Guest guest Posted July 19, 2004 Report Share Posted July 19, 2004 Hi All, HeRing's Law is recognised widely in homeopathy and other natural therapies but HeRRing's Law sounds fishy to me ;-) However, Google has hits on both forms of the spelling (Hering and Herring). For more info, see: http://tinyurl.com/5nqph and http://tinyurl.com/3kytb Best regards, Email: < WORK : Teagasc Research Management, Sandymount Ave., Dublin 4, Ireland Mobile: 353-; [in the Republic: 0] HOME : 1 Esker Lawns, Lucan, Dublin, Ireland Tel : 353-; [in the Republic: 0] WWW : http://homepage.eircom.net/~progers/searchap.htm Chinese Proverb: " Man who says it can't be done, should not interrupt man doing it " Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 19, 2004 Report Share Posted July 19, 2004 Here's something I put together based on infomation that I found. I will usually give this to a patient to let them understand if they experience this. The majority of my patients will not go thru this process due in part the way I treat them. Hopefully this helps Brian Understanding Healing Crises:Sometimes Feeling Worse Means You're Getting Better What is a Healing Crisis? A healing crisis is any of a wide range of acute symptoms which may occur during the course of healing. Though on first inspection it might seem that treatment is not working or is making the patient's condition worse, these symptoms actually signal that the healing process is taking place. Symptoms can include any from previously experienced illnesses or traumas, cold- or flu-type symptoms, or emotional upset. It is characteristic that when the symptoms have passed, the patient feels better than before the crisis. Some practitioners also refer to healing crises as " retracing " or " aggravation. " If a healing crisis is indeed underway, the individual may be misinterpreting the cause and meaning of their symptoms, attributing them either to bad health care or to events external to treatment they are receiving. Although, the individual may not have been adequately educated about the healing process, so they were unprepared to understand what they experienced. Individuals who participate in holistic health care, experience healing crises without even understanding what they are going through. Some practitioners may take it for granted that their patients understand the concepts which underlie the treatment. Others believe it could be negatively suggested to tell a patient he or she may feel ill before feeling health. Many patients do not report their symptoms, so professional interpretation is not made available. In many cases, it is simply difficult for patients used to having symptoms eradicated through medications to understand a process that addresses underlying causes, and that may make them feel worse in the process. In the course of following a nutritional program for allergies or other health problems, many people experience uncomfortable symptoms. This is known as a healing reaction. The most common symptom clients report is a temporary reduction in energy. They may find themselves sleeping longer, perhaps as much as 12 hours a night. Some people also report aches and pains in various parts of the body, digestive system disturbances such as gas, constipation, or diarrhea, or other miscellaneous complaints. These symptoms occur because the body is ridding itself of the substances that have been making it toxic - not only the materials that have accumulated in the colon, but also the antibodies and other substances that have built up in the individual cells, interfering with their normal functioning. As these substances are ejected out of the tissues, they are dumped into the system, making the body temporarily more toxic until they can be excreted. This is partly what produces the symptoms of the healing reaction. This effect is accentuated by the body's process of tearing apart defective tissue, repairing damaged cells, destroying parasites or infective agents, and otherwise producing debris from the re-construction. The more severe the individual's condition (the more toxic his or her body is), the stronger will be the healing reaction. Because the healing reaction is caused by the flushing of toxins out of the cells, the strength of that reaction also depends on how carefully the individual is following the recommended nutritional program. The more correctly the program is followed, the stronger will be the healing reaction. Why Aren't We Prepared for a Healing Crisis? Most patients' experiences with conventional medicine do not prepare them to understand healing crises. The focus of conventional medicine first and foremost is to cure the disease and to relieve discomfort. Worthy goals, and yet, in the effort to relieve symptoms, deep roots of the patient's problem may be overlooked. A healing crisis sends the patient into greater health by way of the experience of a set of symptoms, and therefore by definition opposes the conventional medical context. Indeed, as a phenomenon, the healing crisis is not a topic included in standard medical texts or