult to arrange), and then set up an office and practice. Since FDA approval, only those with licenses in the medical field such as MDs, Physical Therapists, Biofeeback practitioners, Massage Therapists, etc., can set up offices to provide SCENAR therapy. If you don’t have a license, you must still be trained and experienced in using the SCENAR, but you can only provide SCENAR treatments in the offices of those who are licensed.

Healing Innovations uses the RITM SCENAR device. Our practitioners are trained at the Advanced Level by Dr. Alexander Revenko, have 6 years of experience, and work in the offices of those who are licensed in the medical field. Call us at 828-337-6854 and let us see what SCENAR can do for you.

Healing Innovations Update

Likely you have noticed that I have been unusually “quiet” these last couple of months. My experiences with providing SCENAR treatments have expanded, and with that expansion, my time to write or gather my thoughts enough to write, has been limited. But, what I am doing is inspiring, and I, at least, wanted to share that.

Starting last May, I began collaborating with Mountain Air Wellness Center (a natural health center that has offices in Asheville, Cashiers, Highlands, and Franklin) to provide SCENAR treatments for their patients. The Center provides a comprehensive wellness venue that involves a number of interventions for promoting health. Led by Dr. Jim Johnson, Dr. Resa Falk, and Dr. Sue Aery, the center offers nutritional counseling, acupuncture, massage, Graston technique, and chiropractic care, just to name a few. Their commitment to their patients, continuing education in the field, and desire to provide the best possible interventions for natural health and healing are exemplary. The staff are wonderfully professional, caring, competent, and positive which makes for a sense of welcome, comfort, and “home”. If you are from that area or have friends and family there, this natural health practice provides a state of the art opportunity for  holistic health care. SCENAR treatment has proved to be a collaboration that has been  of great benefit to their patients. Their vision of providing high quality natural health care is a pleasure to be a part of. This may sound like an ad, but it is based in my experience of working closely with the various practitioners and staff in their Cashiers and Highlands offices. They have become my personal “natural health home.”

My practice in Asheville at Asheville Natural Health and Homeopathy has also expanded. I have two office days on Wednesday and Saturday to provide SCENAR treatments. Working with Dr. Steven Coward, Dr. Louise Bahnson, and Dr. Leanne Apfelbeck has also been a wonderful collaboration. Working with these committed professionals in the field of natural health is a pleasure. Within this practice, Healing Innovations is expanding to include another SCENAR practitioner, Christina Morrison, who has been trained by Dr. Revenko and has 7 years of experience with providing SCENAR therapy.  Another office day is being planned so that SCENAR therapy can be offered in Asheville three days a week.

The awareness of this unique and effective treatment is growing. Healing Innovations is expanding in order to provide the best possible opportunities to those who are interested in experiencing for themselves this remarkable pain relief and healing modality. Call 828-337-6854 for an appointment to see what SCENAR can do for you.

Health vs. Disease

by Marc Percival

There are two principal orientations when we relate to disease.  One is combative, the other preventive.  While a growing number of progressive physicians are on their own initiative, learning to work more and more in a preventive model, the approach to medicine in our colleges and medical academies is almost entirely along combative lines.  Conventional medical procedure focuses the majority of its attention and resources on the killing of ‘germs’ and the management of symptoms.  The usual practice is to become more involved with the patient after acute or chronic disease has developed to an overt and recognizable state.  Then an attempt is made to diagnose the disease and to subdue its effect by the administration of drugs, surgical operations, radiation and/or by the utilization of the products of disease in the form of serums, antitoxins, vaccines, etc.

The preventive method concentrates its attention and resources on preventing the development of disease.  The body’s ‘homeostatic’ mechanisms are always seeking to balance our systems.  This approach focuses on lifestyle issues and natural methods of reinforcing the body’s inherent ability to resist dysfunction and remain vital, strong and efficient even when challenged by dysfunctional stress.  Rather than waiting until diseases have developed and gained ascendancy in the body, the preventive method endeavors to inform, encourage and assist individuals in maintaining the body in an optimally healthy state, minimizing dysfunction and thus greatly enhancing natural resistance to disease of any kind.  Prevention focuses on how a person is or might be a susceptible host for a given condition or disease.

When Louis Pasteur and his colleagues began discovering various ‘germs’ (bacteria and microbes) and linking them to specific disease states, medical research began to focus more and more on developing various means of destroying these ‘germs’.  While billions of dollars have been spent and billions of dollars earned by drug production companies in the pursuit of miraculous ‘cures’ for ill health, insufficient attention has been directed to determining  why any disease only affects certain members of the population.

The fundamental question that is attracting increasing attention worldwide, is based on the investigation of the possibility that ‘germs’ are not the primary cause of disease.  Are some diseases, or even all diseases, the secondary manifestations of altered or abnormal states of health?  An analogy here is:  does the swamp exist first, and various pests such as mosquitoes find it to be a good habitat for their propagation; or do such pests pick a random landscape and then set about to create a swamp to support them?

