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Don't Fight The
Healing Processs
By Jimmy Scott, Ph.D.
As published
in Health Freedom News, November 1985
In the course of following a nutritional program for
allergies or other problems, many people experience uncomfortable symptoms.
This is known as a healing reaction.
The most common symptom my clients report is a temporary reduction in energy.
They may find themselves sleeping longer, perhaps as much as 12 hours a
night. Some people also report aches and pains in various parts of the body,
digestive system disturbances such as gas, constipation, or diarrhea, or
other miscellaneous complaints.
These symptoms occur because the body is ridding itself of the substances
that have been making it toxic — not only the materials that have
accumulated in the colon, but also the antibodies and other substances that
have built up in the individual cells, interfering with their normal
functioning. As these substances are ejected out of the tissues, they are
dumped into the system, making the body temporarily more toxic until they can
be excreted. This is partly what produces the symptoms of the healing
reaction. This effect is accentuated by the body's process of tearing apart
defective tissue, repairing damaged cells, destroying parasites or infective
agents, and otherwise producing debris from the re-construction.
I find that the more severe the individual's condition (the more toxic his or
her body is), the stronger will be the healing reaction. Because the healing
reaction is caused by the flushing of toxins Out of the cells, the strength
of the reaction also depends on how carefully the individual is following the
recommended nutritional program. The more correctly the program is followed,
the stronger will be the healing reaction.
Why
Old Symptoms Come Back
Often in the course of the healing process old symptoms
temporarily reappear. Why should people have to go back through these old
problems in the course of getting better? I believe that the specific
symptoms that a person experiences at any given time depend on the balance
among the various biochemical substances in the body. For example, when a
person is perfectly healthy there is a certain ratio between Substance A and
Substance B in the tissues. When this ratio gets out of balance to a certain
degree, the person may feel fatigue; when the imbalance is greater, a
headache may occur; when it is greater still, the person may develop
insomnia, and so on.
One reason people must re-experience symptoms as they get healthier is that
in order to progress from, say, a 100:1 imbalance to a 1:1 balance, they have
to go back through 99:1, 98:1, and so forth, and as they go through each
phase they experience the symptoms associated with that particular level of
imbalance.
Biochemist John Eck has pursued a similar line of thought in his research on
mineral nutrients. Using hair analysis Eck has suggested the optimal levels
for some of the principal minerals in the body. On the basis of the ratios
among these minerals, Eck is able to estimate how efficiently the thyroid and
adrenal glands are functioning, and hence to predict an individual's
metabolic energy level.
Of course in actuality a person's symptoms would not depend on the ratio
between just two substances, but among hundreds of different things. If a
person gets stuck at some level he will get stuck in the symptoms for that
level. This helps to explain the basis of the chronic illnesses from which so
many people suffer.
I like to picture the healing process as going up a flight of stairs. At the
top of the stairs, the energy is balanced, all the nutrients are present in
their proper ratios, and the body is functioning properly. When someone's
health begins to deteriorate, he moves down the stairs, and at each step
along the way he experiences a specific kind of symptom —perhaps less
energy at one step, headaches a little further down, an ulcer still further,
and so on. As the body begins to heal itself once again, the person begins to
move back up the stairs, and re-experiences the symptoms associated with
these various levels of health.
The experience of one of my clients illustrates how difficult the healing
process can be. When Mona first came to my office, she hobbled along on a
cane, moving with difficulty and in constant pain. Her arthritis had
developed rapidly, and she looked ten years older than she was. In spite of
the hopeless prognosis she had received from numerous health professionals,
Mona was a fighter and was determined to overcome her affliction. Her high
motivation helped her to follow closely the program we worked out for her.
Now, only a year later, Mona is almost over her arthritis. She threw away her
cane months ago.
