You may feel worse before you begin to feel better...
The Road To Better Health may begin with a Healing Crisis
As you move toward better health with natural healing programs and better nutrition, healing begins to occur. As part of the healing process the body will begin to discard toxic residues which have built up in your body over the years. The healing process usually does not occur without repercussions. During the initial phase of healing, as your body begins to clean house, (detoxify) and your vital energy begins to repair and rebuild internal organs, you may experience headache, uneasiness, flu like symptoms and fatigue. It is important that you adequately rest during this time. These symptoms will pass as your body begins to normalize to a new level of health. As you continue to improve, you may begin a process called retracing. You may feel worse before you feel better. For example, if you used to get skin rashes, the rashes may reappear or get worse for a period of time as your body eliminates toxins through the skin. You may also experience an initial increase in urination, or you may feel more nervous. In actuality, you are not getting worse, you are actually getting better. Eventually you will reach a plateau of better health. During the healing crisis, it is important to not suppress these temporary symptoms with drugs or the healing process may become interrupted.
Understanding The Healing Crisis
Ginger Chalford, Ph.D
The body has an inherent desire for perfect health. We have the ability to earn our way back to that state, no matter how "normal" or bad our health is now. But in the meantime, the body must go through an elimination process to achieve good health. The elimination process is often referred to as the "healing crisis." Once the healing crisis starts, reactions may be mild or severe. Expect ups and downs as it takes awhile to get good health back.
In a healing crisis, every body system works together to eliminate waste products and set the stage for regeneration. Old tissues are replaced with new. A disease occurs when the body cannot make it through its natural healing crises for one reason or another. The body is "locked" into a destructive and shut down place, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
Symptoms of the healing crisis may at first be identical to the disease it is meant to heal. But there is an important difference: elimination. A cleansing, purifying process is underway and stored wastes are in a free-flowing state. The body, mind, and spirit are no longer "locked." Sometimes pain and symptoms during the healing crisis are more intense than that of the chronic disease, but it is temporary and necessary.
The crisis will usually bring about past conditions and personal issues. People often forget the diseases, issues, or injuries they have had in the past, but are usually reminded during the crisis so that they can heal their unfinished business. This arises in whatever order the body is capable of handling at that time.
Physical reactions could include skin eruptions, nausea, headache, sleepiness, unusual fatigue, constipation, diarrhea, head or chest cold, ear infections, boils, or any other way the body uses to loosen and eliminate toxins. An initial healing crisis usually lasts around three days but if the energy of the patient is low, it may last a week or more.
Your body needs juices, and especially water to help carry off the toxins. This is a time for rest. Be kind to yourself --- mentally, emotionally, and of course physically.
One crisis is not always enough for a complete cure. The person in a chronic "locked" disease state will often have to go through cycles of healing crises, with each one improving the condition some. It has taken time to develop a chronically diseased state, and time is required to let go of the "locked" energy, piece by piece. It's like peeling the layers off an onion.
Often the crisis will come after one feels their very best and most energized, setting the stage for the elimination. The whole body gets into action. Most people feel an energy boost at the beginning until the toxins start dumping into the blood stream for elimination. Go as slowly as your body needs so your elimination is gradual and comfortable.
With a more serious condition, there may be many small crisis to go through before the system can become healthily balanced. Everything must be considered and given its proper place in the build-up to a healing crisis. One should expect it and work with the body, not resentfully against it.
A healing crisis is also known as the Herxheimer Reaction which occurs when the body is detoxifying too rapidly and toxins are being released faster than the body can eliminate them. A healing crisis can result from any holistic/natural therapy such as homeopathy, naturopathy, improved diet, etc.
Hering’s Law of Cure
Constantine Hering, M.D. (1800-1880) observed that healing occurs in a consistent pattern. He described this pattern in the form of three basic laws which homeopaths can use to recognize that healing is occurring. This pattern has been recognized by acupuncturists for hundreds of years and is also used by practitioners of herbalism and other healing disciplines.
According to the first of Hering's laws, healing progresses from the deepest part of the organism - the mental and emotional levels and the vital organs - to the external parts, such as skin and extremities.
Hering's second law states that, as healing progresses, symptoms appear and disappear in the reverse of their original chronological order of appearance. Homeopaths have consistently observed that their patients re-experience symptoms from past conditions.
According to Hering's third law, healing progresses from the upper to the lower parts of the body. For instance, a person is considered to be on the mend if the arthritic pain in his neck has decreased although he now has pain in his finger joints.
As the symptoms change in accordance with Hering's Law, it is common for individual symptoms to become worse than they had been before treatment. If healing is truly in progress, the patient feels stronger and generally better in spite of the aggravation. Before long, the symptoms of the aggravation pass, and leave the person healthier on all levels. (more on Herring's Law of cure)
Sadly, most conventional medical doctors treat each symptom as a unique and unconnected phenomenon. A person's skin rash generally would be treated with cortisone, thus suppressing it,and, possibly, reactivating the person's asthma. The mentally ill person's new physical symptom is also suppressed, leading to a relapse of the mental illness.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A HEALING CRISIS AND ILLNESS?
There are symptoms during a healing crisis that may be confused with illness but the difference is that these symptoms are short in duration and move from one part of the body to another, from inside out and from top to bottom. There is usually a lack of appetite and may be a fever. Illness is a very different scenario where one or more of the organs are not working well, causing toxic build up of waste material that can't get out. There is fear during illness, a feeling of being out of control as opposed to the prevailing feeling during a healing crisis that underneath all the symptomology everything is working just the way it should and everything is really OK. The reversal process is another part of the healing crisis. It is necessary to revisit each step the body has been through that brought it to its current state of dis-ease. People learn from an early age that symptoms are bad and should be stopped or suppressed
Power Healing Leo Galland, MD
Filled with practical advise on detecting unsuspected causes of our sicknesses, building resistance to disease, and harnessing our own bodies’ natural desire to heal, Dr. Galland’s innovative book represents mind/body medicine at its best. For those whose illnesses haven’t responded to treatment or resist diagnoses, or for anyone who craves a high level of health, Power Healing is essential reading.
"After my fourth cleanse, every scare or cut that I had in my lifetime, some over 20 years ago, suddenly opened and closed again. This time they closed with pearl white pure clean skin...and once healed the scars themselves disappeared too. Probably what happen was when they occurred my body and cells were not clean, but now the body was healthy enough to recognize that it was carrying around sick, dirty skin and decided to throw it out for good."
"Herpes was a problem I had prior to cleansing. During my second and third fasts I had tremendous outbreaks. Two more healing crises after that and since then they've become a thing of the past." Excerpted from: New Age Alternative Health Care - Helping People Survive Online
Why "Cures" Sometimes Fail
by Dr. Leo Roy, M.D., N.D.
There are obstacles, barriers and impediments to healing. Failing to consider obstacles to healing is possibly the most under-considered and neglected aspect to getting well. Not considering these obstacles sets us up to have potential cures fail, even those that are the most perfect and effective treatments, those that are most perfectly programmed to all our healing needs. Healing isn't always simple, easy, painless or automatic. Problems arise from many factors of which you are likely not aware.