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Internal, External, and neither External nor Internal causes (Miscellaneous). Internal Causes of Disease: Emotional Disharmony "The view of the internal organs as physical-mental-emotional spheres of influence is one of the most important aspects of Chinese medicine. Central to this is the concept of Qi as a matter-energy that gives rise to physical or mental and emotional phenomena at the same time. Thus, in Chinese Medicine, body, mind and emotions are an integrated whole with no beginning or end. 1 While Western Medicine also recognizes the interaction between body and emotions, it does so in a completely different way than Chinese Medicine. Western Medicine tends to consider the influence of the emotions on the organs as having a secondary or excitatory role rather than being a primary causative factor of disease. Chinese Medicine sees the emotions as an integral and inseparable part of the sphere of action of the internal organs, and a potential primary cause of disease. In fact, the seven potential "internal causes" of disease in Chinese Medicine are all "emotions"." In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) the emotions are not "good" or "bad", they simply are part of being human and alive. There are good reasons to feel fear at times, to be angry, to worry, to feel joy, to feel grief and sadness. These feelings are indicators of our personal and collective relationship with the world and ourselves. In optimal health, our emotions flow freely, are acknowledged, responded to appropriately, and then we move on to the next "feeling". Disharmony and illness only arise when we become "stuck" in our emotions, try to ignore or suppress them. In my clinical practice many clients have come to attribute these "stuck" emotional issues as the primary cause of many diseases, including digestive, respiratory and sexual disorders, colitis/IBS, migraines, hypertension, skin disorders, depression and anxiety. These disorders do need to be addressed at a physical level, but until the underlying emotional issues are resolved/released we do not seem to be able to fully heal. There is a direct relationship between the emotional life of a person and their physical health. Each organ is associated with a range of emotions. These Organs dominate the expression of particular emotions and they are in turn affected by these same emotions. The emotions exert a negative influence only when they become too intense, strong, unexpressed, excessive or when they dominate the psyche over a long period. The Chinese recognize seven emotions: anger, joy, pensiveness, grief, fear, and shock. The seventh varies according to the source, but it can be sadness, anxiety (anxiety is thoughts that go round and round, which may shade into worry or be a form of fright or fear). Sadness is closely associated with grief so is best left with that. Fear and fright are closely associated and can be left as one emotion. As for anxiety, it can shade into fear or pensiveness and could be grouped with either of these according to its associated symptoms.
Whatever emotion is selected as the seventh, these emotions should not be interpreted too strictly. Most of the emotions after a long time can produce Fire, because they cause Stagnation of Qi and when Qi is compressed over a period it creates Fire. This may produce signs of Empty Heat, great anxiety and depression. Although Herbal Therapy, Acupuncture, and Asian Bodywork Therapy are definitely appropriate for mental/emotional disharmonies, a body centred psychotherapist may also be instrumental in resolving long-standing emotional disharmony. Shock or Fright Shock scatters the Qi and affects both the Kidneys and the Heart and to a certain extent, the Small Intestine. The Qi of the Heart is weakened rapidly, leading to palpitations, breathlessness and insomnia, and requires Kidney-Essence to support it. This puts a strain on the Kidneys, and tonification of the Kidneys helps. Fear An appropriate sense of instinctive fear is necessary for survival. Fear makes the Qi descend and affects the Kidneys. Excessive or prolonged fear drains the Kidneys. It can also suppress Qi. Fear has a different impact on adults and children. In children, fear causes Qi to descend, resulting in nocturnal enuresis (bedwetting). In adults, fear tends to cause Kidney-Yin deficiency. To some extent, Fear also disturbs the Heart, leading to anxiety. The Kidneys have to be strengthened. Anger Anger affects the Liver and makes the Qi rise. Anger includes several related emotions: resentment, repressed anger, irritability, frustration, rage, indignation, animosity and bitterness. Sulking and depression are also forms of anger (depression is blocked anger), frustration lies between anger and depression. In depression due to repressed anger or resentment, the tongue is dark red or red and dry. Anger is sometimes necessary to exert one's authority. However, excessive and inappropriate anger causes Stagnation of Liver-Qi or Liver-Blood, the rising of LiverYang or Liver-Fire (which may cause Heart-Fire). These will cause symptoms in the head and neck such as headaches (the most common symptom), tinnitus, dizziness, red blotches in the front of the neck, red face, red tongue and a bitter taste. Anger can also affect the Stomach and Spleen, causing indigestion and other problems: this is the pattern of Liver invading the Spleen or the Stomach. If depression feels better after exercise, it is a Liver depression. Joy Joy slows down the Qi and affects the Heart. In general, joy is beneficial. Being at peace and filled with happiness calms and slows the Qi. Pleasure and excitement are other forms of joy. Pleasure is moderate joy, and it allows the Qi to settle and sink. Excitement scatters the Qi or slows it down. What are damaging are overexcitement and an abnormal degree of mental stimulation, both forms of excessive joy. It is not, however, an important or common cause of Heart disharmonies.
