While I have strong opinions on vaccinations and personally am not getting the H1N1 vaccine or encouraging anyone in my family to get it, there are differing opinions from competent, caring, respectable health care professionals, and individual circumstances and risk factors may also be part of the equation. I think Dr. Oz offers a balanced discussion on the question. There is also a lot of sober discussion about how much fear has been generated around the Swine Flu "epidemic," including the biggest push for immunization since Polio. Is this Big Pharm flexing its muscles to feed its pockets or are the scare tactics justified? I found the article Swine Flue Fact vs. Fears to provide a good brief overview of what is known. I cannot advise what you should do regarding the vaccine, but I can suggest that keeping your immune system healthy and strong is the first line of defense against any infectious illness.

Besides the ultra obvious, such as keeping your hands clean, this means:

1. Regardless of the pressures on you in our fast-paced world, making choices that minimize chronic stress should be at the top of your priority list. If you lose your health, it doesn't matter how important it was to do all those other things. They won't get done. So find a reasonable balance and commit yourself to maintaining it!
2. Don't leave your energies in a homolateral pattern (pp. 250-252)!!! Do plenty of stretch and cross over patterns throughout the day (pp. 80-83 and 187-203).
3. The Daily Energy Routine (Chapter 3) is designed to keep your immune system strong. I recommend that you do it daily, that in times of stress or vulnerability you do it a couple of times each day, and that in addition you do it or parts of it at any time you are feeling particularly stressed. Working your lymphatic reflex points moves toxins out of your body and is particularly supportive of optimal immune system functioning.
4. If you sense you are starting to come down with a cold or worse, add: The Triple Warmer Smoothie, Connecting Heaven and Earth, flushing spleen & lung meridians, breathing deeply while tapping on the meridian endpoints, and any other techniques in the book which particularly call to you!
5. Rest! Certainly if you feel something coming on, do not wait for it to be screaming at you before you pay attention. I like to start with a long hot bath! I do my emergency energy exercises in the tub. One of my favorites, which helps the lungs and is a good flu preventive, is to cross my arms, push my thumbs into my mid-arms, and place my elbows into my inner thighs, while they are supported by the bathtub sides. And feeling great or feeling down, be sure you are getting enough sleep. That is one of the most basic choices you can make to support your health.
6. Eat well: Although your diet is obviously another basic set of choices for supporting your health, also remember that there are no guidelines, no generalizations, that can tell you what your unique body needs or what it needs at a particular time. Energy testing is a great tool for finding a good nutritional balance (Chapter 2). As David is fond of saying, "Test before you ingest." Same with vitamins and supplements, including those that strengthen the immune system.
7. Use your body! Our ancestors were not sedentary creatures and your body did not evolve to spend 8 hours/day at a computer. If your job requires you to be at a desk, take frequent brief breaks where you move vigorously. Breath fresh air when possible. And as it is with diet, different bodies need and thrive best with different kinds of exercise.

Stay well!

Answer:
Without being able to see him and his unique energy patterns, I can only tell you of generic treatments for recurrent bouts of pneumonia. During one of the bouts, it will help him if you work his chakras (Chapter 5 of Energy Medicine). This not only gets all of the energy centers into balance and harmony, it "stirs the pot," moving through old layers of disturbed and clogged energies. Then clear his back neurolymphatics with a spinal flush (p. 79) and massage the neurolymphatic points on the front of his body (p. 84). This will move the toxins that have become "stirred," as well as other toxins, out of the lymph system and into the blood stream, where they can be eliminated. Finally, sedate the meridians on the organs that are directly involved with pneumonia – lung and large intestine – using the acupuncture sedating points (p. 120). This combination about twice each day should help move the symptoms out of his body, and if done a few times each week after he is well should help prevent future occurrences. Also, teach him the neurolymphatic points on lung meridian (p. 85) and have him massage them daily

Answer:
​I energy tested her and found that she was homolateral, her energies were running backward, and she was very tender at almost all of her lymphatic sites. We did the "three thumps." I massaged all of her lymphatics, including the spinal flush, and we also did several rounds of cross crawl. She said that she was feeling a little more energized after all of this, but I am not sure where to go from here. I have not tested her on any foods or supplements as yet, and I did not ask if there is any particular time of day or night when she feels a noticeable change. Please let me know if you think I am on the right track and if there is anything else I can do for her.

A. I am impressed by your persistence at tracking down solutions for your friend's problem. I do think you are on the right track. Continue what you are already doing, particularly encouraging her to do the homolateral crossover several times per day until she establishes a heterolateral pattern that holds. Encourage her to continue working her lymphatic points as well.

I think it would also help her to understand how triple warmer and spleen may be involved in her problems (Energy Medicine Chapter 8). My suspicion is that triple warmer is robbing vital energy from her whole body, especially spleen. Just getting those two into balance and keeping them there might correct an awful lot.

Another key area to stay on top of, not surprisingly, is lung meridian. Do everything you know to get it balanced and strong—tracing, flushing, acupuncture sedating and strengthening points, neurolymphatics, neurovasculars, and also consider "pain chasing" (see Energy Medicine Chapter 10) along the entire meridian.

Because lung meridian’s polarity is bladder meridian, and bladder meridian also governs the nervous system, I would suspect that bladder meridian is involved. Plus as an attorney with three small children, I can only imagine that her nervous system, and thus bladder meridian, would be overstimulated. So she might also find benefits from regularly sedating bladder meridian.

Answer:
Because energy medicine is non-invasive, gentle, and not prone to serious negative side effects, people are often willing to try its methods even though they may be skeptical at first. Further, it will not interfere with, and often complements, more traditional courses of treatment. You could suggest to your friend that she might feel a little better if she does the following simple exercises. You or someone else can help her with them if she is in a weakened state:

• Have her do a hook-up (described on page 119 of Energy Medicine -- you can hold the points for her if it is too exhausting for her to hold them herself).
• Flush lung meridian on both sides of her body. Simply trace the meridian backwards one time with your hand and then forwards three times. See p. 107 for a drawing of this meridian pathway.
• Work with the pain chasing technique described in Chapter 10 for lung meridian and see if it helps to rid her of any tender spots along the meridian pathway.
• Massage the neurolymphatic reflex points for both lung meridian (on the sternum and between the ribs) and for the central vessel (where the arms hook onto the torso). These spots are illustrated on p. 85. They are usually tender because toxic energies tend to get clogged in them.
• Finally, hold the neurovascular points on her head for about 3 to 5 minutes. Use your hands to lightly hold spots both on the top of her head and on her forehead. This will help the circulation to her lungs.

If she finds some relief from these procedures and wants to pursue an energy approach more aggressively, finding a qualified energy practitioner would be a natural next step, but even these techniques, done with consistency, might help considerably. When someone is in a health crisis, as your friend seems to be, it would be ideal to do these techniques at least 3 or 4 times a day, although there is always a dance between what is ideal, what is practical, and what her stamina will allow.