Treatment with leeches

The history of antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance could be traced through the history of that invaluable benefit that the medical leeches brought to people .It is well known to connoisseurs of ancient Greek history and mythology that two leeches were depicted on the gates of Olympus, the mythical residence of the supreme Greek gods.

In Greece, for example, there is a white river Aheloy with a length of 220 km. It received its name from the Greek husband Aheloy, son of the Ocean and Tefida. According to ancient mythology, during the fight with Hercules, he turned first into a bull, to which Hercules broke off one horn, and then into a leech. Hercules could not grasp the creature escaping from the hands, and Aheloy in the guise of a leech plunged into deep river waters. Residents of the Pinda Mountains, where the white river flows, believe that Aheloy in the guise of a leech lives in the river to this day.

After a millennium, one of the first works devoted to the treatment of liver pathology with the help of leeches was written. The author of this work, Galen - Greek physician, court physician of the emperor, author of more than 120 studies in the field of anatomy, physiology, pathology and pharmacology. He was also the first who suggested exporting leeches to other countries.

However, his idea was not supported in his country, but Slouetia was some time realized in Egypt. By order of the Egyptian ruler Ptolemy I in ponds caught leeches and sold to Asia and Africa. They transported them along the Nile, the main river of Egypt. Subsequently, the Champion Fisheries "became one of the most important articles of the state income of Egypt.

A significant role in this fishery was played by the policy pursued by the queen, who later became a legend. As you may have guessed, this is Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen, who ruled Egypt with her husband and brother Ptolemy in 69-30 BC.e. After the death of Ptolemy, in order to retain the throne, she had to resort to the help of Caesar. It was his mistress, and later his wife, she became. The tsarina had the only chance to retain power: it was necessary to give birth to an heir, but Cleopatra could not conceive in any way.

All folk remedies, ointments, drugs, rituals and spells were tried, the most expensive Egyptian healers were paid. And then one day a doctor arrived in the royal palace named Cleomen and said that he knew the "most important means".As you may have guessed, these were medical leeches.

After several sessions of hirudotherapy, of course, sharing the bed with her husband, Cleopatra realized that she was waiting for the heir. After that, in fact, and showed to depict on the walls of the tombs of the next ten generations of Egyptian pharaohs leech.

The leech was also popular in Rome. Its image can be found on ancient vases, references to it are found in the manuscripts of Roman experts in medicine. So, for example, Pliny is a statesman, historian and writer, author of the 37-volume encyclopedic study "Natural History", in the 28th and 32nd volumes he tells about medicines of animal origin, including the treatment with leeches.

It is also known that leeches inspired the ancient masters of painting, vase painting, sculpture. One of the masters - the founders of the Attic red-figured vases of the end of the VI century BC.e. Euphronios became famous due to the original ornament invented by him. If you look more closely at this ornament, you can discern in each of the ornaments of two intertwined leeches. Recognize and the pattern is distinguishable even the sucker on the front of the body, afterwards this motif turned into an ornament that the masters of vasosphere used for many centuries. Many today have already forgotten that it was the leech that became its prototype.

Drawing a leech both in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In museums special vessels for keeping leeches are kept. Such vessels are painted with a kind of "leech round dance".

Italian painter of the early Renaissance, Sandro Botticelli is known for his numerous paintings on religious and mythological themes. Familiar fans of his work and original sharp-pointed fine portraits of this master, including "Giulio"( 1495).One of these portraits depicts a session of setting several leeches behind the patient's ear.

In ancient times healers knew the three most effective ways of treatment. The first and most popular of them was bloodletting with the help of medical leeches. The second most popular was the venous section, in other words, vein bleeding. The third method assumed the use of blood-sucking cans: a small incision was made on the skin of the patient, a jar was placed, and the bank itself pulled out "bad" blood. Medical practice showed that the most pronounced and persistent therapeutic effect was achieved after bleeding with the help of leeches. At that time, the doctors did not guess, than, in addition to starting the blood, the leech helps the sick organism. However, there were those who did not recommend leeches because of their "inconvenience" - as you already know, after a session of the wound for a while still oozing blood.

On the question of where and when the leeches were first used as a therapeutic agent, modern scientists respond differently. Some believe that in ancient Egypt, others - in India in the third millennium BC.third, in ancient China. There is also the opinion that the Israelis were the first to open this unique method of treatment. It is difficult now and scientifically reliably to restore the historical chronology, and it is hardly necessary to search for a pioneer of hirudotherapy in a particular country. The main thing with which scientists of different countries agree today is that the leech has been the safest, most tested, persistent and effective treatment for various diseases since ancient times.

Leeches were popular in different countries: Spain, England, France, Italy. Some of these countries imported leeches, others - they exported. It is known that the first place in the import of leeches per year was occupied by the Spanish city of Toledo. In 1561, imports reached the highest level: more than 3 million leeches per year. By 1800, the import of leeches increased in this city to 4.5 million leeches per year.

Especially popular were the leeches in Uthong - the medieval principality in the territory of Thailand. Historians testify that after the collapse of the Sukhothai state in the XIV century, it became the core of the Thai state. This princedom was one of the first Siamese lands, which, since 1350, used a leech as the first means against obesity.

As is known, in the Middle Ages the mass obesity of the population was one of the main problems of the inhabitants of many states. Leech unexpectedly proved to be an indispensable tool for those who want to lose weight quickly and without compromising their health. In the libraries of Thailand, to this day, ancient manuscripts have been preserved, according to which, after five sessions of hirudotherapy, the patient loses in weight from five to ten kilograms. The rumor about a reliable, and most importantly, harmless method of losing weight spread all over the world. And today some girudoterapevty specialize in solving this problem.

But not only the treatment of obesity interested girudoterapevtov past centuries. Gynecologic diseases at all times worried both the patients themselves and the doctors who were trying to find an effective remedy for their treatment. One of the first in 1552 tried to use a leech for the treatment of gynecological diseases G. Fallopiy - an Italian doctor and anatomist. After his death in his honor were named so known to doctors and women fallopian tubes. However, detailed descriptions, under what gynecological diseases, where and how much leeches should be put, unfortunately, are not preserved.

In 1820 I.Diffenbach, a German surgeon, discovered an unexpected effect. He managed to find out that the leech can not only have a healing effect, but also an anesthetic, disinfectant. In addition, two or three hirudotherapy sessions relieved the patient of stress.

In 1812, the French doctor M. Reynaud proposed to treat the frostbite that French soldiers received during the retreat from Moscow, with the help of leeches. The remedy proved to be very effective. A few decades later, Reynaud described the painful spasms of the arteries of the hands and feet caused by frostbite. In 1862, physicians named in his honor the syndrome described as Raynaud's disease.

In 1885 another event occurred at Waterloo, which opened a new line of medical leech application. Lieutenant of the British army Simpson in the leg was a fragment of the projectile. He was lucky, the bone remained intact, but the muscles were completely atrophied. The field conditions, the poor state of health of the lieutenant, his severe wound, accompanied by a loss of blood, caused the field doctors to doubt: will he live? They could not even think about saving the leg for the lieutenant. Over a small patch of skin, medical scissors have already opened. ..

But then suddenly a young Dutch paramedic intervened in the situation. He suggested that his colleagues try to save Simpson's leg: "And what if you just try to fold the tissues, pull them together and put the" seams "of leeches in their places?" "What will the descendants think? It is not necessary to treat the advanced soldier of the British army with such patriarchal methods, "A. Wellington said after hearing about it, but after thinking, he added," but you can try. "It is unlikely that he will survive at all. "

Lieutenant's leg has grown together. The lieutenant survived, promising the paramedic that he would spend his legacy on putting the monument to the medical leech after Napoleon renounced the throne. As you know, Napoleon denied twice, but about whether Simpson fulfilled his promise, history is silent.

China is also famous for its wide use of leeches. If you believe the ancient manuscripts, the Chinese began to use the leech from the IX century BC.e. They treat this amazing creature with almost all diseases. Unlike many other countries in China, home-based sessions of hirudotherapy are popular. Contemporaries write that the Yangtze - the blue river, as well as its tributary Yalongjiang, are famous as the main place in this country for the habitat of leeches. Residents catch them themselves. The inaccessibility of literary sources, unfortunately, does not allow either to describe what methods are used for fishing, or to list the scheme for setting leeches for various diseases.

The unexpected side of the application of leeches was discovered by the Florentine prince Marcioni di Coppo Stefani. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, a plague reached his country, the epidemic that began in Asia, arrived in Cyprus in 1347, after which it traveled to many countries of Europe, and since 1351 it has spread to the territory of Russia. A terrible disease in a few decades has claimed the lives of millions of people. All means in the medical arsenal were tested, healers and witches created rituals and incantations, but neither helped. And then in 1350 the Florentine prince unexpectedly said to all of them: "Let's try the leech! I read that it is an excellent means of preventing a variety of diseases. What if the plague recedes? "

The proposal was puzzling, most thought to let the leeches bite themselves seemed wild. An unkind attitude toward what is clinging and sucking, prevailed. In addition, some residents at that time already knew that the leeches have teeth.

As you know, fear has big eyes: leeches were afraid, But nobody dared to overthrow the prince. An order was issued about the universal prophylactic setting of leeches to absolutely all residents of the country, even children. And the plague receded - against such a means, it was powerless. After several decades, Marcioni wrote the lines that complemented the leech's story: "If we started using a medical leech to treat the plague at least a year ago, we would manage to save the lives of tens of thousands of people."

Friedrich August Esmarch - German scientist, surgeon, researcher of problems of aseptic and antiseptic, in 1904 one of the first used medical leech as an antiseptic. Positive results of treatment were evident, but the reactionary views of German medicine at the beginning of the 20th century did not allow him to continue his studies in this field at the proper level. Experiments in the field of hirudotherapy he had to stop. Subsequently, Esmarch became known as the "author" of a hemostatic tourniquet, an anesthetic mask, an elastic bandage and much more.

Rumors that the leech cures, in those days went the most incredible. Wrote, for example, that the Norwegian scientist and ethnographer T. Heyerdahl for several years, from 1943 to 1947, suffered from hemorrhoids. The proposal to try hirudotherapy was skeptical, but agreed. After a successful course of treatment, I felt perfectly healthy and in 1947 I sailed on a raft of Kon-Tiki from Peru to Polynesia. Contemporaries no longer mention the "uncomfortable" disease of this famous scientist.

I was interested in leech not only doctors, but also philosophers. They tried to find the rationale for her mystical power. Among them are A. Schopenhauer, the German philosopher-irrationalist. He imagined the essence of the world as an unreasonable will, put forward several theories controversial in scientific and philosophical terms, according to one of which the leech was the primeval entity on earth. Recalling the ancient mythology, Ovid's texts, reinterpreting them, Schopenhauer came to the fact that the leech was the androgynous, which God punished for encroachment on His greatness. Perhaps, the basis for such a statement was the discovery of biologists: leech hermaphrodite.

Subsequently, this theory was developed and continued in the writings of E. Blavatsky and N. Roerich. N. Roerich claimed, in particular, that after there is not a single living being left on earth, the world will be saved by the hermaphrodite - the leech. It was to him, in his opinion, again destined to become the first principle of life on earth.

Today, medical leech is very popular in many countries. In the south of France is located the Gironde region, which houses the city of Bordeaux. In this city, experts have been breeding leeches in artificially created conditions for several years now. In the pine forest, several reservoirs have been dug, in which leeches are found at different stages of development. These leeches are used as a therapeutic agent both directly for hirudotherapy sessions, and for the production of creams and medicines.

The Russian state is also not an exception to this series. The first person in Russia, who proclaimed the leech as the first princely remedy was Yuri Dolgoruky, the prince of Suzdal and the grand prince of Kiev, the son of Vladimir Monomakh. Who knows, perhaps it was the leech that helped the prince maintain his health and subsequently conquer Pereyaslavl and Kiev. As you know, soon after the second mastery of Kiev boyars poisoned the prince. The sudden death of Dolgoruky, obviously, was the reason why he did not allow him to proclaim the leech as the official medical remedy for all Russia.

For more than thirty centuries, mankind has been using a medical leech, and in very different, sometimes even unexpected purposes: culinary, therapeutic, preventive, bioenergetic, mystical, cosmetic. .. But basically, of course, it is the treatment of a wide range of diseases.

It is known that the Russian actor Mikhail Semenovich Shchepkin, while still a serf, in 1805 played on the provincial stage for four or five performances a day. To restore vigor, strength and energy after several hours of work on the stage, Shchepkin, according to the advice of a sorceress, after the last performance for 10-15 minutes, put his leeches behind his ears. The next morning, for the joy of everyone, he again sparked, ruined the conservative views of theatergoers about how to play and reincarnate in different roles, lived on stage the life of his new characters, conquered contemporaries with the art of acting. And only a narrow circle of friends and relatives knew that leech was the source from which Mikhail Semyonovich endlessly drew strength.

This tradition was supported by Russian women of fashion. To this day in secular circles you can hear about the "secret way" to make yourself very attractive on the eve of the ball, reception, meeting or an important meeting. In order for the eyes to glitter, there was a gentle glow on the cheeks, and the legs did not get tired to dance until the morning, you need to put a leech over your ears a few hours before the ball or reception.

The traditions of hirudotherapy are also embodied in some Russian literary masterpieces. Thus, in his novel War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy wrote about the medical leech: "Stepan was sitting in front of the wheel with a brychka, sticking out his lip, watching the leeches, swallowing into the convex hemispheres of his chest, swelling with black blood. Near the regimental assistant stood, smoking, filtering tobacco smoke through rare teeth.

- Easy?

- From the breasts pulls. The heart is far more spacious. ..

- Leeches - the first remedy! »

How and where to put leeches, in the special literature of the XVIII and XIX centuries you could find a lot of information. For example, the "Medical Journal" for 1838 testifies: "If a strong headache, violent delirium, and all this with a strongly red face, we advise putting three leeches behind the ears. It goes without saying that before the adherence of the Piyavis should be carefully diagnosed accurately state this suffering. "And the "Medical Newspaper" of 1846 gives such recommendations: "In simple inflammatory fever, we advise you to hold two lines on the stomach side, and for barbers and paramedics, these lines are called fat ink. On the first line, allow from 3 to 5 pikes, on the second - from 6 or more. Then, depending on the age and condition of the patient, a few more above and below the transverse line of the stomach. "

Russian scientist, who devoted a few of his studies to this amazing healing subject, was Grigory Anatolyevich Zakharin. His well-known clinical lectures are of great interest to specialists. His recommendations on the use of leeches for various diseases, some girudoterapevty follow today.

Of course, every epoch leaves its imprint on the peculiarities of leeches treatment, on the list of diseases in which hirudotherapy is recommended, and on the degree of its popularity. There was a time when practically every house in the bank swam leeches. But there are other times when hirudotherapy was practically not in demand, one might say, "went underground", after decades turning into the true means of medicine men from spoiling and evil eye. Another hundred years passed, leeches occupied a place in Russian exports equal to cereals, and a century and a half later, in 1984, a medical leech was listed in the Red Data Book.

It is interesting that in Russia even ordinary people, not dedicated to the secrets of medical skill, used leeches. With their help, they just bleed. In especially difficult cases, healers were invited who knew how, in what cases, how much and where to put leeches. To date, this practice of home-based pseudotherapy has been forgotten. You can often meet the opinion that at home you can not put yourself a leech. In part this opinion is correct. Uninitiated in the secrets of hirudotherapy, a person can admit a number of mistakes that prevent the leech from helping him. But a hundred years ago peasants in Russia, strangely enough, were well versed in the questions of aseptic and antiseptic, and in how to take and put themselves leeches. True, there is no evidence of complications, but the very fact of the prevalence of such treatment shows that they were a rarity.

Leech has been popular since ancient times, not only in Russian families. Such great sources as the Talmud preserved the description of the sessions of hirudotherapy and their fragments. In the Talmud, for example, a session of hirudotherapy for the treatment of certain diseases of the oral cavity is described: the leech was first dipped in wine for a short time, then carefully placed on the diseased oral cavity. You can find in the Talmud a description of the examples of preventive action of leeches.

With the advent of medicines on the market - tablets, ointments and injections - the medical leech has ceased to be an official method of healing."All-knowing" doctors preferred simple, affordable, quick and less troublesome than leech, in their opinion, ways of treatment. The patients, who were treated with pills and injections, did not fear the very procedure of setting leeches, they did not have to observe how the leech, swelling, draws from them "bad" blood. The tablet acted simply and quickly. However, after its action was over, patients often found that the old symptoms of the disease were still the same. In addition to everything, suddenly began to ache the stomach, liver, kidneys. ..

"But what about without consequences?" - bred "all-knowing" doctors."I was told by a friend of mine. .. Maybe try a leech?" - the patient tired of symptoms asked timidly."Yes you hto? !No leeches! Leech is a prejudice! "- all the same doctors answered in an unbearable tone.

It was year after year, one decade followed another. Labor therapy was turned into an unconventional method of treatment. Synthetic medicines caused undesirable side effects in most patients, cured one, crippled another, but orthodox medicine tried in every possible way to push back its main competitor in the treatment of many diseases - a leech that leaves on the skin of its victims the mysterious sign of

But, as we all know,everything new is a well-forgotten old. And one of the most effective, ancient, centuries-old medicinal, accessible, created by nature means - leech - became more and more in demand. Through centuries of generation after generation, at first healers, then doctors of the appropriate profile, returned to the leech. All of them recognized its main advantage - the absence of side effects: nature itself "in the person of a leech" protected them from a person.

Doctors said one thing, grandmothers and acquaintances advised Other, doses of pills and injections increased, but they did not help anymore. The patient suffered and came to the idea of ​​the uselessness of any treatment. He did not want to eat at first, then sleep, work, love, and after a few months, years of illness - and live. Exhausted by synthetic drugs, he decided, finally, to break his doctor's prohibition and seek help from an ancient method - the leech.

And all of a sudden a miracle happened to everyone! After several sessions of hirudotherapy, the patient felt much better, in addition, the sleep improved, an appetite appeared, the mood grew, there was an inner lift, a burst of energy, I wanted to live, create, love. The patient recovered on his wings and rushed to the polyclinic, smiled, took the tests. It turned out that he was healthy, moreover, he had normalized metabolism, the immune system was activated. Doctors raised their hands in disbelief: "It's like, who would have thought, the leech helped".

But another patient came, refreshed, smiling, gave tests."Really again leeches?" - were surprised by those who recommended pills and injections. The facts were evident. Doctors began to recommend to other patients to seek help "to the leech".The rumor flew ahead of the events, informed the widest sections of the population about the effect of the leech. And scientists finally engaged in detailed studies of the mechanisms of the action of leeches on individual physiological processes and on the organism as a whole.

Again passed for a while, scientific research continued. The leech was cut along, across, pulled out the secret of salivary glands until finally recognized as a pharmaceutical "mini-factory" capable of producing a complex of biologically active compounds that not only cured the body, but also rejuvenated it.

It turned out that the leech is also an excellent preventive tool. It protects a person from inflammatory processes, blood or vessel diseases, which have not yet made themselves felt, but they are already signaling about possible future problems. Hypertensive disease, chest pain, arteriosclerosis, stenocardia, pre-infarction - these and many other diseases of the cardiovascular system can be cured by a pharmaceutical "mini-factory".An analysis of hundreds of case histories showed that when leukemia, stroke, thrombosis and embolism of the cerebral vessels occur, the leech becomes a preventive agent of possible complications that are sometimes caused by these diseases.

The leech is irreplaceable and as a prophylactic agent of postoperative purulent complications. With its help, post-operative sutures heal more quickly and painlessly, colloid scars dissolve.

The regenerative action of leeches in tissue autotransplantation is also known. In patients, the healing of flaps improves, the risk of postoperative necrosis is reduced.

For several decades, a medical leech ophthalmologist has been used. In the Moscow ophthalmological hospital, leeches are given to patients who suffer from a variety of eye diseases: glaucoma, inflammatory processes of the vascular tract, iridocyclitis, increased intraocular pressure. The leech also helps with eye trauma. Ophthalmologists use today leech along with a wide arsenal of other medicines.

The same effective additional means of treatment is leech and in the treatment of inflammatory processes in the joints, arthrosis. Patients are recommended to use hirudotherapy, manual therapy and phytotherapy.

A reliable and quick way to help a patient becomes a leech and for those who suffer from hemorrhoids. Doctors, patients and their relatives know how difficult it is to treat this uncomfortable in all senses of the word disease. But both those who recommend a leech and try it on themselves or those close to it, are advised to use this remedy for all who are sick with hemorrhoids: "Be treated with a leech, this is the most naive means!"

It's hard to find a method similar to this natural "doctor" for effectivenesstreatment of furunculosis and carbunculosis. Pain and swelling disappear on the day after the first hirudotherapy session. After a few days, the redness goes away, the outflow of pus improves. And after several sessions, the patient suddenly notices for himself that there is no trace of the previous symptoms.

The list of diseases in which a medical leech helps, could be continued for a long time. As the centuries-old history shows, it provides the human body with incomparable help even in cases when doctors already see only one remedy-an operation. Summarizing the knowledge of scientists and doctors about the benefits of leeches, you can list the mechanisms of complex effects of biologically active substances, which are contained in the saliva of medical leeches.

The first mechanism. Leeches have an antithrombotic effect( from the Greek thrombos-the "blood clot").The essence of this action is clear even for non-specialists: by biting the patient's skin, leeches block some parts of the internal mechanism of blood coagulation. Thus, they prevent thrombogenesis.

The second mechanism. Specialists call it a thrombolytic action( from the Greek lysis - "dissolution" and thrombos- "blood clot").The results of the treatment prove that medical leeches contribute to the dissolution of blood clots. Biologically active substances, which are contained in their saliva, affect the formed fibrin clots.

In 1986, IP Baskova and GI Nikonov found that in the saliva of leeches there is a destabilizing complex. This enzyme has an amazing ability to dissolve thrombi by hydrolysis of isopeptide bonds.

The third mechanism. The hypotensive effect( from the Greek hypo - a prefix indicating a decrease against the norm, and lat tensio-"tension") of biologically active substances that are in the saliva of the leech could also be called a normotensive effect that reduces blood pressure. It is caused by low-modular substances of the prostaglandin nature, first discovered in medical leeches. With their help, biologically active substances lead to an increased or lowered value of blood pressure. The mechanism of this action of leeches is currently being studied in detail by scientists.

The fourth mechanism. This is a separative( from the Latin separates - "separation, isolation") effect on the damaged wall of the blood vessel. Speaking in popular language, the leech restores the surface of the bloodstream. The fifth mechanism. Anti-atherogenic( from Greek anti - "against" and Greek ather- "gruel") action of biologically active substances. They actively interfere in lipid metabolism processes, leading to normal functioning conditions, lowering the level of cholesterol in the blood, providing regression of atheromatous plaques. The sixth mechanism. Antihypoxic( from the Greek anti - "against" and hypo - prefix indicating a decrease against the norm, and the Latin oxygeium - "oxygen") action. Leeches increase the survival rate in conditions of low oxygen content, which is very important for bearing a fetus during pregnancy, complicated by a number of pathological processes.

The seventh mechanism. Immunostimulating action.

You do not need to catch leeches with your bare hands, it is better to take tweezers. Just try to keep them leeches cautiously, without "snacking" tweezers of their wriggling flexible bodies. Do not forget that the leech is as much alive organism as you are, and it, like yourself, can be painful. And even more so, it's not worth while hurting someone who will help you in the near future.

In order for this help to be correct and useful for you, learn the recommendations by heart.

Recommendation one. Before putting leeches, prepare everything you need. For sessions of home hirudotherapy you will need:

Do not forget that leeches can not be put on veins and blood vessels!