Worry and Pensiveness Pensiveness means excessive thinking (overthinking), excessive mental work and studying. This is very common in our society, both in university students and people in intellectual professions, and the problem is compounded if people eat quickly at work or discuss work while eating. Obsessive thinking fraught with concern, brooding and mental worry are also problems. All these forms of pensiveness and worry knot the Qi and affect the Spleen, bringing an accumulation of Dampness. Worry also affects the Lung, leading to anxiety, breathlessness and stiffness of shoulders and neck. Worry may also be a form of fear or anxiety. Sadness Sadness dissolves the Qi and affects the Lungs, leading to Lung Qi deficiency, but it also affects the Heart, in time bringing on Heart Qi deficiency. When the Lungs are overcome by sadness and grief, they are weakened, and this leads to tiredness, breathlessness, depression or crying. In women, this deficiency of Lung-Qi can lead to Blood deficiency. Prolonged sadness can also lead to stagnation of Qi that in turn can transform into Heart-Fire. 1 The Practice of Chinese Medicine: The Treatment of Diseases with Acupuncture and Chinese Herbs, Giovanni Maciocia, Churchill Livingston, 1994 External Causes of Disease: The Evil Pernicious Influences: External causes of diseases are of a physical nature and are due to climatic factors. They encroach upon the body from the outside environment. They are also called External Pathogenic Factors, Evils, or Excesses. Evils can penetrate the body when the weather is unseasonably excessive or when the Defensive Qi is weak and they cause an imbalance. If our defensive system is strong, it simply repels the invasion or adjusts to the sudden changes; if the defensive system is weak or the Evil unusually strong, an illness develops and may go progressively deeper in the body. Usually there is an aversion to the Evil one is affected by. Evils can appear in combination or alone. An Evil describes both the cause of the condition and the condition. When a patient is described as suffering from Wind Heat, it does not necessarily mean that it was caused by Wind or Heat. It is the way the body reacts and a description of symptoms. However, Evils tend to be a predominant cause or aggravation of a disease in their related seasons. An Evil can penetrate either via the mouth, the nose or the skin. Heat invades more readily by the nose and mouth. Wind This term usually suggests a pattern of disharmony rather than a climatic factor. It can appear in any season and it can combine with any other evil. Some people get neck problems from exposure to Wind, and the presence of Wind can worsen the impact of the other climatic factors.
Cold External cold can penetrate the body of those who live or work in cold conditions or cannot dress properly. It causes Qi stagnation and results in contraction of muscles and joints, cramping pain and watery discharge. Fire/Summer Heat External Heat can penetrate the body of those who live or work in hot conditions, and it may combine with external pathogenic factors such as Wind or Damp. Dryness Dryness attacks are usually limited to the respiratory tract or the skin. Dampness Exposure to damp weather, wearing wet clothes, a humid environment can cause External Dampness to invade. It often combines with Heat and Cold. Miscellaneous Causes of Disease: Poor constitution The person's constitutional strength depends on the health and age of their parents, particularly at the time of conception, because the child's Pre-Heaven Essence is formed by the fusion of the parental Essences. It also depends especially on the mother's health and age during the pregnancy. A severe shock during pregnancy is also detrimental to the health of the child. Many childhood diseases, particularly whooping cough, indicate a weak constitution. Pre-Heaven Essence can be prematurely drained through overwork, inadequate rest, alcohol, excessive sexual activity or can be preserved and enhanced by Tai Qi Quan, meditation, breathing exercise, and Qi Gung. The constitution determines how much Qi you have in reserve to combat any stress factors that might undermine your health. Small ears with short ear lobes, according to the Chinese, show constitutional weaknesses. Poor dietary habit From a Chinese point of view, diet can be unbalanced from a quantitative and a qualitative point of view. Malnutrition is such a problem, found all over the world. It seriously weakens the Qi and the Blood and results in Spleen Deficiency. It is caused by eating food with no calorific or nutritive value, or by adhering too strictly to fixed diets. Trying to loose weight by not eating enough is also detrimental. Over-eating also weakens the Spleen and Stomach, and leads to retention of Food characterized by a bloated feeling in the Stomach, belching, nausea and gastric reflux (heartburn). Excessive consumption of food that is Hot or Cold in energy can also be detrimental. Large quantities of cooling food (fruits, fruit juice and ice cream, salads) can injure the Yang of the Spleen. Excessive consumption of sweet foods and sugar also blocks the Spleen function and leads to Dampness. Oily, fried and greasy food, including deep-
