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broadcasting worldwide from the beautiful
hill country in Texas this is one
radio network dot com. this is Patrick Timpone
Ahh another day in Paradise
as we broadcast live here
from Central Texas
in the Hill Country an hour west of Austin Texas worldwide
on one radio network dot com
one radio network dot com Andrew Garce on Wednesday
and doctor richard massey on
Thursday open phone Friday so we're gonna have a big time this weekend or this
week
thanks to Sharron for setting up all these cool people thanks to you for
joining us and here's how you can participate
888 663 6386 don't be shy
888 663 6386
email Patrick at one radio network com
Sharron put a video up this weekend
about our first guest author
Fletcher his website
inclined bed therapy
dot com very simple idea
he says might do some some really wonderful things for you
inclined bed therapy IBT
Andrew Fletcher is in
Southwest Devon England
he said it's 28 degrees Celsius not sure what that is, but it sounds pretty good
have to figure that out I guess it's about 55-60 degrees
fahrenheit something like that and I think it's probably
maybe four o'clock in the afternoon something like that mister fletcher
good afternoon there in England
I don't have my Celsius Fahrenheit thing but I'll
figure it out sometime this morning okay how are you
I'm very good thank you You put that video on a website
quite interest how long have you been
and your a former engineer right and not a medical guy
That's right that's right how do you come up with the idea that
putting your head up six inches will help us well
its an incredible story everythin you're about to hear
is the truth
one of my my skills is a lateral thinker which is a bit
of a penalty at times because you start off in one direction and you end up in a
completely different direction
you never anticipated and that's exactly what happened
here I made
decision to ask how
trees raise water from the ground to the leaf
I was involved in an irrigation project at the time
still am and that project aims
to induce rainfall in arid regions
one of the problems you get when you're irrigating arid regions
is that you get a build up of salt on the soil soil and that poisons the soil
so you have to move somewhere else and
and practice your irrigation elsewhere and I notice that
trees were standing there and had been there for some times hundreds of years
so they weren't affected by the salt
and there wasn't the salt around the
base of the tree, so
the question I asked was what are these trees doing with the salts that was how
I
approached the problem, So I travelled off to a car boot sale
and stumbled across a a GCSE biology book
by the D.G. Mackean and I thought
Ohh that's interesting for twenty pence, i'll have a read
I read
an incredible amount of er well
I'll let your readers interpret
interpret some the some the bits I read which actually prompted me to look
into
into circulation in trees one of the points was water evaporates from the leaves
causes a kind
of suction which pulls water up the stem now
for an engineer a kind of suction that pulls water up the tree
doesn't sit very well
well I won't bore the listeners.. no no go ahead ok ok
we want the whole story, so actually what happens with the
which you learned that
the leaves, what happens how does it get to sucking the water up from the ground
okay okay well it says many biologists regard transpiration as an inevitable
consequence
of photosynthesis in order to flow to photosynthesise
the leaf has to take in carbon dioxide from the air the pathway which allows carbon dioxide in
will also let water vapour out
so it's an inevitable loss of water
that serves little purpose other than heat regulation so anyway there was
quite a bit that I read in the book
I'm I'm for example another point you might learn in physics that you cannot
draw water up by suction to a height of more than about 10 meters
many tall trees than this
don't appear to have a problem with drawing water higher than 10 meters
No they don't appear to have a problem.. so what about statement in the book
and in fact it was D.G Mackeans the
the honesty that the man gave when he put the book together
I'm describing a wholly inadequate explanation for fluid transport in trees
that fired me up and the solution came to me within 20 minutes
now what I did, arrogantly if you like
I ignored all of the explanations that had come before
and just re-examined the facts and the fact that I saw was that the tree stood above ground level
and was growing predominantly vertical so
was obviously benefiting in some way from gravity otherwise it would be growing
horizontally
and it contains a multi-conduit of tubes
so the tubes run from root to leave
and we know we have an upflow predominantly in the xylem
and a down flow predominantly in the phloem and the phloem is always loaded with
denser materials and the xylem sap is always
more dilute because it draws water in from the soil
this is how I put it together
ninety-eight percent of all the water evaporates through the leaves
and this will.. you need to learn this to understand why we tilted the beds
yeah, so ninety-eight percent of all the water evaporates through the leaves
that's a fact fact I have no problem with that so in other words, let me stop you a second so comes
up from the roots deep down
comes up and then leaves and comes out as humidity in the air
that's right that's why places with lots a trees
are humid that's correct that's called transpiration
okay but what science had forgotten is that for every action there is a
reaction. You cannot boil away
or evaporate away ninety eight percent of all water
without actually concentrating the sap
so you're effectively boiling water away as evaporation
so whatever is left behind is increased by ninety eight percent
and because the leaves produce sugar converting carbon dioxide through
photosynthesis
into sugars yes K that's denser than water
and the mineral salts and nutrients bought in through the xylem
are also denser than water so the massive loss of moisture from the leaf
changes the density of the sap at the top of the tree K
gravity dictates that the denser sap will move towards a sink
that sink can be a fruit or it can be the trunk you know as a
store or it can can actually travel right down to the roots
and then get re diluted by incoming water from the soil
so that ensures that the upward flow is always more dilute than the downward
flow
K so if science had asked the right questions instead of the wrong question
and the wrong question is how does water get from the roots to leaves?