Wash your hands. Pay attention to your soap was not flavored. Try to use non-smelling means to wash your hands. On the day of setting leeches do not use perfume, colognes and deodorants: any foreign, not natural, odor scares off the leech. It is best to use a baby soap a few hours before the session. If you are not indifferent to the smells and in your house there is simply no unromatized soap, thoroughly wash off the smell of running water.

Always - both before and after the session - observe the rules of aseptic and antiseptic. Bint, waterproof napkin, cotton wool, which you have prepared for the hirudotherapy, should be sterile, tweezers and a bottle of penicillin - clean.

Second recommendation. Always after the leech has fallen off, treat the wound with iodine or zelenka. Do not wipe the blood from the wound with your hands and do not try to stop it. In general, wound results from 5 to 10 g of blood, so do not be afraid that all of your blood will flow out.

Do not touch the wound with your hands, do not comb it, even if it is very itchy. In this case, you can make an iodine mesh or carefully apply the tea tree oil on the skin around the wound. As is known, it has an excellent antiseptic and anti-inflammatory effect. Make sure that the skin around the wound in a diameter of 5-7 cm was also sterile.

Third recommendation. Many people after the first session of hirudotherapy are dizzy, it seems to them that the forces are about to leave them, there is even a fear of losing consciousness. You can measure the pressure and suddenly find that it has dropped dramatically. Do not worry, this is normal, it is a natural and quite acceptable reaction of your body to a hirudotherapy session. Most often, after the second and third sessions, such a reaction does not happen, the exception is weakened and emaciated people. And even after the second and third sessions they feel the inflow of spiritual, psychic and physical strength, inner ascent and harmony in their body.

Third recommendation. In the first day after the hirudotherapy session, make sure that the wound remains dry, try not to sweat it. It is desirable to take a shower on the third day, long baths - starting from the fifth day. Remember the wound, try not to touch it with a washcloth. During the first week after putting the leeches after the shower or bath, treat the wound with iodine or green.

Recommendation four. Regardless of your physique and membership in this or that psychosomatic type, try to avoid physical exertion during the first three days after the session. It will be better if you will conduct home hirudotherapy sessions after a day at work, in the evening, preferably not too late, because leeches feel natural rhythms and closer to night can be lethargic and "sleepy".Recommendation 5 is the

.This recommendation may not appeal to avid coffee lovers, who drink it for five, six, or even seven times a day. They will have to refrain from their habit, because on the day of setting leeches, coffee is not recommended. It is necessary to refrain also from the use of alcohol, strong tonic tea. The fact is that alcohol and other tonic beverages can exert an expanding effect on the walls of blood vessels, which in combination with hirudotherapy can render your body unkind.

The second half of the fifth recommendation will appeal to lovers of good wine. Professional girudoterapevty recommend after the session to drink one glass of wine. This will only benefit your body. Caution for the big fans of these drinks: try to refrain from the second and third glasses, and it is also strongly advised not to replace the wine with vodka, gin, whiskey.

Recommendation Sixth. If the wound under the sterile bandage is strongly itchy, gently remove the bandage or tampon and treat the wound with a solution of iodine, alcohol. Some girudoterapevty recommends using creams that contain biologically active substances isolated from a leech to remove itching and swelling in the area of ​​setting leeches.

Recommendation The seventh. Contraindications for sexual activity before and after a hirudotherapy session are not, as is well known, it is recommended almost always. But try not to touch the wound by accident.

Recommendation eighth. According to ancient Egyptian sources, perhaps from Cleopatra herself, a woman during menstruation is not recommended to approach a leech. It's not about the woman who puts the leech, but about the one who puts it. But if the circumstances develop so that you put the leeches to yourself, listen to the time-tested advice, wait a few days. There is no medical and psychological basis for this recommendation. It is difficult now to assess objectively what she dictated. But it's better to follow the ancient advice after all: wait a few days, and then put your leeches to health.

Recommendation ninth. It is advisable to put leeches for several( two or three) hours before sleep, except if you are an owl and go to bed an hour, or even two nights.

Recommendation tenth. Perhaps with this recommendation it would be worth starting: do not make experiments. For example, you are pregnant and you have a thrombophlebitis, and you heard that enough three to four sessions of hirudotherapy, and the problem did not happen. Workers of centers of occupational therapy sometimes put leeches even in case of toxicosis during pregnancy, arguing that for a pregnant woman there is no better remedy than a leech for the treatment of any chronic diseases. Sometimes this is actually the case, but only in the centers of professional hirudotherapy and under the supervision of a specialist.

In the manual for beginners VA Savinova, TN Chaban, GD Kavezneva, VG Kudinova and NS Sergeeva "Girudoterapevticheskaya tekhnika" in detail describes how to prepare for setting leeches skin site,on which you are going to put them. It is necessary immediately before the "landing" of the leech to wipe it with a piece of gauze or a calico cloth moistened with warm water, to ° Sensation of a feeling of warmth in this area or slight redness. Do not need to treat the skin with alcohol or iodine before the session - it will scare off leeches.

If the leech "refuses" to sit down, beginners are recommended the following: "... the skin is smeared with 5% glucose solution or water, sweetened with sugar or honey. Leech loves the sweet, but it happens that the sweet does not sit down. In such cases, it is necessary to pin the skin with a needle( sterile, injectable, disposable) before the appearance of a droplet of blood, on which a vial of leeches capsizes. "

In the same manual, another method is suggested: you need to heat the skin area with a bottle filled with hot water. This method is effective in winter, when the skin can be cooled.

Regardless of which psychological or psychosomatic type you belong to and what are your diseases, conduct the following course of home hirudotherapy as a general prevention( Tables 1-7).When approaching the next session, pay attention to where, for what time and how much leeches should be put.

If you do not know exactly where your liver is located, do not be afraid to miss. Leeches know how to determine the proper place for sucking. Scientists believe that they bite the skin exclusively in biologically active points, the so-called acupuncture points. Now take a bottle of penicillin, with the help of tweezers, gently place in it three piago!.Take them carefully, try not to harm them.

It is best during the first session to take a recumbent position

At 15, 20 minutes, do not need to wait for the full saturation PIAVOK;remove them with a tampon soaked in iodine

In addition to the bottle of penicillin, specialists use disposable syringes with a cut-off "pavilion" part. This allows a little "push" the leech to the place of its suction. But do not overdo it! Remember that your careful treatment of your "natural doctor" is one of the components of the effectiveness of treatment.

Sometimes syringes or bottles are replaced with plastic caps, preferably transparent, so that you can see how they behave inside the leech cap. In order not to hold the hand with the cap over the suction point, you can fasten it or the bottle of penicillin to the skin with a sticking plaster.

Now bring the bottle to the place you will put them on: the projection of the liver. Flip a flask of leeches with a quick movement. Make sure that the edges of the bottle are tightly pressed against your skin, leeches must "understand" that they need to bite you right here.

Hold the vial in its inverted position( fixed with adhesive plaster) until you see leeches sticking to your skin. To define it is simple: first, you will feel an easy injection - a bite of a leech, in the second, the leech will begin to gently and accurately absorb your blood. This will be noticeable by the peculiar movements of her body.

Specialists have noticed that in the winter time, leeches "miss", work lazily. This can be determined by the barely noticeable undulating movements of their bodies. In the "Girudo Therapeutic Technique" the following recommendations are given in this regard: "With the purpose of activating the leech, stroking with a moist finger along its back from the front sucker to the back is used. In winter, it is sometimes worn by a "coat", covered with a piece of cotton wool soaked in warm water. "

During a session of leeches sometimes "sweat", sometimes from the wound even during bloodshot oozing blood. Therefore, carefully place a "small piece of gauze or bandage" under the body of the sucking leech.

Despite the fact that the leech bites through the skin easily, like a mosquito, it hardly pierces you with its tiny two hundred seventy teeth-on your skin for some time after the session there will be a "sort of" identification sign resembling the Mercedes logo. This is the footprint of a leech bite. As a rule, it disappears after five or six days after the hirudotherapy.

External similarity of a trace from a bite of a leech with the well-known logo can lead to such thought: probably, authors of this logo put to themselves leeches, have been amazed by a beneficial medical effect and consequently "in their honor" have chosen this sign. Some patients are shocked by the striking similarity, they even brag about their relatives and friends: "Where do you think I got this sign from?"

The second thing that surprises and often worries patients.it's not so much the resemblance of a bite to a Mercedes, but the fact that blood bleeds out of the wound for a long time. Most often it ceases to go after four to five hours. In some cases, bleeding can last up to 24 hours.

Professional girudoterapevty know that the color of blood that will be allocated from your wound, you can judge the amount of stagnant or inflammatory phenomena in the part of your body, on which you planted it. It is believed that dark blood indicates a severe inflammation or chronic course of the disease. As a rule, such blood happens after the first two or three performances. More light blood shows that the slag in the sick body is less, and its scarlet color means that your body has significantly cleared.

So, leeches still sit on your skin, it takes 20 minutes, and they clearly do not want to leave such a delicious treat. They already increased two or three times in size, but did not crawl away from the wound.

Do not wait for all three leeches to finally satisfy their bloodthirstiness - after the first one has fallen off, leave the remaining two to smell an iodized tampon. Leeches immediately reluctantly crawl to the side. Well-fed, lazy, they will not particularly resist when you use a pair of tweezers to put them in a glass jar and close it with a plastic lid so that the full leeches do not run all over the house, and deal with the wound treatment.

If you have an assistant next to you, instruct him to collect leeches for him, and start immediately to process the wound. Better, of course, if you do not conduct the first few sessions yourself, but with someone who does not bounce back to the opposite corner of the room at the sight of leeches and is able to provide you with basic help, for example, to prepare a lush wadded palm-sized swab, wrap it sterilebandage and cover your wound with them. You are quite capable of doing this yourself, but sometimes, seeing your own blood in combination with a thick leech, a person can become confused and forget everything that he read about the recommendations and rules of setting leeches.

So, you or your loved ones have attached a cotton swab to the wound. You can bandage yourself around the body, and you can fix the tampon with a plaster. The right way, which helps to protect clothing from the blood: on top of a cotton swab, secure the sanitary towel or a waterproof napkin. If the blood oozes heavily and you feel that the swab is soaked through, after three hours it needs to be replaced with a new one. As a rule, one change of tampon is enough. Usually the blood stops after five or six hours, and then you can remove the dressing or bandage. Signal for you will be a slight tickling sensation at the site of the bite. Better, of course, to hedge and leave on the wound a fresh tampon or a waterproof sanitary napkin until the morning.

Once you feel the tickling, carefully remove the swab and treat the wound and a small space around it with iodine, and then apply a lightweight bandage for a day. If the wound does not bleed 24 hours later, you can take a shower. After the shower, do not forget to make an iodine mesh on the very edge and around it.

In many patients, several hours after the session, the bite sites begin to itch. The easiest and most affordable way to get rid of this is the iodine grid.

You can do it in advance, without waiting for the wound to "whisper" to you with restless sensations.

The first in your life session of home hirudotherapy is over. After four or five days, the second session will begin."And now what to do with fat leeches, which are in the package?" - you will have a question.

Leeches are usually a one-time medicine. It is best to destroy them after a session. No matter how sorry you feel, thank them in their hearts for all the good.

Care of the wound in the first two days after the hirudotherapy session, they have done for you, and dispose of. Repeated use of leeches is a special science, you will learn about it a little later. At the first preventive course of home hirudotherapy it is better to focus your attention on what will become a guarantee of the positive effect that the leeches will bring to you: the correct formulation of them.

A few days passed. If the blood stopped two or three hours after the leech "fell off" from the wound, the second session can be done in four days. If the blood went for more than three hours, take your time with the second session: take it to yourself in a week. You calmed down, made sure that the bite of the leech is more pleasant than painful, and even felt the positive effect of hirudotherapy: they strengthened their body, gave it strength and protected it from all sorts of unfavorable environmental influences.

The second session of the general preventive course of home hirudotherapy

Once again carefully read what you need to prepare in advance and how to put the leeches. Ask someone from your family or friends to help you, because the leech will be given a coccyx at this time. Read this man the rules and recommendations for staging leeches. It also happens that the sight of someone else's blood knocks out another person's shock, so just in case, calm down the one who will put the leeches for the first time. Explain to him that you have already tried and made sure that it is not painful or scary.

For the second time in your life, you should not put leeches on yourself: firstly, you do not see how the leech behaves; secondly, it's inconvenient to put it; thirdly, it is difficult to remove leeches and treat it with iodine. The technique of setting leeches is the same:

Perhaps during this time the leeches themselves will become full and crawl away from you, if not, remove them with a tampon soaked in iodine. Drink your blood, thick leeches gather in a packet. Put on the wound cotton swab, on top of the sanitary napkin, fix them with a plaster. Do not forget to thank the leeches and the person who helped you. Throw out leeches. Have a rest.

The third session is best conducted after four or five days. This time, you remember almost by heart everything you need. Fresh in the memory and the technique of leeches.

The size of the leeches before and after the

session The third session of the general prophylaxis course of hirudotherapy

This time, the place of leeches production will be the kidneys. It is more convenient, of course, this time also to accept the help of someone close. For each kidney, put three leeches. At the end of the session, clean the wound, discard leeches.

The fourth session of the general prophylactic course of home hirudotherapy

Recommendations on the setting of leeches are the same, the technique is the same. Do everything, as in the first three sessions, but taking into account where, how much and how they should be put. This time you can put leeches yourself, without the help of relatives: you are no longer afraid of leeches, you control the situation. It is convenient for you to put them, shoot and process Rank.

Fifth session of general preventive course of home hirudotherapy

If you do not know what is and where the mastoid processes are, ask the doctor or leaf through the school anatomical atlas.

Sixth session of general preventive course of home hirudotherapy

If you are a man, this course of preventive hirudotherapy can be completed. If you are a woman, you will have to spend one more, seventh session. Ancient doctors said that it is best for women to spend themselves an odd number of sessions, and for men - even. Some modern girudoterapevty guided this position, even to determine the even or odd number of leeches that put patients or patients. At present, there is no scientific confirmation, no refutation of this point of view. It's worth simply taking note.

Seventh session of general prophylactic course of home hirudotherapy

Koli zone - Position Duration

staging of the patient of the

session of leeches

On the projection Three

appendages, leeches

in the lower abdomen on the right

on the right and left and left

Best lying on the back

You can let the leechesit will last about 30-40 minutes

Sometimes it happens that the leech does not want to stick to the skin. No matter how much time you hold her in an inverted flacon, she makes incredible movements on him up and down, but does not bite you. This does not mean that you are bad or not tasty. It's just that leeches have their own reasons. Sometimes the fault is all wrong behavior or treatment with the leech of the hirudotherapist. What to do to the one who puts the leeches at home, and how not to provoke a leech to such behavior?

does not need to be decrypted. Medical leeches activate the protective functions of the body. After the hirudotherapy session, the phagocytic activity of the blood increases, which explains the anti-inflammatory effect of leeches. The eighth mechanism. Analgesic effect: the leech during the session produces local and general anesthesia. It removes pain directly at the site of suction, relieves painful symptoms of the whole body.

The Ninth Mechanism. The protective effect is that the leech neutralizes the aggressive effects of mutagens by stimulating the effect of DNA supermethylation.

Scientists write that medical leeches create a kind of "protective hoods" over genes. Such a "hood" does not allow to start the mechanism of mutagenesis, prevents the formation of mutagens. Mutagenes are usually considered to be radioactive irradiation, active sun rays and a number of other factors. The leech can neutralize the negative impact of all these factors.

To date, scientists distinguish three main subspecies, but only two of them can be used in domestic and professional hirudotherapy. We will give you the distinctive features of the subspecies of leeches, which are used for medicinal purposes.

Medical leech medicinal - Hirudo medicinalis officinalis. On the back of the leeches of this species, two orange longitudinal bands with uniformly repeated extensions are visible. The ventral side of her body is olive-kovo-green, one-colored, with black longitudinal stripes on the sides.

Medical leech - Hirudo medicinalis medicinalis. Along the dorsal surface there are four narrow, pairwise arranged bands with repeated extensions, which are filled with black spots of drop-shaped shape.

Leech medical eastern - Hirudo medicinalis orientalis. This species has a darker greenish color, along the back - narrow orange bands, covered at regular intervals by black quadrangular spots. The abdomen is black with green spots located in pairs through the same intervals. This kind of leech can not be used, because it is not bred in artificially created conditions.

For many centuries in a row biologists, doctors, healers have looked into the leech body to understand what is the secret of using medical leeches as a remedy: "How is the leech built, what's inside it?"

Medical leech subspecies

This questionincludes the physiology of her digestion, the composition of the secretion of the salivary glands and some other questions that open up to the uninitiated leeches by the reader the secret of her invaluable benefits. Everyone, even an ignorant biologist of leeches, is obviously aware of the fact that she has a front part of her body and a back one.

In the Great Encyclopedia of Public Information on all branches of knowledge it is said: "There is no real head in the leech, the mouth is at the front end of the abdominal cavity and leads to the muscular pharynx, which is equipped with three jaw plates with prongs or protruding trunk. Behind the pharynx follows the intestine, which looks like a straight tube, behind it is a short rectum that opens above the posterior sucker with an anus. Numerous glands located under the skin secrete mucus, while deeper located so-called "chitinous" glands secrete a viscous transparent and rapidly hardening secret outside the body. "

As is well known to every reader, leeches live by the fact that they feed on the blood of other living beings. It can be a person who finds himself in a pond where leeches, cattle, horses, frogs, fish, slow birds live, who do not have time to flee from the swift leech, aimed at the warm body of its victim.

In leeches, the act of bloodsucking usually takes about an hour, after which they leave their delicious host and live in a free state. Bite from a bite, as you correctly understand, can not cause a cow, a horse, or a tired sheep of big troubles that has reached the watering point. On the contrary, the leech, without knowing it, renders these animals a service, improving their body.

But the attack on small animals can deprive the last life. The leech is capable of drinking blood three times its own weight. And now imagine this useful bloodsucker who sucked on the gosling. What will happen to the gooseneck after such a "wellness session"?Most likely, he will die from loss of blood. Therefore, scientists classify leeches as ectoparasites and predators.

Like most creatures, the leech has an amazing ability to adapt to everything that surrounds it. The purpose of its adaptation is one: plenty of drunk someone's blood, get yourself a new, delicious and satisfying food source. It can be said that all the centuries-old evolution of leeches is the process of the appearance of appropriate organs, which helped them adapt to specific conditions of life, in particular, to the method of obtaining food.

The method of obtaining food from leeches can be divided into two stages. The first stage is characterized by the appearance of morphological features of the leech. The second - physiological changes. The scientists established that in the beginning these morphological features changed and developed in these animals: they had suckers located at the anterior and posterior ends of the body. With the help of suckers, the leech could easily and conveniently be fixed on the host's body. Then the physiology changed: the digestive system began to provide absorption of a large amount of blood and its slow digestion.

The digestive system of leeches is also organized in a very peculiar way. It consists of the anterior, middle and posterior intestines. Oral opening, which is in the depth of the anterior sucker, leads into the oral cavity. The oral cavity passes into the throat of a leech. It is in the mouth that the very jaws are located, which frogs, birds and small animals can kill. It is known that the jaws of the leech are three. Each of them resembles a kind of muscular cushion, on both sides of which are located chitinous denticles. One such roller is located on the back of the leech, the other two - on its sides. With the help of his jaws, the leech cuts the skin of its prey to a depth of 1.5 mm. From the resulting three-beam wound, it is capable of pumping blood from 5 to 15 ml.

Around the pharynx and anterior part of the gut, there are special single-cell salivary glands in the leech, which contain very useful substances for the victim. The ducts of the salivary glands merge into bundles, and these bundles penetrate the jaw. Through the holes that are located between the teeth, the secret enters the throat, and then into the wound that appears during the bite of the leech.

The secret of the salivary glands of the leech contains physiologically active substances that ensure blood coagulation, which has already been managed to pump a leech. The secret is secreted gradually during the blood-sucking process and, together with blood, enters the intestinal canal of the leech, where saliva participates in the regulation of digestion processes.

The secret of the salivary glands envelops the walls of injured vessels. That's why from the wound, which remains after a hirudotherapy session, can bleed within 24 hours. This should not be frightened, besides, in most people the bleeding ends much earlier, in 4-6 hours.

Licking the leech blood enters the stomach, which looks like a gut with 10 pairs of shoots. These processes take up most of the body of this natural healer. Between the bases of the posterior pair of appendages is the so-called digestive part of the intestine, whose name speaks for itself - it absorbs blood. From it begins the hindgut, which looks like a straight thin tube and opens with a powder over the rear sucker.

In the intestine of the leech, blood is long in a liquid state and digested for a long time, therefore the interval between acts of bloodsucking can reach 24 months. There are cases when leeches tolerated hunger well and with longer breaks between their "dinners".

Not bad, right? Then envying, then regretting, scientists thought about this fact and investigated it: "It is very interesting, how does it work out?"

Many biologists have devoted months to this mystery, and even years of research, forced leeches to starve for a year and a half. Leeches lost weight in weight 76-78% of body weight, but, nevertheless, continued to calmly swim in the bank. Researchers of medical leeches who turned for them into starving tormentors, were bred with their hands: "We do not understand anything!"

Other scientists who did not waste their time on experiments with leeches did not dismember them in order to find out what is inside,they did not force them to starve, but simply philosophically reflected on their secret, they made assumptions: "Perhaps the life-support of the leech is due to something else, for example, the reserve substances of the developed parenchyma?"

Opinions were expressed a lot, some of them contradicted each other, but the dependence of the lifespan of the leech on the frequency of acts of bloodsucking to the end and was not clarified. The number of sucked blood leeches was judged, mainly, by the intensity of fluid release on the surface of the leech body. But the scientifically correct answer to the question was not found: how does the blood of the victim get into the digestive system of the leech, which is enriched with red blood cells?

It can be said that the mechanisms of digestion leeches and to this day remain virtually unexplored. Researchers of the internal structure of the leech body managed to find out that in the digestion of blood inside its own involved specific enzymes, which are produced by the microflora of its digestive canal.

Another stage of scientific research has begun. Numerous Soviet and foreign scientists have investigated the microflora of a medical leech. And so they found that inside the medical leeches there is a symbiotic bacterium, which plays a major role in the digestion of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. A detailed study of the properties of the bacterium-symbiont of a medical leech has shown that it is the carrier of anticoagulant activity. It is the symbiont bacterium that has a curative effect on most living organisms that have deliberately or accidentally been the victim of a medical leech.

It was year after year, a decade passed in a decade. Scientists continued to investigate the leech. And one day they discovered that the mysterious substance inside the leech, which is secreted by the bacterium and prevents coagulability of the blood, along with the secretion of the salivary glands, also participates in maintaining the liquid state of sucked blood. It turned out that the blood, if removed from the intestines of leeches, does not coagulate even during prolonged storage. The microflora of the intestine of the medical leech prevents blood decay due to its special properties. As a consequence, the question arose: is a leech capable, in that case, to keep within itself and all sorts of viruses that are dangerous to the health of living beings?

Then the scientists decided to conduct an interesting experiment. Inside the leech, pathogens were placed. As a result of this experiment, it was found out that the bactericidal action of the leech's digestive channel reduces the ability of pathogens to remain viable. For example:

pathogens of typhoid fever persist within the leech for 30 days;

paratyphoid B - 4 months;

anthrax - 14-17 days;

tuberculosis - 28 days;

Staphylococcus aureus - 3-10 days.

Similar studies continue by scientists to this day. Much remains unclear, more and more questions arise. For example, as a result of such experiments, a question arose that is very important for those who are engaged or just about to seriously engage in hirudotherapy: "Is there a danger of the transmission of bloodsuckers from one animal or from another to man?"