fried food, milk, cheese, butter, cream, ice-cream, bananas, peanuts, fatty meats, should be reduced in amount, as it may cause Dampness. Excessive consumption of hot food (alcohol and spicy food) should be reduced by those who are Yin deficient, especially of the Liver and Stomach. It is not only what one eats, it is also the way one eats it. Eating in a hurry, going straight back to work after eating, eating late in the evening, eating in a state of emotional tension can lead to Stomach Yin deficiency. The main problem is a lifestyle one, and that is what has to be changed. Over-exertion This is a frequent problem in the West. Insufficient rest over a period of months or years means that the body has to draw on Jing (Original Essence) for additional strength. There are three types of overwork: mental overwork; physical overwork; excessive physical exercise. Physical work depletes the Spleen-Qi. Repetitive use of muscles may cause localized Qi or Blood stagnation. Irregular and exhausting exercise depletes the Qi. Excessive lifting can deplete the Kidneys and the lower back, and so does excessive standing. Mental overwork includes working long hours in conditions of extreme stress, eating irregular meals, being always in a hurry, over a long period. Overthinking depletes the Spleen, while the irregular diet depletes the Stomach-Qi or Stomach-Yin which can lead to a Kidney-Yin deficiency. Exercise is good for the health, but not when done to the point of exhaustion. However, lack of exercise also leads to stagnation of Qi, and this can lead to Dampness. Yoga and Tai Chi Chuan are good for those deficient in Qi who do not have enough energy for more rigorous exercise. Excessive sexual activity Excessive sexual activity depletes one's vital energy. The body draws on Essence at ejaculation and orgasm. Excessive sexual activity depends on the strength of one's Essence which reaches a peak during the twenties and then declines slowly. If the constitution is strong, more activity is possible. Men's ejaculation is more depleting than women's orgasm, but a woman loses Essence through the process of childbirth. Sexual activity not leading to ejaculation in men is thought to be non-detrimental to health Excessive sexual activity is one that leads to marked fatigue, especially if accompanied by other symptoms such as dizziness, blurred vision, lower backache, weak knees and frequent urination. Sexual activity should be seriously curtailed if there is Qi or Blood deficiency, or especially in the presence of a weakness of the Kidneys. Men are more affected than women by a Kidney weakness (women's sexual energy is more related to Blood than men's which is more related to Essence). Lack of sexual activities is also considered a disease.
Kidney-Yang deficiency may lead to a lack of sexual desire or to an inability to enjoy sex or reach orgasm. In men, it can lead to impotence and premature ejaculation. Kidney-Yin deficiency may lead to excessive sexual desire that can never be satisfied. The person may also have vivid sexual dreams resulting in nocturnal emissions in men and orgasms in women. Kidney-Essence and Kidney-Yin are important for the nourishment of the Uterus, and their deficiency may cause infertility in women. Trauma Trauma includes physical accidents such as broken bones and bruising. A slight trauma causes Stagnation of Qi, a more serious one, stasis of Blood. In all cases, it causes pain, bruising and swelling. It may cause long-term stagnation of Qi if combined with other factors such as External Dampness. Shiatsu can help with old injuries by increasing Qi and blood circulation that is often blocked where there is scar tissue. Parasites and Poisons Treated with herbal prescriptions. Rest Too little rest, and a person cannot transform food into Blood and Body Fluids; too much rest, on the other hand, leads to Dampness and Stagnation. Iatrogenesis This includes the side effects of any medical treatment, and illnesses caused by medical treatment. In acupuncture or Asian bodywork therapy, this is a minor problem only, as the body can readjust itself after a few days, but with herbal therapy there is a potential risk.
noticed only years later, when symptoms are traced back to it. Never well since an episode earlier in life often identifies the source.