what they should have asked is how do trees circulate water?
then the answer would have been clear they circulate the water
by am releasing
taking the co2 from the air
yes and then
and then they evaporate the water goes out in the air
and that creates sugar or sap either goes into a fruit or back into the tree
like in a pine tree
or like in a maple tree yes
And for every action there is a reaction you can't have a downward flow without
generating a return flow so if you can picture this
sap inside the tree behaving like string rather than
like a liquid every molecule is attached to the molecule behind it
so as you stimulate a down-flow it creates molecular drag
that molecular drag effects all of the sap in the tree
it affects the return flow on the down flow
now in order to demonstrate this circulation system
I set up a simple experiment at Brixham Cliffs in the Over Gang Car Park
not too far from me and we caused water to flow up a cliff to
24 meters using only a pinch of salt about ten millilitres of salt
we had a single length of 6 millilitre bore tube
both open ends were pushed pushed into two bottles of water
and the tune itself contained boiled water to remove any gas bubbles
and the water inside the vessels at ground-level
also contained boiled water to remove the gas bubbles
and the tiny amount to salt solution was added to the centre of the tube
which was then rasied up the cliff to 24 meters more than twice what they say is
possible in physics
and the water was suspended I had scientists there from the
Forestry commission we had journalists there
every one witness the the experiment it was a great success
it stayed suspended there for about 15-20 minutes
and the downward flow in the one side
caused the er... we used two demijohns or two fermenting bottles
One bottle was overflowing slowly
and the other bottle was going down so that tiny amount of salt solution
lifted thousands of times it's own volume effortlessly
effortlessly 24 meters and when we did that
that was by no means first my means the first time
that I had performed that experiment when I first saw that experiment
I knew that I had nailed something really important and I knew that the physics
behind it had no respect for the vessel that contained it
so the leap from trees to humans and animals
was the next step as I explained at the start of the interview
So Being a lateral thinker it's it's a Yeah lateral think
so you were able to actually raise water 24 meters just using salt
yes That's amazing Yes That's amazing
just because what goes up something else has gotta go down or yes right
that's right so arm
what does that then tell us about the human body?