elsewhere in the education of most doctors. In order to understand what healing crises are and why they occur, it is important to have some understanding of the process of disease from the holistic point of view. " If there is one word that can be used to describe the disease process, it is that it is gradual. " You don't simply wake up one morning with cancer, for example, it is a process occurring over time, with states of progressively ill health preceding. " How Are Minor Ailments Driven Deeper into the Body? Many holistic practitioners maintain that minor ailments are often driven deeper into the individual through the use of drug therapy, which acts to suppress symptoms and weaken the body's defense mechanisms. So, for instance, the cortisone ointment used for a skin problem may clear up the symptoms, but later a deeper problem may occur, such as asthma, In turn, bronchodilators may control the asthma but set the stage for depression. The aching body, headaches, nausea, irritability, fatigue, and other flu-type symptoms often reported during the healing crisis are primarily effects of detoxification. " The human body has a great capacity to store away toxins, " . " The healing process takes these substances out of storage and into circulation with elimination as its end goal. " It is on their way to being eliminated that these toxins cause the dramatic symptoms so often seen. If you want to dredge a lake to make it clear and deep, you have to remove layers of sediment. During this procedure, the bottom of the lake is stirred up, and the water inevitably becomes cloudier than when you began. Why old symptoms come back? Often in the course of the healing process, old symptoms temporarily reappear. Why should people have to go back through these old problems in the course of getting better? I believe that the specific symptoms that a person experiences at any given time depend on the balance among the various biochemical substances in the body. For example, when a person is perfectly healthy there is a certain ratio between Substance A and Substance B in the tissues. When this ratio gets out of balance to a certain degree, the person may feel fatigue; when the imbalance is greater, a headache may occur; when it is greater still, the person may develop insomnia, and so on. One reason people must re-experience symptoms as they get healthier is that in order to progress from, say, a 100:1 imbalance to a 1:1 balance, they have to go back through 99:1, 98:1, and so forth, and as they go through each phase they experience the symptoms associated with that particular level of imbalance. Biochemist John Eck has pursued a similar line of thought in his research on mineral nutrients. Using hair analysis Eck has suggested the optimal levels for some of the principal minerals in the body. On the basis of the ratios among these minerals, Eck is able to estimate how efficiently the thyroid and adrenal glands are functioning, and hence to predict an individual's metabolic energy level. Of course in actuality a person's symptoms would not depend on the ratio between just two substances, but among hundreds of different things. If a person gets stuck at some level he will get stuck in the symptoms for that level. This helps to explain the basis of the chronic illnesses from which so many people suffer. I like to picture the healing process as going up a flight of stairs. At the top of the stairs, the energy is balanced, all the nutrients are present in their proper ratios, and the body is functioning properly. Then the body begins to deteriorate. He moves down the stairs, and at each step along the way he experiences a specific kind of symptom - perhaps less energy at one step, headaches a little further down, an ulcer still further, and so on. As the body begins to heal itself once again, the person begins to move back up the stairs, and re-experience the symptoms associated with these various levels of health. Drugs that block pain may also block healing: Experiencing such healing reactions can be very distressing for many people, because we are taught in our society that symptoms are somehow bad. Although it is tempting to take pain killers, antihistamines, or other drugs when uncomfortable symptoms occur in the course of healing, it is very important to follow the prescribed program correctly and to do nothing to interfere with the healing process. If in the past an individual went through a period of pain, taking pain killers or other drugs at this point to relieve the symptoms actually prolongs the discomfort. You see, aspirin and antihistamines work by blocking the prostaglandins - chemical substances found throughout the body which regulate many bodily functions and metabolic process. Generally the prostaglandins work in opposing pairs. One, for example, may produce inflammation and swelling in response to a specific stimulus, while another undoes these reactions. When a person takes aspirin or an antihistamine to stop an uncomfortable reaction, he may not experience the pain or inflammation, but he also