When an individuals’ vitality is lowered (weakened health state) and their tissues become appropriate ‘soil’ for ‘germs’, then we have an ideal host for the onset and development of disease.  One who conscientiously maintains superior health and vitality by developing an understanding of healthcare and the effective management of dysfunctional stress, greatly reduces the likelihood of their tissues providing an appropriate ‘soil’ for the propagation of disease.

Do the incredible mechanisms with their endless checks and balances which allow for the function, support and regeneration of all the body’s trillions of cells, day in and day out, really need manipulation?  Or perhaps is our time and effort better focused on the lifestyle and environmental factors which have already been shown to interfere with our body’s natural regulatory and maintenance mechanisms?

Most holistic health practices are dedicated to the education and support of those who choose the preventive approach wherever possible and those ‘combative’ methods which are non-invasive and which recognize disease as the body’s attempt to restore function when ‘distressed’, rather than an abnormality of nature.  This is in stark contrast to a medical system which too frequently treats disease as though it were an abnormality of nature, requiring suppression via potentially toxic chemical agents.

It must be noted that there are unfortunately those cases where prevention has been neglected or traumatic injury has occurred, which necessitate ‘combative’ intervention with whatever means possible.  It is at such times of crisis that one is able to fully appreciate the remarkable emergency medical care available to us today.  May we soon see the day where people seeking solutions to their healthcare challenges will be able to attend a healthcare center and receive the benefits and wisdom of both of these essential approaches, ‘preventive’ and ‘combative’, under the same rood, and within  spirit of mutual admiration and respect.  For this to become a reality, both ‘camps’ will require a great deal more wisdom and humility than is commonly displayed today.

Things You Can Do For Foot Pain

I have run into another flurry of a certain type of painful situation and it is foot pain. I have written about foot pain previously, but wanted to provide readily available information about things that anyone can do to prevent and relieve foot pain.

Stretching is the single most important thing you can do for foot pain. Tight hamstrings can communicate issues all the way from the sitzbones to the Achilles Tendons. Keeping them stretched and flexible is an important way to maintain the health of the foot. Two easy stretches we have found helpful are:

The Runner’s Stretch – Place your hands about two feet away from each other on a wall while standing about two feet away and leaning into the wall. Step forward with one foot, while leaving the other with the heel on the ground behind you. You are looking for a gentle sensation of stretch, not discomfort in that leg. Krista Kelley at Mission Rehab Services told us that a stretch any shorter than 45 seconds is not worth doing, so count slowly to 45 and then switch the positions of the feet and stretch the other leg. Doing this in the morning and evening will help the hamstrings to not get so tight. Muscles get tight from normal use so slowly that we may fail to recognize the sensation. Doing this exercise will help you become more familiar with the feeling of muscle tension so that you can monitor the status of your hamstrings more accurately and stretch them more effectively, thus preventing issues from arising.

The Hamstring Stretch – While laying in the bed, before arising, use a towel or strap and loop it under the ball of the foot. Holding an end of the towel in each hand, gently raise the leg while using the towel to keep the foot at a 90 degree ankle to the leg. Raise the leg until you feel a gentle stretch, not pain. Hold for 45 seconds, bring the leg gently down to the bed, and do the stretch on the other leg. Over time you will be able to raise the leg higher and higher as the hamstring is re-educated to be relaxed rather than tight. This will prevent the discomfort and possible micro damage to the tendons that can occur when getting out of bed when hamstrings have tightened up during sleep.

Things you can do to improve the health of your feet:

Massage - In the evening, while relaxing, deeply rub and massage your feet in a conscious way from the tips of the toes to the backs of the heels. Let it be your intention to touch every single inch of skin on the bottom of your foot. When you find areas that are tender, press into them and hold. In just a few minutes the tenderness will dissipate and the area will relax. This can also be a good way to improve your overall health through Reflexology.

Strengthen the Muscles of the Foot - The muscles in the feet need exercise and strengthening, just like any other muscle in the body. However, shoes are not conducive to exercising foot muscles. Take off your shoes and socks and while sitting in a comfortable position, imagine (or use real ones if you’d like) that you are picking up marbles with your toes. This strengthens the muscles in the arch which tend to flatten as our foot muscles weaken with age and wearing shoes.

Strengthen the Muscles of the Ankle and Top of Foot – How many of us have sat on the beach and almost unconsciously (because it feels so good), moved our feet back and forth from side to side in the sand, digging a little trough. This motion strengthens the muscles in the ankles and top of the foot to provide better stability for walking. You don’t need sand to do this. Sit in a comfortable position and imagine doing this little activity as if you were at the beach, moving your feet against the floor back and forth from side to side. If you vividly imagine you are at the beach digging the comforting little trenches with your feet, your body will not know that you are not, and other benefits such as shoulder and neck relaxation can be experienced as well.

Our feet are probably the most ignored area of the body. They carry our weight and do whatever we ask for most of our lives without complaint. As we age, our inattention to caring for our feet can take its toll. Notice your feet. Appreciate how hard they work for you. Do kinds things for them like massage or hot soaks. Become friends with your feet. They will love you for it!