it tells us a great deal as I said it has no respect for the vessel that contains it
so any column
water that stands above ground level hmm
and evaporates most the water from the surface
well from the upper part would change the density or whatever
whatever sap or blood that there was supplying it
and in the case of the body the blood the passes through the lungs
supplies the fluid that we evaporate with every breath
mmm-hmm so the blood that passes through the lungs become denser
and then passes through the heart and then enters the main artery
so it's the equivalent for every breath we take to placing a pinch of salt
in the blood in the arteries so gravity will act upon that and draw it down towards
the kidneys
the kidneys are great at filtering out salts and
other waste so
the blood that passes through the kidneys becomes less dense as the salts are excreted in
the urine
so therefore the return flow blood is always less dense
than the downward flowing arterial blood him and again
the the flown return system fitted exactly with the way the body was
and I had a meeting with two vascular
vascular surgeons over at Torquay
one guy was Peter Lewis vascular surgeon
and the other guy was Celeste another vascular surgeon from Trinidad I think he was
and I showed them the experiment because you can do a
rather than stringing tubes up a cliff so anyone can do
this experiment at home and
Peter's reaction was; "My God" he said
I thought pure science was dead he said and here it is on my kitchen table
What you have explained to me fit's exactly with everything that we know
about circulation in the body so
go back to the idea of salts and the breath
where does the salt come from the salt is from our diet ok
so we take in a dilute soup of nutrients into the blood
just like the trees take in a dilute soup of nutrients from the soil
that passes through the lungs
and we have iron in the blood as well which is which is also denser than well
anything that's denser than water really
so as soon as you start evaporating water from from that liquid
you make it denser and soon as you make it denser
gravity will act upon the denser side and in this case it's the arteries
so I questioned how could we make use of this discovery?
mmm so the obvious thing was well
wow it's easy to understand why
the most successful species on Earth stands the most vertical
ourselves
and trees
and I questioned why we sleep flat?
because it made no sense now
And I thought well what would happen if we raise the head end of the bed
how much would you need to raise the head of the bed so what I did was I I
got a loop of tubing
closed loop of tubing filled with water
added some coloured salt solution to the pillow end
of the loop of tubing which stretched down the entire length of the bed
and then I raised the bed up in increments to see which would be the ideal for comfort
and for circulation when I got to about four and a half inches
the flow was down one side of the tube and the return flow was in the same side of the
tube so I could see
the water flow the coloured solution flowing down one side and the return
flow going back
over the top of it so there was a two directional flow
in one side of the tube with no overall rotation
when the bed was raised up to 5 inches then I started to see the circulation so
we added an extra inch
for good measure and I had the flow
which represented the arterial flow and the return flow
which represented the vascular return
or the venous return flow
Then we tilted our bed and I was really excited about this
my wife thought I was insane Yes
of course but she agreed and we tilted the bed and
we started to imagine things as if we had more energy
we felt a bit fitter and we had a stiff neck as well and
some extra aches and pains as if we had been working out in the gym gymnasium
but we hadn't and
I had a meeting with a guy called leon Coral down the pocket book shop
and I was discussing the discovery with him he was excited too
and then a nurse butted in Stefanie Ness and she said
I have to say something I don't interrupt conversations very often she said that
this is very exciting
She said I am a nurse and I am in charge
of the local elderly patients and we have known for a long time that the
the elderly people that spend a long time in bed don't live very long
but those that refused to lie down in bed
actually seemed to go on into their hundreds
Ohh with the head up Yes most of them she said
sat in chairs and
refused to get into bed oh they didn't want to go in So they knew there was something wrong with lying down
and they felt uncomfortable
erm which was fascinating and then she said I wonder if it would work for
varicose veins?
