Natural Healing Reactions & How to Understand Them

Excerpts From: Understanding the Natural Healing Process by Robert Koch, DSc.

Table of Contents

What are Natural Healing Reactions?

"I find that the more severe the individual's health condition (more toxicity in the body), the stronger will be the healing reaction...the healing reaction is caused by flushing toxins out of the cells..."

In the course of following a nutritional program for health problems and disorders, many people experience uncomfortable symptoms. These are known as healing reactions.

The most common healing symptom is a temporary reduction in energy. Many 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 healing 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 large intestine (colon), but also 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", which are actually natural detoxifying processes.

This effect is increased by the body's process of tearing apart defective tissue, repairing damaged cells, eliminating toxic agents, etc. which produces debris (waste products) from the re-construction.

It is found that the more severe the individual's disease 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 the healing reaction also depends on how carefully the individual is following the recommended nutritional program. The more correctly a program is followed, the stronger will be the healing reaction.

Why Old Symptoms Come Back

Often in the course of the natural healing process old symptoms, illnesses, diseases, organ malfunctions and even injuries reappear. Why should people have to go back through these old symptoms 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 natural 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 fatigued, 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 heal and 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.

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.

Picture the natural 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.

When someone's health 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, the person begins to move back up the stairs, and re-experience the symptoms associated with these various levels of health, which is called "retracing" - see Retracing, Healing Reactions & Flare-Ups

Drugs That Block Pain May Also Block Natural Healing

Experiencing such natural 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 painkillers, 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 that interferes with the healing process.

IF in the past an individual went through a period of pain, taking painkillers or other drugs at this point the symptoms actually prolongs the discomfort.

Aspirin and antihistamines work by blocking the prostaglandins (fats), which are chemical substances found throughout the body which regulate many bodily functions and metabolic processes. Generally the prostaglandins work in opposing pairs. One, for example, may produce inflammation and swelling in response a specific stimulus, while another undoes these reactions.

When you take aspirin or an antihistamine to stop an uncomfortable reaction, you may not experience the pain or inflammation but you also do no get the healing process that undoes the reason for the pain and inflammation. Therefore, you have achieved a stalemate rather that a cure.

Natural Ways to Ease Healing Reactions

When healing reactions are very troublesome, we can usually do something to help. Some natural herbal remedies help 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 prostaglandins (fats) and not the healing chain itself. This illustrates why natural substances are preferable to synthetic drugs, which are toxic, in the long run.

The dosage of certain health supplements can also be adjusted to slow down the rate at which the healing process takes place. When people have uncomfortable strong healing reactions they can cut down on the dosage and increase it more slowly. This slows down the healing process.

That means uncomfortable symptoms are less intense, but the healing process is also more prolonged. As the person's body becomes detoxified, we can increase the dosage until it is being taken at optimal levels.

The Continual Flow In & Out of All Cells is Important

Every cell in our body is in a continual flow of exchange by the process of osmosis, from and to the blood. This is the way the body passes nutrients, hormones, water, etc. from its blood system to every cell, which goes through the cell walls (osmosis) in trade for toxic wastes the cells produce during normal metabolism. This can only occur in our wonderful sea of life.