Why You Should Learn to Love Your Symptoms

What?! I should love my symptoms? Are you reading this because the title sounds crazy? Are you wondering if I have lost my mind? Or maybe this is a post about being grateful for what you have. Although it is always beneficial to be grateful for what you have, no! I actually mean it! You should love your symptoms! Why? Well, let’s get into it.

Your Body talks Through Symptoms

We have a bad habit in our culture of not listening to our bodies. Even worse, when our body talks, not only do many of us not listen; we usually tell it to shush!! Maybe you are thinking, “Not me! I don’t shush my body!” Every time you take a drug, be it over-the-counter (OTC) or prescription, you are telling your body to shush because you are suppressing your symptoms.

Let’s say you have a headache. You reach for an NSAID (Advil, Motrin, ibuprofen, etc.). When you take the pill, the headache generally disappears. Do you know why? The pill blocked your body from making as many prostaglandins. Some prostaglandins produce pain and swelling in the body, but others do important jobs like protecting your stomach lining. Unfortunately, the NSAID doesn’t only target the “bad” prostaglandins. This is why you open yourself to gastrointestinal issues such as a leaky intestinal barrier or ulcers every time you pop one of those convenient pills. (1)

The most important issue though is that the pill didn’t take away the reason you got the headache in the first place. Was it dehydration? A food sensitivity? A chemical exposure? A nutrient deficiency? Hormonal imbalance? There could be many reasons that you got that headache. That headache was a direct message from your body to you. Instead of listening and giving your body what it needed, you shushed it! And, I hate to point out the obvious, but your body was not telling you that you have an NSAID deficiency.

Symptoms Are the Road Map for Healing

When using Practical Homeopathy®, the symptoms guide us in our choice of remedies. Moreover, when your body is actively experiencing your symptoms, homeopathy is even more effective at uprooting them. So, let’s say you have a latent virus. We will choose one from the herpes family for our example. When your body gets stressed and your immune system gets taxed, you get a cold sore. This may happen a few times a year, however, instead of dreading that first tingle, you can now look forward to the opportunity to start uprooting your condition!

Don’t Suppress Your Symptoms

It is important, however, not to suppress your symptoms. So, using the example above, you should not take a prescription antiviral to treat your cold sore at the same time you are trying to uproot your cold sores homeopathically. Not only are you exposing your body to the unwanted side effects of the drug which are: canker sores, rash, mouth ulcers, face flushing, drowsiness, nausea, and dizziness. (2) The homeopathic philosophy is that suppressing your symptoms will only drive the condition deeper into your body. This is clearly not what you want, right? You want to eliminate your symptoms!

How do I know if homeopathy is working?

If you are working on a chronic condition like the cold sore example above, there are three ways in which you will know that your homeopathy protocol is working.

Your symptoms will be less severe. Maybe your cold sore outbreak used to spread to your nose, but as after taking your protocol for a while you notice that the next cold sore outbreak you have stays on the lip line. Maybe it is also less painful.
The frequency of your symptoms will slow. So, instead of getting an outbreak a few times a year, you notice that you only get one per year. Maybe after continuing the protocol, you start getting them once every few years, etc.
The duration of will symptoms should shorten. Let’s say your outbreak usually takes a week to ten days. After using your protocol, however, you notice that the next outbreak only lasts a couple of days! Then, the next time you have an outbreak, maybe you catch it at the first tingle and there is no outbreak at all.

Your Symptoms are Necessary

So, you can see why your should love your symptoms. They are your guide to letting you know if you are on the right path toward uprooting your condition. Without them, you would have not idea if your protocol is working. In addition, your homeopath wouldn’t know which remedies you needed in your protocol. They may be uncomfortable in the moment, but you can learn to see them as an opportunity for healing!

Acute Treatment of a Cold Sore

Since we used the common ailment of cold sores for our example, and now you know how important it is not to suppress your symptoms, I figured I should tell you how to address an acute cold sore outbreak homeopathically.

Take the remedy Antimonium crudum 6c every 3 hours for 2 to 3 days or until the outbreak is much better. This works best if you catch the outbreak right at the start. Many people feel a tingling or burning sensation in the area at the onset of a cold sore.

Using this acute protocol with each outbreak, it is possible that it will gradually lessen the severity, frequency, and duration of your cold sores. However, if you want to see a homeopath that uses Practical Homeopathy®, they can build a protocol for you to address the chronic nature of the cold sores.

Check out this post if you want to learn more about what homeopathy is.