The results showed that this only occurs if, If the leech after the infected live object was immediately put healthy. Do not be scared, the future gira-doteaterists and those who decided to try to improve themselves and put their own leeches at home. Scientists also found that with a daily break between feeding on sick and healthy animals, the pathogen is no longer transmitted. But research on AIDS and hepatitis has not yet been conducted, therefore, to avoid infection with these diseases, it is necessary to use only a certified medical leech.

Currently, scientists are not well aware of what is happening inside the digestive channel of leeches, what is the specificity of the enzymes that are contained in it. There is an opinion according to which the enzymes of the digestive channel of the leech are directly related to the metabolism of serotonin. And serotonin, as is known, is a substance, the lack of which in the human body leads to a number of somatic, and often mental disorders. Many doctors believe that it is the lack of serotonin that determines alcohol, drug dependence and psychopathology.

Thus, at the moment of bloodsucking, the leech normalizes in the body of the victim and the serotonin content. This her ability greatly expands the range of indications of modern hirudotherapy.that you can learn how and how you can treat with leeches in the third part of the book, now let us dwell on another question: is the leech able to see, hear, feel, touch, smell, whether it discerns the quality of the blood that it falls for ittime?

It took decades that scientists finally come to the point that medical leeches have smell, taste and touch. "All that the leech feels is located at the front end of her body, these are the so-called numerous" sensory "kidneys. With the help of such kidneys, hungry leeches react quickly to blood: when even small amounts of blood get into a vessel with leeches, their motor activity sharply increases.

It is known that leeches are able to react differently to people. To a man a good, open, benevolent, sincere leech is torn from the jar, but the irritation, resentment, anger, malice, insincerity that makes her feel lethargic at the bottom of the can.

Does a leech of a good person determine the same "sensory kidneys" that are located in the front of her body? Scientists have not yet come to an unambiguous answer to this question. But they determined that all the behavior of leeches is aimed at finding the next "master", in other words, the next victim.

This motif quite often determines the location of leeches. Medical leeches can live in different water bodies, but mostly they live in small ponds that warm up well in spring and summer. Leeches are extremely sensitive to the slightest contamination of water. This property was even used by some epidemiological laboratories to determine the quality of water in the reservoir. Hungry leeches usually tend to the light, while the fed ones avoid it, hide at the bottom of the pond. Starving individuals feel the slightest movement of water and immediately aspire to meet the source of fluctuations. This feature of medical leeches is used in their mass capture.

If you turn over the pages of the history of catching leeches, you can find the following very interesting memories of eyewitnesses: "A catcher in high rubber boots enters the water and stops at shallow depths so that the water does not rise above his knees. Then he strikes several times with a stick on the surface of the water, thereby causing waves and noise. If there are a lot of leeches in this place and the weather favors fishing, numerous leaping lions immediately appear around the catcher, they rush to the catcher and suck on his rubber boots. "

Other eyewitness accounts have been preserved in the history. For example, cases of leeches entering into cattle and other domestic animals are known. This happened when animals swam in ponds in which there were many leeches, or drank such water. Cases of parasitizing leeches in the gastrointestinal tract of cattle, in the organs of the respiratory system, throat and other body cavities are described. As experts on this issue write, for a while the leeches felt themselves perfectly inside the animal, lived comfortably in it and ate at its expense.

We hasten to reassure the readers who are horrified by this fact: cases of parasitizing leeches inside a person are very rare. But do not forget about such a potential opportunity and do not drink water from the reservoirs, where leeches may occur.

"How to determine if there are leeches in this pond?" - the frightened reader will ask. It is best to insure yourself against getting into the body of leeches in a simple way: do not drink water from unknown sources. But do not forget that leeches can penetrate into the living organism and bathing.

You already want to ask, swimming in which pond, you risk being a lunch for a leech? The usual habitat for leeches are ponds, marshes, shallow lakes, river creeks with low flow velocity - in a word, ponds in which the water is fairly warm, with a muddy and stony bottom. Leeches, as you already know, live solely in blood to maintain their life. They suck in frogs, snails, fish, waterfowl, but their favorite food is the blood of large warm-blooded animals.

In the Great Medical Encyclopedia, published in 1982, it is reported that in the USSR there are two types of leeches: medical and Nile( horse).Horse leech, as a rule, inhabits the Transcaucasus and Central Asia. It can be found in low-flow water bodies. If you drink raw water from such water bodies, you can accidentally swallow a small leech, it can penetrate into the mouth, suck to the blood vessels and drink the blood of its victim.

You can often find leeches where cattle bathe. Animals, to which leeches sucked, are able to carry them far away from the reservoirs. Due to the ability for a long time to do without water, leeches are well tolerated by long trips.

In the warm season, full leeches usually lie on the bottom of the pond, in the silt, and on sunny days, they swim briskly along the pond in search of new food. When the reservoirs dry up or freeze, leeches burrow deep into the ground, fall into a hibernation. As water arrives, they return to their normal lifestyle, most often in the summer.

In the summer, medical leeches are the most important period in their life - the breeding season. Sexually mature individuals are able to break through fairly long and dry passages into the bottom of the reservoir, into the silt or into the ground, where they lay cocoons. The cocoon of leech reminds in appearance the cocoon of a silkworm. Under the spongy surface of the cocoon is a gel-like protein mass, and in it - fertilized eggs.

Leach lays up to five cocoons, each of which can hold up to 20-30 eggs. Development of the embryo usually lasts no more than a month, the leech germs feed with a proteinaceous mass that is contained in the mother

. As the maturation proceeds, depending on the humidity and the ambient temperature, young leeches give cocoons and begin to live on their own.

Development stages of leeches

Small cubs of leeches easily tolerate hunger. Under natural conditions, they grow slowly and increase their tiny body for a fairly long time, since bloodsucking acts do not happen very often. In the laboratory leeches can live up to a year and a half without additional food intake. But if they are fed regularly, they do not refuse food on a monthly basis.

What size can leech reach? In 1955, in search of an answer to this question, one of the researchers tried to grow the world's largest leech. Of course, the experiment was conducted in the laboratory, the leech was fed every other week. The leech grew for a long time, and as a result its length reached half a meter. She lived about seven years.

There is no exact scientific data on the lifespan and weight of leeches in natural reservoirs. It remains to be assumed that in natural conditions the life of leeches may be less prolonged, because leeches have many enemies. These are such aquatic mammals as a rat, a desman, some waterfowl( most often ducks), insect larvae. If the water in the reservoir dries up or becomes too dirty for leeches, they are able to migrate to other water bodies. Of course, every migration takes dozens, and even hundreds of lives, of Little Leeches.

You are wondering where the leeches migrate, and where do they most often live? For many decades scientists of different countries have been trying to answer this question. Researchers of this issue came to the fact that the study of the geography of medical leeches except for the cognitive is also of practical importance, since the current technology of their breeding requires from time to time the capture of new wild individuals.

In our country, natural reservoirs have been preserved, in which a considerable number of leeches can still be found. It is clear that reclamation and widespread water pollution negatively affects their abundance. Therefore, there are questions about how to ensure the protection of these reservoirs and regulate the catch of leeches, which sometimes becomes predatory.

Today they catch leeches more often for sale. Vendors use the fact that many do not know that for medical purposes you can only use medical leeches grown in artificial conditions. Sell ​​wild leeches to unscrupulous girudoterapevtam, less often - to pharmacies that try to save on the cost of leech at the expense of the health of their patients. What can be the consequences of using to treat wild leech, you already know. Therefore, it is best to buy only leeches with certificates that are grown in artificial conditions. This excludes the possibility of infection with various infections.

Artificially grown leeches were not always treated. That, in fact, was the cause of negative side effects after hirudotherapy sessions. The history of catching leeches in Russia has deep roots. One of the bulletins of the beginning of the last century describes in detail the ways of catching leeches, as well as the places of their spread in the Moscow region.

Leeches were collected in the following ways:

1. Sachet, conducted on water plants with a boat or from the shore, followed by a thorough inspection of trapped plants. This method, usually practiced on excursions, gives, according to my observations, little satisfactory results for leeches, both in terms of the amount of material and its diversity. The researcher, who limited himself only in this way, risks getting a false idea of ​​the quantitative and qualitative composition of the leech fauna of a given reservoir.

2. Inspection of the lower surface of floating leaves: this inspection was carried out from a boat and for the most part gave very rich results. In warm weather on shallow places, the underside of these leaves is literally a condenser for leeches: in some cases, up to ten specimens belonging to several species had to be removed from one sheet.

3. By pulling out water plants and examining both stems and leaves, and roots: along with the latter, a certain amount of silt was usually captured. This method gave me almost always abundant fees. In silt, in the rhizomes and in the axils of underwater leaves, a large number of specimens were found, especially in the spring, when there are few floating leaves, and in the cold autumn season. Some forms are almost exclusively found in this way of fishing.

4. Thorough view of the silt. This method was used with great success in the winter, when the leeches were fished through the ice hole( in the Bolshevo Staritsa), with the help of a small, dredged dredge. Il, collected by such a hand-made dredge and then washed in a sieve, in a warm room, always gave very abundant gatherings. "

Yellowed pages of newspapers and magazines store information about the locations of leeches in Zvenigorod Uyezd, in a pond near the Reshetnikovo station of the October Railway, in the ditch between the Black and White lakes in Kosin.

There is no full information about where today there is a medical leech in Russia. In the first half of the XIX century, this species was under threat of extinction, because the leech was considered the right way to treat all diseases. At the end of the 18th century leeches from Russia began to be exported abroad. They were caught almost in all the reservoirs where they were kept. However, later the process of mass catching found a positive side: the scientists first had thoughts of doing artificial breeding leeches.

The 15th volume of the Dictionary of Public Information for 1907 provides the following information: "The use of leeches until recently was very significant. In hospitals in 1829-1836, about 5 million leeches were consumed annually. Currently, leeches are used much less often. "

There is no reliable data on the spread of leeches at the present time, the latest reports about them are from 1950-1960.Therefore, it is possible to give only information of that time. A medical leech could be found in the following areas and regions:

Armenia;

Georgia;

Azerbaijan;

North Caucasus;

northeast of Ukraine, Kharkiv region;

Moldova;

Belarus;

south of the Central area of ​​the European part;

area of ​​the Lower Volga;

Saratov, Volgograd and Astrakhan regions;

Western Siberia.

The northern boundary of the distribution of medical leeches is tentatively between Moscow and St. Petersburg, but where exactly - scientists have not yet been clearly determined. As for other regions of our country, we are still waiting for experts who will seriously engage in following this topic. Perhaps among them will be one of our readers.

Are you scared? Do not, dear readers, a bite of leech - it's not so terrible and painful as it seems at first glance. This floating creature, which, at first glance, has only teeth and a tail, has an amazing ability to anesthetize every own bite. You surely know how analgin works? Of course, he relieves pain. Similarly, the human body and the leech affect by injecting so-called analgesics - analgesics - into their patients' wound at the time of bite.

You're not scared now, are you? And if in the beginning you imagined how she would pierce herself with all her seventy teeth in you, and involuntarily moved away from the bank, now again you want to take a closer look at it. Leech is, of course, feels. Twisting, she shows you a patterned back and a gentle light belly. You catch yourself on the fact that you really want to stroke it, but then a terrible thought comes to your mind: it feeds on blood!you already read somewhere that the blood leech drinks much more than it weighs itself. This thought makes you uncomfortable, you almost say: "And that she ever bites me? Never in my life! "

But the tenderness that you just felt for the leech does not allow you to tear your eyes from it. You carefully consider it all. You have your own associations with what a mysterious pattern looks like on its back. As if unraveling clouds in the sky, you see in it the oceans, shores, new, uncharted creatures. You want to see where she has eyes, to determine what color they are.

It takes another three to four minutes, and you suddenly realize that you feel for her tenderness and trust. Suddenly, for you, in your soul, already fallen in love with a leech, a pangsome feeling of pity awakens: "Yes you are my good," you think, "poor, hungry, not everyone can drink enough to drink someone's blood!" And sigh with relief,having learned that, once densely having eaten, the leech can easily manage without meal some months. Her stomach is arranged in a special way: it contains substances that do not allow blood to deteriorate. That lives the leech pripevayuchi, month after month absorbing the tasty bins stored in their stomach, watching the next viewer, who "sucked" to her eyes.

Leeches float in a glass jar half filled with water. The bank is closed with a cloth bandage that lets air pass

Leeches float in a glass jar half filled with water. The bank is closed with a cloth bandage that lets air pass

And the leech "rejoices", it seems as if it knows what awaits it: restoring health, feeling of inner balance, correcting bioenergetics, finding harmony, tranquility and self-confidence. And after a while, as a consequence of this - the normalization of relations in the family and at work.

And if someone at that moment looked at the leech under the microscope, then surely he would see that she. .. "smiles."How many were in her life of such spectators, who for the first time looked at her with suspicion and fear, and then became themselves a "walking encyclopedia of leeches", a kind of advertising prospectus. Why just an advertising brochure? Because almost every person who once faced a leech, is forever absorbed in its amazing abilities, properties and even appearance.

"Can I buy a leech?" The viewer, already in love with her, shyly asks. He is offered a small plastic jar, in which medical leeches swim. And now they are at his house, and the happy buyer shares his sincere admiration with his household: "No, just look, well, how beautiful she is!"

Of course, not everyone has a house with a leech bank. Someone does not know where you can buy it, someone is still afraid, someone simply does not have time to look for pharmacies for medicinal leeches. You want to ask: "Where is it possible to see the leech for the first time, first, at least at least get acquainted with it?"

To date, there are several centers for the artificial cultivation of leeches. They are bred in the International Center for Medical Leeches in the village of Udelnaya, Ramensky District, Moscow Region, in St. Petersburg, in the Saratov Region. But all girudoterapevty unanimously recognize that the leader today is the International Center for Medical Leeches.

The international center of medical leech continues for decades the proven traditions of the first factory of artificial breeding of leeches - the enterprise "Medpiyavka" in Russia. It was created in 1927, and its employees initially engaged in breeding leeches in the artificial ponds of the village Udelnaya, later they developed the so-called "canned" technology of keeping leeches.

In your area or area there is no artificial leavening center nearby? In such a case, ask them in pharmacies. Have you ever seen them before and can not imagine how big they are? The adult leech is about no bigger than your little finger.

So, you managed to find medical leeches, and you would like to know more about this amazing creature. Hirudo medicinalis( translated from Latin as "medical leech") refers to annular worms. This species is the most learned representative of its class. The body of the leech is elongated and flattened in the dorso-ventral direction, this is similar to flat worms. The oral sucker is placed on the front side of her body and surrounds the oral opening. The posterior sucker is more developed than the anterior one.

The body of the medical leech is cicatricial, it consists of 33 segments. The anterior sucker is formed by the first 4 segments, the posterior sucker is formed by 7 merged segments. Outside, the leech is clad with a dense cuticle. In the epithelium, which is under the cuticle, there are a lot of mucous glandular cells, and at the base of epithelial cells numerous pigment cells with granularity of different color are scattered. These cells also cause a peculiar coloring of leeches, which is a distinctive feature of the subspecies of the medicinal leech Hirudo medicinalis.

People who have never seen a leech before, are afraid of the first meeting. It seems to them that the "floating worm" is unpleasant, terrible, disgusting. But from these premonitions there is no trace when the leech swimming in the bank rejoices and literally breaks to meet you. So, let's a little fantasize. ..

You are standing in a pharmacy or in one of the centers of artificial breeding of leeches and look at the jar in which medical leeches float. Watching them, you can not help feeling respect for this creature. Noble origin( and I want to say - "breed") affects every light and graceful movement, in its amazing appearance. She moves all the time, flexible, with orange impregnations on the green-brown back, the leech as if making a mysterious ancient ritual dance in the water. You look at her, and there is a feeling that she is flirting with you.

In order to better consider the ornament and the finest color transitions that nature itself has applied to the back of the leech, it is better to put a large glass jar in which the leech floats to the light. And already, gracefully bending, she sucked to the glass wall of the jar from the side of her new spectator. If desired, you can even consider what it sucked. This is a large sucker, similar to children's toys - remember, those that "suck" to a glass or plastic surface and hang, causing affection for children and adults. True, unlike sweet toys, the sucker sucks in the depths of memory the familiar childhood fears: "Now ka-a-ae Bite!"

And if you do not move away from the banks in the first two minutes, then you can not take your eyes offfloating in her being. You will even start to like that the leech sucked to the glass jars from the side where you stand.

"What is it there, in this sucker?- you will have a question."Does she really bite this?" No, she bites it not with the side that sucks. Teeth are on the opposite side of her long, elegant body. It is her teeth that are so afraid of the patients who for the first time in their life decided to trust her with the restoration of her health. And her teeth are neither more nor less than 270!

As you know, the new is a well-forgotten old. Schemes of medical leeches are offered in each clinic of hirudotherapy. Treatment rates vary. Each doctor gives his recommendations, but all in one voice say: the main thing is not to hurt! It is for this reason that some girudoterapevty act categorically against domestic staging of leeches. In their opinion, an uninitiated in the "leech business" a person can not carefully read all the recommendations, remember and follow them, observing the rules of aseptic and antiseptic.

"Where do they put leeches at home!- exclaims the doctor-girudoterapevt, who cured not one thousand patients."They say you do not scratch your wound, and they tear it up so badly that furuncles are formed!"

Of course, if you think that all the patients in girudoter-singing rooms are inattentive, unclean and uneducated, then no positive results from treatment should be expected. It would be desirable to think, that readers not from among such patients and quite can help the health by means of leeches.

It is impossible in one book to cover all recommendations, all treatment regimens. Every girudoterapevt creatively treats his work, seeks, experiments, thinks out. And, of course, they all come from certain rules that have been developed for centuries and have been tested in thousands of patients.

One of the first books in which these rules are laid out is available and accurate, was the work "Medical leech and its application", created by the authors MS Fedorova and G. G. Schegolev. The book was published in 1955, but to this day has not lost its relevance. Written in a beautiful and accessible language, it provides important recommendations for professionals( and not only), under what diseases and where to put medical leeches. The authors believe that the patient during the hirudotherapy session can take any position: he can lie, stand, sit, the main thing is that this position is convenient for the procedure.

Recommendations of MS Fedorova and G. G. Schegolev can be classified according to the diseases in which you can put yourself leeches at home, and those in which you need to contact a doctor-girudoterapevtu. In the book "Medical leech and its application" there is no such division, but it will allow the beginning hirudotherapist to orient in this problem.

It is difficult to list absolutely all diseases that are traditionally treated today by professional girudo-therapists. Doctors themselves are sometimes surprised, opening up more and more opportunities for "leech" treatment. Below is a list of the diseases that patients most often come to today in specialized clinics, where they treat leeches.

Urology:

Gynecology:

Ophthalmology:

Neurology:

Dentistry:

Otolaryngology:

Cardiology:

Dermatovenereology:

Surgery:

Gastroenterology:

diverticulosis.

This list includes only those diseases, the practice of treatment of which is known to the majority of girudoterapevtov. This list could be devoted to a whole book. But, despite a wide range of diseases that are treated with medical leeches, think that they are a panacea for all diseases.

Opinions girudoterapevtov sometimes diverge. For example, some categorically do not recommend putting leeches for cancer. Others, on the contrary, say that they are treated solely by leeches. There are also no opinions about putting leeches on pregnant women. Some endure pregnancy as a contraindication and in no case do girudo-therapeutic sessions for women in this situation. Others are convinced that it is only with the help of medical leeches that it is possible to rid the expectant mother of a variety of diseases without negative consequences. But neither for oncology, nor for pregnancy, to conduct sessions of domestic hirudotherapy is not recommended.

You should not try at home to treat leeches all that bothers, put them wherever it only hurts. Even if you found your diagnosis on this list, remember: you need to treat the above-listed diseases from specialist hirudotherapists.

For several centuries, medical leeches were used to normalize blood pressure, with injuries, headaches, brain concussions. They were often used by healers for the removal of spoilage and evil eye.

Currently hirudotherapy is used to treat a very wide range of diseases: gynecological, urological, neurological. Apply leech in diseases of the circulatory system, the musculoskeletal system, internal organs, with various injuries, obesity, etc.

In gynecology, curative worms are used for menstrual disorders, changes in the ovaries( including functional cysts), chronic inflammatory processes of the uterus and appendages,parametrites, mastitis, colpitis, myomas, mastopathies, chronic salpingoophoritis, hyperplasia, anorgasmia. High efficiency was shown by the use of hirudotherapy sessions in the treatment of endometriosis. The leech

helps treatment and prevention of complications caused by inflammation of the appendages or abortion, preventing adhesion.

Positive results were achieved by specialists in solving problems related to infertility, as well as climacteric syndrome. Leeches also help fight inflammatory diseases of the pelvic organs( including viral and bacterial infections).

In addition, the immunomodulatory effect of the procedure has been demonstrated. As a result, unpleasant phenomena accompanying gynecological diseases( pain, discomfort in the lower abdomen, itching of the genitals) disappear after the first sessions.

Hirudotherapy in urology is very widely used. The use of leeches allows in a short time to normalize the blood flow in the prostate( regulating both inflow and outflow of blood), normalizes the processes in the lymphatic system, prevents the spread of inflammatory and infectious processes.

These qualities are actively used in the treatment of chronic prostatitis - a scourge of modern men, which often leads to male infertility and impotence.

When treating the prostate, hirudotherapy simultaneously helps to eliminate pain syndromes, physical and psychological discomfort, normalizes urination, promotes general strengthening of the immune system and increases potency.

Leeches are successfully used for cystitis and other diseases of the genitourinary system of both men and women. The mechanism of action of leeches on the female body is that, leaking, the leech exerts a strong reflex action, which releases the organs of the small pelvis from stagnant and inflammatory processes.

Excellent results were obtained using hirudotherapy in neurology, especially with polyneuropathies, peripheral nervous system diseases, trigeminal neuralgia. Use leeches to eliminate the effects of cerebral circulation disorders( their anticoagulant properties are successfully used to prevent stroke and heart attack), with migraines.

Provoking a reflex action, leech relaxes muscles, thus preventing ligaments, tendons.

Medical leeches have long been used as a decongestant because they help restore normal circulation in affected areas. Having a relaxing, anti-edematous and anti-ischemic properties, saliva of the leech also has a powerful analgesic effect.

In the therapy of internal organs hirudotherapy is used for diseases of the liver, kidneys and pancreas.

Leeches are irreplaceable for the solution of a problem with the body's vascular system( for diseases of veins, hemorrhoids, thrombophlebitis, trophic ulcers, etc.).Effective and painless method of treatment showed itself the setting of leeches with furunculosis and carbunculosis, obliterating endarteritis.

The procedures of hirudotherapy with hypertension, angina pectoris, cerebrosclerosis, arteriosclerosis, postinfarction cardiosclerosis, ischemic heart disease are shown.

Specialists have found out the positive effect of hirudotherapy on the respiratory system.

Leeches are irreplaceable for such diseases of the spine as osteochondrosis, spinal hernia, and also prolapsed discs.

Healing worms are used in the treatment of joint diseases( arthrosis, arthritis).

Among the diseases in which hirudotherapy is effective, there are also various skin diseases( eczema, dermatoses, scleroderma, toxicodermia, elephantiasis, etc.).

Increasingly, leeches are used in ophthalmology( glaucoma, iridocyclitis, eye injuries), ENT diseases( neuritis of the auditory nerves, otitis), dentistry( periodontitis).

Medical worms are used even for the transplantation of organs and their parts, skin flaps, amputated fingers, various parts of the face( ears, nose, etc.) in microsurgery, facilitating the restoration of blood vessels and the effective engraftment of new tissues. In passing, the leech saliva kills the pathogenic flora that breeds in the damaged area of ​​the body.