Constitution
Inherited factors can play a huge part in an individuals health. However, even if someone has a weak constitution, with forethought and selfdiscipline he may live much longer and more healthily than someone with a robust constitution who squanders his health through poor lifestyle choices. Specifically, the health we inherit is said to depend on: - Each of the parents (and grandparents) general health - The parents health at or leading up to the moment of conception - The mothers health during pregnancy One should also consider the age of the parents when the child was conceived. Sperm from an older father may be less virile and the ovum from an older mother less healthy. If the mother is older at conception, her reserves of Kidney qi may be reduced with less available for a healthy pregnancy and child.
Trauma
The effects of trauma are usually immediately noticeable. However, trauma, for instance a back injury, from which the individual fully recovered in youth, may recur years later when the individual is exposed to external pathogenic factors that his aging vitality is no longer able to combat. Trauma usually cause conditions of stagnation of Blood.
Over-exertion as one of the internal causes of disease includes working too hard, for too long, or working without proper rest. It can include over-exertion of a particular part of the anatomy (eg vision if the individual works too long at a computer; repetitive strain injury where someone repeats a particular movement too often). Overwork leads to yin deficiency, mainly of Kidney yin, but potentially also of Liver Yin. Repetitive strain injury leads to stagnation of Blood. Over-use of the eyes leads to deficiency of Liver Blood. These over-exertion internal causes of disease are often hard to accept when they occur. People understandably believe that they are living busy lives and must work hard. This doesn't alter the potential for long-term problems.
Emotions
Traditionally there are seven emotions that, unresolved, can be major internal causes of disease if they persist or are over-indulged in. A slightly expanded list of these gives: - unrestrained or inappropriate joy, laughter (what we might call hysterical over-excitement): affects the Heart. - worrying, over-thinking, obsession: affects mainly the Spleen - grief, sadness, worry: affects the Lungs - sadness also affects the Heart - fear, deep anxiety: affects the Kidney - anger, frustration: affects the Liver - shock affects the Heart and the Kidneys However, the connections between emotion and Organ should not be taken too rigidly. Any of the Organs may be affected by any emotion. Besides, if a particular emotion is held too strongly for too long, it may affect not just the Organ mentioned but also another in the Five Phase or Element diagram. So prolonged Fear could affect not just the Kidneys but also the Liver, leading to a lack of nerve or of courage. All emotions have an effect on the Heart. Any emotion, if one of the internal causes of disease, impairs the circulation of qi and blood. In particular it affects the direction of flow of qi.
Specifically, quoting from chapter 39 of the Simple Questions: Anger makes qi rise: this we see in the face, the eyes, the complexion, the tension in the shoulders and neck, the grinding of teeth, the biting of nails or lips and so on. Joy slows down the movement of Qi: as when someone is speechless from joy or surprise. Sadness dissolves qi: as when, feeling hopeless sadness we find we lack energy to do anything: we sink, dejected. Over-thinking ties up (knots up) qi: someone who is thinking about something too much cant make up their minds about it. Fear descends qi: involuntarily we defecate or urinate. Shock scatters qi: we shake, we sweat, we go pale, we cant stand, our pulse races uncontrolled. As internal causes of disease, severe emotional trauma can have lifelong effects on health, even after the individual has made serious attempts to accept the trauma and their consequences.
may not only cause stagnation of Blood but can drain the woman's Kidney essence. In any case, Excessive Sexual Activity has to be understood in relation to age and health of the individual. People in poor health should indulge less often. It is said that a rough estimate of how often a man should ejaculate is to divide his age by 5, giving the number of days between ejaculations. For instance, a 30 year old should, according to this recommendation, not ejaculate more often than once every 6 days. Clearly, however, much depends on the mans health, commitments and lifestyle. Stress of any kind may impair his ability and drain his energy but sometimes for a healthy man, ejaculation can be cathartic. Sexual activity for men is easy to describe: it means sperm ejaculation, which in Chinese Medicine is said to use up Kidney Essence. For women, the question of what excessive sexual activity means is less clear. Normal orgasm for women doesnt use Kidney essence. However, any sexual activity that is exhausting must be considered, including, for some, having too many babies close together, without proper recovery between them. Blood loss from the womb that is uncontrolled would have a similar effect, such as in menorrhagia. Abstention from sex when there is desire may also, long-term, harm the individual. What is called Minister Fire ascends during sexual desire and orgasm sends it down. If no orgasm occurs, it may remain ascended and, eventually impair Heart qi or cause Heart Fire. Tantric traditions teach that non ejaculating during sex means that no Kidney essence is used up and can, so long as there is periodical ejaculation, enhance sexual experience. When in poor health, or recuperating from illness, men should indulge much less in orgasm with ejaculation.
