Author Topic: Re: Alexandra and her Health Part 2  (Read 161028 times)

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Offline clockworkgirl21

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Re: Re: Alexandra and her Health Part 2
« Reply #225 on: July 30, 2008, 02:00:06 AM »
I think everyone has a little bit of OCD! Personally, I have to do things in threes. I was also taken to a doctor once because when I was little, I would wash my hands so much they were raw.

Anyway, I think Alix was just very tight, as a way of putting it. Some people can't stand having anything out of place or messed up.
Here are other threads concerning her mental/physical health.

http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php?topic=7774.0
http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php?topic=4247.0
http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php?topic=7649.0
http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php?topic=7327.0
http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php?topic=7791.0
http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php?topic=2999.0
http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php?topic=5160.0
http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php?topic=5453.0
http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php?topic=4196.0
http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php?topic=1698.0
http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php?topic=1233.0

It's a very popular topic.

Offline Holly

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Re: Re: Alexandra and her Health Part 2
« Reply #226 on: July 30, 2008, 06:50:43 PM »
No one is 'mentally stable'. We all have our quirks. She was an overprotective mother and tended to worry a lot. A lot of women have the same qualities that she had.
"Господь им дал дар по молитвам их размягчать окаменелые наши сердца за их страдания..Мне думается, что если люди будут молиться Царской Cемье, оттают сердца с Божией помощью."

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Offline Michael HR

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Re: Re: Alexandra and her Health Part 2
« Reply #227 on: July 31, 2008, 03:57:47 AM »
Greetings,

It sounds like she liked to be in control along with her known distaste of waste/unnecessary costs etc. AF was very frugal and maybe the checking of everything was a part of that along with a smattering of insecurity.

I remember a scene in Nicholas and Alexandra which came to mind when a member mentioned the moving of icons. In the film Alexandra does the same thing but says something like she is worried that they are not in the right order and, therefore, one assumes would displease God. I could easily believe that from the Empress as her prayers were for Alexis and it would have been important for her to feel she was doing things correctly.  Perhaps she thought the order of things was necessary for her prayers to be heard?

Of course it also kept her busy and perhaps she did not want idle time for herself

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Offline amartin71718

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Re: Re: Alexandra and her Health Part 2
« Reply #228 on: August 06, 2008, 05:57:35 PM »
How did they treat Alexandra's ear infection if antibiotics didn't really exist in the early 1900's?
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Russka Princess

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Re: Re: Alexandra and her Health Part 2
« Reply #229 on: August 07, 2008, 01:58:12 AM »
i knew, where she was older, she has hear-problems. the children and Nicky must speak loud, so that she can understand them
« Last Edit: April 29, 2009, 10:29:14 AM by Alixz »

Lalee

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Re: Re: Alexandra and her Health Part 2
« Reply #230 on: August 07, 2008, 04:24:52 AM »
That's interesting. I had no idea she had trouble hearing..

Offline nena

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Re: Re: Alexandra and her Health Part 2
« Reply #231 on: August 07, 2008, 07:29:57 AM »
Really? Never heard something like that.

Also, in later years, she had problems with walking. Is that true? Poor Empress!
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Lalee

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Re: Re: Alexandra and her Health Part 2
« Reply #232 on: August 07, 2008, 08:04:50 AM »
Really? Never heard something like that.

Also, in later years, she had problems with walking. Is that true? Poor Empress!

Yes, it is. She often had problems with walking and was sometimes meant to stay in a wheelchair. She suffered from sciatica.

Alix's health was never really that good.

Russka Princess

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Re: Re: Alexandra and her Health Part 2
« Reply #233 on: August 07, 2008, 12:25:49 PM »
 the poor Tsarina, that is the reason why because Nicky do the most walks with his children.
« Last Edit: April 29, 2009, 10:30:13 AM by Alixz »

archaeologistwanna-be

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Re: Re: Alexandra and her Health Part 2
« Reply #234 on: November 24, 2008, 09:40:26 AM »
Did Alexandra take drugs? If so, what?

Robert_Hall

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Re: Re: Alexandra and her Health Part 2
« Reply #235 on: November 24, 2008, 02:10:50 PM »
It has been mentioned in several sources that both N&A took cocaine & opium. This is NOT a negative comment, as these substances were perfectly acceptable medicines at that time. No doubt, Alexei had some pretty strong stuff as well, considering his medical condition.

Offline Forum Admin

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Re: Re: Alexandra and her Health Part 2
« Reply #236 on: November 24, 2008, 03:59:36 PM »
Spiridovich also comments on the doctors prescribing unnamed medicines for Alexandra's "nervous condition".

Offline Tdora1

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Re: Re: Alexandra and her Health Part 2
« Reply #237 on: November 24, 2008, 04:17:36 PM »
Alix was a regular taker of the first generation of barbiturate tranquilizers. Which, interestingly, seemed to exacerbate her myriad physical health problems - notably with her sofa-sitting, her complaints of 'heart cramps' and the lameness which was severe enough that even during her engagement, Nicolas had to push her around the streets of Windsor in a bath-chair.

As well as stress and emotional excitement setting of the symptoms, barbiturates are considered the most dangerous precursor of an attack and are thus absolutely contraindicated for porphyria - the hereditary inborn error of metabolism which it is believed was passed down from George III to many of his children (one explanation for the reason his daughters were so discouraged from marrying and for the perception that madness was a given amongst monarchs due to the British Hanoverian experiences) - and almost certainly to Vicky's daughter Charlotte (sister of Kaiser Wilhelm II - see the discussion of this theory in the book "Purple Secret, discussed in some detail in her thread here) and her daughter Feodora of Reuss.

Alexandra's lameness was traditionally blamed on a childhood accident stepping though the glass panes of a plant nursery. Hmm. Her cousin, Queen Maud of Norway, was unable to walk down the aisle of the Trondheim cathedral for her coronation in the 1900's despite not having any permanently obvious source or reason for such a disability. Her sister Princess Louise also suffered vague and ill-defined cripplingly bad health throughout her life.

Alix and Nicholas were adamant that Alexei not be given opiate painkillers such as morphine for the agonies he suffered from the bleeding into his joints - for fear of addiction, to their minds a particularly scary prospect for a future ruler given the not-so-distance experiences of George IV and William IV and the damage it had caused to the reputation of monarchy. It is therefore unlikely that Alix took opiates regularly.
« Last Edit: April 29, 2009, 09:44:41 AM by Alixz »
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Offline Tdora1

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Re: Re: Alexandra and her Health Part 2
« Reply #238 on: November 24, 2008, 04:23:38 PM »
Just remembered- the name of Alix's pet pill was Veronal
Acts of injustice done
Between the setting and the rising sun
In history lie like bones, each one.

W.H. Auden The Ascent of F6

historyfan

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Re: Re: Alexandra and her Health Part 2
« Reply #239 on: November 24, 2008, 09:40:01 PM »
It almost sounds to me like a neurological disorder.  My father suffers from such a disorder, similar to multiple sclerosis, and while he has not had days (yet) that he cannot walk, he has plenty where walking is very difficult.  Heavy-metal (ie lead) poisoning is a contributing factor.

Wow.  Wouldn't it be interesting to know exactly *what* she suffered from.  Not the symptoms, but the condition(s).
« Last Edit: April 29, 2009, 09:45:39 AM by Alixz »