Leeches are recommended for people with obesity, for correcting the figure.

Recently, there have been reports of positive advances in the use of leeches in the fight against cancer and AIDS.

Recently, medical leeches have proven themselves in traumatology, where they are used to eliminate the consequences of injuries and as a rehabilitation tool for patients who underwent various operations.

According to girudoterapevtov, bdelloterapiyu can be used for any diseases. The problem is only that not all of them have developed rules for use.

Hirudotherapy is used as an extremely effective tool not only in itself, but also in combination with other methods of treatment, especially such as physiotherapy, phytotherapy and homeopathy.

Hirudotherapy, as well as the use of preparations prepared on the basis of the extract of the leech saliva, have certain limitations.

Do not use leeches for those who suffer from hemophilia( blood clotting disorder), hypotension( low blood pressure), pregnant women, and in cases of individual intolerance.

In the "Medical Journal" of the XIX century, on the pages of articles devoted to hirudotherapy, you can often find menacing stories about what can be complications from the bites of a medical leech. Doctors retold "terrible" stories of their patients, the main motive of which were complications after stopping leeches. Most often wrote about acute inflammatory infections, less often - irritation around the wound, boils and carbuncles, itching, and sometimes the consequences of a "poor-quality" leeches became urticaria, skin pyoderma. If the leeches were delivered incorrectly, the patient lost a lot of shelter and swore that he would never again turn to the leech for help.

In the "Medical Gazette" for 1856, even a lethal case was described after the leeches were staged. At the same time, the authors of the article make false, far-reaching conclusions that the leech is the source of all kinds of infections and various kinds of diseases that have not been studied at the moment."The medical newspaper" testified about a lethal outcome after a hirudotherapy session.

Do not worry, dear readers. Medical leech in it was not to blame! Simply in those days doctors could put about two hundred leeches in one session. What happened to the patient after such a session? He lost a lot of blood and could easily die. Death could also occur in case of non-observance by girudotherapists of the past centuries of contraindications, the most important of which is the incoagulability of blood.

Currently, such consequences are not fixed. Equally rare today is infection with "leech" infections. Modern girudoterapevty know that acute inflammatory infections after hirudotherapy are possible only in one case: if you used a wild leech. The best way to insure yourself and your loved ones against such complications is simple: buy a clean leech in the pharmacies of your city or in the international center of medical leeches.

Today, more often than not, home health therapists face other complications. Do you have a little dizziness after the session? This is quite normal reaction of the body to the medical help provided to him. It is advisable to measure the pressure after the session. If it is low before hirudotherapy, and the production of leeches is very necessary for you, it is better to visit one of the hirudotherapy centers and refrain from home treatment.

Much less common acute allergic reaction of the body. To avoid it, the first trial session of hirudotherapy should preferably be limited to the minimum amount of leeches. If your body often responds with an allergy to various environmental factors, put yourself one leech on the projection of the liver. Look at the reaction, if everything is in order - after three or four days you can safely pursue a preventative course.

If you immediately put yourself four leeches and soon saw a rash and a strong reddening in the diameter of ten centimeters around the bite of a leech, remove the leech by letting it sniff the tampon soaked with iodine. Take antiallergic medicines. After that, remove the irritation with a cream based on biologically active substances, which produces the leech itself.

Just do not confuse the redness of the skin around the wound with an allergic reaction. If you have never used a leech before, itching may occur. To remove such unpleasant sensations, lubricate the affected skin around the wound with alcohol and vaseline oil, the itch may be local and general, but they both last no more than two days. The main thing - try to refrain from scratching the wound. Gently treat it with iodine or zelenka and do not rip off the "Mercedes logo" left by the leech on your skin. "

Causes of irritation can be different: mostly violations of asepsis and antiseptic rules when putting leeches on too tender your skin, which in a similar way reacts to a leech for the first time.

Well-known experts in the "leech" case GG Shchegol and M.S. Fedorov recommend after the hirudotherapy the next morning, you must change the bandage. For a day the blood on the bandage withers, the bandage becomes stiff and can injure your skin. Small cracks on the skin can become infected with bacteria, which can lead to the appearance of furuncles and carbuncles. Skin pyoderma, carbuncles, furuncles, urticaria also become the consequences of poor care of the wound.

Strong and prolonged bleeding may occur only because of inattentive reading of recommendations and rules of setting. Did you put a leech on one of the vessels or a vein? Do not be surprised that you have a lot of blood. Plant leeches at a distance of one and a half centimeters from the blood vessels.

Prolonged bleeding is also possible if you recently lay in a hospital and you have been injected with a large number of anticoagulants. It's not scary. The blood will stop no later than a day later. Aspirin or other drugs that reduce blood clotting can also provoke a fairly long bleeding from the wound. To increase the bleeding, even a glass of vodka or a cup of strong coffee, household chores, which made you immediately after the session to do physical labor, and also overly active communication immediately after the session, are capable.

So-called regional lymphadenitis is also rarely observed. Outwardly it looks like hypertrophy of the lymph nodes. This is the first reason why most doctors advise to refrain from the first sessions of hirudotherapy at home.

Another cause is an equally rare occurrence - anaphylactic shock. Outwardly it looks like this: the patient is very pale, his eyes darken, he can lose consciousness. In such cases, he rubs whiskey with a tampon moistened with ammonia, or allowed to sniff it.

Sometimes those who have been treated with leeches for many years tell "terrible" stories about what can result from setting leeches at home. For example, in one of the brochures, which has about twenty pages of text, this case is described. A middle-aged woman treated leeches with gynecology. As a result of her self-treatment, fear of open space, obsessive states, a split personality appeared.

As you understand, such consequences of home hirudotherapy are impossible, because the leech restores the protective functions of the body, stabilizes the psyche. The "facts" that even a surplus course of hirudotherapy or an incorrect setting of leeches can lead to schizophrenia is highly questionable. Of course, if you, like NV Gogol's doctors, put more than ten leeches on the same place every Day, your body can behave unexpectedly.

With the first preventive course, remember that leeches can cause a temporary exacerbation of a chronic illness, which you may not yet know about. Therefore, putting leeches, listen to yourself, your body will "tell" you where and what diseases it had.

Dear readers, before you put yourself a leech, carefully read all the recommendations, warnings and possible complications in case of improper staging!

As a non-drug treatment for a number of internal diseases, ordinary medical leeches( hirudotherapy) are used. The therapeutic effect of occupational therapy is based on the ability of leeches to exert a hemorrhagic, analgesic, anti-inflammatory effect on the human body, to prevent the formation of blood clots in the blood vessels. Leeches are used in the treatment of hypertension, ischemic heart disease( angina pectoris, myocardial infarction, cardiosclerosis), circulatory insufficiency accompanied by congestion in the lungs, liver, edema, with thrombophlebitis, thrombosis of cerebral vessels, diseases of the female genital area, abdominal organs of inflammatory nature,diseases of the organs of vision, accompanied by increased intraocular pressure and a number of others.

The medical leech has an elongate, slightly thickened abdominal body of a ring-shaped structure that is capable of stretching and contracting strongly. The color of the leech is olive green, on the back there are orange bands, at the edges of the abdomen are black. At both ends of the body there are suckers: always well visible tail and visible only when sucking mouth. In the depth of the oral sucker there is an orifice behind which three jaws with rows of sharp small teeth( 80-90) are placed. The secret of the salivary glands, the excretory ducts of which open between the teeth, contains hirudin, a substance with the properties of slowing blood clotting.

There are three types of medical leeches, differing in color and pattern, but the same size( 8-12 cm in length);their mass depends on blood filling. A hungry leech weighing about 2 g can suck 10-15 ml of blood at a time, which is deposited in the digestive system, occupying most of the body cavity.

Medical leeches possess vision, smell, taste, touch. They avoid the strong-smelling surfaces of the body and prefer to suck in warm skin. For their life, leeches need oxygen.

At home, leeches should be stored in glass jars with a wide neck, closed tightly tied with gauze. The water must be damp( containing oxygen), preferably lake or river / Tap water for changing leeches should be harvested in a day, so that during this time it is freed from the chlorine, which is harmful to leeches, and has acquired room temperature. Changing water once a day, you need to thoroughly wash the vessel of mucus and fill it up to half. In the room in which there are banks with leeches, should maintain a uniform temperature, and there should be no sharp and unpleasant odors.

The effect of leech on humans is complex and multifactorial. It manifests itself at all levels: spiritual, energetic, psychological, physiological, biochemical, etc.

In leeches, scientists have discovered more than 40 enzymes that under the influence of which normal microcirculation of blood, lymph and intercellular fluids is restored in all organs and human systems. As a result, edema, inflammation, pain, ischemia, spastic conditions are eliminated, blood pressure is normalized( decreased and elevated blood pressure is lowered).Particularly important is the improvement of blood supply in all organs, including the most vitally important ones - the brain and spinal cord, endocrine glands, myocardium. Beneficial treatment with leeches and on the musculoskeletal system - muscles, bones, joints. Thanks to them blood clots, benign tumors and scars dissolve, local and general immunity rises, almost all physiological and biochemical parameters improve, metabolic processes( fatty, carbohydrate, protein, salt, etc.) normalize.

The influence of leeches on the human body produces a powerful reflexogenic effect, being a kind of acupuncture.

Hirudotherapy restores the energy of the body, improves mood, removes irritability, anxious and depressive conditions. The use of leeches increases efficiency, sexuality and creativity, awakens in a person the best qualities - love for oneself and the world around them, tolerance, serves to increase spirituality.

Hirudotherapy increases immunity and self-regulation of the body.

It has long been noted that the maximum therapeutic effect of the use of medical leeches is achieved when they are placed in the biologically active zones( acupuncture points) of the body. The rules of the setting were suggested by nature itself. It turned out that leeches bite a person strictly selectively and in certain places.

By the degree of effectiveness hirudotherapy takes one of the first places among modern methods of treatment. Experts have long established that bleeding causes a change in the number of lymphocytes in the blood plasma.

What explains its versatility in application and effectiveness in treating such a variety of diseases?

Numerous researches of scientists of different scientific disciplines( biology, zoology, biochemistry, physiology, hematology, genetics, immunology, ecology, applied medicine, etc.) revealed that this is primarily due to the surprising saliva of the leech.

Saliva leech contains a large number of biologically active substances and enzymes of natural origin, which when injected into the human blood act on it extremely beneficial: activate the immune system, accelerate the metabolism, eliminate inflammation. The main components of the saliva of the medicinal leech, which have a curative effect, are hirudin, which has anticoagulant properties( i.e., interfering with blood coagulability), and destabilase. In the second half of XX century.it was possible to isolate them as extracts and to use both in pure form and as a component of a number of medical preparations. Enzymes contained in it, have powerful antiseptic( bactericidal) properties. Due to this, they are recognized as the best antibiotics, which, unlike chemically produced products, do not contribute to the circulatory system substances causing side reactions. Getting into the blood, the biologically active substances of the leech saliva activate blood microcirculation, thereby improving the saturation of tissues with oxygen and nutrients. They also have a dissolving effect on existing thrombi and prevent the formation of new ones. Causing a capillary bleeding, leech reduces the concentration of blood in the affected area or organ. According to the latest research results, it was possible to find out that the anticoagulant properties of the extract obtained from the digestive system of the worm are explained not only by the presence of hirudin and destabilase. Besides them, in the salivary secret of the leech there is a large number of active complex proteinaceous substances, which give it such a wide range of action.

The use of leeches is very effective from the psychological and physiological point of view. Leech, being a kind of live syringe, acts almost painlessly. Her bite is like a mosquito bite. Punctures the skin, leech sucked and immediately injects an anesthetic enzyme, which is why in the future the patient does not have any unpleasant sensations. At the site of the bite, the vessels expand and there is a venous outflow of blood. Throughout the procedure, the leech has an analgesic and therapeutic effect: alternately it sucks the blood, then injects the medicinal substances into it.

One of the undoubted merits of hirudotherapy is that the medical leech is a disposable and exceptionally sterile instrument. Since each individual is used only once, this completely eliminates the possibility of entering the infection into the patient's body. In addition, leeches entering pharmacies and medical institutions are grown in special factories where they are under strict quality and condition control.

Hirudotherapy is not a panacea for all diseases without exception. Treatment with leeches has certain limitations and contraindications in use. However, the centuries-old history of its use has proven its effectiveness and the absence of side effects in most cases, which makes it possible to find use of curative worms in various fields of medicine, from surgery to gynecology and urology.

In recent decades, thanks to the use of modern genetic engineering techniques developed by biochemists, scientists have been able to obtain leech enzymes on an industrial scale without the use of leeches themselves. But the research of miraculous worms continues to this day.

So, you have already realized that you do not need to catch leeches with your bare hands, it is better to take tweezers. Just try to keep them leeches cautiously, without "snacking" tweezers of their wriggling flexible bodies. Do not forget that the leech is a living organism like you, and it, like yourself, can be painful. And even more so, it's not worth while hurting someone who will help you in the near future.

In order for this help to be correct and useful for you, learn the recommendations by heart.

Recommendation one. Before putting leeches, prepare everything you need. For sessions of home hirudotherapy you will need:

Do not forget that leeches can not be put on veins and blood vessels!

Wash your hands. Pay attention to your soap was not flavored. Try to use non-smelling means to wash your hands. On the day of setting leeches do not use perfume, colognes and deodorants: any foreign, not natural, odor scares off the leech. It is best to use a baby soap a few hours before the session. If you are not indifferent to the smells and in your house there is simply no unromatized soap, thoroughly wash off the smell of running water.

Always - before and after the session - observe the rules of aseptic and antiseptic. Bint, waterproof napkin, cotton wool, which you have prepared for the hirudotherapy, should be sterile, tweezers and a bottle of penicillin - clean.

The second recommendation. Always after the leech has fallen off, treat the wound with iodine or zelenka. Do not wipe the blood from the wound with your hands and do not try to stop it. In general, wound results from 5 to 10 g of blood, so do not be afraid that all of your blood will flow out.

Do not touch the wound with your hands, do not comb it, even if it is very itchy. In this case, you can make an iodine mesh or carefully apply the tea tree oil on the skin around the wound. As is known, it has an excellent antiseptic and anti-inflammatory effect. Make sure that the skin around the wound in a diameter of 5-7 cm was also sterile.

Third recommendation. Many people after the first session of hirudotherapy are dizzy, it seems to them that the forces are about to leave them, there is even a fear of losing consciousness. You can measure the pressure and suddenly find that it has dropped dramatically. Do not worry, this is normal, it is a natural and quite acceptable reaction of your body to a hirudotherapy session. Most often, after the second and third sessions, such a reaction does not happen, the exception is weakened and emaciated people. And even after the second and third sessions they feel the inflow of spiritual, psychic and physical strength, inner ascent and harmony in their body.

Third recommendation. In the first day after the hirudotherapy session, make sure that the wound remains dry, try not to sweat it. It is desirable to take a shower on the third day, long baths - starting from the fifth day. Remember the wound, try not to touch it with a washcloth. During the first week after putting the leeches after the shower or bath, treat the wound with iodine or green.

Recommendation four. Regardless of your physique and membership in this or that psychosomatic type, try to avoid physical exertion during the first three days after the session. It will be better if you will conduct home hirudotherapy sessions after a day at work, in the evening, preferably not too late, because leeches feel natural rhythms and closer to night can be lethargic and "sleepy".Recommendation 5 is the

.This recommendation may not appeal to avid coffee lovers, who drink it for five, six, or even seven times a day. They will have to refrain from their habit, because on the day of setting leeches, coffee is not recommended. It is necessary to refrain also from the use of alcohol, strong tonic tea. The fact is that alcohol and other tonic beverages can exert an expanding effect on the walls of blood vessels, which in combination with hirudotherapy can render your body unkind.

The second half of the fifth recommendation will appeal to lovers of good wine. Professional girudoterapevty recommend after the session to drink one glass of wine. This will only benefit your body. Caution for the big fans of these drinks: try to refrain from the second and third glasses, and it is also strongly advised not to replace the wine with vodka, gin, whiskey.

Recommendation Sixth. If the wound under the sterile bandage is strongly itchy, gently remove the bandage or tampon and treat the wound with a solution of iodine, alcohol. Some girudoterapevty recommends using creams that contain biologically active substances isolated from a leech to remove itching and swelling in the area of ​​setting leeches.

Recommendation the seventh. Contraindications for sexual activity before and after a hirudotherapy session are not, as is well known, it is recommended almost always. But try not to touch the wound by accident.

Recommendation eighth. According to ancient Egyptian sources, perhaps from Cleopatra herself, a woman during menstruation is not recommended to approach a leech. It's not about the woman who puts the leech, but about the one who puts it. But if the circumstances develop so that you put the leeches to yourself, listen to the time-tested advice, wait a few days. There is no medical and psychological basis for this recommendation. It is difficult now to assess objectively what she dictated. But it's better to follow the ancient advice after all: wait a few days, and then put your leeches to health.

Recommendation ninth. It is advisable to put leeches for several( two or three) hours before sleep, except if you are an owl and go to bed an hour, or even two nights.

Recommendation tenth. Perhaps with this recommendation it would be worth starting: do not make experiments. For example, you are pregnant and you have a thrombophlebitis, and you heard that enough three to four sessions of hirudotherapy, and the problem did not happen. Workers of centers of occupational therapy sometimes put leeches even in case of toxicosis during pregnancy, arguing that for a pregnant woman there is no better remedy than a leech for the treatment of any chronic diseases. Sometimes this is actually the case, but only in the centers of professional hirudotherapy and under the supervision of a specialist.

In the manual for beginners VA Savinova, TN Chaban, GD Kavezneva, VG Kudinova and NS Sergeeva "Girudoterapevticheskaya tehnika" in detail describes how to prepare for setting leeches skin site,on which you are going to put them. It is necessary immediately before the "landing" of the leech to wipe it with a piece of gauze or a calico cloth moistened with warm water, to ° Sensation of a feeling of warmth in this area or slight redness. Do not need to treat the skin with alcohol or iodine before the session - it will scare off leeches.

If the leech "refuses" to sit down, beginners are recommended the following: "... the skin is smeared with 5% glucose solution or water, sweetened with sugar or honey. Leech loves the sweet, but it happens that the sweet does not sit down. In such cases, it is necessary to pin the skin with a needle( sterile, injectable, disposable) before the appearance of a droplet of blood, on which a vial of leeches capsizes. "

In the same manual, another method is suggested: you need to heat the skin area with a bottle filled with hot water. This method is effective in winter, when the skin can be cooled.

Regardless of which psychological or psychosomatic type you belong to and what are your diseases, conduct the following course of home hirudotherapy as a general prevention( Table 1-7).When approaching the next session, pay attention to where, for what time and how much leeches should be put.

If you do not know exactly where your liver is located, do not be afraid to miss. Leeches know how to determine the proper place for sucking. Scientists believe that they bite the skin exclusively in biologically active points, the so-called acupuncture points. Now take a bottle of penicillin, with the help of tweezers, gently place in it three piago!.Take them carefully, try not to harm them.

It's best to take the recumbent position of

during the first session. At 15, 20 minutes, do not wait for the full saturation of the PIA;to remove them with a tampon soaked in iodine

In addition to the bottle of penicillin, specialists use disposable syringes with a cut-off "pavilion" part. This allows a little "push" the leech to the place of its suction. But do not overdo it! Remember that your careful treatment of your "natural doctor" is one of the components of the effectiveness of treatment.

Sometimes syringes or bottles are replaced with plastic caps, preferably transparent, so that you can see how they behave inside the leech cap. In order not to hold the hand with the cap over the suction point, you can fasten it or the bottle of penicillin to the skin with a sticking plaster.

Now bring the bottle to the place you will put them on: the projection of the liver. Flip a flask of leeches with a quick movement. Make sure that the edges of the bottle are tightly pressed against your skin, leeches must "understand" that they need to bite you right here.

Hold the vial in its inverted position( fixed with adhesive plaster) until you see leeches sticking to your skin. To define it is simple: first, you will feel an easy injection - a bite of a leech, in the second, the leech will begin to gently and accurately absorb your blood. This will be noticeable by the peculiar movements of her body.

Specialists have noticed that in the winter, leeches "are bored", work lazily. This can be determined by the barely noticeable undulating movements of their bodies. In the "Girudo Therapeutic Technique" the following recommendations are given in this regard: "With the aim of activating the leeches, stroking with a wet finger along its back from the front sucker to the back is used. In winter, it is sometimes worn by a "coat", covered with a piece of cotton wool soaked in warm water. "

During a session of leeches sometimes "sweat", sometimes from the wound even during bloodshot oozing blood. Therefore, carefully place a "small piece of gauze or bandage" under the body of the sucking leech.

Despite the fact that the skin leaks through the skin as easily as a mosquito, it hardly pierces you with its tiny two hundred seventy denticles - on your skin for some time after the session there will be a "flaunting" kind of identification sign similar to the Mercedes logo. This is the footprint of a leech bite. As a rule, it disappears after five or six days after the hirudotherapy.

The external similarity of a trace from a bite of a leech with a famous logo can lead to such an idea: perhaps the authors of this logo put themselves leeches, were amazed by the beneficial therapeutic effect and therefore "in their honor" they chose this sign. Some patients are shocked by the striking similarity, they even brag about their relatives and friends: "Where do you think I got this sign from?"

The second thing that surprises and often worries patients.it's not so much the resemblance of a bite to a Mercedes, but the fact that blood bleeds out of the wound for a long time. Most often it ceases to go after four to five hours. In some cases, bleeding can last up to 24 hours.

Professional girudoterapevty know that the color of blood that will be allocated from your wound, you can judge the amount of stagnant or inflammatory phenomena in the part of your body, on which you planted it. It is believed that dark blood indicates a severe inflammation or chronic course of the disease. As a rule, such blood happens after the first two or three performances. More light blood shows that the slag in the sick body is less, and its scarlet color means that your body has significantly cleared.

So, leeches still sit on your skin, it takes 20 minutes, and they clearly do not want to leave such a delicious treat. They already increased two or three times in size, but did not crawl away from the wound.

Do not wait for all three leeches to finally satisfy their bloodthirstiness - after the first one has fallen off, leave the remaining two to smell an iodized tampon. Leeches immediately reluctantly crawl to the side. Well-fed, lazy, they will not particularly resist when you use a pair of tweezers to put them in a glass jar and close it with a plastic lid so that the full leeches do not run all over the house, and deal with the wound treatment.

If you have an assistant next to you, instruct them to collect leeches for him, and start immediately to process the wound. Better, of course, if you do not conduct the first few sessions yourself, but with someone who does not bounce back to the opposite corner of the room at the sight of leeches and is able to provide you with basic help, for example, to prepare a lush wadded palm-sized swab, wrap it sterilebandage and cover your wound with them. You are quite capable of doing this yourself, but sometimes, seeing your own blood in combination with a thick leech, a person can become confused and forget everything that he read about the recommendations and rules of setting leeches.

So, you or your loved ones have attached a cotton swab to the wound. You can bandage yourself around the body, and you can fix the tampon with a plaster. The right way, which helps to protect clothing from the blood: on top of a cotton swab, secure the sanitary towel or a waterproof napkin. If the blood oozes heavily and you feel that the swab is soaked through, after three hours it needs to be replaced with a new one. As a rule, one change of tampon is enough. Usually the blood stops after five or six hours, and then you can remove the dressing or bandage. Signal for you will be a slight tickling sensation at the site of the bite. Better, of course, to hedge and leave on the wound a fresh tampon or a waterproof sanitary napkin until the morning.

