Detox relief from pain killers, migraine headaches and alcohol

By Loretta Sparks, MFT

Hi All,

For the past 20 plus years I have been treating alcoholics, addicts and their families at an in and out patient facility for a large HMO in Southern California. About 6 years ago I started integrating TFT and then EFT into the work I do there. As anyone who has treated addicted individuals can attest, it ain't easy work! However, EFT can make a big difference in increasing treatment effectiveness.

I'd like to share a couple of experiences I had last week. I was asked by one of our physicians to see a 77 yo woman who was having a very difficult detox from the migraine medication she had been taking for years. She was in a lot of discomfort from the withdrawal of her painkillers and was in the throes having a migraine.

We first did a number of rounds on the withdrawal symptoms focusing on the patient's fear of the sensations/discomfort in her body and her loss of the only help she had for her migraines, her painkillers. We got her discomfort down from a 9 to 2. Because our time was limited, I suggested at that point that we address her migraine. She agreed. Her migraine was a 10.

Because her head hurt too much to tap, we concentrated on the collarbone, under arm and back of hand treatment points. In less that 5 minutes of treatment the migraine was essentially gone. She saw me after discharge from inpatient and reported that the "tapping" was the most effective treatment she received in the hospital. Her headache had not returned full force. A couple of times it started to return and she tapped it out.

The second experience I wanted to share was in the form of a phone call (around 10:30 at night) from a colleague who had taken an EFT/TFT Seminar from me. He had just been released from the hospital ER where he had been taken as a result of a binge drinking episode. He felt terrible, tremulous, head hurting and with a generalized feeling of malaise. His knowledge of EFT made it easy to assist him over the phone.

Alcohol often floods the system with sugar and the detox (withdrawal) process can leave the body craving it with symptoms similar to those of hypoglycemia. So I asked him to first go drink a large glass of orange juice (natural sugar) and then come back to the phone. When he returned I lead him through the EFT protocol 2 times. By the time we finished he was steady, his head did not hurt and he was tired and wanting to go to bed.

EFT allowed me not only to reduce these patients' discomfort but to also enable them to learn the awesome healing power of their own body.

Loretta Sparks, MFT (#7936)

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