And I thought wow that's interesting
because if we have if we've applied pressure increased the pressure in the
arteries
which which the theory dictates would happened
and indeed Peter Lewis and Celeste agreed with
that principal then it would apply
tention to the blood in these veins and it would also lower the pressure in
the veins which would pull the veins in
so when I got home I asked my wife to lift up her trouser leg
and low and behold a varicose vein which had been there for 16 years had gone flat
with no surgery now thats interesting because..you know it's it's just counter-intuitive
cuz you think
well if your head is higher Andrew
then you can have more blood flowing down to your legs
which is it coagulation of blood in your veins right
so yes it it's just like the opposite of what you think it would be But
as we discussed in the trees the
question wasn't hew water erm shouldn't have been how water is raised
from the
from the roots to the leaves because it goes the other way
know if you've got circulation you can increases circulation
we can decrease circulation but unless you chop someone's foot off
blood won't flow down and out
yeah yeah we have a flow and a return system a venous
return and an arterial flow
yeah its it's a little bit of a misconception Sure I think what
they're referring to
is the flow of excess fluid
from the veins out into the surrounding tissue
so that happens when the pressure inside the vines is greater
and that causes the fluid to migrate from the blood out into the sure
surrounding tissue causing oedema yeah sure or fluid retention
right know that was the other condition that improved
I started to look around for people
with varicose veins looking at women's legs for all the wrong reasons
ha ha I understand
for all the right reasons depending on your standpoint
so I got my mother to take part
but in the meantime Stephanie Ness had reported that her varicose veins
had improved as well
and was hardly visible in how long She's a nurse as-well. how long
four weeks four weeks you know
both my wife and Stephanie Ness four weeks
the common conventional wisdom about varicose veins
if I understand is something like they have these little flaps
in the veins
that are supposed to kinda yeah the valves are kinda move up and
Hold
and these things get kinda week somehow with heart
something some things weakened the arteries, you know lack of nutrients or
something and then the blood kinda pools down there
if that's correct why would your and I know that is correct, that is just conventional
wisdom
yes no that's what the doc's say anywhere the naturall doctors even
why would raising the head
affect that? That's interesting
and I mean again I don't know if the flap thing is even
a viable premise yeah what it what it is
there is two angled
no actually there is an angled flap
of vein which
allows blood to pass through it and then it stops the
return flow Right it's supposed to flap up and stopped the return
like a one way valve correct yes okay
I mean the answer is
you know this if these both my wife and there are many others that have also reported the
improvements in varicose veins
who probably have those damaged valves
have noticed that their veins have gone flat also
mmm there is photographic evidence on the Internet hmm hmm Yeah
showing a young young gentlemen
who provided us with fantastic photographic account of
how his veins had changed over a period of a couple of years
I'll be darned It was incredible it was absolutely
I mean that the guy worn support stockings
and always worn trousers he's been out on the beach in shorts
him so the proof is in the pudding
well hopefully yes I mean certainly we need
a study into varicose veins a study into oedema
you know to actually determine whether this is just a fluke or
whether it's more than just
Yeah at twenty four minutes after the hour with Andrew Fletcher
sharon says its 82 degrees where you are she did a Fahrenheit
she also suggested that this would be fun and I'm gonna do it so
that if ourour listeners wanna do this
and we'll talk about exactly how to do it before the show
and raise the head end of your bed and then we'll have
Andrew back on in three months or so
and get the listeners to write in and and call in and see what kinda fits how about
that
would that be fun sounds very good be fun and so we will get exactly what to do and how to
do it
before the end of the show and if you like to participate I'm going to do it I'll do it
today
and Sharon's going to do it and see what we see
okay Andrew fletcher's who is with us his
website is let me see let me grab it here
I want to to just get it for you it's inclinedbedtherapy.com
inclined bed therapy dot com
so what do you would he think the effect
how has this affected your sleep
and how long have you been doing it? since 1994
Wow you have been doing it for twenty years?
not as long as the ancient Egyptians
Had they slept like this? yes did they
when, it's a great idea you know but
you need to know if someone else has done it before
so you go back in history and
the evidence is overwhelming providing you looking in the right places
now when the the tomb robbers went in
they had jewels and gold in their eyes
and obviously paid no attention to the fact that all of the beds were
inclined. they were raised exactly six inches / 15 cm at the head end
I'll be darned
