The dangers of suppression

What is suppression and more importantly, what are the consequences of suppression?  Once you understand, really understand (and respect), the health consequences of symptom suppression, it will change your life.  Well, it should anyway.  It did mine!

Homeopathy has not only changed our lives physically and emotionally, but I am learning things that I have never learned from any other forms of healing in the past 5 years of biomed.  My research has unearthed information that should be shouted from megaphones everywhere, because without these little tidbits of knowledge, we are and will continue to harm our potential to remain healthy!!  We are literally sabotaging our own health!

Suppression.
The Webster Dictionary says to suppress is "to restrain from a usual course or action "

The "usual course of action" in this case would be symptoms, which in actuality, are the natural course of action being taken by our bodies to HEAL!  A symptom is bothersome to many, it prevents them from going to work, hanging with friends, feeling good, so we want it gone, but let's think about this for a brief moment.  Let's use the example of a burn.  When you burn your finger, it turns red and swells up.  What is your instinct...to run cold water over it and STOP the swelling, right?  Is this really the best course of action to take?  And what would happen, if you never ran that cold water over it?  Do you even know?  The swelling is called inflammation and inflammation is actually the way your body attempts to repair the damage that was done.  The human body is designed to heal itself!  By running cold water over it, you are literally stopping the body from doing what it needs to do!  So what should you do instead?  Believe it or not, you want to ENCOURAGE the direction the body is trying to take that damage, run very warm water over the burn!!  Not as hot as the original burn, but warm enough to be uncomfortable.  Guess what happens?  Nothing!  That's right, no blistering, no pain, although if the burn is bad enough (as was in one case when I grabbed a very hot ceramic pot and lifted it) you might have some mild residual signs left over, in my case, my burned skin was left a bit rough. Other than that, I had no blisters and no discoloring, it didn't even hurt!  

Or how about this scenario which I am SURE all of us have experienced.  FEVERS!  Why do we fear fevers so much?  A fever is the RIGHT action taken by the body when a foreign invader has taken hold.  Fever kills pathogens.  So the body knows what to do as soon as it encounters these bugs, it turns up the heat high enough to kill them!  Out of fear, most people immediately run for the fever reducers/pain relievers.  I bet you didn't know that fevers are self-limiting?!  The highest most fevers will go is 105-106 and once your body has reached this temperature, you are no longer at risk of a febrile seizure.  Fevers are misunderstood and the sales and marketing of fever reducers are aimed at fear.  The one piece of good advice I got from our worst pediatrician was to let fevers be, and that they ARE in fact self-limiting to about 105.  When you stop the fever or even just reduce it slightly, you are inhibiting the body from successfully fighting the pathogen.  So guess what happens?  It survives.  Common sense?  And don't even get me started on the topic of doctors who tell patients to use fever reducers in their kids pre-vaccination.  Good God, there is no more destructive advice than this!!  

So let's now think about a simple cold.  What happens, your body begins to purge from every orifice...not a pretty sight or feeling: snots, ear drainage, secretions galore.  Raise your hand, if you were ever guilty of taking something to eliminate this nastiness.  But again, let's think about what the body is trying to do.  It's eliminating the pathogen!!  Colds start in the nasal cavities and ears.  Mucus is designed to purge pathogens.  And common sense would say that when you stop this from happening....need I go on?  I don't want to sound like a broken record here, but really think about how ludicrous this even sounds when you think of it rationally!  Why hasn't anyone ever taught us to think about our health in this fashion?  Well, because it would hurt pharmaceutical sales, of course!

The examples of suppression are endless and we are often partaking in this dangerous act daily.  Putting creams on eczema, treating acne with topical gels, giving anti-inflammatory, pain relievers, DRUGS!!  All of these products are designed to make your life more comfortable, they do not get at the root of the problem, they don't cure anything, they only suppress.  Why do you have chronic inflammation Miss Fibromyialgia, what is causing those skin lesions Mr. Eczema....people, you are not only ignoring how your body communicates and heals, but you are downright fighting it!  Your body reacts and tries to heal itself and then you say, "Oh no you don't, I have work to go to work...I have a date to go on....etc!" and you do/use everything possible in your arsenal to eliminate the "symptoms".  Well you have just effectively eliminated healing too. 

We need to trust the body in doing it's job.  It won't have an overnight fix and you might feel yucky for a while, but when you stop the body from doing it's job, the consequences are great.  And maybe part of mother nature's magnificent design is to SLOW. YOU. DOWN.  You may not even realize that subsequent illnesses or symptoms are related to the act of suppressing other conditions, but I assure you, it is all related.  Your body is a fine tuned machine with all the equipment necessary to run optimally.  Your future health depends heavily on what you choose to do today!  I am not suggesting you shouldn't do anything at all when things run a muck, I am just saying that HOW you choose to deal with these imbalances is critical and either facilitates health progression or degeneration.

I also want to add that just because a product is "natural" doesn't mean it isn't suppressing a symptom and shutting down your body.  Anything that stops a symptom, rather than addressing it's cause directly, is suppressing the body from healing.  It's that simple.  I learned this the hard way and as we use homeopathy, which encourages natural healing, we are witnessing the host of suppression(s) we took part in, as we retrace old symptoms.  How completely and utterly eye opening.

So what are the consequences?  If you aren't addressing the reason the symptom arose in the first place and you are prohibiting the natural healing action designed by mother nature, what do you THINK is happening?  You are not only allowing illness to prevail, you are encouraging it on some level.  Sure, some minor things are superficial, but every time you eliminate the body from doing it's job, you are also reducing it's ability to learn how to respond next time, and the time after that and well, eventually, your body is going to learn to stop responding to illness.  It may take some serious research and experimenting to truly understand the underlying cause of symptoms.  It's typically not simple or cut and dry, but if you want to know more about the stages of natural detox and what they look like when they are suppressed, check out these incredible videos from Mary Coyle:

Video one

Video two

Our body is designed to detox illness, pathogens, and toxins.  When we hinder our innate healing abilities, things begin to shut down and where does this land us?  Cancer anyone?  Autism on the rise much?  Autoimmune disease is a PRIME example of suppression and inability to detoxify naturally.  HELLOOOOOO!!  This, my friends, is suppression at it's finest.  

Next time you have a headache, or inflammation, or a fever, or anything that is uncomfortable for that matter, stop and think, "what is my body trying to do?".  Don't reach for that over the counter toxin to stop your body from working.  If you love your life and your future health, just don't.  Tough it out, learn the signs of your body and do something to support it rather than tearing it down.  Think of what you have to gain from trusting your body!

Let's remember too that suppression doesn't occur only on a physical level.  We can suppress emotions and feelings which will ultimately wreak havoc on our psyche, as well.  If you can't release these emotions through discussion, consider other spiritual forms of emotional detox such as yoga, meditation, quite time for yourself or some other form of spiritual release.  Even kids can be guided to partake in these activities.  =)