does not get the healing process that undoes the reason for the pain and inflammation. He has achieved a stalemate rather than a curse. One of my clients, Alice, has had many year' history of pain, and is now going through a lot of healing reactions, including " spasms " in her digestive system. Although I have explained to Alice that she must go back through her painful symptoms in order to be cured, she insists that something must be wrong. When she has pain, she stops taking her supplements and uses medication to reduce her spasm. It is a real dilemma for her because she really is in pain, and she believes that it is not good to experience pain. Unfortunately, by blocking the pain with an inappropriate medication she is keeping herself from getting healed. And so she is going back and forth, keeping herself at precisely the level where she is bound to have the pain. Some natural ways to ease healing reactions: When healing reactions are very troublesome, we can usually do something to help. Some herbal remedies relieve symptoms without interfering with the healing process. For example, white willow bark contains a different chemical form of salicylic acid than aspirin, so that it blocks only the inflammation chain of the prostaglandin and not the healing chain. This illustrates why natural substances are preferable to synthetic drugs in the long run. The dosage of certain supplements can also be adjusted to slow down the rate at which the healing process takes place. When my clients have uncomfortable strong healing reactions, I cut down on the dosage of some of their tissue extracts. This slows down the healing process. The uncomfortable symptoms are less intense, but the healing process is also more prolonged. As the person's body becomes detoxified, we can once again increase the tissue extract dosage until it is being taken at optimal dosage. For those who may experience the healing process, symptoms usually happen at: 1-7 day mark 5-6 week mark 3 month mark 6 month mark then further and further apart and the signs are milder as time goes on. Cleansing Signs 1. Fatigue lasts 7-10 days at beginning, then further apart and milder 2. Headache reflects what is happening in the body 3. Rash skin is largest eliminating organ could be allergy or cleansing: if rash came up right away, it's an allergy if someone has been on the products for a while, then got a rash, it's a cleansing sign 4. Mucous signs of slight cold, clearing throat often, runny nose, runny eyes 5. Loose stool #61623; loose stool is good, diarrhea is bad #61623; loose stool is going 2-4x very loose, or watery #61623; diarrhea is going 9-10x in last few hours #61623; most people have highly acidic system from meat, alcohol, pop. #61623; Experience is alkaline, neutralizes acidity. #61623; If diarrhea, stop Experience for 24-48 hours, reintroduce at ½ dose. #61623; If loose stool, this is good. Continue at same dose 6. Foul smelling stool when Experience takes off the first couple of layers of fecal matter, it's very toxic and gaseous. May also have body odor. Toxins released through pores: stay home or try baking soda bath - 5 lbs. baking soda with fresh lemon juice for 20 minutes, or 2 cups baking soda with 2 cups Epsom salts. Hering’s Law of Cure: The healing crisis has been expressed over the years by the following definition, which has gained widespread acceptance: " All cure starts from the top to the bottom and from the inside to the outside, and in reverse order as the symptoms have appeared. " Putting it another way, a healing crisis will occur only when an individual is ready both physiologically and psychologically. Increasing an individual's health reverses the disease process: healing occurs from top to bottom; from the inside, out. This is why many patients experience recurrence of old ailments, some of which may not have been evident since childhood. In explaining this, the course of a disease to a filmed recording of an individual's health. When healing occurs, the film is reversed, and like viewing the movie backwards, the patient moves through previous states of health. It is during this process that old symptoms crop up, occurring in the reverse order of their original appearance. For example, on the road to better health the patient with the skin problem may experience some depression, followed later by astmatic episodes. Further into the treatment, the skin problem may reoccur, further describing the top-to-bottom, inside-out motion in its pattern of appearance. This type of " retracing " can occur on all levels of being. For example, an emotional distress that is being worked out might express itself on the physical level. A person may have a history of being very rigid in their way of thinking: a kind of 'mental constipation.' During the course of treatment, they may experience a period of intestinal constipation as the disease moves from the inside (the psyche) to the outside (the body). " Though there are variations, the onset of symptoms during a healing crisis is typically rapid. The worst of the symptoms last