curator at the Boston Museum to go out with a tape measure
she measured one and she said it's exactly six inches higher at the head end. Isn't that
Interesting hand exactly the same measurement that I had come up with using a tube which isn't too
Isn't that interesting Yes
it it goes even further back than that
we have been swaddling babies in
swaddling clothes even Jesus was
documented to be swaddled in a manger yes sir yes sir
and you know the only reason that you would swaddle a child is to
stop them moving and the only reason you would stop the moving is to prevent
sliding down the bed and there are
pictures abounding on the Internet of swaddled babies on incline
inclined planes Really? yes Ha ha
home so you think that's why we swaddle them because to keep them from
sliding down
yes that's pretty cool
Kinda go goose bumps there that's kinda neat
I've touched the tip of the iceberg because
as I said I was a lateral thinker so the next thing I did I got my mother to tilt her
bed hmm She had very bad
varicose veins, took a long while to convince
that I wasn't
well I was being sensible
we tilted her bed and in four weeks I got a phone call from my mom
and she said can you tell me what this bed is all about
I said look mom I have explained it in great detail she said just run it by me once more
I said haaa you've got something to tell me about your varicose veins
she said ohh yes but that's not why i am ringing Ohh
So tell me more she said I am standing here by the phone
twiddling my toes and moving my ankle on my left leg
I said what you want a round of applause? She said I haven't been able to do that for eleven years
she hasn't moved her toes for eleven years no
and I thought wow, we're not just looking at blood circulation now
that must be in neurological problem so again
I find another book and started to dig into how
cerebral spinal fluid circulates yeah
and low and behold just like the trees no one really knows
they know it's linked to posture and they know it's linked to respiration
and they know that the heart doesn't play a role any more than he plays a role in
the lymphatic system
so something is driving this circulation
and it fitted perfectly with what I had discovered because
the evaporation from the sinuses and from the eyes
from skin changes changes the density of the fluids that flow through it
so we are constantly changing the density of the
the the cerebrospinal fluid which means that the down flow is always more
dense than the return flow and a recent papers has just been published that actually
states that this is correct that the down flow is always denser than the return flow
so...The author put it down to a thermohaline difference much the same as you got the
much the same as the explanation for the thermohaline flow in the Atlantic Ocean
yeah the Atlantic ocean conveyor belt
the ocean currents are
driven by well thought to be driven by thermohaline
which is a change in density due to heat
but if you think about it logically for a second you would need a tremendous
amount of energy from sun
to change the density of the ocean but what you'd need
to is to evaporate water from the ocean serface
which then induces the same flow and return system
that powers all of the
all the ocean currents yes so
our body does the same thing with our eyes and our nose and our lungs in her nose in her lungs
it puts off
co2 just like the trees
yes that's what causes the blood to keep moving why we're laying down
what happens oh it's all the time, it's not the heart
right it's not the heart pumping well
I mean cus people Doc's have told us that the heart really isn't pump
it's just gravity and stuff that's moving everything around
right we have got a heart yes and I will bow down to that but
okay but yes
when we are conceive there is no heart pumping
and yet circulation takes place if we if we take a chickens egg for example
If we take a chicken's egg for example
we know that the food is in the yolk
and we've got the albumen around the yolk and we know
from from hatcheries that you must rotate those eggs
and we know that the shape of the egg dictates that it will only rotate across one
axis
so if you know if rotating the eggs is important
and what that tells is that gravity is playing a roll
and I suggest that the downward flow from the food source
actually triggers a return flow
and this is how the initial circulation takes place long before the heart
is formed and beats there is a pulsatile flow
in that primary circulation inside the egg
and in the case of a mother
who is expecting a baby then that depends on the posture of the mother
so if the mother is always moving around
its the same equivalent as the chickens egg being rotated
so it's probably good to exercise when you are pregnant or do something
absolutely
what happened next was because I've thought
if you want to stop me just stop because I could rabbit on about this for hours Rabbit on let's just rabbit on
with a couple of commercials
and then we will let you rabbit on some more 28 before the hour
Man don't ya just love these kind of fascinating people
this is one radio network dot com 19 before the hour
talking with an interesting man he is in England
South Devon Andrew Fletcher
inclined bed therapy com
about raising your bed 6 inches
so can we just take some books in
get a tape measure yes him to just raise our bed 6 inches and
try this for three months and see what we see?