Diet
What we eat and how we eat it have major long-term repercussions on our health and can be major internal causes of disease. There is growing evidence for the benefits of choosing food that is nutritious, fresh, high in vegetables, olive and essential oils, low in meat, alcohol, sugar and grains.
Eat food when sitting, unhurried and not otherwise engaged; chew well; leave time for digestion after meals. Eat regularly, dont skip meals and dont eat too close to bedtime or late in the evening. Chinese medicine stresses that the foods we eat should be appropriate for our metabolism; that we should avoid too much raw and cold or iced food and drink even if well, let alone if ill. The same goes for too much very spicy, dairy and greasy food. Avoid both over- and under-eating. Short-term deviations from healthy eating probably dont matter. However, a period of months or years with a bad diet can have life-long effects.
Parasites
Parasites can be one of the internal causes of disease but this is less common nowadays in developed countries. Parasites use the bodys supplies of Qi and Blood, so drain Spleen qi and often cause symptoms of Dampness and Heat which themselves favour production of more parasites. They arise mainly from poor hygiene and diet, though in some countries parasites enter via the eyes, the ureter, anus or vagina, for example when swimming in infested water. Any diet that weakens the Spleen energy encourages conditions that harbour parasites.
Regular use long-term of recreational drugs will damage the body's resources into the indefinite future, even after use of the drug has stopped. Cannabis, for example, seems to scatter the brains ability to take clear long-term decisions and to concentrate properly. Medicinal drugs, used for too long, can have damaging effects, especially with antibiotics, steroids and chemotherapy, which damage Spleen and Stomach qi and Yin, Blood and Body fluids. Immunisations can cause long-term damage and become important internal causes of disease if the body fails to react properly to them at the time. (Even then, there is the suspicion of ongoing damage, not manifested until many years later.) An appropriate reaction is usually a mild fever and sweating, possibly with a rash. This shows that the bodys defensive qi has recognised the invasion and, as with any disease invasion, has gone through its inbuilt way of exteriorising it. Where the reaction either fails to materialise or is so small as to be hardly noticeable, the body will eventually produce Latent Heat. If the reaction is severe, with great fever, thirst etc, one cannot be sure that the body has successfully rid itself of the toxin that may still produce symptoms from Latent Heat in the future. Latent Heat is, in theory, capable of facilitating the development of many modern diseases that are highly debilitating. For more on Latent Heat, click here.
Wrong treatment
Iatrogenic, doctor-caused disease is a major concern in modern medicine. However, wrong treatment can be given in any therapy. That a therapy is natural is irrelevant: herbs, acupuncture, homoeopathic remedies, even manipulation, may all be damaging when used wrongly.
So ... What is it, and can acupuncture do harm? Can other forms of alternative medicine be harmful? For example, homoeopathy? Is orthodox medicine always or ever injurious? There are at least six broad ways to suppress disease but before explaining them, what does it mean?
Suppression: a Definition
Suppression occurs when the manifestation of a disease (ie one or more of its signs and symptoms) is made to disappear before the disease is cured. As you catch a disease, a healthy body combats it. It uses methods developed over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, trial and error. It tries to keep the disease as far from its core as possible. That is why your initial response is on the outside, with shivering, sweating, sneezing, runny nose, perhaps a rash, and so on. In Chinese medicine, these processes (shivering, sweating etc) externalise the disease: they send it to or keep it at the exterior. Meantime, this invasion (of what in Chinese medicine is called, for example, wind-heat or wind-cold) stimulates your body to strengthen its defensive energy - to prepare its defences. For example, by increasing your metabolic rate (making you feel hotter) it hastens its ability to analyse the invader and prepare effective counter-measures. If all goes well and your body assembles effective countermeasures, you'll feel ill for a few days and then, after a period of recuperation, you'll feel better. Once better, you may actually find you feel even better than you did before you caught the disease, because the illness and rest has re-energised your body and your immune force has grown stronger, now even more ready to combat the next invader. It may have even undone the chronic consequences of any previous suppression! The symptoms of the acute disease are your body's way of externalising the disease. They aren't pleasant, and naturally you want to get rid of them as soon as possible. Various kinds of 'alternative' medicine, and Chinese medicine, have ways of helping your body externalise the disease even faster so none of it remains in the body, meaning that you recover faster. Of course, there are diseases which come from other sources, some of them caused by suppression itself - see below.
