Laura-CCC4
Senior Guinea Pig
I've finished my Reiki & Guinea Pigs article for the CCT Newsletter - thank you to those who voted, for this article and for the others too. (I might sneak a second article in, I've noticed a few people have contributed more than one in past editions!). I have posted some of the highlights here; this isn't the full article, I'm keeping the "least important" bits exclusive to the actual Newsletter! If anyone has any questions/suggestions, do let me know and I'll see if I can address further questions within the article before I email it off to Vedra. 
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Reiki was not something I was interested in, or even something I had really heard of, until one of my pigs became terminally ill. At the end of June 2007, Charlie was diagnosed with an inoperable kidney tumour, approximately the size of a small peach. The vet recommended euthanasia. Aside from this condition, Charlie was very fit and healthy, so it was agreed that we would bring him home to live out his days, with pain meds to help him manage when the tumour started causing him discomfort.
Upon telling my Grandmother the news, she told me she was a Reiki Master/Teacher, and advised I try some basic energy healing techniques on Charlie. Given that I could do nothing else for my beloved pig, I felt it was worth a shot. A few days later I started the proper First Degree Reiki course, and qualified at that in December 2007. Sadly Charlie passed away on 29th March 2008, nine months after his tumour was diagnosed. Physically he had been in poor condition for a little while, but he never wanted to give up. He received Reiki daily at first, then once or twice a week, and then daily again in his final weeks. He managed with no pain meds at all for three months after his tumour was discovered, and even when he did need them he was perfectly fine at a quarter of the dose (just 0.025ml) once every few days. It wasn’t until two months before his death that he required the full dose (0.1ml) each day. Given the size of his tumour and the discomfort it must surely have given him over the months, I feel Reiki played a large part in helping him cope with his condition.
I started the Second Degree Reiki course a few months later in June 2008 for my 19th birthday, and qualified at this level in September 2008.
What is Reiki?
Reiki is a complementary therapy, sometimes thought of as a form of spiritual healing. The Japanese symbols which make up the word ‘Reiki’ are most commonly translated to mean “universal life energyâ€. This energy is what Reiki practitioners learn to work with, to allow to flow through them and out of their hands, into a recipient. Practitioners are basically channels, or paths, for the energy to reach where it is needed. Intention is the only thing needed to work with Reiki.
There is more to Reiki than healing others; indeed when it was founded it was originally intended to be taught as a personal spiritual path, a path to enlightenment, and a self-healing method. You do not need to be religious or in touch with your spiritual side to practice or receive Reiki: it is neutral.
What happens during a Reiki treatment?
Reiki is a non-invasive practice. Often the practitioner will rest their hands on appropriate areas of the recipients body (obviously excluding private areas); sometimes in a set sequence, sometimes in seemingly random order if they choose to heal intuitively and pick up on the areas most in need of Reiki energy.
Much of the time though, quite notably with animals, they do not wish to have a treatment in this way, so healings are done without any physical contact at all. Reiki energy works outside of time and space, so it is possible to send Reiki any distance across the world, and to send it with the intention that the recipient accepts the energy at a time that suits them.
What do I need to know about Reiki?
The first thing that must be stressed to the client (usually the animals (recipients) owner) is that Reiki is not a miracle cure. Reiki can and often does heal in many ways, but you cannot expect this to happen, as standard, for every animal. Reiki energy does what it needs to; just because you can’t see how it has helped doesn’t mean the energy is not helping them. Reiki can help ease physical, mental, emotional and spiritual problems, but it doesn’t work magic. For this reason, Reiki must be understood as a complementary therapy, and it should never replace or undermine a veterinarians treatment and advice.
The second important point to mention is the possibility of a healing crisis. Healing crises can occur in a few cases, where the condition worsens for a very short while before improving. These are minor reactions, and should be thought of as ‘bringing the bad out, sending the good in’. Healing crises usually only occur after the first two treatments, after which most of the negative feelings should have been brought out and the positive continues to help in whichever way it needs to. This is the main reason a full course should always be performed on those new to Reiki, or those with chronic recurrences of their condition - Reiki needs the chance to bring out the bad AND send in the good. Healing crises do not always happen, but there is always the chance that there is enough of the negative there to mean that there is some deeper down which needs bringing out.
Another point to mention is that the practitioner has to make sure the recipient is willing to accept Reiki energy. With hands-on treatments, if an animal wants Reiki then they position themselves closer to you, investigate your hands, or make eye contact. Obviously this is not possible with distance healings, so I start out by sending mild energy for a moment. Once I feel a pull of stronger energy flowing from my hands, I know the animal is open to receiving a treatment.