see what we feal yes I reckon the best books to use
for raising the beds are medical books yeah I think so Ha ha
Yeah I got a lot of those ha ha, those big thick ones sometimes you probably need about two of them
and just do six inches is it critical
exactly six inches
in the American the American beds are bigger than the beds over in the UK so
I would recommend if your bed
sort of bigger than say 6-foot-3 six foot four inches
hmm you would need to raise your bed six and a half say seven inches
oh let's see okay you mean lengthwise
yes if it's over about six feet or so
yes well they will be over 6 feet
but around in there six inches is going to be good from most people
mmm mmm and what kind of improvements you think they're going to see
in there we are gonna have them try it and talk to you again
Well we are going to get improvements in
spouses stopping snoring
we are going to have improvements in better oxygenation For a kick off I
conducted this experiment with sleeping dogs as well as
sleeping humans Really in me you get a decrease in
in respiration rate by 4 to-5 breaths per minute
You will get a decrease in heart rate by 10 to 12 beats per minute
Your circulation will increase people
that suffer with cold hands and cold feet in bed will find they will be sleeping with their
feet outside of the bed because they will nice and warm
you will skip getting a lot of colds and influenza
if you do get the infections we all seem to be fighting them off
a lot a lot better and my my
my lovely Granddaughter Amy
she's at infants school and
the entire class went down with chicken pox
except Amy didn't get it
so that that there is a great deal of err improvements
we don't know what's going on with the immune system then do we, I mean
well benefits or do you? if we take the immune system alone
if we take gravity away for example put an astronaut in space
peak of fitness, what happens is they start to age
ten times faster than they do here on Earth
huh Oh yeah with with the astronauts yeah we've heard about that the bones the
de-calcify
muscles atrophy away the heart atrophies away
neurological problems
tremendous amount of problems long-lasting problems as well some of
the long-term
space-flight astronauts
well one guy in particular from Russia it's taken
I think Joan Vernikos said it was a 18 or
20 I'm not sure whether it was 18 years
I might have it written down somewhere
for the full recovery from from just being in space
you know that's when they first kinda came up with these little small
rebounders that we promote yes from 20 years ago
because they lost all of this bone density
from space yes and when you jump and down you get about a foot off the matt it
builds up bone density yes and so does inclined bed therapy
so does inclined bed therapy I had a lady contact me
and lady called Ruby Tate
she's appeared on TV so she won't mind me mentioning her name
and shhad osteoporosis and she couldn't turn over in bed
tremendous problems she couldn't clothe herself properly
turning over in bed was a mammoth task she couldn't turn around she had to turn her whole body
around
to view clock behind her
it completely cleared the osteoporosis
let me ask you this say if somebody has a
relative in a nursing home with a
I know some the nursing homes they have the people
sleeping even higher than that you know where they might be at 45 degree angle
yes is that or would that be preferable or would you recommend
keeping my head I know what you are going to say
yeah I think you referring to
beds being raised with the upper half raised with the legs either flat or raised
correct
okay as you would with an adjustable bed mechanically adjustable beds
they put them in hospitals and nursing homes and stuff like that
yep totally wrong posture and probably
can cause more problems. Sleeping on a
on an incline bed for example de-compresses the
spine because if you can imagine you're you're weight has shifted
so it's trying to slide down the bed but it's held back by the friction between yourself
Oh Of course
this applies traction to the spine so relieves
most back problems will get the relieved but if you're in a sitting position
which you've just described your
raising your upper half and keeping the legs either flat or raised
what we've done there now the pelvis is actually pressing down on the soft
tissue
yes so it's gonna risk and causing pressure sores
we've created a loop by having the knees bent
so that's going to prevent fluids from returning back into the main
circulatory system
so we can get swollen ankles good, no
no sitting posture according again to Joan Vernikos
who was former head of life sciences at nasa
she recommends that everyone
should stand every 20 minutes we should stand up
yeah we have had Joan on the show oh you have? Yeah
years ago maybe last year so so even in the nursing home
if you had a bed that were the top half raises up
you know with a lever or whatever they do and if you did that six inches that
still doesn't do what you wanna do know
you'd wanna keep it flat and just raise it can get the whole thing
on an incline and that would include
and improve circulation
yes You think that would help someone with a stroke?
yes it would
I'm trying to
make sure that I don't forget everything here but there is a child locally with
an enlarged dysfunction pituitary gland mmm
which resulted in paralysis hmm we were told that
there would be no recovery, well the parents were told there would be no revovery
because the pituitary gland drives everything in the body
yes This this child is down the gymnasium
I'm sorry he is down the gymnasium working out he has regained
function of his legs and arms just from
Just from inclined bed therapy? yes
multiple sclerosis this is where the research when the next
the next turning because my mother reported
improvements in the leg
I looked into multiple sclerosis
and did a preliminary study with a gentleman who was a fellow engineer
he started to notice improvements and Roger
sclerosis
Roger Kirk He has passed away
This guy actually gets out of his wheelchair
and stands by his wheelchair
He was featured in the Daily Mail which is a National newspaper
He actually wrote
he got out of his car and walked
could never have done that. Andrew I
That led on to doing another extended research with a group
people with MS I went to a local chapter in Kingsteignton Locally
and took Roger along with me he explained all the things that had been happening to him
including
stopping his hair loss better mobility he was able to turn over in bed
his eyesight improved so much
he could actually sit at the computer and started
his own printing business
and what do you attribute that to eye sight?