Prevent your body's natural processes from doing their job, however, and you may store up problems for the future.
antiperspirant, analgesic etc. Modern medicine enables us to remove inflammation and pain (eg paracetemol for simple colds) but it hampers our immune system's ability to deal with the illness in the way it has evolved over many millennia. By blocking the symptoms or pathology the disease is unable to run its natural healthy course. Ideally your body aims to externalize or localize its problem. If what we do internalizes it or spreads it, then we damage the body's natural methods of healing itself. It is a mistake to assume that because the symptom or pathology has 'gone', that the disease is cured. Experience shows that it will return, preferably in its original form, but more likely in a deeper and more sinister disguise. Only when our medicine helps the body do what it is designed to do, which is externalize its problems naturally, do we not suppress. By preventing our immune system from working as designed, we prolong the problem in a more chronic form, which explains why we get ongoing phlegm, sinus discharges and tiredness plus susceptibility to the next bug.
815 patients were reckoned to have suffered from iatrogenic causes. (Steel K, Gertman PM, Crescenzi C, Anderson J, The New England Journal of Medicine [1981, 304(11):638-42]) Many drugs are tested carefully by their manufacturers but after a period of use by doctors have to be withdrawn for safety reasons. (For example; Nicobrevin - used to help people stop-smoking withdrawn May 2011; Vioxx - used for arthritis withdrawn September 2004; Avandia - used for diabetics - withdrawn September 2010)
Alternatively drugs are designed and tested for use in one situation and start to be used in other situations where their safety has not been tested or for which they were not designed. (But we admit sometimes the drug-takers are very happy: otherwise we wouldn't have Viagra!) Just a note: no homoeopathic remedy has ever been withdrawn; no acupuncture point has ever been banned - although sensible practitioners of both homoeopathy and acupuncture will will use some remedies and points only with caution, and some actions are contra-indicated in certain situations. (A small rhetorical aside: put away the question of whether or not these alternative or natural therapies are effective. If you dont believe they are effective, you arent likely to believe that they can do harm other than by omission, ignorance or misrepresentation.)
become chronic, though not recognised as such until later, by when suppression has already occurred. Of course, in fundamentally healthy people, the antibiotic may clear the disease and leave the individual better, but there are many cases where the antibiotic must be repeated, sometimes many times, before the condition 'disappears' or is regarded as having 'departed'. For skin problems, treatment often has to continue indefinitely, albeit at a milder drug level. Thats where we believe suppression occurs. Repeated suppressive treatment, (or even just one set of suppressive treatments in less healthy people) drives the condition deeper, making it harder to cure. This is where you get someone with a continuing cough who after well-meaning treatment ends up with asthma, controlled by drugs, and believing their cough has gone and their condition is under control. In reality, they need ongoing medication to prevent a worse condition an asthmatic crisis from occurring. I have found that such asthmatics sometimes catch superficial diseases, like coughs and colds, less often. If so, this supports the argument that their bodies have abandoned defence at the more superficial level.
The Law of Cure helps to guide practitioners in treating their patients. If patients understand it and the idea of suppression, even better! By the way, the bodys self-healing processes can be stimulated in many ways. It happens that homoeopaths were possibly the first to recognise the Law of Cure and to describe it, but any system of therapy which helps this 'Law' work is welcome. In other words, it could be a Western orthodox doctor using conventional medicine, or an acupuncturist, healer, herbalist, hypnotherapist, Reiki practitioner, osteopath ... it doesnt have to be a homoeopath or an acupuncturist! Any therapist alert to the possibility of suppression and how to undo it may be able to help. NB We completely understand that in emergency situations to preserve life a treatment may on the face of it cause suppression: but at least the patient survives. It is the continued action of treatments that curb ongoing or chronic illness that is suppressive: symptoms go but the patient doesnt really get better. Instead the patient often becomes dependent on the drugs, or from then on is never as well as he was before the treatment.This NWS or Never Well Since syndrome can be very important and a useful key to helping the patient towards better health, if a means to undo the damage can be found. But dont blame your doctor. He was doing his best: you didnt like your symptoms, and he did get rid of them he did his job. Trouble is, he cleared away your complaint, but left you with something more insidious. As this took place over time, neither of you noticed. What is more, and this is the seventh way of suppressing a condition, sometimes you do it yourself. Say you have a chronic cough for which you take something in a high self-medicating dose. The cough goes, but then perhaps you get a bit depressed, or you start eating more, you feel more tired, you cant sleep so well, or similar. Here is a case of suppression and you did it by curbing the cough yourself! The therapist youve gone to for help needs to know about this too so dont forget to list all the vitamins, self-medications, minerals, herbs or other supplements you are taking. If you've read this far and would like to hear about a particularly difficult form of suppression, read about the Burghlar in Your Home!