As soon as you feel tickling, carefully remove the swab and process the wound and a small space around it with iodine, and then apply a light bandage bandage for a day. If the wound does not bleed 24 hours later, you can take a shower. After the shower, do not forget to make an iodine mesh on the very edge and around it.

In many patients, several hours after the session, the bite sites begin to itch. The easiest and most affordable way to get rid of this is the iodine grid.

You can do it in advance, without waiting for the wound to "whisper" to you with restless sensations.

The first in your life session of home hirudotherapy is over. After four or five days, the second session will begin."And now what to do with fat leeches, which are in the package?" - you will have a question.

Leeches are usually a one-time medicine. It is best to destroy them after a session. No matter how sorry you feel, thank them in their hearts for all the good.

Care of the wound in the first two days after the hirudotherapy session, they have done for you, and dispose of. Repeated use of leeches is a special science, you will learn about it a little later. At the first preventive course of home hirudotherapy it is better to focus your attention on what will become a guarantee of the positive effect that the leeches will bring to you: the correct formulation of them.

A few days passed. If the blood stopped two or three hours after the leech "fell off" from the wound, the second session can be done in four days. If the blood went for more than three hours, do not rush into the second session: take it to yourself in a week. You calmed down, made sure that the bite of the leech is more pleasant than painful, and even felt the positive effect of hirudotherapy: they strengthened their body, gave it strength and protected it from all sorts of unfavorable environmental influences.

The second session of the general prophylactic course of home hirudotherapy

Once again carefully read what you need to prepare in advance and how to put the leeches. Ask someone from your family or friends to help you, because the leech will be given a coccyx at this time. Read this man the rules and recommendations for staging leeches. It also happens that the sight of someone else's blood knocks out another person's shock, so just in case, calm down the one who will put the leeches for the first time. Explain to him that you have already tried and made sure that it is not painful or scary.

For the second time in your life, it's better not to put leeches on yourself: firstly, you do not see how the leech behaves; secondly, it's inconvenient to put it; thirdly, it is difficult to remove leeches and treat iodine with rats. The technique of staging leeches is the same:

Perhaps during this time the leeches themselves will saturate and crawl away from you, if not, remove them with a tampon soaked in iodine. Drink your blood, thick leeches gather in a packet. Put on the wound cotton swab, on top of the sanitary napkin, fix them with a plaster. Do not forget to thank the leeches and the person who helped you. Throw out leeches. Have a rest.

The third session is best done after four or five days. This time, you remember almost by heart everything you need. Fresh in the memory and the technique of leeches.

The size of leeches before and after the

session The third session of the general prophylaxis course of hirmoza therapy

This time the place of leeches will be the kidneys. It is more convenient, of course, this time also to accept the help of someone close. For each kidney, put three leeches. At the end of the session, clean the wound, discard leeches.

The fourth session of the general prophylactic course of home hirudotherapy

Recommendations for staging the leeches are the same, the technique is the same. Do everything, as in the first three sessions, but taking into account where, how much and how they should be put. This time you can put leeches yourself, without the help of relatives: you are no longer afraid of leeches, you control the situation. It is convenient for you to put them, shoot and process Rank.

Fifth session of general preventive course of home hirudotherapy

If you do not know what is and where the mastoid processes are, ask the doctor or leaf through the school anatomical atlas.

Sixth session of the general prophylactic course of home hirudotherapy

If you are a man, this course of preventive hirudotherapy can be completed. If you are a woman, you will have to spend one more, seventh session. Ancient doctors said that it is best for women to spend themselves an odd number of sessions, and for men - even. Some modern girudoterapevty guided this position, even to determine the even or odd number of leeches that put patients or patients. At present, there is no scientific confirmation, no refutation of this point of view. It's worth simply taking note.

Seventh session of the general prophylactic course of home hirudotherapy

Koli zone - Position Duration

staging of the patient of the

session of leeches leeches

On the projection Three

appendages, leeches

in the lower abdomen on the right

on the right and left and left

Best lying on the back

You can let the leechessaturate until the end, it will last approximately 30-40 minutes

Sometimes it happens that the leech does not want to stick to the skin. No matter how much time you hold her in an inverted flacon, she makes incredible movements on him up and down, but does not bite you. This does not mean that you are bad or not tasty. It's just that leeches have their own reasons. Sometimes the fault is all wrong behavior or treatment with the leech of the hirudotherapist. What to do to the one who puts the leeches at home, and how not to provoke a leech to such behavior?

From the common canister where leeches are stored, in a small vessel with a capacity of 50-100 ml several specimens are selected in an amount slightly larger than required for their intended purpose. Leach leeches need only hands or small nets for aquarium fish, and not tweezers, so that when selecting them not to damage. It is necessary to make sure of the good quality of each leech on the following grounds:

1) the presence of a pronounced contraction reflex( at the touch the body of the leech becomes short, thick, elastic and dense);

2) the desire to crawl out of the vessel;

3) activity: if you drop your hand into the jar, leeches immediately cling to it and start biting.

If the body of the leech becomes knotty, or if ulcers appear on the surface, or it becomes soft and mucus, then the leech is sick. In such cases, it must be quickly removed from the vessel and replaced with water. Do not use sick leeches in any case.

Immediately before the leeches, it is necessary to prepare boiled tweezers and a tray, a bottle with alcohol or hydrogen peroxide, a vessel with hot boiled water, sterile swabs, napkins, cotton wool sticks and dressings( bandage, cotton wool).

Before the procedure, it is necessary to treat the skin not only of the area where leeches will be put, but also around it: shave hair, rub it with alcohol or hydrogen peroxide, then vigorously wipe with sterile cotton wool soaked in hot water, changing swabs 2-3 times. To use washing odorous substances( soap, shampoo) in any case it is impossible. At the same time, on the one hand, removal of the disinfectant is achieved, and on the other hand, it causes a rush of blood to the skin, which becomes warm, and the leech willingly suckes to it. If the leech does not stick to the warm and clean skin of the patient, it should be replaced by another, since it is possible that she is sick.

After skin treatment, you need to transfer one of the leeches into a glass or test tube that is tightly attached to the skin and wait for the leech to adhere and wave-like movements will appear in the front of her body. At this point, you need to release the leech from the vessel, put a thin layer of sterile gauze or bandage under its back sucker. Attaching a sick posterior sucker lowers the activity of sucking. Then take the next leech.

A healthy leech is sucked up by blood in the period from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours, after which it falls off on its own in a specially inserted tray, where blood also flows. Sometimes the movements of the body of the sucking leech cease or slow down prematurely and it seems to "fall asleep".Then it is necessary to spend several times along her body with cotton wool moistened with warm water, after which she again begins to actively suck. If a leech, not poured blood, disappears - it means it is inferior and should not be applied again.

In hypertensive disease, cerebral thrombosis, brain concussion from 4 to 6 leeches are applied to the mastoid process along a vertical line, retreating 1 cm from the auricle. Closer to the auricle, you can not put leeches, because in this place are superficial veins and leeches can cause severe bleeding.

With myocardial infarction and pre-infarction, angina and cardiosclerosis , leeches are placed on the heart area in the 3-5th intercostal space, receding to the left of the sternum by 1 cm.

When thrombophlebitis , leeches are applied along the thrombosed vein, receding 1 cm from itone and on the other hand, staggered them at intervals of 5-6 cm.

In eye diseases( glaucoma, iritis) , 1-3 leeches are applied to the temporal region at the level of the eye section along the horizontal line.

For hemorrhoids and menopause , leeches are applied to the coccyx and around the anus. At the same time, the patient lies on his side, pressing his knees to his stomach and raising his buttock with his hand. Once all the leeches are sucked in, the buttock can be released.

With congestive liver , leeches are placed on the right hypochondrium along the rib margin.

Leeches are contraindicated in for bleeding, anemia and septic diseases. Hirudotherapy can be performed without a doctor's appointment is extremely dangerous.

If the points on which the leeches are intended to be placed vertically, for example on the mastoid process, it is advisable to apply the first leech on the lower part, the second one a little higher, etc., so that the leech does not cover the next one with its body.

During application of leeches the patient should be in a position convenient for him. It can sit or lie, depending on the place of application of leeches.

The dead leeches are destroyed by placing them in a solution of formalin or ammonia.

Bites from a bite of leeches can bleed for 6 to 24 hours, 10-40 ml of blood flow from each wound. After all the leeches have disappeared, a dry sterile dressing with a lot of cotton wool is applied for a day. The patient in no case should not change the bandage himself, but can only put cotton wool over his soaked bandage and attach it with a clean bandage. The bandage is changed every other day. If the bleeding has not yet ceased, you should stop it with a solution of iron sesquichloride or potassium permanganate or by applying a sterile pressure bandage. If the bleeding has already stopped, then the wounds and their circumference are treated with hydrogen peroxide, or iodine, or alcohol and impose a dry sterile bandage.

3-4 leeches impose on the region of the temporal processes and in the BTE areas. Procedures can be done every other day for 10 days.

With high blood pressure and risk of stroke, it can be quickly reduced by placing leeches on the following zones: the sacrum and the tip of the coccyx, just below the 7th cervical vertebra and 2 cm on either side of it.

3-4 leeches to impose on the region of the temporal processes and in the BTE areas. Procedures can be done every other day for 10 days.

Application areas for leeches:

1) point on the tip of the xiphoid process and a point on 2 transverse fingers below it;

2) points located along the midline between XI and XII thoracic, XII thoracic and I lumbar vertebrae, points on 2 transverse fingers to the right and to the left of them;

3) points located along the right edge arc;

4) points in the projection of the sacrum and the point on the top of the coccyx. The procedure uses 3 leeches, frequency - 1-2 sessions per week.

Leech prefix areas:

1) points along the right costal arch, points in the VI intercostal region on the right and left at the midpoint of the clavicle, point on the tip of the xiphoid process;

2) points along the midline of the back between VI-VII, VIII-IX, IX-X thoracic vertebrae and 2 transverse toes to the right and left of them;

3) points in the area of ​​the sacrum projection, the points on the top of the coccyx.

For one session use 4-6 leeches, procedures are carried out 2 times a week for 2 weeks, then - once a week. There are 12 procedures for the course. After a month, it is recommended to repeat the course.

If susceptible to constipation:

1) points on 2 and 4 of the transverse toe to the right and left of the navel, point to 3 transverse toes below the navel;

2) point along the midline of the back between I and II lumbar vertebrae and points on 2 and 4 of the transverse toe to the right and left of it;

3) points located slightly lower and 2 transverse fingers to the right and left of the lumbar-coccygeal joint, a point on the top of the coccyx;

4) points located along the right edge arc. On one procedure use 3-5 leeches, frequency - 2 times a week.

Treatment with leeches( occupational therapy) is used for many diseases. The therapeutic effect of using leeches is that the leech emits a large number of biologically active substances into the human blood. One of them is hirudin, which contributes to the dilution of blood, has analgesic and anti-inflammatory effect, reduces thrombus formation. With kidney diseases, hirudotherapy is prescribed in a complex of treatment of chronic pyelonephritis, kidney failure, cystitis. Leeches put on the kidneys. The course of treatment is 7-10 sessions. The setting of leeches is performed by a doctor who determines the number of leeches, the point of setting, the duration and number of sessions.

With his many years of experience, the candidate of medical sciences, urologist, andrologist, sexologist, responsible for paid medical services of the polyclinic № 92 Vitaly Markovich Kuchersky shared with the author of the book. Girudota-piu he applies for the treatment of urological patients for more than 15 years. Probably the same time he could talk about his patients and their "natural doctor" - a medical leech.

Many of us are familiar with this unpleasant, "pulling" sensation, when the kidneys are aching. It feels like someone is sitting inside of you and slowly "chews" your body a little above the waist. They know "the kidneys" and the sensation of the approaching exacerbation, and the words of the urologists: "Chronic kidney diseases are treated with difficulty. You can only relieve the aggravation, for this you need to undergo a multiple course of antibiotic treatment. Another way to quickly remove kidney pain for today, medicine has not come up with. "

According to statistics, today more than 30% of patients with chronic pyelonephritis suffer from chronic pyelonephritis. Most often, the causative agent of the inflammatory process in the kidneys are Escherichia coli, Proteus, Enterobacter and other microorganisms. Pyelonephritis is primary - in 16% of patients, and secondary - in 84%.Secondary pyelonephritis, as a rule, is associated with impaired renal and urinary tract function, which lead to a violation of urinary outflow.

But nature itself often tells a person how to cure most urological diseases. Kidneys are no exception. And the way is the same - medical leeches. But before treating with leeches, it is necessary to restore the urinary function by an instrumental or operative method. It is very important for an effective treatment of pyelonephritis to give the patient antibacterial therapy and improve blood microcirculation. In this series hirudotherapy is in the first place. With proper treatment, relapses can be completely eliminated.

One of the complications of pyelonephritis, as is known, is the wrinkling of the kidney and the subsequent renal failure. Practice shows that after a course of hirudotherapy, fibrotic processes in the kidney and pericondose tissue decrease. Moreover, the outflow of urine increases, small stones, up to 5 mm, can depart.

Urologists know that it is not always possible to put leeches with pyelonephritis. It is impossible, if the patient has a micturition function, there are obstructions of the ureter with stones. You can not also put leeches with a hemorrhage in the kidneys. For this reason, urological diseases can be treated at home with leeches only after consultation with a specialist and according to the scheme suggested by him.

Helping hirudotherapy with chronic glomerulonephritis, nephroangiosclerosis, diabetic kidney damage and in dealing with the effects of other metabolic and inflammatory diseases. Treatment courses for these diseases usually include up to 15 sessions. Effective leeches and for the treatment of pyelonephritis in patients with a single kidney. Whatever the patient's disease, the doctor should remember that it is appropriate, and in some cases, it is necessary to combine this method of treatment with immunotherapy. Urolithiasis, cystitis, wrinkling of the bladder, impaired urination, paracystitis - all these diseases require a combination of hirudotherapy with other methods of treatment.

Another exception is a very common disease, prostatitis. They suffer from 50 to 70% of men of working age. According to the National Institute of Health of the USA, 4 to 8% of the total male population suffer from this disease. For chronic prostatitis, the formation of cicatricial changes in the prostate gland is usually characterized, which causes pain, difficulty urinating, weakening sexual and reproductive function. In this disease can appear and stones in the prostate gland, the so-called calcints. In this case, the treatment is contraindicated by physical methods or by heating, and then leeches become an alternative method of treatment.

Hirudotherapy removes inflammatory processes characteristic of prostatitis, reduces the formation of scars, restores blood circulation of the pelvis and prostate gland, promote secretion of the prostate. Thanks to this, leeches turn into a means of solving sexual male problems and infertility.

Recently, many women are turning to a urologist with chronic cystitis, which is often expressed in incontinence and urinary incontinence. In cases of incontinence, ultrasound detects a hyperactive bladder, the urge to urinate occurs when it is filled with less than 100-150 ml. Sessions hirudotherapy, conducted by such patients, can eliminate spasms in the bladder, have an additional therapeutic effect in combination with drugs that improve its evacuation function.

VM Kuchersky has a unique experience of treatment with the help of leeches of some complications of cystitis, for example, paracystitis. Hirudotherapy allows the sick body to get rid of the cicatricial processes around the bladder. The combination of leeches with antibacterial and antiseptic agents, which are injected directly into the bladder, increases its capacity to 250-300 ml.

Today, a medical leech is registered with a pharmacopoeial article as a direct anticoagulant. This should be remembered both for doctors and patients, and to ensure that sessions of hirudotherapy are not combined with the methods of drugs that have such an effect. This is aspirin, butadione, rheopyrin, escuzane, quarantil and other NSAID preparations.

In addition to the known positive effects of hirudotherapy for treating kidney problems directly, two things are important. The first is decongestia: leeches remove edema in the diseased organ. The second - antibacterial, due to which the patient is relieved of pain, comes back to life.

In recent years, a medicinal preparation based on a leech has been developed - Piyavit. With all its advantages, the concentration of nutrients in it is much lower than in the leech itself.

As a rule, urologists put leeches on the projection of the kidneys, bladder, perineum, on the liver and on the sacral spine. The main pain syndrome is concentrated in the sacral roots. The number of leeches and the duration of the sessions depend on the patient's medical history and its individual characteristics.

Medical leeches are also an excellent tool for improving potency. First of all, they improve blood circulation in the genital organs, contribute to the solution of a number of psychological problems associated with feelings of sexual inferiority. The effect, as a rule, is literally obvious: the patients improve their complexion, skin condition, and normalize the pressure. Of course, one should not think that one session is enough, and the potency will fully recover. But practice shows that diseases such as priapism, that is, a prolonged erection, "go away" after 3 or 4 sessions.

There is in the practice of VM Kuchersky and a positive experience of treatment with leeches of such a complex disease as fibroplastic induction of the penis( Peyronie's disease).Those who suffer from this disease know what its current is: in the cavernous bodies and membranes of the penis, plaques are formed that provoke pain and subsequently its curvature. In such cases, the leeches are placed directly on the penis in the region of the plaque and along the spermatic cord. At the first stage of the disease, plaques are completely eliminated, with the second and third - more than half of the patients disappear.

Vitaliy Markovich does not agree with many authors of publications, "girudotherapists are not urologists" who do not recommend putting leeches on the penis and scrotum organs, for fear of bruising or swelling. Many years of practice of VM Kuchersky proved that hematomas are extremely rare and only if the leech is placed directly on the subcutaneous vessel. Of course, the treatment with leeches should be under control. Vitaly Markovich supports those specialists who propose to investigate hemocoagulation with modern, highly sensitive and standardized methods of investigation.

The clinic # 92 was treated with such urological diseases as acute and chronic epididymitis and or-hoepididymitis. Several sessions of the patient's hirudotherapy led to almost complete healing of patients.

Attitude to home hirudotherapy Vitaly Markovich ambiguous: in his opinion, this can bring themselves both harm and benefit. VM Kuchersky believes that everything depends on the organization and learning ability of the patient. The first procedures he needs to do in the clinic and understand how adequately the patient will be able to repeat all this at home.

At the end of the conversation, Vitaliy Markovich told the author of the book: "I believe that it is necessary to expand the current range of applications in urology of medical leeches. Physicians and biologists must seek and explore new facets of the use of this amazing creature that nature sent to man for his healing. There are no incurable urological diseases, there are diseases that are healed or untreated. But today almost all patients can be helped. And the main role in this process of healing belongs, of course, to a doctor who uses a medical leech. "

In addition to VM Kuchersky in Moscow and the Moscow region today, another four certified urologist-girudoterapevta. Their practice in many respects echoes Vitaly Markovich's experience, but in some positions the opinions of the urologists differ.

For example, Ph. D., urologist-girudoterapevt VP Kogan recommends in the home to prevent another exacerbation with the help of leeches. But he does not advise taking pictures of an exacerbation home or treating "something in the kidney area" before he was diagnosed. Another thing - the prevention of another exacerbation or help your kidneys in a number of pathologies. In the case of the appearance of unfamiliar acute pain kidney symptoms, the better it is to contact specialists.

Perhaps, they will recommend you home hirudotherapy. But before you decide to do so, check the diagnosis with urologist and therapist and consult with him about how often, how much and where you can put leeches at home.

But, for example, you know the diagnosis, for example, it is chronic pyelonephritis, and you want to prevent another exacerbation. At home, chronic patients are usually advised to take the next preventive course of hirudotherapy every six months.

Medical leeches free from any dependencies, help to restore the correct energy exchange with the outside world, get rid of feelings of guilt. This complex effect and becomes the basis for cure with the help of hirudotherapy most urological diseases. In addition, the leech injects useful substances into the blood of patients. The effectiveness of hirudotherapy for the treatment of urological problems consists of the following:

The last factor allows to reduce the doses of prescribed anti-inflammatory drugs to patients. Therefore today some urologists use a leech as an additional remedy along with antibiotics. Others combine it with medicinal herbs or bioenergetics.

But there are also such urological diseases, in which hirudotherapy becomes the only effective method of treatment, for example, priapism or elephantiasis of the scrotum. Practically for all other diagnoses hirudotherapy of exacerbations specialists combine with conventional methods of treatment.

Every doctor-girudoterapevta has his secrets. The hirudotherapy technique in each urological clinic has its own characteristics, it depends on the individual characteristics of the patient, the history of his illness, the specific functioning of his kidneys and the urinary system. Specialists put leeches on reflexogenic zones, which are involved in the regulation of reproduction and the sexual sphere.

Much depends on what goal you want to achieve with the help of therapy. For example, if you urgently need to eliminate the swelling and associated clinical manifestations, such as elephantiasis, congestive prostatitis or paranephritis, the hirudotherapist is waiting for the moment when the leeches will suck the blood of patients in plenty and fall off of it themselves.

Sometimes urologists set other goals, for example, to provide the maximum reflex effect for sexual disorders in men. In this case, the leech is put on the patient for only a few minutes, and the cutaneous wound is then treated with saline solution to quickly stop the blood. When frigidity comes in exactly the same way.

The effectiveness of hirudotherapy is largely determined by the following factors:

With all these factors, urologists regulate the dose of biologically active compounds contained in the secretion of the salivary glands of leeches and entering the patient's body. Most often, three leeches are used to treat most urologic diseases, up to 15 leeches are used to resolve postoperative scars, fistula, edema of paranephric fiber and some other pathological processes. With priapism, funicular, orchoepidymite - from three to five.

Doctors "suggest" leeches usually to attach to biologically active points, which are responsible for the work of the kidneys or ureter. Sometimes the "natural healer" is put on the skin area, under which the blood vessels are located, which wash the organs.

Today gynecologist-girudoterapevt is not uncommon. Gynecology is treated in all "leech clinics", the recommendations and advice of gynecologists often coincide. Experts disagree on the following issues.

Can I put leeches pregnant?

From what age can I start to treat gynecology?

What is the maximum number of leeches that can be put in one session?

Is it possible to treat gynecological problems with leeches at home?

In domestic gynecology, leeches were treated relatively recently. But for these few years hirudotherapy has taken a special place in comparison with other medical methods. Of course, it can not be said that leeches can cure any gynecological disease, it does not give a 100% health guarantee to patients. But thanks to these small floating "natural healers" many couples who were treated with leeches were able to become parents.

Today, on average, gynecologist-girudoterapevt takes 10-20 patients a day, 200-300 per month. We are talking, of course, about major cities, such as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don. The age range of patients, usually from 20 to 60 years. Today, most Russian women after 30 years of age are forced to seek help from a gynecologist. Most often they complain of the following problems:

mastopathy;

disorders of the menstrual cycle;

menopause;

endometriosis;

fibroids of the uterus.

Hirudotherapy is also used for complications in the postpartum period, it also becomes an excellent preventive tool for the possible varicose veins of urodised women. An excellent tool are leeches and for teenage girls who are experiencing because of the rash on the face and body. Some even begin to drink hormonal pills, so that these skin rashes, related to the onset of menstruation, finally disappear. It's good for those who know that one or two sessions of hirudotherapy are enough to solve this problem.

During premenstrual syndrome, many patients note a worsening of mood, pain, the appearance of acne on the face and body. To get rid of this you can: a few days before the start of menstruation you need to hold one session of hirudotherapy. It is interesting that during the female "red days of the calendar" the patients who previously put the leeches, too, feel better, the pain disappears almost completely, the blood loss decreases.