as little as a few hours or as long as three to four days, though longer crises have been known to occur. A common pattern, which can be observed during long-term treatment, is for the patient to reach a plateau, followed by a healing crisis, again building to a plateau, and so on. It takes experience to be able to tell the difference between a healing crisis and a new disease making its first appearance. If a patient has made any recent positive lifestyle changes, such as the patient has made an improvement in diet, started a fast, begun a new health treatment or meditation regime, or stopped smoking, drinking, or taking drugs, Williams begins to suspect that a healing crisis may be producing symptoms. It is important for the patient to check in with the practitioner and let him or her know what symptoms have appeared. " Discuss the problem. It's often very difficult for individuals to see what's going on with their own health with any kind of clear perspective - particularly when they are feeling ill. It often takes another person - an outside observer - to help put events into focus. " Most practitioners recommend a visit or a phone call. Keeping open lines of communication is vital in determining the course of treatment. " If a given treatment did not address the problems the patient is having, or new symptoms arise without a positive indication in the whole picture, it would be important to reassess the case. Most of the time it is actually an aggravation and should be taken as a positive sign that the treatment is working. But, as a practitioner, I am concerned with reducing a patient's suffering and have no wish to make a patient experience more distress than is tolerable. Future treatment decisions would be made with an eye to keeping the aggravation symptoms to a minimum. " The patient's history - past and present - would have to be examined and put into perspective with regard to the current symptoms. Even patients familiar with healing crises often find it difficult to comprehend the meaning of their symptoms. " It isn't usually until after I'm though the crisis that I realize what's going on, " says one patient. " When I feel sick, it's hard to look beyond to see that I'm actually improving. It isn't until afterwards when I feel better that everything falls into place. " Most such patients find benefit in the perspective of an observing party - be it a practitioner or someone with whom they're close. What Can You Do to Help Yourself Through a Healing Crisis? If you are experiencing a healing crisis, there are a number of things your can do for yourself. The goal is to help the body undergo the crisis without an increase in suffering, but also without interfering with the healing that is taking place. Medication which suppresses symptoms can compromise the healing process and is therefore discouraged. However, in cases of severe suffering, such as during cancer treatment, some types of drugs may be necessary. Some practitioners feel that to invoke a healing crisis is beneficial, but to continue to administer that treatment may not be wise. Other practitioners agree, and recommend treatment after the crisis that is not intended to intensify the symptoms. Some prescribe herbs to support the process and reduce the symptoms, helping to put the patient into a more restful state. Sometimes additional treatment may be needed to help the crisis pass as quickly as possible. At a later time, treatment may again be indicated to move toward deeper healing, and perhaps further crises. Diet and Rest: Holistic practitioners note that the body is under much stress during a healing crisis, and sufficient rest is vital. By the same token, the diet should not add additional pressures to an already beleaguered body. Foods heavy in protein or fat put high demands on the body for their digestion and adsorption and should therefore be avoided. Meals should be kept simple, light, easily digestible, and nutrition. Plenty of pure water, whole grains, and fresh fruit and vegetables are recommended. Avoid foods containing preservatives, dyes, caffeine and sugar. Make sure that meals are taken quietly, in a relaxed state. Exercise, Skin Treatments, Baths: Many patients and practitioners experience exercise as helpful, and Williams especially recommends exercise if the crisis is occurring on an emotional level. He finds that the physical stress of exercise can help move the crisis from the emotional to the physical plane, thereby advancing the level of healing. The skin is an important organ of elimination, and many toxins can leave the body more readily if the skin is in proper condition. To clear the way during a healing crisis, It is recommended to lightly brush the entire surface of the skin with a natural-bristle brush. Stroke from the ends of the limbs inward toward the abdomen, repeating daily until the crisis passes. This procedure can help stimulate lymph and blood flow. To further aid elimination though the skin, other practitioners suggest soaking in a warm bath with Epsom salt. Mobilizing to Make Positive