This transformation was not an easy process, however. In the course of
healing her body, Mona experienced a lengthy series of symptoms, which most
people, unaware of the healing process, would have interpreted as getting
sicker. Mona had very low energy for a long time. At times she had severely
swollen ankles, feet, and legs. She hobbled even more, for a while, than
originally! She had an assortment of aches and pains which would drive most
people to their physician for pain killers and tranquilizers. She had been
warned, however, that she would re-experience many symptoms from years
before, and soon she discovered that as these symptoms abated the affected body
part became as good as new.
Drugs that Block Pain may also
Block Healing
Experiencing such healing reactions can be very distressing
for many people, because we are taught in our society that symptoms are
somehow bad. Although it is tempting to take pain killers, antihistamines, or
other drugs when uncomfortable symptoms occur in the course of healing, it is
very important to follow the prescribed program correctly and to do nothing
to interfere with the healing process. If in the past an individual went
through a period of pain, as he heals he may go back through a period of
pain. Taking pain killers or other drugs at this point to relieve the
symptoms actually prolongs the discomfort.
You see, aspirin and antihistamines work by blocking the prostaglandins
— chemical substances found throughout the body which regulate many
bodily functions and metabolic processes. Generally the prostaglandins work
in opposing pairs. One, for example, may produce inflammation and swelling in
response to a specific stimulus, while another undoes these reactions. When a
person takes aspirin or an antihistamine to stop an uncomfortable reaction,
he may not experience the pain or inflammation, but he also does not get the
healing process that undoes the reason for the pain and inflammation. He has
achieved a stalemate rather than a cure.
One of my clients, Alice, has had many years' history of pain, and is now
going through a lot of healing reactions, including “spasms” in
her digestive system. Although I have explained to Alice that she must go
back through her painful symptoms in order to be cured, she insists that
something must be wrong. When she has pain, she stops taking her supplements
and uses medication to reduce her spasm. It is a real dilemma for her because
she really is in pain and she believes that it is not good to experience
pain. Unfortunately, by blocking the pain with an inappropriate medication
she is keeping herself from getting healed. And so she is going back and
forth, keeping herself at precisely the level where she is bound to have the
pain
Some Natural Ways to Ease Healing
Reactions
When healing reactions are very troublesome, we can
usually do something to help. Some herbal remedies relieve symptoms without interfering
with the healing process. For example, white willow bark contains a different
chemical form of salicylic acid than aspirin, so that it blocks only the
inflammation chain of the prostaglandins and not the healing chain. This
illustrates why natural substances are preferable to synthetic drugs in the
long run.
The dosage of certain supplements can also be adjusted to slow down the rate
at which the healing process takes place. When my clients have uncomfortably
strong healing reactions, I cut down on the dosage of some of their tissue
extracts. This slows down the healing process. The uncomfortable symptoms are
less intense, but the healing process is also more prolonged. As the person's
body becomes detoxified, we can once again increase the tissue extract dosage
until it is being taken at optimal dosage.
I have also found that certain energy techniques, related to the methods of
Applied Kinesiology, can help to balance the body's energy quickly, so that
the individual can go through the healing process with a minimum of
discomfort. These energy techniques are part of a system I have developed
called Symbiotic Energy Transformation™ (SET), which I am teaching in
workshops to my fellow health professionals.
When a person is experiencing a healing reaction, he may be worried that he
is getting worse, rather than getting better. By observing the timing and
sequence of the symptoms, and by using energy testing techniques, I am able
to determine what is going on. If the person is undergoing a healing reaction,
he should be reassured with the explanation that the uncomfortable symptoms
are a sign that he is moving up to a higher level of health. The skillful
practitioner will be able to determine that healing is taking place rather
than some “disease process.
Other Articles:
Clinical
Research Abstracts on Muscle Testing
Protecting Our Lives and Affairs
How You Can Do So Many Bad Things to Yourself
and Still Function
Identifying and Locating a Qualified
Alternative Practitioner
Health Kinesiology™: What is
the HK™ Difference?
Muscle Testing for Allergies, Part 1
Muscle Testing for Allergies, Part 2
You May Have Hidden Allergies
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