What is the suppression of symptoms?

As a homeopath we often talk about the suppression of symptoms, but what do we mean by this?

I often explain it to my patients like this. 

Your body is constantly trying to exist in a state of ease and stability. Our bodies all have a built in balancing capability. When not in a state of harmony – or in “dis-ease” – your body will signal to you all is not well. It will send you a message. The message will appear as a symptom. Depending on the nature of the dis-ease, the message will appear as a physical symptom somewhere on your body telling you that something is amiss.

Let’s use skin symptoms as an example.

Your body doesn’t want to be out of harmony. Producing skin symptoms is a very visible signal that you cannot ignore for long. Whilst skin symptoms may not look very nice and can be bothersome, they do not affect the body’s ability to function in the same way as a heart issue or breathing difficulties can. It is a symptom that you will take note of but will not affect your overall health in a significant way.

Pharmaceutical medicine will prescribe a steroid cream for these skin symptoms.  After a few days you notice the skin symptoms disappear, so you stop using the cream however, in many instances,  the skin symptoms come back. The only way the skin symptoms keep under control is with continued used of steroid cream. 

Over a period of time you notice breathing difficulties and discover you have developed asthma. Now you require an inhaler to keep your breathing difficulties at bay.  The development of asthma symptoms may have taken a few months or even years to develop.  

Asthma very often follows suppressed eczema. A more complex condition with the potential to have a greater impact on the quality of life. The dis-ease of the body is still signalling the something requires attention in a much more dramatic manner  – It sends you asthma symptoms. 

So is the eczema healed?

Did the steroid cream heal the eczema?

OR

Was the eczema forced back into the body to reappear as asthma?

As a homeopath we learn that the skin symptoms are a message telling you something needs to be re-balanced internally. However, the steroid cream is a strong medication which over-rides these symptoms and tells the body to stop producing this message. Symptoms are removed on one level (the skin) and move to a deeper level (the lungs).

Homeopathy is all about taking back responsibility for your own health. 

“You didn’t listen to the message so the body sent you a bigger message.”

The phrase “don’t shoot the messenger” comes to mind here. Your body is still in a state of imbalance.  Are you listening to your symptoms? Do you know what the symptom is saying? How can you learn to understand the messages that your body sends you?

Homeopathy is all about listening to your body and understanding the language of your body. 

Lets face it, no one knows your body like you do.  No one can understand that feeling of something is not right, something is amiss.

People come to me saying “I have had numerous allergy tests and examinations but they come back negative, but I know something is not right”.   This is the beginning of learning the art of listening to your body, learning to translate the symptoms your body sends you as a message.

Very often modern-day pharmaceutical medication does not address the root cause of a condition. Steroid cream removes the symptoms of eczema from the skin but it does not address the reason for the eczema in the first place. The skin looks “healed” but the original condition has been suppressed – pushed deeper into the body.

Homeopathy has a very different approach.

Homeopathy looks to address the cause of the symptom.  By helping the body respond to the original cause of the symptom you will achieve much longer lasting health and your body will be much more resilient in the future and will know how to correct imbalances as they occur later in life.

Meet Rachael here

Book a FREE 15 minute call