well had damage to the optic nerve caused by
the multiple sclerosis and it actually restored the
damage to the nerve because of circulation?
yes because everything is circulation right
yeah everything's everything circulation eyesight
you get more circulation things will heal
Boy this is just fascinating I can't wait to do it today I am going to get me six
inches
now more is not better right eight inches nine-inches' not better
I have people that swear by raising the bed 8 inches
nine-inches' 10 inches is actually helping them more
But what do you think would you just do six? Yes I think you have got a trade off
between comfort
and the effects on the circulation you know if you want to feel uncomfortable in bed
then by all means raise the bed higher
here's an email are from Rich in Pittsburgh
should this be done gradually will this increase those with high blood pressure
any known contraindications
yes blood pressures moved in both directions
people with low blood pressure find blood pressure has been raised
people with high blood pressure from the have found that the blood pressure has
been lowered
mmm-hmm so there is a possibility that the blood pressure could go in the wrong
way
In the wrong direction and this needs to be monitored
I would recommend that anyone trying on BT
seeks advice from his or her GP
and you know have their vital statistics
you know monitored by their doctor just to make sure that nothing
goes awry yeah but if this is good for you why
would possibly put it in the wrong direction it doesn't make sense
it's just being careful Oh just being careful cuz
you know you start messing around with blood pressure who knows yes
very interesting let's talk this call
What's your first name and where are you calling from?
My name is xxxxx I'm from Columbus Ohio
okay go ahead you're on the air. I want to talk to you off the air
okay okay call me later call me later He wants to talk off the air
you want to talk of the air go ahead I interrupted you Andrew
okay
the small group of people
agreed to take part in the study these people with multiple sclerosis
and we tilted the beds and the results were incredible
so incredible that a charity from London
they were then called the
multiple sclerosis resource from Essex
John and Jean Simkins came down and interviewed this group of people
with Ms and compiled the report called the Raised Bed Survey
and the Raised Bed Survey didn't go into details as to what exactly happened
these these people nevertheless it's a very compelling read
and it does prove to that it has a profound effect on people with MS
but what the report didn't state was that
I had to phone calls from two ophthalmologists
one from Teighnmouth and one from Paignton asking me how putting two blocks of wood under it wouldn't
someone's bed could restore someones sight that was blind
and both of these patients had reversible optic nerve damage caused long-term
progressive MS
their eyesight was restored That's amazing that's amazing
I've got a special little eye challenge because of an issue that I had some
years ago so I would
be quite interested to see if we can bring some more circulation to the right
now
um inclined so just putting books
under the head is gonna work right you don't have to get fancy
blocks bricks books
even making if you have a bed see one of the problems people have
is they have a really heavy bed
you know the frames sometimes a little bit flimsy to be on an angle
sure so what I would recommend inthat case
is to buy a 1" plywood sheet from a DIY school
these are usually 8 feet by 4 feet sheets if your bed is wider than four
foot wide
you will need to buy perhaps two sheets they're not expensive
and then have some cross beams placed across the bed frame
at different heights to create a wooden wedge that goes underneath
the mattress That's the safest way to tilt one of these beds
in case you have a big bed that the frame is not real
real sturdy yes
Or a complicated bed some of these beds have like six or seven or eight legs
and that would make tilting one of those really complicated
so the best way is to tilt the mattress explain again
why
doing the whole incline is
better than just half like they do in hospitals and nursing homes
okay to pressure on the spine yes but yes we know we know from
from many of research that sitting is not great Yes
you know sitting is bad for us. Yes it's not good for us.
