Ask away

Guy Cohen said he would be more than happy to answer any questions you have about the methods he uses for curing ulcerative colitis. So if you want to leave a question in the comments section or email me, then I’ll pass them on to Guy and post up his answers shortly.

Wednesday's diary on a Thursday 7.3

You may notice one or two changes to this week’s WDOAT. From now on there’ll be a slight shift in focus. Rather than just recording the same old stuff week in week out, I hope to now use WDOAT to chart any significant progress I’m making with my new goal, which quite simply is to be fully healthy again – UC free in other words. Since having surgery I no longer have any of the obvious symptoms of ulcerative colitis. But it’s still there. The colonoscopy I had back in June revealed I have mild disease in my remaining section of colon and in the bit near my rectum. Now there’s no way I can tell what’s going on inside my colon week by week. A tribe of nomadic shit mining pixies could have set up camp in there and I wouldn’t know a thing about it. But there is one way I think I’ll be able to see if things are improving. Most days I still have one normalish bowel movement. This produces a putty-mucus-milky-Weetabix type substance. Over the months since the op, blood has crept into these bowel movements. At first it was just a pale pink blush on the toilet paper, but more recently it’s been a definite crimson. This I believe is caused by the UC still in my rectum area. If the blood from my back passage reduces, then I think it’s fair to assume I’m heading in the right direction. So I’ll be keeping an eye on that. Also I’m going to try and comment on my general mental wellbeing, my mood, vibe, spirit, whatever you want to call it. This then, is the new and improved WDOAT.

Wednesday 2nd September:
7am Change bag
8.15am Empty bag
1040am Empty bag
2pm Change bag
6.15pm Empty bag
9.30pm Empty bag

Medication:
Breakfast 6 x mesalazine 400mg
Dinner 4 x azathioprine 50mg
Bedtime 6 x mesalazine 400mg

Therapies:
Geoffrey Glasborow* relaxation download

Noticeable improvements:
Consistently healthier thinking. Less dwelling on negatives. More energy.

Mood:
Positive. Bit excited really.

*Guy Cohen's original recording of a session with Geoffrey Glasborow in 1995.

