Intercessory prayer and ferritin and hemoglobin in major thalassemia: a pilot study

Intercessory prayer [IP] is one of the newly recognized holistic treatment methols and its effectiveness has been documented on the mangement of difterent diseases such as coronary heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and infertility. This study aims to d etemine its effectiveness on ferritin and blood indices of major thalassemic patients. This was an interventionaI study assessing seven patients attending an outpatient clinic receing IP in addition to their routine treatment. In all IP was performed 5.56 times for each patient as close-Iaying of hands and 6 times as remote IP. Before the study, the mean hemoglobin was 9.7 mg/dI, which increased to 10.8 afterwards [P = 0.028]. Mean serum ferritin was 2246.8 before the intervention which decreased to 1680.8 afterwards. Blood transfusion interval doubled in four patients. Dizziness and fatigue, which were reported by two patients before intervention, disappeared afterwards. Three patienis reporled an improvement in their school penfllrmance after the study. This pilot study showed that intercessory prayer was effectlve in increasing hemoglobin and transfusion interval, decreasing ferritin and improving school performance in patients with major thalassemia. A larger randomized trlal is suggested corfirm the results

[Influence of intercessory praying on clinical signs and diagnostic findings of patients with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome]

Background: carpal tunnel syndrome [CTS] is the most common entrapment neuropathy with annual cost of about one billion. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of intercessory prayer in the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome

Methods and materials: in this cross sectional interventional study, patients with electrophysiologically- confirmed diagnosis of CTS had inclusion criteria during 2005 autumn underwent intercessory praying. They were evaluated for subjective symptoms with [VAS 10 cm], objective signs and electrodiagnostic parameters before and 6 weeks after a three-week intercessory praying

Results: 12 patients with 23 hands were enrolled. At 6 weeks after the end of the therapy, subjective symptoms, phalen. reverse phalen and electro diagnostic findings [Median DSL and DML] showed significant changes. [CI 95%. P< 0.05]. Tinel test and Flick Sign, had no statisticaIly significant changes [P >0.05]. About 47/8 of cases cured completely and the others changed so much; however; there were no statistically significant changes in CTS grades in Chi square test. It May be due to the patients low count. 74.99% of patients were satisfied or highly satisfied with the therapy

Conclusion: we recommended that intercessory praying [IP] should be considered as a cost - effective. non invasive, low side effect treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome. It deserves to be studied more with enough patient sampling