symptoms Archives - Zenconomics

The Truth About Symptoms

by Author Kevin Donka, DC – ICPA.org:

Early last week, a practice member of mine named Melissa came in for her weekly check-up. I found that she was clear (i.e., didn’t need an adjustment), so I rang the well bell and congratulated her. She got up off the table with a confused look on her face and said, “But I’m sick! How can I be clear when I’m sick? Are you sure I’m clear?”

I asked her what she meant when she said she was “sick.” “Well,” she answered, “I’m congested, I’m coughing and I feel run-down – you know -SICK!” I told her that the problem wasn’t with my assessment of her nerve system, it was with her definition of the word “sick.”

You see, traditional medical thinking calls the presence of symptoms “sickness.” But the truth is that you are sick before the onset of your symptoms. The symptoms are really an indication that your body has accurately recognized an invader or toxin and is actively responding to it by creating a fever, mucus, cough, diarrhea, etc., to eliminate it from your body.

The beginning of symptoms, what we have always called “sickness,” is really your body getting WELL!

Take this short test. If two people go to a restaurant and eat some tainted fish, then one of them throws up within an hour but the other is fine until morning when he also gets sick, which of the two has the stronger and healthier immune system? Most people would say that the second was stronger and healthier because his body was able to tolerate the poisons longer before he “got sick.” But the truth is, the first man has the stronger and healthier immune system because it was able to recognize the invader and start the elimination process sooner than the second man’s was.

The first man started getting well the same night, but the second man didn’t start getting well until the next day!

So, how could Melissa be feeling so poorly and still not need an adjustment? Being “clear” simply means that there is no interference in her nerve system. This means the body is at it highest capacity to heal – it does not mean that healing is complete.

The process is just like cleaning laundry in a washing machine. When the soap and water touch the garments, the grime is loosened, and it rises to the surface. If you were to look in a washing machine during the agitation cycle, you would be repulsed and think that your clothes were actually getting dirtier. But the truth is that they are actually getting cleaner. The thick muck must be extracted and discarded before the clothes are totally clean. If we know the washing machine is working correctly, nothing more needs to be done except to let the cycle complete itself.

Similarly, as your body is “cleaning itself” of toxins and germs, it appears at first as though you are getting worse, but you are actually getting better. If we know your master control system (your nerve system) is working correctly, nothing more needs to be done except to let the cycle complete itself.

Melissa learned a valuable lesson that day about what sickness is and what wellness is. Plus, she already knows enough to trust her body and allow the clearing process to complete itself without any outside interference from medications designed to simply make her feel better. She knows that these things only stop her body’s own natural elimination and healing processes.

Hopefully you too now know the difference between getting sick and getting well. Know to trust your body and allow the natural process of healing to occur when it needs to. And finally, make sure you continue to live your life in a way that not only prevents sickness, but also actually creates health, happiness and wholeness

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

How Big Pharma Disease Mongering Works

submitted by jwithrow.

To this day, a central disease-mongering tactic is to attach long, clinical-sounding names to what used to be seen as trivial, transient health problems. In most cases, the new, formidable names come complete with acronyms, which add even more gravitas.

How Big Pharma disease-mongering works:

– Occasional heartburn becomes “gastroesophageal reflux disease” or GERD
– Shyness becomes “social anxiety disorder” or SAD
– Restlessness due to boredom becomes “attention deficit hyperactivity disorder” or ADHD
– Fidgeting legs become “restless leg syndrome” or RLS
– Premenstrual tension becomes “premenstrual dysphoric disorder” or PMDD

The most famous example is from the 1920’s when, according to advertising scholar James Twitchell, the maker of Listerine mouthwash began to associate bad breath with the obscure medical term “halitosis”. Of course Listerine was marketed as the sole cure for this dreaded disease and revenues grew from $115,000 to more than $8 million in less than a decade.

Pharmaceuticals are designed only to treat the symptoms rather than to cure the underlying problems. Rather than drugs, the best remedies are almost always lifestyle modifications: eat healthier, exercise more, reduce stress, sleep eight hours a night.

True, the U.S. population has become very sickly but there are very logical reasons for this. A corrupted food culture featuring cheap, processed carbs and unnatural fats; sedentary screen-addicted lifestyles; chronic sleep deprivation; and other divergences from our evolutionary past have made diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and other “diseases of civilization” skyrocket.

Symptoms Are Not the Problem

by Susan M. Brown, D.C. – ICPA:

I’ve had people say to me “I know you don’t want to hear about my symptoms, but…..” Enough people have said it lately that I thought an explanation of my view of symptoms was in order. It’s not that I don’t want to hear about symptoms or that you can’t tell me what they are, I just view them so differently.

The current view of health holds that if we have symptoms, we are sick and if we are without symptoms then we are healthy. And so much of modem health care, especially that which is medical in its approach, is geared toward ridding the individual of their symptoms. Some of the sickest people are symptom free. They just don’t feel anything. Their bodies are so impacted with toxins and stress and injury (emotional and physical) that they have shut down. So lack of symptoms does not necessarily prove to be a healthy individual. As the reverse can also be true. A person with symptoms is not necessarily “sick”.

Now at first, ridding the system of symptoms seems like a wonderful, noble thing. At least until you start to consider how the body functions. Many of the symptoms people experience are actually signs that the body is healing and stopping those symptoms can inhibit the healing process. For example, a normal fever rise is the body’s first line of defense against infection. Temperature goes up, which increases the body’s activity and signals the immune system to ‘turn on”. When we take something to decrease the temperature it compromises the body’s natural healing response.

When we ingest something that the body considers to be toxic, nausea and diarrhea are healthy responses. When a joint is injured the body gives us pain to let us know to be careful, to avoid using it and re-injuring it. It swells to provide a natural splint to the area to protect the injured joint and gets hot as the body increases the circulation to repair and heal the injured tissue. The runny nose we get at the change of seasons is the body sluffing off the old respiratory lining, much like the trees sluff off their leaves and animals sluff off winter coats.

Every symptom our body lovingly gives us is a message. The body can only speak to us in two ways, pain or pleasure, discomfort or comfort, ease or dis-ease. The words it speaks to let us know it is working or not working are what we have defined as symptoms. A heart that aches after years of abuse will signal us with chest pains. A stomach will flare up with an ulcer to let us know that we have let life get too stressful, that it is too much to bear. Our pulse will race with the anxiety forcing us to face the fears that have built up in our bodies.

When symptoms occur, when our body is trying its best to communicate with us, do we listen to what it is trying to say? Or do we just try to shut it up, quite down or stop the symptoms. Do we ignore the body’s only voice and try to “shut it up” like putting our hand over the mouth of a screaming child. If our intention is just to stop the symptoms, then we miss the gift. It’s not that I don’t want to hear about the symptoms, it’s that my intention is not to treat them or silence them, it is to acknowledge them with something far greater than talking about them.

My purpose and intent is to turn on the power of the body so that it can heal, and can integrate the experiences of life. Sometimes when the body is in flow with life it has no symptoms and sometimes it does. Sometimes we feel great, sometimes we feel the process of healing happening and sometimes we feel our body telling us that a change is definitely in order.

Life is a process not an event and so is healing. When your body is speaking, listen to what it is saying, acknowledge it and answer it. Educate yourself as to the processes of the body so that you can help it to heal and understand the messages it is giving you. I think the body’s wisdom will amaze you and if you both listen and respond, the conversations you have will surely enlighten you.