Hypnotherapy session number 1

Guy Cohen’s voice is clear, self-assured and not unpleasant on the ears. Behind the mellifluous tone is a hint of playfulness, which brings to mind a bright-eyed head boy. Guy fizzes with optimism and can occasionally come across as cheesy – but it’s only optimism in the same sense most Hollywood films are optimistic; E.T. goes home, Rocky wins, Jaws dies and Bill Murray learns not to be such a dickhead. There’s nothing wrong with that and it’s actually quite refreshing. Guy is talking to me through my Mac using Skype, so I can be hands free and not have a hot headachy mobile pressed to my ear for the whole session. I am lying on my sofa in my spare room cum office. The blinds are drawn, shutting out the early evening light and the geese, which fly low past my window about this time every night on their way to Walthamstow marshes. After a few minutes small talk, it’s time to get down to business. Much like an airline pilot’s pre-takeoff preamble – we’ll be flying at 30,000ft, approximate journey time should be a little under 3hrs etc – Guy starts by outlining exactly what we’ll be doing during the session. Then we’re clear for take-off. Guy tells me to relax and concentrate on breathing more deeply. I begin to inhale and exhale more slowly, trying to find a steady controlled rhythm. Then Guy’s voice takes my mind on a journey around my body, and I’m asked to imagine my various limbs going limp and relaxing; my right foot going limp and relaxing, my left foot going limp and relaxing, my right leg going limp and relaxing, my left leg going limp and relaxing. When it comes to my hands going limp I have to suppress all thoughts of John Inman, and stay focused. Then Guy tells me to imagine I’m floating on thin air, floating and drifting, drifting and floating. At no point do I feel ‘under’ or at all like I’m in a trance. I think the purpose of these first exercises is to put me in the right frame of mind and set the mood. It’s mental foreplay. After which Guy begins to count upwards. All the while I’m encouraged to relax and smile and enjoy myself, whilst continuing to breathe nice and deeply. Now Guy asks me to remember a time in my life when I felt supremely confident. I have to picture it in my mind, make it really vivid, relive how it made me feel, what was in front of me, behind me, recreate the scene in detail, the colours, the smells, the sounds, making it feel as intense and bright as I can. Then just when I think I can’t push it any further Guy tells me to pinch my thumbnail against my middle finger, take a deep breath and relax. I’m a little concerned that I’m not doing this part right, but Guy reassures me that if I’m trying then I’m doing it right. Next I have to remember a time when I felt really curious, totally fascinated and absorbed in something. And again I have to picture it in my head in as much detail as possible, making it 3D and giving it surround sound. Then as before, when it gets to its most intense I pinch my thumbnail against my middle finger, and relax. Now Guy tells me to think of a time where I had the giggles. Proper uncontrollable giggles. I have to make it real in my head, adding layer upon layer of detail, until it can’t get any more vibrant, then I pinch my thumbnail against my middle finger, before relaxing. Now it gets a little harder. Guy tells me to remember all three scenarios all at the same time. Mix them all up, confidence, curiosity and the giggles. Guy gets very excited at this point and I’m guessing by his yelling and hollering that what we’re doing is kind of like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters and we’re going to unleash some God Almighty power. I half expect cupboard drawers to start opening and closing and gas bills and takeaway menus to begin swirling around the room in a vortex. I can report that none of this happens, although I do find myself smiling, which Guy tells me is a good thing. I pinch my thumbnail against my middle finger and we both take a deep breath and relax. Now we move on to the final part of the session and something called the Rewind Technique. Here Guy asks me to imagine I’m sitting in a big cinema. It’s just me, on my own, looking up at an old crackly, black and white film. And the film I’m watching is of a time when I felt anxious or was feeling particularly negative. I have to play the film from start to finish, 20 seconds or so. Then I have to imagine I float up out of myself right up to the ceiling where I can look down on myself looking up at the film of myself on the screen. In effect there are now three of me, four if you include the real me. Fortunately I’ve always had something of a split personality, so I feel quite comfortable in a roomful of Martins. Guy tells me to continue floating back into the projection room, where I can look down on the back of myself watching the film. Now I have to play the film in reverse. All the action moves backwards. Then when I reach the start, I have to rewind it again. And again, and again, and again, getting faster and faster each time. Guy suddenly starts playing the Benny Hill theme tune and everything in my head is careering backwards. Guy is yelling faster! Faster! Faster! He can’t get his words out quick enough. Benny Hill becomes fairground music. Clown music. Faster! Faster! Guy’s tripping over his words now. He wants me to laugh. I don’t know what’s going on. I struggle to keep up with it all. It feels like my eyes are spinning around in their sockets like a couple of Lotto balls about to be released. Then it’s all over. Quiet. Calm. Still. Relaxed, soothing Guy returns, taking over from manic, speed-freak Guy and he tells me that what we have just done is incredibly powerful and I should start to feel different very soon. There’s not a trace of doubt in Guy’s voice. It’s too early to say how I feel, but I know one thing. I believe him.

Hypnotherapy

The moment I take my seat on the stage I regret volunteering. I’m sitting at the end of a row of nine other students, who like me, eagerly flung their arm in the air when the stage hypnotist asked for volunteers. A solid mass of faces leer up at me. I should be with them. I should be in the audience. Not on stage. When I was 12 the stress of playing ‘man in the crowd’ in the school production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory got too much for me and I pleaded with my teacher to let me be a stagehand instead. It’s fair to say show business is not in my blood. But right now a substantial amount of alcohol is, which is why I find myself on stage about to be hypnotized. I become aware of every muscle in my body, my hands and feet and lips and ears feel hot and twice their normal size. The hypnotic process hasn’t started; the hypnotist isn’t even doing anything yet. I just feel incredibly self-conscious. Rigor mortis has set in. I’m made of plasticine. I’ve morphed into Morph. And I really need to urinate. Now we are being asked to follow a simple set of instructions to see how open we are to suggestion. I put my right hand on my head, then my left, then my right, then my left. I stand up, I sit down, I stand up, I sit down, I stand up, I sit down…and completely miss my chair. A tsunami of laughter crashes over me as I loll impotently on the stage floor. Those in the crowd that know me begin to chant my college nickname. Those in the crowd that don’t know me join in. “Les! Les! Les! Les!” It’s horrible. The hypnotist helps me to my feet and quietly says, “You’ve probably had too much to drink, mate, you can go back to the audience.” As I shuffle shamefaced off stage the hypnotist encourages a round of applause, “Thank you, Les! There he goes, off back to the bar!” And that’s exactly where I head, muttering under my breath, “My name’s not Les, it’s Martin.”