Changes: Reducing environmental stresses can also help a healing crisis pass more quickly. For some people, this may call for a good look at their daily stress level. A healing crisis can act like a catalyst, mobilizing patients to make positive changes in their lives, " says Williams. " Self-awareness increases. They see how their diet, smoking habits, and other lifestyle elements have contributed to their health over the years, and they're ready to make changes. " In fact, attitude may be one of the most important deciding factors in the way in which an individual weathers a healing crisis. " A healing crisis can be seen as a very positive event. It means that the treatment plan is on target and that the patient has started on the road to better health. But it can be discouraging for the patient - they feel they'll never get better. It's a part of human nature that, when life is good, people are often braced for the good times to come to an end. But when things are bad, it always seems that the pain will go on forever. This is never more true that when someone feels ill. " Symptoms Signal Change for the Better is Coming: Aggravation of symptom’s is an expected part of treatment. The aggravation can be longer than with other types of treatment. But despite the symptoms, if the treatment is correct, there should be more areas of improvement than of worsening. When a patient reports an aggravation, it is part of the treatment to help them shift the focus from how bad they feel to how much they have improved in other areas. Since the healing crisis phenomenon is not a regular part of the perspective or goals of conventional medicine. Medicine usually equates increased health with reduced symptoms. Many patients visiting an M.D. expect that the goal of any successful treatment will be to immediately eliminate all symptoms. They need to be educated that this will not necessarily be their experience - that certain symptoms mean that a change for the better is on the way. " Understanding the Continuum of Interconnected Events: Perhaps the greatest challenge of the healing crisis is not to become discouraged, but to learn what the experience has to teach. A truly successful treatment plan should help the patient understand the crisis in the context of his or her history. A supportive practitioner will encourage patients to view their symptoms as a continuum of interconnected events. With this perspective, they can learn how their health and well-being has evolved over the course of their lifetime. < wrote: Hi All, HeRing's Law is recognised widely in homeopathy and other natural therapies but HeRRing's Law sounds fishy to me ;-) However, Google has hits on both forms of the spelling (Hering and Herring). For more info, see: http://tinyurl.com/5nqph and http://tinyurl.com/3kytb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 19, 2004 Report Share Posted July 19, 2004 Hi Brian, This is a really terrific write-up and if you do not mind, I am saving it to distribute to my friends and acquaintences who are being treated by tuina/qigong. " Healing direction " is fundamental to the way that my Chinese tuina/qigong doctor treats and he more or less takes it for granted that his patients understand. The way I usually briefly explain it to my friends - or those who ask me is thus: Consider that your body is really a piping system designed to bring in fresh water (qi energy) and remove unwanted material (unusable qi). If the body is free of obstructions, the piping system will be self-maintaining and free of disease. However, if there are obstructions (clogs) in the piping then unwanted material (qi) will begin to accumulate and become " toxic " . The only way to bring the body back to health and in a " self-maintenance " mode is for the body to " release " (remove) the toxins. Sometimes the toxins are few and there will be only a small healing crisis. Somtimes the toxins are released slowly and there is a more prolonged or mild healing crisis. Sometimes the toxins are released in large amounts and the healing crisis is more acute. But the toxins must be released or else they will continue to create obstructions and the disease will either remain, move, or even get worse - as often is the case. How does one know if it is a healing crisis. Look at the direction of the " flow " . If the direction of the pain (i.e. obstruction) is from inside-out then cure is in process. For example, if someone feels pain going from the shoulder to the elbow, this is the " healing direction " . The body naturally protects its most vital organs first as it pushes the toxins from the zangfu organs out to the extremities. Of course, disease is in the reverse direction as the toxins go deeper and deeper into the body and vital organs as the body losses the abilty to " push out " the toxins and the qi and blood becomes more stagnant from the toxins. Toxins in this case have many sources including physical, mental, spiritual, emotional sources. Thanks again for the article, Regards, Rich Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.