YOUR HEALTH Dr James Le Fanu: 1 February
If you were a bit younger, I would say you were probably pregnant,’ I observed to a woman in her mid 50s who had just regaled me with a list of symptoms: early-morning sickness, heartburn and breast tenderness.
‘I think you might be right,’ she replied. ‘Not me, but my daughter – she has her third child on the way and every time I feel that I am the one who is going to have the baby.’
The matter-of-fact style in which she recounted this story made it compelling and, in the absence of any other explanation, her physical sensitivity to her daughter’s pregnancy seems to be a classic example of ‘Family Telepathy’.
No doubt many could describe similar experiences, usually involving the uncanny talent that children seem to have for telepathic communication. Most instances tend to be prosaic: a mother has just returned from shopping and is about to tell her young daughter that she saw a black dog with curly hair, when her daughter tells everyone, ‘Mummy has just seen a big black dog with curly hair.’
Sometimes, however, the content of the telepathic communication can be a lot more dramatic. The journalist Cassandra Eason was inspired to write her book Psychic Power Of Children, having been told by her son over breakfast that ‘Daddy’s gone poly-boys on his motorbike, but is all right’ – ‘polyboys’ being a playful expression she used when rolling her son on the floor while dressing him. Daddy was expected home at any time. And two hours later, when Miss Eason had ‘started to plan the tea service after the funeral’, he did finally turn up on a very battered motorbike.
There have been various attempts to explain this telepathy between parents and children. The argument goes like this: the close relationship between mother and child is constrained in the early years by communication difficulties.
‘In the pre-verbal phase, signals are exchanged in a way that runs far ahead of the infant’s capacity to make himself understood.’ Telepathy fills this gap, becoming superfluous in later years. Family telepathy can be frustrating. As one woman put it, ‘Countless times I have heard engaged signals when ringing my daughters – because they were also trying to ring me.’
THIS WEEK’S MEDICAL QUERY comes courtesy of a ‘fairly active’ lady in her mid-70s troubled by sciatica for the last year. This is due to a slipped disc as revealed by an MRI scan – she has had a spinal injection, but it has not improved matters. Her specialist has advised she will probably benefit from a decompression operation but she notes: ‘I am very reluctant to go ahead as I am worried about the possibility of it going wrong.’
This is difficult, but when the sciatica is interfering with one’s life, and physiotherapy and steroid injections have not helped, there is no alternative to an operation to relieve the pressure on the nerve. It is natural to feel apprehensive, but the operation is more reliable than in the past and the results are almost universally favourable.
drjames@lady.co.uk
‘I think you might be right,’ she replied. ‘Not me, but my daughter – she has her third child on the way and every time I feel that I am the one who is going to have the baby.’
The matter-of-fact style in which she recounted this story made it compelling and, in the absence of any other explanation, her physical sensitivity to her daughter’s pregnancy seems to be a classic example of ‘Family Telepathy’.
No doubt many could describe similar experiences, usually involving the uncanny talent that children seem to have for telepathic communication. Most instances tend to be prosaic: a mother has just returned from shopping and is about to tell her young daughter that she saw a black dog with curly hair, when her daughter tells everyone, ‘Mummy has just seen a big black dog with curly hair.’
Sometimes, however, the content of the telepathic communication can be a lot more dramatic. The journalist Cassandra Eason was inspired to write her book Psychic Power Of Children, having been told by her son over breakfast that ‘Daddy’s gone poly-boys on his motorbike, but is all right’ – ‘polyboys’ being a playful expression she used when rolling her son on the floor while dressing him. Daddy was expected home at any time. And two hours later, when Miss Eason had ‘started to plan the tea service after the funeral’, he did finally turn up on a very battered motorbike.
There have been various attempts to explain this telepathy between parents and children. The argument goes like this: the close relationship between mother and child is constrained in the early years by communication difficulties.
‘In the pre-verbal phase, signals are exchanged in a way that runs far ahead of the infant’s capacity to make himself understood.’ Telepathy fills this gap, becoming superfluous in later years. Family telepathy can be frustrating. As one woman put it, ‘Countless times I have heard engaged signals when ringing my daughters – because they were also trying to ring me.’
THIS WEEK’S MEDICAL QUERY comes courtesy of a ‘fairly active’ lady in her mid-70s troubled by sciatica for the last year. This is due to a slipped disc as revealed by an MRI scan – she has had a spinal injection, but it has not improved matters. Her specialist has advised she will probably benefit from a decompression operation but she notes: ‘I am very reluctant to go ahead as I am worried about the possibility of it going wrong.’
This is difficult, but when the sciatica is interfering with one’s life, and physiotherapy and steroid injections have not helped, there is no alternative to an operation to relieve the pressure on the nerve. It is natural to feel apprehensive, but the operation is more reliable than in the past and the results are almost universally favourable.
drjames@lady.co.uk