Until Guy mentioned hypnotherapy to me, my only previous experience of hypnotism was that slightly embarrassing encounter with a stage hypnotist back in 1992. And all that taught me was no matter how much beer you’ve drunk never put your hand up for anything ever. An invaluable life lesson learnt, yes, but in no way helpful in my understanding of hypnotism or hypnotherapy. So I had no real preconceptions about the subject, other than the usual spooky ‘repeat after me’ stereotypical hypnotists you see on telly. Again not that helpful. Guy reassured me if we did a session together I would be awake the whole time and be fully aware of everything going on. Satisfied I wouldn’t be put into a zombie-like trance or start talking like a 16th century French peasant we arranged a time for the session, which we would do over the telephone. As the session approached I felt a little apprehensive. Apart from a brief chat with Guy the day before I didn’t know him from Adam. I was about to undergo some sort of hypnosis with a total stranger – a total stranger off the internet, which is the natural habitat of the strangest type of stranger. At this point I gave myself a little talking to and decided to approach it all with an open mind and just go with it. The worst that could happen is I’d get a mildly interesting anecdote to write about on Number Twos. Deep down I was hoping for more though. This wasn’t about having a funny story to tell, the purpose of this was to get better. To finally beat my UC. With that in mind I allowed myself to feel a little excited and waited for my very first hypnotherapy session to begin.

Positive thinking poll - results

Do you believe having a POSITIVE MENTAL ATTITUDE can help reduce the severity of your UC/Crohn’s or even cure it?

Utter claptrap 13%
It probably helps, but can’t cure it 71%
I’m positive it can cure it 4%
I’m open minded 11%
Surgery is the only cure 0%

Thank you to everyone who voted in the positive thinking poll. It would seem most of us believe that having the right frame of mind is key to dealing with our illnesses. But the idea that we can actually use our minds to cure ourselves was clearly a step too far for most. That’s understandable. That’s how I felt until I received an email from someone who told me how he cured himself of ulcerative colitis. His name is Guy Cohen and he has some very interesting thoughts on UC and how to beat it. Initially I was sceptical and fired off a decidedly cynical reply to his email. Unflustered by my thinly disguised accusation that he may be some sort of internet Dick Turpin preying on the sick, Guy patiently answered my questions and explained a bit more about himself. We pinged a few emails back and forth over the course of the day, and it soon became clear Guy wasn’t recruiting on behalf of a Texan sex cult, and was a genuine, decent sort of chap. Once I’d got over the disappointment of not being groomed by a Texan sex cult, we arranged to talk on the phone later in the week. In the meantime Guy pointed me in the direction of his website, which despite the off putting heavy handed sales schtick, did explain more about Guy’s incredible story. And dispelling once and for all any suspicions I may have had that he was after my money, Guy very kindly gave me all his downloads free of charge. You can read exactly how Guy recovered from UC on his website, but in a nutshell he uses established hypnotherapy techniques to eliminate destructive thinking patterns that he believes can cause ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s and IBS. At this point you may be shouting ‘bollocks’ very loudly at your computer screen. Fair enough. I’m sitting here with a colostomy bag, still very much with UC and I’m supposed to believe that all this could have been avoided if I’d just had happier thoughts? I’m as cynical as the next man, but the more Guy explained how my bad thinking habits affect my stomach, it started to make sense to me. I suddenly became aware of the internal dialogue I have with myself. And it’s not pretty. It’s not quite the ‘You talking to me?’ scene in Taxi Driver, but I now recognise that I spend way too much time and energy having babbling cyclical arguments in my head and playing out ridiculous imaginary scenarios, that are really quite pointless. I’m not a complete fruitcake, but at some point in my life, for whatever reason, I developed thinking habits that aren’t particularly helpful. It makes sense to me that if I can correct the way I think it can only be a good thing. It could make me more positive, happier, healthier. It could cure my UC. I believe it can. After all it worked for Guy. This is the start of a new journey for me and as ever I’ll be recording it here. I understand some people will be dismissive and think I’ve finally lost the plot. That’s okay. I just really want to get better. Over the years nothing has worked for me, from yucky Chinese tea to conventional medicine. Even surgery hasn’t fully rid me of ulcerative colitis. So I’m going to give Guy’s methods a shot. I’ll still be taking all my usual medication and continuing with my hospital treatment, but I’m also going to be putting my faith in something hopefully far more powerful. My mind.

For further information, this is an interview I found with Guy.

Summer holiday

Number Twos will re-open in two weeks.

Positive thinking poll

The mind is one of the most powerful tools known to man. Perhaps second only to those gadgets you see on the shopping channel that help get the lids off jam jars. So, do you think that it’s possible that thinking positively can have a positive effect on your illness? Can thinking ourselves well make us well? If we believe we can get better, can we? What are your thoughts? The poll is just there on the right. Now try to be positive…