Helps hirudotherapy in a variety of inflammatory processes. Many of these patients are "thrown out" by domestic medicine. Some have one ovary removed and a second cyst is found, others want to remove the second ovary. Women ask the doctor to give a month for reflection, report their desire to undergo a course of treatment with leeches. The doctor answers most often: "It's useless! Nothing will help you. Well, if you want, go. "

Desperate patients undergo treatment with leeches. And after four or five sessions of hirudotherapy according to the results of ultrasound it turns out that there are no cysts. They return with an ultrasound scan to the same doctor. The doctor looks at him: "Where is the cyst? Really confused? Maybe this is not your picture? "

But then another patient comes in after hirudotherapy, the results are the same - stunning. And here the same doctor already advises "to try" leeches to other patients with a similar diagnosis. So year after year, decade after decade from the hospital, the "fame" of the leech is transmitted to the hospital, which can cure almost any gynecological disease.

Refuse gynecologists-girudoterapevty only patients with the following diagnoses:

Is it possible to achieve the same successful result at home and is it possible to have domestic hirudotherapy of gynecological diseases? Whether all female problems can be treated independently? Of course no.

TL Botasheva, for example, does not recommend home treatment for her own gynecology leeches. This is allowed in exceptional cases, but only after a preliminary consultation of the doctor and a course of hirudotherapy in one of the specialized clinics. Sometimes patients come from the outback, many do not have the financial resources to conduct the required number of sessions. In such cases, the doctor signs out the schemes for leeches and always recommends that after a course of home hirudotherapy again come to a consultation.

Among modern gynecologists who treat leeches with most diseases of their patients, there are different points of view. For example, a categorical ban on home hirudotherapy for any gynecological inflammatory processes.

Other girudoterapevty, in particular EN Vasilieva, recommend to put a leech at home, but only as a prophylaxis of inflammatory female diseases. It is known that medical leeches normalize menstrual cycles and relieve inflammatory processes. Helping home hirudotherapy and in the prevention of chronic gynecological diseases. Scheme of leeches is usually suggested!

In any case, to treat some gynecological diseases at home or arrange a prophylaxis is necessary after a preliminary consultation with a specialist. And, if there is such an opportunity, it is better to entrust the shaky female health to a girud therapist-gynecologist.

In many centers of hirudotherapy, for example, in the Center for Aesthetic Medicine and Hirudotherapy today use a leech to prevent a healthy childbearing process. Future Pope Imam, who are planning to conceive a child in the coming months, it is desirable to prepare their organisms for conception. On the one hand, medical leeches normalize the activity of the whole organism of future parents, on the other - become a kind of guarantee of healthy conception. The risk of ectopic pregnancy after "piago" prevention is significantly reduced. To the future father she will provide a normal spermatogenesis, and the future mother will prepare a uterus for the normal process of bearing a healthy child.

Today even tubal infertility is treated in hirudotherapy clinics."Traditional" gynecologists consider this disease hopeless. Surgeons warn that surgery rarely solves this problem. It is leeches that become a saving straw for patients with this diagnosis. After ten sessions of hirudotherapy, the patency of the fallopian tubes is completely restored, as well as the epithelium that lining the inner surface of the tube.

Summing up the data of gynecologists-hirudotherapists, to which about 4,000 patients are treated each year, it is possible to outline the range of the most common gynecological diseases that are successfully treated in hirudotherapy centers:

The last diagnosis is deciphered as an antiphospholipid syndrome. His researchers found in the blood of women suffering from this disease, the so-called lupus anticoagulant, which "breaks" pregnancy in the early stages. Do not always cause abortions, quite often the fetus perishes in the uterus because of the incorrect interaction in the body of a woman of certain proteins and trace elements. Diagnosing the shortage or, on the contrary, the surplus of some of the elements, medics prescribe medications. Most of them carry long-term negative effects and eventually cause kidney or liver disease.

Experienced gynecologists know that quite often women's diseases become a consequence of other pathologies or diseases. Thyroid dysfunction, improper work of the adrenal glands, neuroses and psychoses, even prolonged fatigue can cause women in the body initially minor disruptions, and then - serious pathologies.

For such patients, hirudotherapy is the solution to a whole set of problems at once:

Leeches are usually prescribed by professionals for chronic gynecological diseases on the liver, sacrum, perineum, anus, vaginal vaults. The number of leeches that are given to patients in one session is determined depending on the age and constitutional features of the woman, the analysis of her blood, blood pressure, and the presence of other concomitant diseases. The frequency of sessions depends on the diagnosis and individual tolerability. In some clinics they put leeches in three or four days, but not more than seven in one session. In others - up to twenty in one session, every two to three weeks.

Ophthalmologists of different cities summarize the available knowledge and give recommendations to all who have somehow encountered "eye" problems.

The first half of this article was written with the participation of Vera Grigoryevna Bondareva, a doctor of the highest category, the head of the emergency department of the Moscow Ophthalmologic Hospital. Her story helped to determine the range of current problems, to clarify, under what eye pathologies are treated "to the leech" by doctors and patients.

Medical leech doctors used in ophthalmology for many centuries, directly in the Moscow ophthalmologic hospital - more than 200 years. Modern ophthalmology, with each new decade, develops new medical and surgical methods of treatment, but leech, as before, does not lose its significance. Earlier doctors precisely did not know, in what a secret of efficiency of a medical leech. It was considered that the benefit of leeches treatment is a consequence of discharge of blood flow. Today, thanks to the discoveries of modern scientists, it became known that the saliva of the leech contains highly active components. Thanks to them hirudotherapy of ophthalmic diseases is highly effective, it is used for the treatment of many eye diseases: acute and chronic diseases of vascular and inflammatory genesis, all types and stages of glaucoma, dystrophies, some types of injuries, and pre- and postoperative periods.

In the ophthalmic clinic, there is an established system of emergency care for patients with injuries and acute diseases of the eye. It works around the clock and uses to treat patients about 800 medical leeches per month.

Patients of the ophthalmologic hospital refer to medical leeches in different ways. Some - quite calmly and confidently, as if before this repeatedly put themselves leeches. Some patients are afraid of them, but, having felt a positive effect after the first and second productions, then recommend their close and familiar leeches as "a unique means of medical care."

Leeches are indispensable, primarily as a means of emergency care. With an acute attack of glaucoma, when a person suffers from pain for days, already during the hirudotherapy session the pain disappears, the corneal edema decreases. With iridotsiklitah with their help it is possible not only to reduce the pain syndrome, but also to reduce the intraocular pressure, to break the adhesions.

In some cases, leeches become the only way to save the eye. But one should not think that they are the only way of emergency medical care. As a rule, they are used as an aid in the treatment of the following diseases:

Hirudotherapy reduces inflammation. Enzymes, which are contained in the saliva of medicinal leech, have a bactericidal effect. In its intestine is a bacterium, which enhances the action of medicinal substances, which are prescribed to the patient simultaneously with leeches. In patients, intraocular pressure decreases, overall well-being improves.

It is enough conditionally, of course, we can distinguish two main modern features of ophthalmic diseases. First, the diseases are "younger".If before the pathology occurred at a later age, now with cataract and with glaucoma are addressed in adolescence and even in childhood. It is difficult to say what this is connected with. Probably, the ecology, the way of life, and the rare medical examination affect. Absolutely healthy people are very rare today, most of them from early age suffer from ophthalmic diseases, which used to be typical only for adults. Young people today and diabetes. The walls of the vessels in diabetics become more permeable, so the most common consequence of this disease is a retinal hemorrhage, which entails a whole list of ophthalmic diagnoses.

The second feature of the present is the more neglected state of the disease. Universal annual medical examination would help to solve this problem, but it is impossible for a number of reasons. People turn to the hospital when they are already overtaken by the crisis, ignoring the first symptoms of the disease.

The Moscow Ophthalmologic Hospital is not the only place where the medical leech is in great demand. They use it far beyond Moscow, in military hospitals. This tradition is more than a century old. The first to use the leech in the practice of treating ophthalmic diseases was the founder of military field surgery and anatomical and experimental research in this field, a corresponding member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences, a member of the Sevastopol Defense( 1854-1855), a Franco-Prussian( 1870-1871) and a Russian-Turkish(1877-1878) of the wars of NI Pirogov. He was the first to undergo surgery before his eyes on the battlefield and was the first to use a medical leech to prevent postoperative complications. It is known that with her help in the field conditions, those who received gunshot wounds to their eyes were kept in sight.

Modern provincial emergency care is something akin to field conditions. It is difficult to list all the causes that cause eye trauma. And it is impossible to imagine a treatment without a medical leech.

The leech is used most often in the postoperative period to remove the undesirable effects of various injuries, after implantation of intraocular lenses, for acute and chronic diseases of vascular and inflammatory origin. After laser intervention, as a rule, intraocular pressure increases. With the help of medical leech it is normalized.

It's over, you can not completely cure glaucoma or cataracts only with the help of leeches. However, after 30-40 minutes after the first setting of leeches, unbearable pains in the eye and the temple disappear, vomiting and nausea, fog in the eyes - those complaints, which patients are treated with a sharp attack of glaucoma. Inflammatory processes, edema of the cornea are removed in two or three sessions of hirudotherapy, after which the appropriate drug treatment begins. Most patients are prescribed leeches simultaneously with drugs such as diacarb or pilocarpine.

Not every provincial ophthalmologic clinic or hospital has today professional hirudotherapists. Where there are none, ophthalmologists themselves put leeches to patients, and for free. The first and second sessions are conducted by the doctor, explains to the patient what, why and how the leech cures. When the general condition of the patient becomes satisfactory, it is prescribed and given with them leeches. The third and fourth session, he spends himself at home, alone. Ophthalmologists, writing out patients, recommend that they conduct a course of home hirudotherapy twice a year. Of course, after each course before a new one, a consultation of the ophthalmologist is needed. In total it is desirable to spend from 7 to 10 sessions depending on the transferred disease.

Medical leeches are used to relieve the onset of glaucoma and to young children, even infants with congenital glaucoma, but only in a hospital setting. The recommendations are the same, but not more than one or two leeches per session can be used. After a couple of minutes after they are sucked in, they need to be removed with a tampon soaked in iodine or alcohol.

Leeches are an indispensable aid for pregnant women. Ophthalmologists believe that pregnancy is not a contraindication for hirudotherapy, it often becomes the only way to treat eye diseases when you can not use medical products, including antibiotics. One of the diseases of expectant mothers, in which only hi-rudotherapy is safe, is iridocyclitis. Regardless of the period of pregnancy, women are given leeches home. They explain that the treatment should be treated delicately, because the eye is a tiny organ, and, depending on the characteristics and timing of the disease, recommend the required number of sessions. As a rule, 3-4 are required, leeches are advised to put no more than 2 or 3, and they are recommended to be removed soon after sucking.

No cases of allergy or complications in pregnant women after home hirudotherapy have been reported. But, despite these data, the warning is the same: in pregnancy, do not engage in amateur hirudotherapy.

In acute processes, the hirudotherapist himself must determine the zone for setting within 2 cm, where the leech will then be "planted".When leeches are put around the eyelids, vision improves, cataract development stops. This and many other diseases occur because of insufficient blood supply to the eyes, and the floating "natural healer" is known to increase blood circulation. The setting of leeches on whiskey in some cases completely heals the vessels of the brain, helps him to get a full meal.

However, after putting leeches on the face in some patients, there are traces of the "Mercedes" sign. "This occurs, as a rule, in patients with "leaky" vessels with increased permeability. But these traces pass after a few days, and with each setting of leeches on their face becomes less and less. After the third or fourth session, there are no bruises, no bleeding for more than three hours, or "leaky" blood vessels, which, as a result of hirudotherapy sessions, acquire elasticity.

After hirudotherapy, in most patients, visual acuity is increased and dilated with the lens. In some patients, vision is completely restored. Fear of leech is changed to an enthusiastic attitude towards her, doubts - surprise."A medical leech is just a miracle!" - so say those who have experienced its effects.

"Natural healer" helps even those who suffer from oncological eye diseases. Of course, such patients put leeches only in the hospital. Home hirudotherapy in this case is not recommended.

Leeches and patients with retinal dystrophy who have low blood pressure are placed. Ophthalmologists normalize any vascular disorder that occurs against the background of hypotension, again a medical leech! It is enough to have one or two sessions.

The only contraindication in which hirudotherapy is not performed in ophthalmological hospitals and polyclinics is hemophilia. Such patients can not be put leeches, even for a few minutes. All the other patients with gratitude remember their "natural doctor", and, of course, about the doctors who discovered to them this surprisingly effective method of treatment.

What is the secret of helping a medical leech? It consists of several factors:

There are no good and bad people, there are their right and wrong reactions to the situation. The behavior of each person, his relationship with the world around him, are conditioned, in addition to heredity, upbringing and negative factors of the external environment, by his individual characteristics. You probably noticed that the phrase "you're a fool" different people react differently. Some respond "the fool himself", others pretend that they do not hear, harbor resentment and after some time they take revenge. Still others are hammering in a corner and crying there from insult, the fourth in detail and meticulously analyze the situation and try to find out what exactly made you say that phrase. Fifth turn everything into a joke and generously forgive whoever said it.

The same can be attributed to diseases. Psychologists, scientists, physicians have long found out that every disease is the result of one or another wrong behavior, an incorrect reaction to the world around them. Another thing is that all these reactions are not accidental: each person is characterized by a specific type of response specifically for him, the consequence of which is a certain range of diseases. Knowing your negative features and remembering the inability to cope with this or that situation, you can help yourself not to get sick. And we can - "arrange a prophylaxis with the help of leeches."They not only save you from a possible disease for you, but also help to cope with negative traits of character.

Before we go into the depths of the psychopathic typology, it will be interesting and useful for all readers to get acquainted with the two main classifications in modern psychology. These are the types of those, the dimensions and accentuation of the characters. In each of these classifications, the recommended schemes for leeches are applied to one or another type of

. Another interesting typology - the compilation of modern theories of neurolinguistic programming - will be offered to you for the same purpose: help yourself and your loved ones adjust your behavior and avoid illnesses. Preventive schemes will help them in this. But before you help yourself with leeches, forgive yourself all your mistakes and shortcomings, identify the range of the main problems of your character and behavior. This is why several typologies are offered to you. It's like a good wedding table, where there are plenty of meals: you can choose any, you can try everything, or just take note of the information.

The main idea that I would like to emphasize: there are no characters, no types of temperaments, nor psychosomatic types, which would be counter-indicative leech. It is another matter that each of these types has its own, the most frequently encountered probable problems, on which I would like to sharpen reader's attention. Most of them will help solve the leech, and it will do it faster and more efficiently, if you, putting them yourself or your patients, will take them into account and their individual typological features.

Ask any person, does he know what temperament is? Of course he does. But here is to pinpoint what it can not. Even modern scholars differ in their views on what is most correctly understood by temperament. Since the time of Hippocrates, from the VI century BC.e.have come down to our time, traditional ideas of temperament as a number of individual characteristics of the individual.

But what are these features? Here the opinions of biologists, apologists and physicians diverge.

From a biological point of view, temperament is usually understood as a physical constitution, or a complex, including features of ECG, EEG, blood group and Rh factor.

From the psychological point of view, temperament is regarded as certain properties of character, features of emotions and feelings, motivation and needs. It is believed that this or that blood composition does not justify the deformation of behavior.

Psychiatrists believe that these are purely psychological features: the pace and rhythm of mental processes, the stability of emotions and feelings, the ability to quickly switch attention, the ability to control oneself, the effort of will to restrain one's irritation, resentment and anger.

Neuropathologists often understand the temperament of the features of human physiology, including the types of higher nervous activity. Adherents of this opinion are sure that the types of temperament have physiological roots and even are transmitted from generation to generation.

But biologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and neuropathologists, speaking of temperament, usually mean a predisposition to this or that type of behavior. There are also psychosomatic temperament theories, for example, constitutional theory. Her supporters offer their classifications of temperaments, which are dictated by the appearance of a person, the ratio of parts of his body, the type of skin, the color of the eyes and hair, and so on.

But the representatives of the so-called humoral theory do not doubt that the type of temperament will determine which of the fluids prevails in the human body. There are four such "basic" fluids in the human body:

When mixed in varying proportions, these bones, or juices, as they are also called, form the human's temereca. It is not by chance that they say: "The bilious person" is true? Researchers of "personal juices believe that even the names themselves temperament types are obtained from the predominant fluid in the human body:

There is another theory of temperament in modern science. The followers of this theory came to the fact that temperament is a consequence of the value, motivational, philosophical, even hygienic aspects of the personality. According to their opinion, temperament is the result of education, education, habits, in short, the level of development of the individual.

Which of them is the "right"?It is difficult to unequivocally answer this question. This conversation is long, albeit interesting, but not directly related to our book. We will follow Hippocrates's view that there are four traditional types of temperament: choleric, sanguine, melancholic and phlegmatic. Let us consider them in more detail. Choleric temperament type. Such people are emotional, sharp, hot and quick-tempered. They have no reason to offend or anger you, for the choleric the main thing is to subordinate you to yourself, to force you to recognize it is far from absolute. And once you humble yourself and agree with him, in your opinion, an imaginary right, he will immediately change his anger to mercy. Choleric quickly cool down, but do not forget that in a minute again will proceed to its object with another palette of difficult requirements.

The choleric always wants to make everything faster. He is able to easily cope with work, often unbearable, it is very difficult for him to bring the matter to the end. Therefore, in his opinion, it is better to do too serious things and not to start at all. People of this type of temperament love shine and solemn ceremonies, often they are able to impress the person more intelligent, deeper and subtle than they really are. They tend to start several cases at a time and not one of them to finish. As a rule, choleric people are generous, like to shine and litter money.

Phlegmatic type of temperament. Usually it is very calm, outwardly quite indifferent to all people. They are difficult to set in motion, to get you to start work, for example, but if it turns out, then it's just as difficult to stop them. Phlegmatic people, like a huge cauldron, are heated for a long time, but they cool for a long time, giving to the people light and warmth. Their feelings are stable, reliable and deep. As a rule, they are very intelligent and educated people, but they do not need to demonstrate their often encyclopedic knowledge. People of this type can not be broken, subordinated, overconfident or over-reinforced.

The external apparent submissiveness of a phlegmatic person usually harbors the ability to take power in any situation over all at once. He can easily adapt to everything that happens. And he does it, subordinating his will to the people around him so that they do not notice it.

Melancholic temperament type. Melancholics, in contrast to choleric people, attach great importance to everything. They are vulnerable, touchy, suffering odnolyuby, constantly falling into depression. They often perceive failure on the love front as the collapse of all their life. Before anything in his life happens or is destroyed, the melancholic will several times survive within himself the possible negative consequences of an event that has not yet happened. Such people hardly make promises, but will put all their strength to fulfill them.

Outwardly they are constantly puzzled, anxious, suspicious, anxious, incredulous and full of fears. In the company they try to stay in the shadows, leaders do not like to be leaders. But there are people of this type and their dignity. Among the first is the ability to always listen carefully and feel the melancholic. He will calm you, sincerely and deeply divide your sorrow and pain, from the soul will empathize with you. And if you need his help, he will sacrifice his time, strength, connections, and often health, to help.

Sanguine temperament type. Sanguine people are sociable, friendly, they are full of hope and are able to react with a smile to a not very joyful event. These people are often characterized by some carelessness: they easily promise, but rarely fulfill their promises. At the same time, they are genuinely surprised when someone reproaches them for inconsistency. Failures and failures, as a rule, are experienced by such people easily and superficially. They will easily help you, but they will forget about you as easily and quickly. Sanguine yesterday, explained to you in love, but you rejected him? Do not worry, tomorrow, and even today, his experiences will quickly be replaced by the search for another object. Among this category of people odnolyuby meet very rarely.

Quite often these are excellent interlocutors with a sense of humor, not inclined to attach importance to anything in the world. Sometimes, though rarely, among them are met and vindictive natures. Most people in the world like to play. They do not care what they're into. Communication, work, love, family - all for them in the first place the game.

How easier and more accurate to determine what type of temperament do you belong to? In the middle of the XX century, the famous Danish artist Herluf Bidstrup drew a very precise parody of the behavior of representatives of different types of temperament. True, he called them "characters", but from the psychological point of view it is the types of temperament.

On each of the drawings - a shop on which sits the master. Next to him lies his hat. A different gentleman approaches sideways to the bench and, without noticing the hat, sits down on it. From this moment the differences begin - we see four different reactions to what is happening.

The first type comes first in horror, then - in a rage, grabs the breasts of the one who sat on the hat and in the future, perhaps, just shakes the soul out of it. Because for him this hat is another reason to prove to the world its superiority, to present their demands and put everyone in the place corresponding to them, in his opinion. It's choleric.

The second type evaluates the situation, pulls out his hat from under the one who sat on it. Indifferently looking at her and putting on a hat, or rather, what was left of her, on her head. For him, life goes on, there is nothing essential, which in general would be worth wasting your reactions. And that's why, by and large, he does not care what looks like what's on his head now. It's a phlegmatic.

The third type, seeing what happened to his hat, falls into a panic, hysterical, crying. For him, in this crumpled hat - all the world that has fallen upon him, all his unfortunate life, unfulfilled dreams and destroyed love. It's melancholic.

Finally, the fourth type takes a disfigured hat, looks at it and laughs. What, really, nonsense, you'll have to have such a misunderstanding! And such mere trifles are capable of people of this type only to make us wonder at the infinite variety and surprises of this life. It's a sanguine person.

Do not rush to expose yourself to all sorts of physiological experiments, measure the ratio of the length of hands to the width of the foot. You can go on a simpler and more accessible way: answer the questions of a psychological test.

Imagine that you have a magical kaleidoscope in your hands. Next to you is your wife, who, as always, wants to know first what is inside him. You are annoyed by her impatience and curiosity, but you restrain yourself and magnanimously give her a look. What does she see?

In a kaleidoscope, unlike ordinary multi-colored glass that collects in original patterns, one after another, times change. Hearing the enthusiastic squeal of your wife, you immediately take away her kaleidoscope and make an easy turn of the lens. ..

The XXI century is replaced by XX. .. Flying into space, the Great Patriotic War, Stalin's marriage, the struggle for the leadership of the poets of the Silver Age,an explanation in the love of A. Blok L. Mendeleeva. .. But this you are not interested at all, so you vigorously shake a kaleidoscope and find yourself with your wife in the distant, distant past.

"Trying" on yourself this or that behavior in each of the six situations, choose one of the four suggested answers to you. Just tick the number of your answer.

So, imagine. ..

The first situation. Primitive communal system. The Stone Age, the sixth millennium BC.You and your wife go back home, to your cave, when your sensitive mammoth hunting attracts a deaf growl of a wounded saber-toothed tiger. Your actions?

1. At the risk of your life, you defeat the tiger - 1 point.

2. You are considering whether to become the first saber-toothed tiger in the world - 2 points.

3. Before your mind's eye, your whole life rushes. You say goodbye to everyone and forgive everyone. Thinking about the inevitability of death, enter the cave - 3 points.

Taking advantage of the fact that your wife did not hear the snarls of a tiger, let her go first to the cave, solemnly say: "Please, my dear!" - 4 points.

The second situation. Ancient times. The second millennium BC.Outlines of the destroyed Troy. Dawn. You sleep in your home with a deep, strong sleep, but something makes you wake up. You open your eyes, turn your head and find that you are alone on the marriage bed. Handsome Paris, once again taking advantage of the protection of the goddess Aphrodite, kidnaps your wife. Your actions?

1. Like Agamemnon, rush to win it - 1 point.

2. Sit down to write the first in the world history treatise on the topic: "What can a man who for 9 years besieves the walls of his opponent's fortifications" - 2 points.

3. Firmly decide to never trust more women and keep them to yourself - 3 points.

4. Order to build a five-meter wall around your house so that Paris could not, in case of which, change your mind and return your wife back - 4 points.

The third situation. Middle Ages. France, 1585.Fires of the Inquisition are burning everywhere. In the direction of your house, the inquisitors anxious about the lack of regular private life are gloomy. And now comes the moment when your wife is accused of being a witch. You, as always, will learn about this last. Just by accident in the evening you look out the window and see that it is already being led to the fire. Your actions?

