Recent hurricanes and their resultant floods as well as fires, and the smoke from them, are cause for alarm or concern. Despite our technological advances, we cannot always control natural disasters, but much of it we can predict. When we look at disasters in our bodies, we call it disease. The warning signs of disease are myriad, but are often overlooked, until a major disaster strikes.
Many a time I have interviewed a patient who had a “sudden onset” heart attack or stroke. They say it came without warning. But with further questioning, there were warnings along the way, but none to interpret them. Many times they will have just visited their cardiologist who gave them “a clean bill of health” just days or weeks before their heart incident. Many times they had warning signs, saw a doctor for them, and it was dismissed – either without further investigation, or even after fancy tests.
This holds true for many diseases – cancer as well. One day healthy, the next day diagnosed with stage IV cancer. One day perfect, the next with an auto-immune disorder. The list goes on.
So how does the body warn us? The body warns us in many ways, but not always in the ways expected, and not always in ways that are diagnosable by lab tests or other modern testing methods. How often has someone complained of being exhausted and was told they were just depressed and put on psych meds? Way too often! Exhaustion or fatigue can mean many, many things.
The body is a complex mechanism. Many parts are dependent upon other parts. Because medicine is becoming more and more segregated, isolated, specialized, we are losing the whole picture. The sum of the parts is greater as a whole because the body tells us in more than one way what is wrong. For instance: arthritis, cataracts, osteoporosis, gallstones, kidneys stones, and bone spurs all have one common denominator – calcium metabolism. Yet you would see a Rheumatologist for the arthritis, an Ophthalmologist for the cataracts, an Internist for the osteoporosis, a Gastroenterologist for the gallstones, a Urologist for the kidney stones, and an Orthopedist for the bone spurs. Wow! If all of these have similar originating factors (calcium metabolism issues plus another symptom that makes for the disease – such as weakened joints), then if you fix the originating factor, you fix all the above.
Don’t ever let your symptoms get dismissed. Every symptom has a meaning. The body doesn’t just one day decide to misbehave and cause a symptom or disease. There is a defined reason for it. It is important that you see a practitioner who will wade through the myriad symptoms to discover the disaster lurking under the surface. That is true health care!
©2017 Holly A. Carling, O.M.D., L.Ac., Ph.D.
