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We provide coaching and
workshops on family constellations,
resolving family chaos and healthy relationships.
What are HIV & AIDS?
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is
caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), a retrovirus.
Within a few months to many years, the HIV virus destroys enough
white blood cells that the immune system cannot function properly.
This life-threatening stage of HIV is usually called AIDS. AIDS
was once thought to be inevitably fatal. Although there is no
known cure, HIV can become a manageable condition.
2009: The Washington health department, the American
capital city, has an epidemic
of HIV/AIDS worse than many African nations, with 3% of people over
the age of 12 infected. A report stated, "nearly every population group and age is experiencing a
substantial epidemic with the greatest rates of infection among
black men (6.5%), Hispanic men (3.0%), and white men (2.6%)".
What does HIV & AIDS do to you?
People infected with HIV develop life-threatening
illnesses (AIDS) that rarely infect people with healthy immune systems.
Yet some people infected with HIV delay developing the illnesses
that cause AIDS for ten years or more.
What causes HIV & AIDS?
HIV can be transmitted by body fluids infected with
the HIV virus, such as blood, semen, vaginal secretions and breast
milk. The primary ways that HIV is transmitted are:
- sexual activity with a person infected with HIV
- pricking by a needle contaminated with infected
blood
- transfer from an infected mother to her baby
during birth or breast-feeding
You can prevent HIV and AIDS by safe sex practices,
avoiding used needles and transfusions of untested blood.
What happens next?
If you are diagnosed with HIV, you must select and
pay for treatment, perhaps while providing for a family. You must
also cope with the shock and social stigma that may surround a diagnosis
of AIDS. You may experience loneliness and strong emotions of anger,
anxiety, depression, fear, guilt and sadness, that may require as much
attention as your HIV infection.
Most people with HIV who survived for over five
years have made drastic changes to their previously unhealthy lifestyles.
How are HIV & AIDS treated?
Health-care professionals focus on three areas of therapy:
- Drugs that suppress HIV replication
- Treatments that fight the infections and cancers
that accompany HIV
- Support for relationships, emotions and practical
issues
HIV and Physical Health
by Peter H. McCusker,
author of From
Dweeb to Adonis
If you are living with HIV, it is extremely
important to take care of your health. Your body burns
calories fighting HIV and you risk weight loss due to
opportunistic infections. Sleeping, eating and exercising properly is
vital if you are HIV+.
Three ingredients are necessary to get fit and
to keep your body in shape: rest, digestion, and
training. You probably need eight good hours of sleep.
For more efficient nutrition, eat five or six small meals
daily, instead of three larger meals. Protein, combined with
complex carbohydrates, like whole grain breads, vegetables, and
rice, makes for nutritious, muscle-building meals.
Training refers to exercises that build
a healthy physique. While aerobic training is good for
cardiovascular fitness, weight training is more effective for
getting in shape. If you want to lose fat, lifting weights burns
more calories than aerobics; and also builds lean muscle mass,
which helps you defeat opportunistic illnesses.
Learning proper weight training and setting up
an effective program will take a few weeks. Your goal is to work
out all of your major muscles once a week, by training different
parts of your body on each of three or four days a week. Intense
one-hour workouts result in bigger, stronger muscles.
Concentrate on each muscle during your
exercises to develop a mind-body connection that makes you more
aware of yourself and your feelings. You can use symbolic imagery to
control your fate - visualize muscle growth and strength that
resists HIV.
And enjoy your huge boost in self-esteem as
you progress. |
What else can you do?
We help people sort out
emotions and relationships, and extend and enjoy life.
Our coaching can change the patterns of
toxic relationship behavior, for partners, families and teams.
Perhaps you have been besieged by conflicting, contradictory and
useless relationship advice and influences since your early childhood.
How much of your understanding of relationships is from television,
music, media personalities and cinema?
Mentor damage can harm loving relationships.
We can help people dissolve:
- Damage by therapists
- Relationship disappointments
- Unwanted family and societal influences
- Emotional reactions following abuse and trauma
- Relationship trauma; simple and complex conflicts
- Family entanglements, transferences and guilt issues
We use interactive metaphors (Dreamwork)
to help people improve their
mind/body communication and to discover and improve your
relationship to your body. Explore your role in your recovery, and
use your resources effectively. Discover and change your personal
metaphors about illness and healing, and learn to use your emotional
mind to support your own healing.
Psychoneuroimmunology approaches can help people influence
their body's ability to heal. These approaches may not magic HIV away, but
they can be used to make living with this condition easier, and perhaps
reduce AIDS-related emotional suffering.
Identity loss and
dead person identification are family
disturbances. A family member, usually a young child, may unconsciously
identify with the dead person. This risk is much higher if the dead
person was perceived to have died a shameful death, as may sometimes
happen with AIDS deaths.
Some alternative remedies such as auto-suggestion,
homeopathy, flower essences, hypnosis, progressive muscle
relaxation, laughter therapy, color therapy, biofeedback,
music therapy, oxygen/ozone therapy and thymus therapy - may also help
relieve HIV/AIDS symptoms.
Do You Want Results?
NOTE: Consult a physician about any
opinions about HIV, AIDS or other medical conditions.
We help
individuals, partners and teams to resolve a
wide range of emotional, educational and relationship challenges.
Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © Martyn Carruthers
2001-2011 All rights reserved |