You rush to save her, risking your life, kill the inquisitors, trample on the flames burning under her feet, take the recaptured wife to another state - 1 point.

2. Offer the inquisitors a ransom for their wife, explain to them how much they can earn if they allow their husbands and relatives to buy out all the suspects in the witchcraft of women. Give arguments, appeal to the economy, history, philosophy - 2 points.

3. You become very sad, thoughts come to your mind that nothing will ever happen in your life and will not work with anyone - 3 points.

4. Sighing with relief: "Let the tourniquet" - 4 points.

Fourth situation. Spain, 1584 year. Surroundings of Madrid, an estate in the mountainous Asturias. Knightly times. Famous tournaments. Feats. Conquered female hearts. And here you see yourself: you are in knightly armor. Recently returned from the tournament, decided to show your wife defeated you on the way to your castle of four robbers lying along the road. You lead her into the forest. Your wife is delighted with you, she throws herself on your neck: "You - the strongest and noblest knight in the world!" Suddenly Robin Hood jumps out of the bushes and offers you a "cutlet" of money in exchange for his wife. Your actions?

1. In an honest battle win Robin Hood - 1 point.

2. You propose to Robin Hood to divide the money equally in exchange for non-disclosure of his tactless behavior, which violates all historical and literary sources about him - 2 points.

3. Surprisingly, pay attention to what kind of secret desire your wife looks at the beautiful figure of Robin Hood, immediately roll her a scene of jealousy - 3 points.

4. Tell him: "I myself will give you a cutlet of money, only, for God's sake, take it away from me!" - 4 points.

The fifth situation. Renaissance of the Renaissance.1610 year. You are not too young, not very talented, with 5 years of family life, sketches of still life. Your wife is a middle-aged, but still attractive woman, concocts dinner for you. One of the quiet family evenings opens the door of your modest home and includes Peter Paul Rubens himself, whose work you worship. Looking at your wife with an expert appraising look from an artist who wrote many female nudes, he asks your permission to write her, naked, in front of the mirror. Your actions?

1. Immediately down it down the stairs - 1 point.

2. Suggest a drink, then start off in a lengthy conversation about the future of painting, the ultimate goal of which is to determine your percentage after the sale of Rubens's painting - 2 points.

3. Accept his proposal, because you understand: this is your only chance to enter the history of painting, even as a deceived husband, whose wife was led by Rubens himself, - 3 points.

4. Suggest him to open a new page in painting and write you and his wife together - 4 points.

The sixth situation. XIX century, 1834 year. Your small mansion, built in the best traditions of a romantic style. A pond on which black swans swim. Arbor, braided with flowering roses. Singing nightingales. Gukane your newly born son. It would seem that nothing can disturb the family idyll, but in the evening an elderly woman appears in your house. She is represented by Arina Rodionovna. Under strictest secrecy and for a small amount, she informs you that the father of your child is Alexander Pushkin. Your actions?

Call him to a duel - 1 point. Sit down to write memoirs, comprehending this episode of your life - 2 points.

3. Submit for divorce - 3 points.

4. Tell an elderly woman that you appreciated her joke - 4 points.

Calculate the number of points you scored and evaluate the result.

From 6 to 8 points. You are sure that it is stronger than the saber-toothed tiger, steeper than Paris, more invincible than the Inquisition, more fearless than Robin Hood, more talented than Rubens and Pushkin. You are not afraid of authorities and you are ready to shake the soul out of everyone who dares to resist anything to you in any way. In a word, you are a choleric.

From 9 to 14 points. Your ability to philosophically perceive reality and stay calm can be envied. Action you prefer thinking, finding out the relationship - their thinking. So, you are a phlegmatic.

From 15 to 18 points. You are not confident in yourself, you often generalize, in advance experience even those situations that have not yet occurred. After a failure, you usually get depressed. Sadness is your typical condition. You are a melancholic.

From 19 to 24 points. Most often with you it is easy, comfortable and pleasant for everyone around you. You are not inclined to get stuck on setbacks, you can joke to change the situation. You are a sanguine person.

So, in your hands you have the same kaleidoscope that your husband just watched. You will need to choose one of the four behaviors."Trying" on yourself this or that reaction in each of the six situations, immediately tick the number of your answer. So, imagine. ..

The first situation. Primitive communal system. Stone Age. Sixth millennium BC.You and your husband return home, to your cave, approaching to which your sensitive female ear catches the deaf growl of a wounded saber-toothed tiger. Your husband makes a "magnanimous" gesture, letting you into the cave first. Your actions?

1. Enter the cave and kill the tiger - 1 point.

2. You faint - 2 points.

3. Thinking: "Well, sooner or later we will all die," and enter the cave - 3 points.

4. Answer to the husband: "Only after you, dear" - 4 points.

The second situation.

Antique times, the second millennium BC.Dawn. You are Elena, the wife of Agamemnon, sleep with a deep, strong sleep, but something makes you wake up. You open your eyes and see that you are on an unfamiliar ship. Handsome Paris, once again taking advantage of the protection of the goddess Aphrodite, without your permission, kidnapped you. Your actions?

1. First of all, build a team and put your order on the ship - 1 point.

2. Weeping and asking Paris to take you back - 2 points.

3. "What's the difference," you think, "that Agamemnon, Paris, all men are the same" - 3 points.

4. Between you and Paris there is about such a dialogue: "What's your name?" - "Paris," he replies."What a beautiful name!- You are delighted."And where are we sailing?" "In Troy.""Excellent, I've always dreamed of going to Troy! And what do we have for breakfast? "- 4 points.

The third situation.

The Middle Ages. France, 1585.Throughout Europe, the fires of the Inquisition are blazing. In the direction of your house, the inquisitors anxious about the lack of regular private life are gloomy. And then comes the moment when the Inquisitor enters your house and says: "Your husband told me that you are a witch."Your actions?

1. Scratch the Inquisitor's face - 1 point.

2. Keep silent, downcast eyes, try to hide tears from insult to husband - 2 points.

3. You are going to read a lecture to the inquisitor that every woman in the soul is a witch - 3 points.

4. Sit on the broom and fly into the pipe - 4 points.

Fourth situation.

Spain, 1584 year. Surroundings of Madrid, an estate in the mountainous Asturias. Knightly times. Famous tournaments. Feats. Conquered female hearts. Outside the window the sun sets. You wait for the husband, at last, the door opens, and he enters - in knightly armor. You rush to meet him. .. But he gestures to stop you and says: "Sorry, dear, I fell in love with another."Your actions?

1. Kill a husband - 1 point.

2. With tears run out of the room - 2 points.

3. You remind him of the phrase Solomon: "Everything will pass, and this too" - 3 points.

4. Speak to your husband: "I hope this will not prevent you from getting out in time for dinner" and go to cook it - 4 points.

The fifth situation.

Renaissance of the Renaissance, 1610.You are not too young, not very talented artist with a five-year experience of family life, made in nature sketches of a new landscape. Now you come home on a narrow street. Peter Paul Rubens himself comes to you, a few steps from you, shocked, he stops and says: "You are the nature I've been looking for so long! I'll write you naked, in front of the mirror. "Your actions?

1. First, in a fit of anger, put on your head your unfinished landscape, then agree - 1 point.

2. Say that the portrait does not work out - 2 points.

3. Do you pretend that you do not notice Rubens and indifferently pass by, - 3 points.

4. Tell him: "Only together with her husband!" - 4 points.

The sixth situation.

XIX century.1834 year. Your small mansion, built in the best traditions of a romantic style. A pond on which black swans swim. Arbor, braided with flowering roses. Singing nightingales. Gukane your newly born son. It would seem that nothing can disturb the family idyll, but in the evening Arina Rodionovna approaches you and informs you that your husband - Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin - has one more wife. Your actions?

1. Immediately submit for divorce - 1 point.

2. Weeping on the shoulder of Arina Rodionovna - 2 points.

3. Do you pretend that you have not heard anything - 3 points.

4. Immediately dismiss Arina Rodionovna - 4 points.

Calculate the number of points you scored.

From 6 to 8 points. You are a sort of colonel in a skirt: able to defeat a saber-toothed tiger, build any team, seduce any man. If you're up to something, then no one and nothing can resist you. You are not afraid of authorities and you are ready to shake the soul out of everyone who dares to resist anything to you in any way. In a word, you are a choleric.

From 9 to 14 points. In the depths of your soul, you know that you are - Not one of those women who are being abducted by the paris. You are not confident in yourself, you often generalize, in advance experience even those situations that have not yet occurred. Often crying. After any, even the most minor failure, you usually get depressed. Sadness is your typical condition. You are a melancholic.

From 15 to 18 points. Your ability to philosophically perceive reality and stay calm can be envied. You are able, without spending your nerve cells, to get out of any situation. Action you prefer thinking, finding out the relationship - their thinking. So, you are a phlegmatic.

Option four: from 19 to 24 points. Your charming smile has saved you many times. Most often with you it is easy, comfortable and pleasant for everyone around you. You are not inclined to get stuck on setbacks, you can joke to change the situation. You are a sanguine person.

Some readers can find in themselves manifestations of features like phlegmatic, and melancholic, others - sanguine and choleric. Still others will be surprised that the result of testing does not correspond to their idea of ​​themselves. Quite often people themselves incorrectly determine their own type of temperament. Moreover, with age, a person learns to hide from others their true typical features. Slim, or, conversely, full of dirt, even repainting hair, a person changes his relationship with the world around him.

With every decade, a number of compensations are being developed, many of which are capable of deceiving anyone, even the most experienced psychologist. But in a situation that is significant for you or stressful, you can not hide your typical features. So, for example, the death of a loved one of each of the four types of temperament will have its main reaction:

So, the test determined to which of these types of temperament you are most likely to belong. If you are "on the verge of" a transition between two types, or you discover in your behavior the characteristics, for example, for a sanguine and choleric, take note of the recommendations for both types.

For each of them there may be certain recommendations for leeches. The most important thing: find out if you have any contraindications for hirudotherapy, do not you take medications that can cause prolonged bleeding in combination with leeches, and finally measure the pressure before and after the sessions.

If you have never put yourself a leech before, then start after a permissive recommendation girudo-therapist from setting one leech on the projection of the liver. Have you tried hirudotherapy with a specialist? Then you can - depending on your temperament - put yourself a leech.

If you are a choleric, the course of your preventive treatment will look like this. Spend yourself five sessions. Set yourself leeches mainly on the upper body: mastoid processes, collar zone, whiskey( but only one leech!), The projection of the heart, the solar plexus. You can alternate these production zones in your own discretion.

Sixth and seventh sessions of hirudotherapy, regardless of gender, do not need choleric patients. So As it is too active type of temperament, it is better to "slow down", not to cause in its already unbalanced organism another storm of emotions and inadequate reactions. Therefore, do not "wake up" with the help of leeches the lower part of its unbalanced organism.

It should also be remembered that the choleric is able to react extremely emotionally to any situation, therefore, in isolation, they should not be prevented with leeches. The break between sessions is 5-6 days. The number of leeches is from 3 to 5, except for the area of ​​the temples.

The main problem most phlegmatic - the inability to distribute their energy, in time to join in any process and easily and freely shut down from it. True, unlike choleric people, they are more attentive and responsible. Hirudotherapy sessions can be held by themselves. Those who live next to the phlegmatic know that it is very difficult for them to "swing", so they can put more leeches, especially on the lower part of the body.

Locations of leeches: projection of the liver, kidneys, coccyx, perineum. Alternate them you can in any order, it is advisable to start with the projection of the liver. Break between sessions.- 5-7 days. The number of leeches is from 3 to 5. Do not forget about the proper care of the wound before and after the sessions.

Most of all, melancholists are concerned about the liver and kidneys, so as a preventive measure, the amount of leeches you put on these areas should be increased: put five leeches on the projections of these organs. You can alternate three main "places" of the production: the projection of the liver, the coccyx and the projection of the kidneys. If you are a woman, add to this the production of leeches on the projection of the appendages. So, you need to spend six or seven sessions. Between them, you can do 7-10-day breaks.

Given that melancholic is a weak type of temperament, which is often characterized by low blood pressure, it is not necessary to feed the leeches until they are full. This type of people do not want to put their own leeches themselves. If for any reason you are not available for professional hirudotherapy, ask for help from someone close.

It is known that in ancient times hirudotherapists refused to put leeches to people of melancholic and choleric temperaments. Doctors understood the behavioral extremes of these temperaments and tried to avoid them. In the XIX and XX centuries, the opinion of girudotherapists changed. Today there are no "behavioral" contraindications for hirudotherapy.

Have you had the good fortune to be born the most balanced and easy of all types of temperaments - sanguine? In this case, project an equal number of leeches on the projection of the liver, kidneys, heart, coccyx, collar zone: from 3 to 5. On mastoid processes - right and left - put no more than two leeches. So, you need to spend 6 or 7 sessions. Six, if you are a man, and seven - if you are a woman, since you will need to add a statement on the projection of the appendages.

You are worried about what will happen if, being a phlegmatic, you put on the coccyx the wrong amount of leeches, Which is better for your temperament? Nothing catastrophic will happen. Of course, if the number of Applications does not exceed seven per one statement.professional clinics put up to 30 leeches per ° Deen session, but in this case the doctor monitors the patient's condition and can provide him with the necessary assistance on time.

You have not accurately determined your type of temperament? Have you decided that you are a melancholic, and not a phlegmatic, who you are in fact, and put yourself a leech "not there"?Do not worry, medical leeches will not do you harm. Another thing is that the result of treatment will be more persistent and effective if you conduct preventive sessions of hirudotherapy taking into account your individual characteristics.

Have you already taken a great interest in hirudotherapy and are ready to solve any physiological and psychological problems of all members of the family with the help of a leech? Do not hurry. Not all and not always shown a leech. In addition to the limitations that you learned about in several pages, there are age limits. Therefore, the question "When, to whom and how much?" Should not be answered with joy and enthusiasm: "Always, everyone and the more, the better."The recommended number of leeches may vary depending on your age.

What is age, and how to determine whether or not you and your family can put leeches? Speaking of the available psychological language, age is a temporary characteristic of your individual development. Individual development is understood as a complex of somatic, sexual, psychological and neuropsychic processes that give us grounds to talk about a person as young or young, mature or elderly. It is clear that all these processes depend on our way of life, and on physiological, psychological and, of course, spiritual characteristics.

Moreover, the internal and external state of a person is determined by the country in which he lives. In the West, for example, the notion of youth extends to people under 40 years old, but our young age is traditionally limited to 30 years.

Our Russian science, perhaps even with some envy, looking at the "young" forty-year-old Western colleagues, the researchers of age-related psychology, shares the age categories as follows:

1) infancy: from birth to 1 year;

2) early childhood: from 1 year to 3 years;

3) preschool childhood: from 3 to 6 years;junior school age: from b to 10 years;average school age: from 10 to 15 years;this age period is also called teenage;

6) youth: from 15 to 20 years;youth: from 20 to 30 years;maturity: from 30 to 55 years;

9) elderly age: from 55 to 70 years;

10) old age: from 70 to 85 years;

11) long-lived: from 85 years and older.

Quite often, researchers of Russian age psychology combine the last three ages under the general concept of old age. Perhaps, to some of our 55-year-old fellow citizens such a concept is acceptable, but we will still adhere to the traditional ideas of Russian science.

From what age can you put leeches? Today you can meet specialists who claim that leeches can be put and children up to a year. There are also such enthusiasts who put leeches even to newborns for up to a month. They are sure that several sessions of hirudotherapy of the newly born child will ensure its faster development both physically and psychologically, will become a preventive measure against possible diseases.

Most domestic doctors and biologists hold a different point of view and everyone who thinks about the question of whether to put their own little family member of leeches is advised to wait until their child reaches the secondary school age. The organism of a child of early childhood and even of primary school age is able to react to the setting of leeches in the most unexpected way.

So, infants, preschoolers, children of primary school age are not recommended to put leeches. To treat a child with medical leeches is possible only if he has reached the secondary school age, the lower limit of which, as we recall, is 10 years.

Leech is a proven product for centuries with bruises, injuries so frequent for a child of this age.

So, the child fell, was injured, hurt himself. What do you do?

Closer to the sore spot, put two or three leeches, as a rule, one session is enough. For "strength" of the effect, you can repeat the session in a couple of days.

Perfectly help leeches and children with a concussion. But first of all it is necessary to clarify the diagnosis, and only then put the child on mastoid processes from one to three leeches. It is recommended to spend 4 or 5 sessions with a break in a week,

What are the main problems of puberty? Most often, these are the cutaneous manifestations of internal changes. It is difficult to find a more effective remedy than a leech that will help adolescents to solve this problem. In addition to a positive external effect, the leech also has an internal therapeutic effect on the growing adolescent organism. The scheme of prophylactic setting of leeches is the same as for adults.

First session. Give your child three leeches on the liver.

Second session. Put no more than three leeches on the coccyx in a sitting or lying position on the side.

Third session. The location of leeches is the kidneys. For each kidney, put three leeches.

Fourth session. Put three leeches in the heart area.

Fifth session. At this time you need to put your young creature on 2 leeches on mastoid processes. As you remember, they are behind the ears, closer to the ear lobe.

Sixth session. Locations of leeches: liver and coccyx. On the coccyx is better to put 2 leeches, on the liver - 3.

Seventh session. Is your child a girl? In this case, conduct another session: put three leeches on the right and left in the lower abdomen.

If your child has any chronic disease, an excellent preventive remedy will be for him a course of home preventive hirudotherapy. It is better to go through it every six months, of course, after a preliminary consultation with a hirudotherapist of the appropriate profile.

At a young age it seems that any sea is knee-deep. Cheerfulness, strength and energy do not hold, it seems that the forces are endless and inexhaustible, you can spend yourself on everything and with excess. However, there are also situations in which you need to concentrate all your energy and strength, and fear, fatigue, anxiety or insecurity prevent it from doing so.

The most typical occupation of young people is studying in universities. And a terrible event, repeated every six months - exams that can deprive anyone of sleep and inner harmony.

Leech helps you solve these problems too. It is recommended to put leeches to students a day before the exam, behind the ears. After the session, the relaxation begins in the beginning, and after 10-18 hours the tone starts to rise, and now your student is confident, calm, his attention is concentrated, and the memory easily and naturally extracts even information that was learned in passing from the depths.

Increased irritability and fatigue - to remove these symptoms leech also under force. Calmness, endurance, self-confidence and increased vitality are guaranteed!

The general prophylactic scheme of posing leeches at this age is the same. Recommendations similar: in the case of chronic diseases every six months to arrange for your body to prevent, of course, remembering the contraindications described above.

Since antiquity it is known that the leech is an excellent remedy for relieving pain and other somatic problems of a climacteric nature. Experts disagree about the age limits of menopause. Some call the age from 40 to 50 years, others - from 50 to 65 years. As a rule, it depends on a number of factors: heredity, lifestyle, health, regular sex life.

But now in your hands there is a sure way to push the boundaries of menopause - friendship with the leech. Regular preventive sessions according to the described scheme will help you to prevent undesirable side effects of this not always pleasant but inevitable process, to keep your body and soul in harmony, tonus and health.

Effective leech and in the old age, because it has a powerful anti-geriatric effect. Hirudotherapy sessions stabilize the work of cells, help the body not to grow old. It is better for people of old age to put five or seven leeches in one session. Prophylactic scheme of setting is the same.

Once a patient came to see a hirudotherapy center. She complained of pains in the lower abdomen. After finding out the diagnosis and the previously outlined by the doctor-girudoterapevtom treatment scheme, the patient lay on the couch. The doctor brought leeches, he prepared to put them. The woman closed her eyes. A few minutes passed. The sensation of light tickling on the skin overpowered PéRed's fears with leeches, the patient opened one eye: the leeches "rushed" through the test tube, which was pressed against her Stomach, and refused to sit down on the skin."Really I'm so tasteless?" - the patient was offended by the leeches."Well, you," the doctor reassured her, "it's just leeches just from the refrigerator, you know how they get there when everything is in the same bank.""Is this, like, love, or what?" - Guessed the patient."She is the most," the doctor confirmed, "because the leeches do not have anything to do, they even refuse to suck. Let's try another bank. "

Another bank has the same story. Leeches flatly refused to bite the patient. She left, advising the doctor to put each leech in a separate jar. The doctor thanked her for advice, conducted, and in response to the interrogative look of the nurse who heard this dialogue, said: "Well, what else do you think I could tell her! I wanted to somehow satisfy the curiosity of the patient, they, like the leeches, are different. "

You, of course, realized that leeches can not reproduce in the refrigerator. In order for leeches to produce offspring, they must be given certain conditions. A person who decided to do home hirudotherapy, it is impossible to recreate to them natural, comfortable, warm and reliable "storage" for cocoons, from which small piovochki will appear.

"Why store leeches in the refrigerator?"

The refrigerator is usually a convenient means for long-term storage of leeches that are not going to be used in the next few weeks. Most often this way they are kept in professional hirudotherapy centers. Much less often - at home. You can put your little future healers there on several occasions.

First, if you buy leeches for yourself and your family for six months in advance. For example, you, but for one reason or another are not available places where you can buy leeches, perhaps you live far from the center of their artificial breeding. In this case, you leave on the windowsill the number of leeches that you are going to use in the next few weeks, and the remaining "send" to the refrigerator.

Secondly, you decide to use the leeches that treated you, repeatedly, but only for yourself. The bite of the leech again becomes useful three months after the hirudotherapy session. During this time, the saliva of the "natural healer" produces those very useful substances that help your body cope with the disease and regain lost strength, raise the general tone.

If one of these cases relates to you, pay attention to how best to store them there: in a glass jar closed with a rag-bandage. Marley does not need to tie cans - leeches can just run all over the fridge. The same applies to leeches that float in the bank on your windowsill. Unlike those leeches, which are forced to "freeze" a bit, leeches at room temperature are more active, lively, "cheerful."Therefore, the water in their "glass house" gets drier faster. It must be changed every five to six days.

How soon can I use leeches that have spent some time in the fridge? Not earlier than in a day. Let them "come to life" in the sun, which penetrates through the window glass, and leeches with joy will deliver your health an invaluable benefit.

Sometimes the interest shown by ordinary people to a medical leech grows into a lifetime affair. And then the benefit that was expected from the leech, oversteps the boundaries of expectation. A resident of the city of Yekaterinburg Anita Gennadyevna Vasilyeva told me such a story. Familiarization of her family with leeches began with the General Director of the International Center for Medical Leeches, Gennady Ivanovich Nikonov. He told them about his "pets" for hours. And then one day the time came when the Vasiliev family put a jar of thirty leeches on the sill of his apartment. They wanted to help themselves first, then friends, then friends, and then. ..

Leeches began to multiply. Neighbors, acquaintances came, looked with tenderness at the little piavochoks floating in the bank on the windowsill, they asked: "Can we put leeches too?" "Of course, you can," answered family members who unexpectedly turned into domestic girudotherapists.

Time passed, interest in leeches grew. Vasilievs completed a course of study in Moscow, became certified hired labor therapists. The number of patients helped them. And almost always the effect of treating a variety of diseases went beyond expectations. The circle of those who want to try the therapeutic effect of leeches in the city of Yekaterinburg has expanded to such an extent that it was necessary to open a hirudotherapy room in one of the beauty salons. Another year and a half passed, and there was a need to create your own beauty salon. Their patients were divided into two categories: the first, mostly at the age after 40, treated the leeches calmly and with confidence, the second - those who were up to 35 - with curiosity, often with some disgust and fear."Really leeches can so help?" - were surprised Ekaterinburg citizens."Of course, they can," the family of girudo therapists answered, "they also can not do it."

