Fwd: A BIT OF NATURE: The Nature of Health

[Guest guest]

A good perspective on supplements, even "natural" ones.

 

 

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Debra Lynn Dadd

 

 

 

A BIT OF NATURE

 

restoring awareness of nature and our place in it

 

 

 

 

30 August 2008 ~ New Moon

 

Greetings!

 

A few weeks ago, I had a health crisis.

For years I have been taking a prescription thyroid "supplement" that makes my thyroid gland function. Several times I have attempted to stop taking it, with poor results. Once I almost went into a coma. So it seemed to be vitally important to have this little pill.

 

A few times over the years, I had some difficulty getting my prescription filled, and because of this I had the idea that I needed to get off of being reliant on a manufacturer to supply this pill for my health, because what if one day I couldn't get the pill? I have no control over manufacturing.

 

Finally, that day came a few weeks ago. My drug store could not fill my prescription. Nor could any other drug store. My thyroid supplement was backordered. I managed to call the manufacturer and get 25 days worth, but this event brought me face to face with having to rethink how I was approaching the whole issue of my thyroid function. Since thyroid hormones are involved in every cell and function of one's body, it's pretty important.

 

I realized that even though my thyroid prescription was for a "natural supplement" (it's the dried thyroid gland from pigs), it does contain a standardized amount of the active ingredients, which makes it a prescription drug. The whole mindset of modern medicine is not to cure, but rather to "alleviate symptoms," making the patient comfortable while they continue to purchase medications until their bodies eventually break down and die. I know that sounds harsh, but it is basically what is going on. Drugs to alleviate symptoms are sold over-the-counter and by prescription. Natural remedies sold in natural food stores also, for the most part, relieve symptoms, in a more natural way. Quite literally, most people around the world are tied in to industry to keep them alive.

But if one wants to be well, it's not wise to get rid of symptoms, either by drugs or natural remedies. Symptoms of illness have a function: they are nature's way of telling us there is something wrong. They are clues that WE have done something wrong that is making our bodies malfunction. For example, if we eat food that contains bad bacteria, our bodies will attempt to remove the bad food quickly with diarrhea.

 

When we alleviate our symptoms with drugs or remedies, we no longer have the clues that alert us to the underlying problem. At other times in my life, headaches prompted me to stop wearing toxic perfume, an excrutiating pain in my big toe (gout) led me to greatly reduce the amount of red meat I was eating. Our bodies speak loud and clear through the very symptoms our consumer society educates us to ignore, and instead take a drug or remedy.

 

Real healh and real healing is getting down to the root cause of illness and creating a state of health where there are no symptoms. Many alternative health practices are oriented in this direction, such as Chinese medicine.

 

Facing the very real possibility that I would no longer have available to me this pill that was keeping my body alive, I was forced to take another look and do more research. And in doing so, I found that there are a number of causes for thyroid problems, and that people were doing things to handle those problems and getting off their thyroid supplements. Not overnight, but over time. And that I didn't have to accept taking this "natural" but pharmaceutical, pill for the rest of my life. There are natural ways to restore thyroid function.

 

I feel like I've "stepped out" of the medical establishment and even the field of alternative medicine into a realm of taking responsibility myself for understanding how my own body works, how it is sustained by the larger ecosystem, and the actions I need to take--physically, mentally, and spiritually--to sustain it's health. By doing so, I've discovered important things about the condition of my body that none of the health practitioners I have visited had observed or understood. I feel like I'm running my own health care now. I'll still consult with health care providers, but they will be my advisors. I can decide for myself what is best for my body--by observing how it responds to my actions, by noting the effect of my cause.

 

If you would like to comment on this story, or share your own experiences or realizations on this subject, you are welcome do so on the A Bit of Nature blog (www.dld123.com/abitofnature).

 

Debra :-)

 

 

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