A Healing Crisis

With natural therapies such as homeopathy, herbal remedies, acupuncture, chiropractic, and other biological therapies, the patient may experience an initial increase in symptoms, or what is known as a 'healing crisis.' This usually lasts around three or four days and can be similar to what one experiences when ill, for example, with a cold or flu.

It may start with a headache, body ache, and occasional fever with perspiration. Or one may just feel very tired and sluggish. Doctors from the old school welcome these symptoms as the initiation of the healing process.

To understand the process, let's look, for example, at the development of a bacterial infection. It may start with a scratchy throat, then develop into other bodily symptoms, including fever. Within a few days, the fever reaches a peak, then slowly drops, along with a decrease in the other bodily symptoms. This is the natural course of the body's healing mechanism.

Naturally, many people, when they are ill with a cold or flu, become impatient, particularly if it lasts longer than a few days, and seek outside intervention. They go to a physician and obtain a prescription for antibiotics.

Antibiotics can be very effective in interrupting the natural cycle of bacterial infections (they are useless against viral infections); however, this interruption is not a true healing, but rather, a suppression of the symptoms.

If the antibiotic kills the microorganisms responsible for the illness, the distressful symptoms subside. The body, though, is now flooded with dead microorganisms. If it has the strength and vitality to detoxify these toxic residuals throughout the kidneys, liver, skin, and intestines, then there is no problem in regaining health. If, however, the body lacks vitality because of poor nutrition or lack of fluid intake (especially clean water), then the body is not able to completely flush out these toxic metabolic wastes, creating a healing crisis.

The storage place for toxic metabolic wastes is primarily the connective tissue, which is present throughout the body. Connective tissue is like glue that holds the body together.

Most people are born with an inherited constitutional weakness in a particular organ system. Following the path of 'least resistance,' the body uses this area first as a storage place. (This is why, when one is ill with a cold or flu, some people experience the symptoms in the stomach, some in the chest, some in the intestines, and others in the muscles or joints. The same microorganisms can cause different symptoms in different people.)

Over a lifetime, regular treatment with antibiotics and other anti-inflammatory drugs can fill this storage place with residual toxins, which can eventually interfere with the function of the particular organ system.

The cells cannot get the nutrition they need or rid themselves of their own metabolic wastes. I like to use the following illustration.

Imagine that a hundred mice invade our house. You proceed to get rid of them by putting out poison. In a very short time the mice are all dead. You now try to locate the hundred dead mice but can only find seventy. Some of them have disappeared into the walls and under the floors, and you just can't seem to find them. What will happen after about two weeks? Your house will begin to reek of the foul odor of decaying mice, which have polluted your house just as dead metabolic wastes from past infections and disease can pollute your body when they cannot be properly eliminated.

Simple illnesses such as colds and the flu are handled in the body by developing a fever. The fever is designed to slowly kill the disease-causing microorganisms. This guarantees that the body does not become overloaded with wastes and can detox slowly and naturally.

The symptoms in a healing crisis are the result of unlocking the toxic storage places and expelling the accumulated toxins from the body. This is the only effective and permanent cure for chronic illnesses and diseases such as rheumatism, bronchial asthma, and allergies which many times are the result of symptomatic treatments.

Of course, during any natural detoxing process, the detoxifying organs such as the lymph system, liver kidneys, intestines, lungs, and skin, may need support with individual selected remedies. Eating a large variety of vegetables, avoiding sweets and decreasing the intake of meat is advisable. If one still feels weak or tires, rest more and cut back on strenuous exercise. Decrease alcohol and stimulant intake. You should also drink plenty of pure, clean water (no tap water,) and avoid stress as much as possible.

Finally, good communication with the doctor is imperative. You should call your doctor if you experience uncomfortable feelings and talk about it. Sometimes with a slight adjustment in the dosage schedule, one can feel better immediately, and the body can get on with healing itself. Remember that the discomfort experienced is only temporary and is the result of the body pulling out old toxins. According the some of the greatest European doctors, the stronger the initial reaction, the more the body really eliminates, pulling at the deep roots of the disease.

It's like removing a splinter from one's hand, to use another analogy. One is able to get along reasonably well with the splinter for quite sometime. Even if it hurts, one can still function. Pulling the splinter our will hurt a little more for a short moment. The short term discomfort, however, is well worth not having the chronic pain.

If there have been many illnesses or diseases, the detox therapy may take the body through a series of regression during which the patient can experience symptoms of each past illness. Should this occur, the patient ought to feel encouraged, rather than discouraged. For the symptoms are a positive indication that the therapy is helping the body to rid itself of all accumulated toxins.

As Albert Schweizer so aptly expressed it, "a good therapy is one that stimulates the healer within."