If I don’t feel that pull or if the energy stops flowing, it means the animal does not want to accept Reiki. In this case I either choose to send Reiki and intend that it helps the recipient when they are ready (at a time that suits them), or I try a few times a day and offer very mild and calming energy.
How Reiki can help guinea pigs
After qualifying at Second Degree, I offered Reiki to a few forum friends whose guinea pigs were having a difficult time. A couple of my case studies are included below.
Cheese - Nothing more could be done, and Cheese’s owners were told to give him a week then make a decision about whether it would be fairer to euthanise him than let him suffer any longer. Cheese had been ill for 5 months with loose stools and dental problems. The dental issues were corrected early on, but an abscess soon formed. This was lanced and healed well, but it recurred a couple of months later. An x-ray was taken of Cheese’s teeth, and it was found that one of his molars was growing downwards causing the abscess to form. Since the tooth was so firmly set in the jaw, extraction was not a safe option due to the risk of fracturing the jaw. Cheese’s owners were heartbroken. I received an email asking if I could do anything to help.
After just one week of daily healings (with four weekly ones yet to follow), Cheese was just about back to his old self, ordering his cagemates around, eating more, vocalising and even popcorning. He produced a perfectly formed poop after many months with abnormal stools. The vet was impressed with how well he was at his check-up just a couple of weeks after the verdict was given, and she was informed about his Reiki healings. Cheese had surgery to remove the problem tooth a few months later; the odds were not good but it had become necessary to try to remove the molar. As it happened, the tooth came out without any problems and Cheese was able to get back on the road to recovery, with the comfort of another short course of Reiki.
Boris - Boris was a guinea pig in Australia. Earlier this year he fractured a vertebrae and, after more than 6 weeks in a full body splint, he was allowed to have it removed and to recover some of his strength and mobility again. Unfortunately he developed a number of other serious medical conditions. He scratched himself raw and lost almost all of his hair due to a severe fungal infection, his back legs were so weak he could barely walk, and his front legs ballooned to twice their size due to pododermatitis (bumblefoot) brought on by his weeks of inactivity. He also began suffering seizures in his final weeks. I offered to send Reiki to him for a time. Both myself and Boris’ owner felt the healings made a considerable difference to him; his seizures became less frequent, and he regained some of his appetite. Sadly he was too ill to overcome his conditions and he was put to sleep to prevent further suffering. Before I knew he had passed, I sent him a Reiki healing and felt that it was a much gentler, slower, closer healing than usual, very different to all his previous treatments which felt much stronger - I got the feeling he was at peace, and was saddened, although not entirely surprised, to learn some time later that he was gone.
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Does it make sense? Anything you want to know more of? More focus on case studies, or is it balanced ok?
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Reiki & Guinea Pigs
By Laura Humphreys
Reiki was not something I was interested in, or even something I had really heard of, until one of my pigs became terminally ill. At the end of June 2007, Charlie was diagnosed with an inoperable kidney tumour, approximately the size of a small peach. The vet recommended euthanasia. Aside from this condition, Charlie was very fit and healthy, so it was agreed that we would bring him home to live out his days, with pain meds to help him manage when the tumour started causing him discomfort.
Upon telling my Grandmother the news, she told me she was a Reiki Master/Teacher, and advised I try some basic energy healing techniques on Charlie. Given that I could do nothing else for my beloved pig, I felt it was worth a shot. A few days later I started the proper First Degree Reiki course, and qualified at that in December 2007. Sadly Charlie passed away on 29th March 2008, nine months after his tumour was diagnosed. Physically he had been in poor condition for a little while, but he never wanted to give up. He received Reiki daily at first, then once or twice a week, and then daily again in his final weeks. He managed with no pain meds at all for three months after his tumour was discovered, and even when he did need them he was perfectly fine at a quarter of the dose (just 0.025ml) once every few days. It wasn’t until two months before his death that he required the full dose (0.1ml) each day. Given the size of his tumour and the discomfort it must surely have given him over the months, I feel Reiki played a large part in helping him cope with his condition.
I started the Second Degree Reiki course a few months later in June 2008 for my 19th birthday, and qualified at this level in September 2008.
What is Reiki?
Reiki is a complementary therapy, sometimes thought of as a form of spiritual healing. The Japanese symbols which make up the word ‘Reiki’ are most commonly translated to mean “universal life energyâ€. This energy is what Reiki practitioners learn to work with, to allow to flow through them and out of their hands, into a recipient. Practitioners are basically channels, or paths, for the energy to reach where it is needed. Intention is the only thing needed to work with Reiki.
There is more to Reiki than healing others; indeed when it was founded it was originally intended to be taught as a personal spiritual path, a path to enlightenment, and a self-healing method. You do not need to be religious or in touch with your spiritual side to practice or receive Reiki: it is neutral.
What happens during a Reiki treatment?