it is not good so if we raise the upper half of the bed we are in fact
getting the patient to sit in bed hmm That'st compressing the spine
okay and it's compressing the buttocks yes sir
yes yes so it's doing absolutely nothing
and the other thing is if we're lying with the upper half
either level or raised
it makes turning over onto our sides
rather complicated because then we are bending the hip joints
in the wrong direction we are putting stress on the hip joints as well
where as with inclined bed therapy you can rotate
and lie on your back lay on your side lay on your tummy and what I do recommend
recently is is to raise the knee slightly
and what this does is it relaxes the muscles
and it relaxes the tendons so
laying on either side and just raising your knees, just a little bit
would actually help
with the tendons and muscles
The best
case history I have now and you are going to get some phone calls after this one I'm sure
is I got a call from a lady who asks about
bull terriers and
said what do you want to know? she said what would an adult male be like around a severely
disabled child
I said what's the matter with your kid? She said why do you want to know?
I said I might be able to help. She said don't be bloody ridiculous I rang
you for information about a dog.
I said look I can't make you listen. She said well spit it out so
I told her all about my research and what it had been doing for people with ms and now
people with spinal cord injury were
also reporting recoveries and not complete recoveries but increased
Or improved bowel control, bladder control
tremendous amount of benefits but
a relayed all of this onto this lady and she told me that her girl
has cerebral palsy which is brain damage from birth
and we were told in 1995 that if she ever developed the ability to comb
or brush her own hair
let us know but don't hold your breath because it's never gonna happen
and they tilted the bed and within a few weeks
starting to get some reports saying that she's behaving a little bit differently
She seems more relaxed
few more weeks went passed and spasms had relaxed and this girl was wearing
callipers daytime and night-time to keep her leg straight never walk to the aged 12
another few weeks past get another phone and they are saying
well the leg muscles are changing in that they are
more supple and she's not getting the spasms that she had before
A few more weeks went passed and she's
turning over in bed and this could not happen by all accounts
And then 8 months after we tilted the bed
obviously I have got to cut the story a little bit short
just got a phone call from the school we are off down to see the girl
She had got out of her wheelchair and walked at school
Really, that's fascinating
I wonder why the results get better the longer as you do it
with this inclined bed therapy? What's your theory?
Why does it take longer? Why does it take longer and longer and get better
I suppose it depends on the type of condition
On the type of condition the challenge that you're dealing with yeah
there was a guy called Mayer who did some experiments he severed the optic nerve
in a rat a mouse a rabbit a frog and a fish
in the frog and the fish
nerve regeneration I think it took four months
but the fish and the frog could see again and what he did was he kept them
in the upright position
but the rat mouse and rabbit were able to rotate
and therefore confusion occurs
so the constant direction from gravityt is not there
so that interferes with the way that the nerves regenerate
I kinda think that the nerves are behaving exactly like
seedlings they need to know which way is up and which way is down
in order for them to to function properly I wonder how the chimps and the
great apes
how do they sleep do we know? It's very interested
cattle and sheep for example in fields for example I've noticed time and time again
if there is a hillside they will all be on the hillside and all of them will be facing uphill.
the gorilla will sleep sitting up against a tree or on an angle
you know it's very difficult to find somewhere in nature that's perfectly flat
chimps for example sleep in trees and they will make a nest and they will
be on branches.. with her head up yeah with their head up i've seen that yeah
even if you look at alligators and crocodiles
probably not the most intelligent species on the planet
but they use a sloping bank
to regulate the body temperature they will face down to cool off
and face up to warm up. Fascinating
Well Andrew you're a very interesting man your website is pretty cool
we posted the original
Hippocratic oath translated from Greek on our website this morning
that you had on your website appreciate you doing that's pretty interesting
the website is inclined to bed therapy dot com
so here we are June 23rd 2014 and our listeners
are going to try those who want to do it raising their bed 6 inches
and will have back maybe in June July You know maybe late August to September
and we'll get him to call in and email in and let us know
and we'll talk more about it and we'll get some reports back from our listeners
around the world
trying this okay
That sounds good to me keep up the great work we
appreciate you spending an hour with us
it was just terrific thanks
thank you very much for having me on the show
okay we'll talk more about C