Week after week, month after month, there was a contingent of patients. After four or five sessions, those who decided to "try" became clear, the insoluble problems solved themselves, relations in families were established.

The family of hirudotherapyists faced new problems, successfully solved them, tried to combine setting leeches and elements of massage using cosmetics based on leeches. It turned out that patients who previously were afraid to look at leeches, after two sessions of massage using leeches themselves asked to put them leeches.

Such a case was remembered by Yekaterinburg girudotherapists. A 28-year-old girl went to them exclusively for a massage, because she was afraid of leeches. When he lay down on the couch, he tried to turn away from the aquarium, in which leeches were swimming. One day she met her friend in this salon who came to treat the inflammation of the middle ear. After the first session of leeches, the inflammation was gone. A few more months passed. And now the same 28-year-old patient with the diagnosis of "mastopathy" came to the family of hirudotherapists and asked: "Can you help me?" "Of course, we can," the girudotherapists answered her.

The patient closed her eyes, holding her breath from fear of leeches, and girudoterapevty made her a light massage with leech cosmetic products and conducted four sessions of leeches: the first on the liver, the second on the coccyx, the third and the fourth - on the chest.

The disease disappeared, and the 28-year-old patient now gratefully looks at the leeches swimming in her aquarium.

It is curious that there was no advertising for Yekaterinburg girudotherapists."Sarafannoe radio" throughout the city spreads rumors about the effectiveness of sessions of hirudotherapy and therapy with cosmetic products based on biologically active substances produced by leeches. A good word about the benefits of medical leeches and the treatment of a wide range of diseases is faster and more effective than any advertising.

The whole of Ekaterinburg has flown around, for example, such a story. One of the clients, Elena K., suffered from hypertension. Experts say that this disease is often accompanied by certain changes in character. Elena was also no exception in this respect: she was irritated by everything and everything. According to her colleagues, it was simply impossible to approach her, she always had a bad mood. The employee of her department, who managed to solve her health problems in the room of hirudotherapy, advised her: "Try, finally, leeches!"."This is out of the question!" - she could not hear about these, as it seemed then, disgusting creatures.

But hypertension prevented Elena from living and working. All medicines have already been tried, an incredible number of tablets have been drunk, more than one course of injections has been passed. She is tired of being treated, and finally, her colleagues managed to persuade her for one session of leeches.

Everyone was surprised: the next day Elena K. simply did not know. Benevolent, tolerant, radiant, she complimented everyone, tried to help everyone, smiled. Colleagues exchanged glances: "Could it be that these leeches were able to change our Elena Arkadyevna so much?" "What's wrong with me?" - Elena herself was surprised."And you did not believe," - answered Anita Gennadievna, the owner of the beauty salon.

After telling me this story, she added: "Many residents of Yekaterinburg now treat the leech as a panacea, it's unfair, but joyful."

The case in Yekaterinburg is not the only one. A similar story occurred in the city of Rostov-on-Don. The gynecologist, who "fell in love" with a leech, has not yet opened his salon, but he already thinks about it, because for all who once asked for help with a medical leech, she becomes a good friend and assistant. And if you already put a jar of leeches on your window, very soon you will come to the same thing: first you will help yourself, and then you will want to help your relatives and friends.

But, as you know, bad is the cobbler who does not have boots, although it often happens that way. Therefore, first you need to help yourself, and only then treat others. And one of the first problems that you can face is the "refusing" sucking leech. The reasons for this behavior of leeches may be several.

The first reason. The first thing that comes to our mind when we ask this question is not the leech. The fact is that leeches, as well as people, are different. This is not about the fact that they have a different type of temperament, although, perhaps, this also determines the behavior of the leech on the patient's skin.

There are more than 650 types of leeches. And only one of them, which provides unparalleled benefits to your body, is a medical leech. Is it possible to determine in appearance, by eye, which of the varieties of leeches is in front of you and can it be treated?

To a person who is not dedicated to the world of leeches, this is quite difficult to do. Is it possible, looking at the leech, to understand if it is the carrier of any infectious diseases, in other words, is it sterile? Of course not.

And here you can insure your body against a poor-quality leech. It's simple: you need to know where to buy it. Now the leech is in vogue, that's why lovers do their business more and more with the help of leeches every day. Among them there are those who simply catch leeches in the Moscow water reservoirs and sell cheaper to those hirudotherapists who save on the health of their patients.

The most reliable and safe way to check the leech is to acquire it first-hand. Employees of various hirudotherapy centers unanimously say that it is best to buy leeches in the village of Udelnaya, Moscow Region, in the International Center for Medical Leeches. You can also buy leeches in a pharmacy, but before buying, ask her origin.

The second reason. So, the leech was bought by you in the pharmacy, where it was brought from Udelnoy, but for some reason still does not want to stick. Maybe you just got it out of the fridge. In the case of a sharp change in temperature, the leech sometimes "refuses" to suck.

The third reason. Another important point: you poured water from the tap into the jar of leeches. The temperature of the water can also be the reason for the reluctance of leeches to cure you. The water you are going to place in leeches should be at room temperature. Except, of course, those cases when you are not going to use them in the next few weeks and therefore "store" medical leeches in the refrigerator.

Fourth reason. Leech, just like you, a living organism. It is sensitive to biological rhythms, magnetic storms, low atmospheric pressure and solar eclipses. Experts have found that she does not sit well at patients at night. Even if you force her to suck, she will do it reluctantly.

Moreover, she perfectly feels your psychological state. Are you annoyed because you just quarreled with someone from the household? You have problems at work, and you are subconsciously looking for someone to break the evil? In this state, it is better not to approach the leeches, do not put them today to yourself or anyone else. Calm down, clean up your emotions, forgive everyone, and then the leech will readily help you. The fifth reason. There are leeches and their so-called "love periods", during which they are extremely reluctant to treat. Period of sexual games is accounted for by leeches for May-July, at this time it is better not to force a leech, forcing her to treat herself, but to allow her, and at the same time herself, to rest. Of course, when it comes to extreme necessity, a leech can be made to treat you, but it will not come to you immediately, but after a while.

The sixth reason. The leech may not like the smell of your deodorant or any of the aromatic toilet preparations that you use. Scented soap, body lotion, perfume, shower gel with the smell of rosewood or sandalwood oil - all this can prevent the leech from helping you. To avoid this, use immediately before the hirudotherapy, unrometed soap.

Seventh reason. It may become normal for you, but not warm enough for the leech skin. Eliminate this reason can be simple: before the session hirudotherapy, rub out the area of ​​setting leeches with a clean napkin to a slight reddening. Your skin should turn slightly red and become warm. Now, certainly not one leech will resist you!

We listed the most likely reasons why a leech might refuse to treat you. In order to avoid the appearance of any new reasons why the leech does not want to stick to you, we suggest that you familiarize yourself with the following recommendations: how to properly keep leeches at home and how to build your relationships with them.

First of all, try to treat them kindly, even if you are still afraid of them. Those who have pets for many years, know that they become peculiar members of the family. Accordingly, take and leeches: respectfully, with tenderness, gratitude and trust.

Recommendation one. Buy as many leeches as you or your household need for one preventative course. As you remember, these are six sessions for men and seven for women. In the first session you put 3 leeches on the liver, in the second - 3 on the coccyx, in the third - 3 on each kidney, in the fourth - 3 in the heart region, in the fifth - 2 leeches on the mastoid processes, in the sixth session - 2 on the coccyxand 3 per liver. Thus, approximately 30 leeches are obtained.

If you decide to take care of strengthening the health of other household members, calculate, accordingly, how much do you need leeches for this.

The second recommendation. Let's say you live far from the places where you can buy leeches, or a trip for them. For you it is difficult. In this case, you can stock up on leeches for future use. And if you buy leeches for a few months ahead for yourself and your loved ones, it's best to store them in the refrigerator. There they are much slower to digest blood, they seem to fall asleep, which allows them to dispense with "nutrition" up to three months.

But do not forget that the leeches with which you are going to treat the household should be taken out of the refrigerator a few days before the setting.

Third recommendation. Keep the leeches, which you are going to be treated in the coming week, is best on the windowsill that goes to the sunny side. The jar for leeches should be clean. In a half-liter jar it is recommended to place no more than five or seven leeches. You can use a three-liter balloon filled with two-thirds of the water. In this volume can be up to fifty leeches. It is not recommended to store all 30 leeches in a half-liter jar. Try to create now your leeches comfort, coziness and warmth, and they will surely answer you a hundredfold.

Recommendation four. Change the water in the bank should be as clouded, but at least once or twice a week. Changing the water for a leech is a kind of stress, so try not to change the temperature of the water. The water in which you are going to put the leeches, keep in an open bowl for a day, preferably next to the jar in which your leeches frolic, because they do not tolerate chlorine.

Recommendation Five. It is better for each family member to have his own, personalized can of leeches. Some doctors-girudoterapevty recommend putting the same leech to different patients. Should not be doing that. But you can put one and the same leech to yourself. It is known that the leech produces its useful substances for each blood, it "selects" the special secret of the salivary glands for each person. Therefore, setting the same leech the second time to the same person can bring a greater effect than a new leech. But you'll have to wait a few months until the leech gets hungry.

Just do not use the same leech more than twice. Feeding on your blood, the leech grows, and every new session requires it to drink more of your blood than the previous time. As you already know, the leech consumes three times more blood than it weighs itself, so imagine how much it will drink your blood the third time.

Recommendation Sixth. Each member of the family must independently take care of their leeches, change their water. Leeches are able to feel the mood of their "master", his attitude towards them.

If you care for them gently and carefully, then they will bring you great benefits. Therefore, one should not be in a bad mood to change leeches water. It is not recommended to find out family relationships in the room where leeches are stored. Although, as we know, leeches are able to create a positive atmosphere, and usually scandals in the house where there is a can of leeches, virtually disappear.

The seventh recommendation. Be prepared for the fact that a leech can get sick and even die. And not because you did not take good care of her. Do not be scared, no diseases of leech for a person are dangerous, but the dead leech is best removed from the can. How to identify a dead leech? She will just lie on the bottom of the jar without moving. Get her with tweezers and throw it away.

Do not worry because your leeches are dying. This does not mean that you are bad or your home is bad, just so they give their lives for your health.

Sometimes they die simply because there are a number of substances in the human body that are incompatible with the life of a leech, simply speaking, killing it. The blood of most of us is so polluted with drugs, air, and food that all leeches die after the first three sessions. And only after the first preventive course of hirudotherapy, when the blood is cleared a little, the leeches remain alive.

How to determine the appearance of the leech, is it healthy and ready to provide invaluable help to your health? There are a number of factors that determine the quality of the leech.

First, color. Carefully inspect the leech, for this it is not necessary to pull it out of the jar, let it float. Note whether it is homogeneous.

Secondly, its clean, smooth, even skin. On the body leeches there should be no noticeable damage to the surface layer of the skin. Sores, cuts, holes - all this should make you give up this leech and throw it away.

Thirdly, there should be a pronounced contractile effect. Check its presence is simple: you need to take a leech in your hand and squeeze. The leech must curl up, turn into a lump. If this does not happen, this leech is not currently suitable for staging. This advice, of course, is acceptable for professionals, and only if there is a corresponding doubt. The person who sees a leech for the first time, it is difficult to take it in his hands, he should be guided by the first two signs.

Specialists determine the leech's readiness for feeding simply: they lower their hand to the jar where the leeches float, moving their fingers. If the leeches rush to the hand, then it's time to feed them. But if they do not react to your hand, let them swim for a few more days.

And if one day a miracle happens and you find that the leeches that floated in the bank became bigger, do not be surprised. Sometimes it happens. This shows only that the leeches in your apartment are nice and comfortable.

You may find it strange to ask such a question: why does the uninitiated in the secrets of a leech need a person to get acquainted with all the centuries-old positive experience of hirudotherapy? Why would he know that there are leeches that do not stick? This is necessary primarily in order not to harm your health. Whether you will put leeches at home or in specialized clinics, remember: leeches that can harm you exist. These are wild leeches, which are caught in natural water bodies. Therefore, you should not catch them yourself, or buy from dubious "producers".For treatment, you need a leech grown in an artificial environment.

As you already know, leeches have an incomparable therapeutic and preventive effect. You have never experienced it on yourself, you are a little afraid: after all, the leech bites, and then the blood. .. But you can not wait to survive these feelings, is not it? You are careful not to put your own leeches to yourself, and that's right. Before you do home hirudotherapy, you need to know when, how and to whom you can put leeches, and who absolutely can not.

Home hirudotherapy - an excellent preventive tool - can be recommended for the second and third psychosomatic types.

So, before you decide to yourself or your family to arrange hirudotherapy sessions, carefully read and remember the first thing that you need to pay attention to home girudoterapevtu - contraindications.

So, the contraindications to hirudotherapy are:

pregnancy;

hemophilia( blood incoagulability);

recently conducted treatment with anticoagulants( anti-clotting substances);

chronically lowered blood pressure.

Doctors-girudoterapevty not recommended to be treated by leeches at home because a person is not always aware of some problems of his own organism. But more often so-called "chronicles" are perfectly aware of the state of their health. It is difficult to find a person who does not know that he has hemophilia. But it happens and such. Therefore, if you are not sure if you do not have all of the above contraindications, consult your doctor.

What can happen to you in the worst case, for example, if you, having made sure that you do not suffer from low blood pressure, are engaged in hirudotherapy? The worst thing that happens to you in this case after a hirudotherapy session is light dizziness.

What happens if you recently got out of the hospital, where you were injected with anticoagulants and you, without knowing it, decided to take care of leeches? Blood from the wound will go for several hours longer than usual, it will frighten you, you may seem, as one patient put it, that "it will drain everything."

What happens if you have put yourself a leech, not knowing about pregnancy? Maybe nothing. But the most unexpected consequences are possible, even to the threat of miscarriage.

As for hemophilia, then it's better not to experiment.

Next, what you need to pay attention to home girudoterapevtu and what he needs to remember, this knowledge of the second important point: how much you can put yourself a leech for the first and subsequent times. In the event that this is the first time in your life hirudotherapy, start with three leeches, you can later increase their number, but no more than five to six in one session.

Do you just want to try? Do you have any special g with health? Then prevention will not hurt, especially if the heart beats or "jumps" the pressure. In this case, start with three to four leeches. After the first performance, you can feel some weakness, dizziness, "floating state".In a couple of hours you will feel a state of euphoria, you may think that you are flying, soaring. A very short time will pass, and the leeches will finally "prove" their effectiveness to you: vivacity, energy, good mood will return to you. You will catch yourself on what you want to share with those close to something bright, kind and joyful, filling you from within.

You will want to spend another session, and one more. You will begin to tell others that the treatment with leeches does not do any harm, no negative consequences, no undesirable side effects."Is it really a magic tool?" They will ask you."One continuous benefit! Treats absolutely everything! "- with the confidence of the connoisseur your answer will sound.

But that's exactly what you're wrong about. Do not take the leech as a panacea for all diseases. First of all, medical leech does not heal everything. And then, this amazing "natural healer" is part of a reasonably arranged harmonious nature. Do you think the leech "understands" what helps you? Of course not, but it cures you unconsciously because of a number of inherent biological properties. All the benefits that the leech brings to you, is due to the characteristics of her body, natural biological qualities. The benefits that you receive are a consequence of the benefit to which she herself aspires. You've already guessed what, are not you?

First, she needs to get drunk on your blood, but just enough so as not to harm you, because otherwise, next time you will not allow her to your body. Secondly, she "tries" for the same reason to please you - simply because she herself very much likes to drink your blood. Therefore, the leech "tries" to suck so that it was not very painful, when you bite releasing into your blood anesthetic substances in its saliva.

And now the following happens. Biting your ; y, the leech as if becomes a continuation of the vessel. She needs, first of all, that the blood she absorbs from you does not spoil. To do this, she injects into the wound a whole complex of biological nutrients, which have a positive effect on your entire body.

Are you already afraid of leech? Morally and psychologically prepared themselves for the enormous benefits that the leech will bring to you? Perhaps, even went for certified leeches either to the center of artificial breeding, or to a pharmacy. Bank with leeches is on the windowsill. You come to them. They, seeing you, "rejoice", are eager to meet you. You smile, trust them with your health, start to roll up your sleeves. ..

Before you run your hands into the jar and catch leeches, read half a page, otherwise you may be in for some trouble. The biggest of which is this: leeches will stick to your hand. And you, not knowing how to remove them, will wave your hand, yelp at the whole house, even try to tear off leeches from yourself. But this can not be done in any case. While the leech is not full, it will not leave you for anything. Knowing this, girudoterapevty invented a simple method of removing them: just give a sniff blood pump a small swab soaked in iodine, and the leech will immediately fall off.

But there is another important point: where will fall off and how will it fall off? Potolstevshaya from your kroviapivka fall to Iol, will try to crawl somewhere, leaving behind a bloody trail, and you will try, with the same screams and screams to seize her elusive body. This is not a very pleasant development of events will not follow, if you all do as you memorize the basic recommendations for setting leeches.

The largest center for artificial leech breeding today is the International Medical Leech Center, located in the village Udelnaya, Moscow region. The work of the center is described in detail in GI Nikonov's book Medical Leech. Fundamentals of hirudotherapy ", which was published in 1998.

Employees of the research laboratory of this center are working intensively to improve the technological process. Production facilities, where they produce, store and store finished products, medical leeches, occupy today 2200 square meters. The production is certified according to GMP standards. In addition to specialized production facilities that are designed for the cultivation of leeches, there is a research laboratory, a shop for the initial processing of medical leeches, and an experimental shop for keeping leeches in the period between the laying of cocoons.

All production is equipped with the latest scientific and technical equipment. The research laboratory has everything necessary to address issues related to the modernization of the technology of growing leeches in artificial conditions, its employees study the biologically active substances produced by medical leeches, create medicinal and cosmetic preparations based on them, popularize the methods of hirudotherapy. The shop for the primary processing of medical leeches is equipped with freezers, freeze drying, homogenizers and other modern equipment. There are also technical workshops of water supply, packaging, transport and other production services in the Center. The accredited laboratory of the quality control department monitors the "finished products".

In addition to the International Medical Leech Center, there are other factories that breed medical leeches. For example, an English factory in IO PHARM.

At the BIOPHARM factory, the technology of breeding leeches in artificially created conditions was developed by Dr. R. Sawyer. He in 1984 established a company that specializes in the cultivation of medical leeches, which are used in clinical practice and pharmacology.

Are conducted on the English "piyavochnoy factory" and some scientific developments. But the practical experience of keeping leeches Hirudo medicinalis is especially interesting. The company started its activity in 1998 with 5 thousand leeches. In 1990 there were about 80 thousand of them. The company receives the largest orders for live leeches from the British public health service. They are used most often in surgery.

The company organized its work in a special way, which enabled it to deliver leeches on the territory of England on the day of the order. Usually doctors-girudoterapevty order them not for the future, but for a specific patient in the amount in which they need it now. Leeches are also supplied abroad. On the basis of BIOPHARM, a number of medications useful for human health are being developed on the basis of a "natural doctor" - leeches. English scientists distinguish from it substances such as hirudin and hyaluronidase.

In the BIOPHARM factory, the technological process of raising leeches resembles the natural conditions of their life. In small rooms, a certain temperature, humidity and lighting are maintained. Leeches, which are grown for sale, are usually kept in closed containers at a temperature of + 11 ° C.For medical purposes, they are used, usually after 5-6 months, before they are forced to starve. Those leeches, the uterus, which are designed to reproduce, are in a warmer room, in small containers lined with moss. In this moss of the uterus and lay cocoons. In each of these containers, as a rule, there are up to 14 newborn leeches.

English leeches are contained in a buffer, in a special saline solution. It is prepared according to a special recipe, specialists are monitoring the maintenance of a constant pH in the buffer. Feed leeches with blood stabilized by heparin.

The French company RECARIMPEX located in the suburbs of Bordeaux, led by Brigitte Latril, is the manufacturer of artificial leavens, the organizer of this "leech production" can organically combine various technological regimes of breeding. In the pine forest there are artificially organized reservoirs where medical leechesspend the bulk of their lives. They mate and multiply in artificially created conditions, in special premises of the firm, at a strict temperatureSG control, the corresponding specific humidity and illumination.

The company successfully successfully combines both natural and artificial conditions of leeches. This leads to a sharp reduction in manual labor and, as a consequence, a decrease in the cost of leeches. The advantage of such a production is also the possibility of free life of medical leeches in natural conditions, so that their therapeutic activity remains with less time for starvation before being used for medicinal purposes.

RECARIMPEX today supplies its products to many countries around the world. The order for the supply of leeches is usually taken by fax, and on the same day leeches are packed in special bags with moss, then in plastic containers they send the nearest flight to the consumer.

As you already know, dear readers, leeches, which are bred in artificially created conditions, were not always treated. Simply because the very technology of breeding leeches in artificially created conditions, popular today, was developed only half a century ago. The authors of this method considered their main task to create conditions under which leeches regularly multiply, develop much faster and earlier become suitable for the treatment of patients. This method was described in 1955 in the book "Medical leech and its application," whose authors, G. G. Schegolev and M. S. Fedorova, write the following: "Large, well-fed leeches, the so-called queens, are housed in pairs in small bankswith water. The mating period lasts about a month. After mating, the queens are transplanted into glass vessels filled with peat, where they lay cocoons. During this period, the room is kept at a high temperature. By the time of maturing cocoons they are placed in the water, where the juveniles are taken out. "If you break the ripe cocoon, you can see a lot of small leeches inside it.

The rupture of the cocoon

The question of whether the leeches grown by this method yield to those that are caught in natural water bodies is controversial. It is hardly worthwhile to compare objectively the medical leech, which is grown under artificial conditions, with the "wild", because the purposes with which they are applied are different. For treatment, as you already know, you need to use only a leech, which is grown under artificial conditions. Such leeches are fed with blood of cattle, which has passed the necessary necessary checks.

When leeches reach a certain size after a number of feedings, they are left for several months without food, then used for therapeutic purposes. Employees are careful to ensure that the water in the jars containing the leeches is clean, as it is contaminated, it is changed to fresh. G. G. Schegolev and M. S. Fedorova also write that the period of cultivation of medical leeches is about a year.

Artificial breeding of leeches has its unconditional advantages: the capture of wild leeches is significantly reduced, the "cleanliness" of the leech is guaranteed, that is, the absence of various infections in it. A certified medical "natural healer" is the protection of a patient against AIDS and hepatitis, with which animals could become infected, which became the last "lunch" for this leech. It is impossible to subject each medical leech caught in natural reservoirs to a biochemical analysis in order to identify infectious diseases, the carrier of which it may be.

Medical leech has a therapeutic effect only if it is in direct contact with the patient's blood. In those leeches that fed in natural water bodies, it is impossible to determine the quality of all the blood they consumed, so there is a possibility of contracting diseases such as AIDS, hepatitis and others.

But there is artificial breeding and its shortcomings. It is unlikely that they will be of interest to a wide range of readers, the range of their research is the interest of the owners of artificial leaven breeding centers, which pursue very noble goals: to increase the number of leeches grown in banks to help as many sick people as possible.

Today, every year there is growing interest in leech from biologists, medics, cosmetologists, pharmacologists, hirudotherapists and businessmen. Scientists argue about which of the technologies for breeding leeches in artificial conditions is better: "canned" or so-called "closed cycle technology".They investigate where and how best to keep and grow leeches. These issues are relevant because the medical leech is an endangered species of the animal kingdom. In 1984, it was listed in the Red Book, and by the decision of the International Committee for the Protection of Species, since 1997, a ban on the catch of these animals from natural reservoirs for mass sale has been introduced.