Reiki is a non-invasive practice. Often the practitioner will rest their hands on appropriate areas of the recipients body (obviously excluding private areas); sometimes in a set sequence, sometimes in seemingly random order if they choose to heal intuitively and pick up on the areas most in need of Reiki energy.
Much of the time though, quite notably with animals, they do not wish to have a treatment in this way, so healings are done without any physical contact at all. Reiki energy works outside of time and space, so it is possible to send Reiki any distance across the world, and to send it with the intention that the recipient accepts the energy at a time that suits them.
What do I need to know about Reiki?
The first thing that must be stressed to the client (usually the animals (recipients) owner) is that Reiki is not a miracle cure. Reiki can and often does heal in many ways, but you cannot expect this to happen, as standard, for every animal. Reiki energy does what it needs to; just because you can’t see how it has helped doesn’t mean the energy is not helping them. Reiki can help ease physical, mental, emotional and spiritual problems, but it doesn’t work magic. For this reason, Reiki must be understood as a complementary therapy, and it should never replace or undermine a veterinarians treatment and advice.
The second important point to mention is the possibility of a healing crisis. Healing crises can occur in a few cases, where the condition worsens for a very short while before improving. These are minor reactions, and should be thought of as ‘bringing the bad out, sending the good in’. Healing crises usually only occur after the first two treatments, after which most of the negative feelings should have been brought out and the positive continues to help in whichever way it needs to. This is the main reason a full course should always be performed on those new to Reiki, or those with chronic recurrences of their condition - Reiki needs the chance to bring out the bad AND send in the good. Healing crises do not always happen, but there is always the chance that there is enough of the negative there to mean that there is some deeper down which needs bringing out.
Another point to mention is that the practitioner has to make sure the recipient is willing to accept Reiki energy. With hands-on treatments, if an animal wants Reiki then they position themselves closer to you, investigate your hands, or make eye contact. Obviously this is not possible with distance healings, so I start out by sending mild energy for a moment. Once I feel a pull of stronger energy flowing from my hands, I know the animal is open to receiving a treatment.
If I don’t feel that pull or if the energy stops flowing, it means the animal does not want to accept Reiki. In this case I either choose to send Reiki and intend that it helps the recipient when they are ready (at a time that suits them), or I try a few times a day and offer very mild and calming energy.
How Reiki can help guinea pigs
After qualifying at Second Degree, I offered Reiki to a few forum friends whose guinea pigs were having a difficult time. A couple of my case studies are included below.
Cheese - Nothing more could be done, and Cheese’s owners were told to give him a week then make a decision about whether it would be fairer to euthanise him than let him suffer any longer. Cheese had been ill for 5 months with loose stools and dental problems. The dental issues were corrected early on, but an abscess soon formed. This was lanced and healed well, but it recurred a couple of months later. An x-ray was taken of Cheese’s teeth, and it was found that one of his molars was growing downwards causing the abscess to form. Since the tooth was so firmly set in the jaw, extraction was not a safe option due to the risk of fracturing the jaw. Cheese’s owners were heartbroken. I received an email asking if I could do anything to help.
After just one week of daily healings (with four weekly ones yet to follow), Cheese was just about back to his old self, ordering his cagemates around, eating more, vocalising and even popcorning. He produced a perfectly formed poop after many months with abnormal stools. The vet was impressed with how well he was at his check-up just a couple of weeks after the verdict was given, and she was informed about his Reiki healings. Cheese had surgery to remove the problem tooth a few months later; the odds were not good but it had become necessary to try to remove the molar. As it happened, the tooth came out without any problems and Cheese was able to get back on the road to recovery, with the comfort of another short course of Reiki.
Boris - Boris was a guinea pig in Australia. Earlier this year he fractured a vertebrae and, after more than 6 weeks in a full body splint, he was allowed to have it removed and to recover some of his strength and mobility again. Unfortunately he developed a number of other serious medical conditions. He scratched himself raw and lost almost all of his hair due to a severe fungal infection, his back legs were so weak he could barely walk, and his front legs ballooned to twice their size due to pododermatitis (bumblefoot) brought on by his weeks of inactivity. He also began suffering seizures in his final weeks. I offered to send Reiki to him for a time. Both myself and Boris’ owner felt the healings made a considerable difference to him; his seizures became less frequent, and he regained some of his appetite. Sadly he was too ill to overcome his conditions and he was put to sleep to prevent further suffering. Before I knew he had passed, I sent him a Reiki healing and felt that it was a much gentler, slower, closer healing than usual, very different to all his previous treatments which felt much stronger - I got the feeling he was at peace, and was saddened, although not entirely surprised, to learn some time later that he was gone.
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Does it make sense? Anything you want to know more of? More focus on case studies, or is it balanced ok?