Chronic Disease
Why do we get chronic disease? It drags us down, costs the nation a fortune, does nobody any good (except the pharmaceuticals) and makes life a misery.
We dont see it coming! After all, were enjoying it so how can it exhaust us? By the way, 'work' is a relative term. It might mean talking lots to do with a project, or driving long distances for meetings, or merely sitting at a computer to finish a report. Other stressors include:
noise over-stimulation of nerves haste trying to do too many things at once over-stimulation of emotions Its all still work, even if we enjoy it. This question of enjoying work has to be tackled! Its like my attitude to my children watching horror movies at midnight. Theyre loving the excitement, the adrenalin and the pump. They complain bitterly when I turn it off. But Im thinking of school the next morning! Even though you enjoy what you do, it wont necessarily be good for you, and you do need rest. 'A change is as good as a rest', they say, and often it is. But sometimes you need to rest properly, to sleep, to recharge your batteries; to slow down, to let your mind daydream. Because if you continue as before, you wont have the energy to keep the Indians at the outer perimeter. Chronic disease isn't far away! You dont realise it, but youre exhausted! A small technical note! Lowered vitality, as in exhaustion, can mean a longer period before chronic disease or acute illness symptoms appear. The healthier the individual, the faster symptoms appear. 2. Suppression This is where your cowboys were ready and keen to do their stuff, to fight the Indians, to have a battle, make lots of noise and then count all the dead bodies. But you stopped them!
So the Indians gained a foothold in your fort: they penetrated your outer perimeter fence and though youve now reached stalemate, youre stuck with them. Theyre on your territory and you cant get rid of them. Neither side can renew the offensive: on your side the cowboys are stuck in a small space and havent got the horses: besides, theyre exhausted. On the Indian side the Indians have the outer part of your fort, but theyve lost huge numbers of men. So now you have ongoing symptoms that don't change: you have a chronic disease.
For Chronic Disease, What are Your Options? What about Self-Management?
1. Rest! Repair and renew yourself. Sleep. Dream. 2. Get away from the source of your work and the strain. Perhaps a holiday if you can arrange it? But not a frantic rush! 3. Eat good food and ensure you have goodnutrition. Your body depends on food intake for raw materials to repair itself. 4. Breathe properly. Clean air, together with food, make your body new. 5. Jettison unnecessary medication. Not only does it prevent your body producing symptoms that enable it to push its problems towards the outside, but the medication itself isnt a food, and has to be metabolised ie broken down and excreted by your body. That takes work and energy that you need to get better. If it's taking too much energy, it can prolong or even cause your chronic disease. Worse, the medication is preventing your body from showing its real symptoms. 6. Drink enough clean water to help your kidneys clear the garbage, and your liver to make good blood. 7. Avoid immunisations for common diseases that will further prevent your body from reacting vigorously to invaders. 8. Take a little exercise. Keep moving! Move the Qi! 9. For most of us, rest your eyes. We use our eyes intensively for nearly everything these days (computers, smart-phones, computer games, videos etc) 10. Seek out real sunlight to nourish your eyes and your skin. 11. Learn to put up with a little discomfort, because as your body recovers it will want to mount a counter-offensive!
12. Seek out an experienced acupuncturist, who can help your body marshal its energies, the better to recover fast.
This susceptibility means that one or more of our energy systems will tend to be more easily affected by disease than the others. Put simply, it means that whereas you get sore throats, I get headaches. Understanding these two factors, Vitality and Susceptibility, and knowing how to compensate for the latter while raising the former, goes a long way towards chronic disease prevention.