Nine Supplements to Boost Your Mood

Part of the action of SCENAR is to boost mood through the stimulation of the parasympathetic system causing the release of endorphins and the neurotransmitters that regulate the emotional state. Our experience of happiness is a unique biochemistry in the brain, and nutrition also plays a vital role regulating it. I have found that clients who pay attention to their diet and lifestyle around eating respond much faster to SCENAR treatments. If the body has at its disposal the nutrient building blocks needed for the production of regulatory peptides, the availability of the internal pharmacy for healing is greatly enhanced, facilitating a rapid recovery.

The major cause of mood regulation difficulty is stress. When the sympathetic system is turned on for long periods of time, the parasympathetic system is turned off and the body can’t recover well. Stress depletes the body of the chemicals it uses to heal itself, including the “feel-good” neuropeptides (endorphins) and neurotransmitters(serotonin, dopamine, nor epinephrine, and gamma aminobutyric acid – GABA). The most used pharmaceutical drugs these days are for reducing anxiety and depression. Before turning to these drugs, which can have significant side-effects, it is worthwhile to try a natural route.

Other than regular exercise, a good multivitamin, and fish oil which improve overall health and help with mood regulation, there are some supplements  that can help lift depression, reduce anxiety, improve your resilience to stress, and improve sleep.

Be Aware: If you are already taking drugs for depression, anxiety, or insomnia, talk with you doctor about adding natural supplements. There can be negative interactions which you want to be mindful of. It is always a good idea to thoroughly research any substance you are considering taking into your body, whether pharmaceutical or natural.

There are nine nutritional supplements that can help you reduce the effects of stress and improve mood: Read more »

Mountain BizWorks Annual Women’s Business Conference

Healing Innovations will be exhibitors at the Annual Women’s Business Conference held by Mountain BizWorks this Thursday, May 27, at AB Tech in Enka. It is a wonderful gathering of local women entrepreneurs and is always a source of great information and insight.

We will be giving free demonstrations of the SCENAR. If you haven’t tried it out and would like to, this is a great opportunity to immerse yourself in the world of women in business as well as have a chance to relax and recover with SCENAR!

Finding Your Way in the CAM World

The number of modalities and options for treatment available in complementary and alternative medicine can be quite daunting to those who are looking into this field for the first time. With names like craniosacral therapy, acupuncture, SCENAR, rolfing, chiropractic, homeopathy, herbalism, etc. selecting what might work can be challenging. In any medical field, one therapy does not necessarily fit all. In traditional medicine seeing a specialist may actually narrow one’s choices. When you see a orthopedic surgeon, likely surgery will be the main option.

So what are some guidelines for exploring the natural, holistic options? Read more »

16th Annual International SCENAR Conference

Here is an opportunity to train with the best SCENAR experts from around the world! It will be held September 4-10 at a resort on the Black Sea in Bulgaria. This year, the 30 year anniversary of the creation of OKB RITM, the producer of SCENAR devices, will be celebrated. For more information, go here.

What a SCENAR Session is Like

The first session is where many important things happen. First, I have you fill out some paper work so I know what is going on and start to formulate an idea of where to begin. Once we have talked about what issues you bring to the table, I can create an initial treatment plan. I discuss the plan I think will work with you and show you the SCENAR and how it works.

Let’s suppose you have pain in your neck and shoulders (many, many people do). I place the device on an area proximal to where we will work and bring up the sensation level until you feel a buzzing or tingling. The SCENAR will work regardless of whether or not you feel it, but feeling it helps you track not only where I am working, but also other places in your body where the sensation may travel. This tells me other areas to work that may have a healing impact.

Then I begin to stroke your neck and shoulders with the instrument. I am looking for places where the skin turns red and/or the device “drags” over an area. These are called “sticky” places and they indicate  what are called “asymmetries,” which is the way your body tells me where to work. There is a difference in the skin impedance between an area that is unhealthy and an area that is healthy, and the SCENAR picks that up.

When I determine where the asymmetries are, I focus on them and narrow down, through stroking, to what is called the “smallest asymmetry” in an area. Once found, I hold the device there until it gives me a signal that the healing chemicals (neuropeptides) have arrived at the spot. When they do, they immediately begin the process of healing, and the skin impedance changes. The device is looking for this and when it happens, there is a series of bells that tell us that the first “dose” of neuropeptides has arrived at the spot. The body’s healing attention is refocused on the area.

From there I look for other areas and treat them in the same way. There are typically several areas involved in neck and shoulder pain in the neck, upper back, shoulder, clavicle area in the front of the neck, and the muscles involved there.  I continue to treat any area that shows distress (asymmetries).

Usually, when I have treated all that I have found, you will feel substantial release from pain, more freedom of movement, and a sense of well being overall. Often this is most noticeable the next morning after the treatment.

Generally, after a SCENAR treatment, you will leave with a sense of relief from pain and an over all sense of well being in your body. The parasympathetic system is activated, so you will likely also feel a sense of relaxation.

It is important to drink water after a session because as the body heals it releases toxins from the tissues and you will want to wash them out of your system as efficiently as possible.

Chronic conditions may require 5 to 10 treatments.  Acute situations require fewer sessions which must done more frequently.

SCENAR is effective with any kind of injury, post surgery, and chronic conditions. If you have pain, call us at 828-337-6854. Mention this post for a 20% discount on the first session.