Symptoms of Disease Are Like Sand in the Hand – Fleeting And Inconsistent

Symptoms of disease are highly changeable, if not unpredictable. The causes of disease remain obscure to most medical practitioners and their patients. A stomach catarrh, or inflammation of the mucous membrane, for example, may initially show up as an irritation and then become an ulcer. Next it may be perceived as a hardening of tissue and, eventually, be diagnosed as cancer. The course and intensification of pathological symptoms (signs of disease) may vary from person to person, and relatively few people develop the cancer stage. However, the previous stages can be equally life threatening. As a matter of fact, many more people die from acute digestive problems than from cancer and coronary heart disease.

A stomach catarrh may be accompanied by various kinds of complaints, including stomach upset, nausea, vomiting, gastritis, and cramping of the stomach. In truth, two people suffering from gastritis never have exactly the same symptoms. One of them may be a very nervous person and his symptoms of gastritis may include headaches and insomnia. The other may suffer an epileptic attack. As the stages of the disease become more pronounced, some, but not all afflicted patients, develop anemia as a result of ulceration and putrefaction of cell proteins. A number of people form hemorrhoids when stomach ulcers begin to occur. Others suffer from stomach congestion, where the food is practically stuck and vomited every second or third day.

Modern medicine views each set of symptoms as different types of disease, each of which requires a separate approach or treatment by a specialist. This makes medical diagnosis and treatment so complex that even doctors are confused as to what measures to take to help their patients. Each new variation of disease produces different symptoms in different people, and the specialists are unable to identify the common cause of the various complaints. Since doctors aren’t trained to search for the cause of the complaints, they tend to treat the various symptoms as if they were separate diseases. To them, the initial stomach pain seems to have no connection with the inflammation of the catarrh; the thickening of the stomach lining is dissimilar to a stomach ulcer; an ulcer is certainly not a malignant tumor; and the tumor just appears out of the blue.

A physician may be able to stop initial pain in the stomach with an antacid or a painkiller, and when the catarrh occurs, he may prescribe anti-inflammatory drugs. As the growing ulcer becomes unbearable, a surgeon may decide to cut it out. When the cancer appears, an oncologist may prescribe chemotherapy, radiation, or surgical removal of the tumor and parts of the stomach. Yet none of these symptoms are diseases in themselves; all of them are caused by something else, and without dealing with that something else, the disease will continue to appear in other, seemingly unrelated forms and variations. Symptoms are like sand in the hand. They are fleeting and inconsistent. Only those trained to connect symptoms with their causes can reveal the true nature of disease. Clearly then, it is not in the best interest of the patient merely to receive treatment for the symptoms of his chronic ailments. Addressing the underlying cause is crucial for genuine healing to occur.

Searching for the Cause

Not many people try to find out why their stomach becomes irritated or in what ways they may have contributed to their own illnesses. Instead, they feel they are doing all they can to become well by simply treating the symptoms of their illness as they manifest one by one. Unfortunately, even by removing the final stage of the symptom of disease, which in the above case is a cancerous tumor, the physician has done nothing to address the cause of the very first symptom of disease, stomach pain. Eating irritating foods and bottled salad dressings or having too much refined salt or hot chili may have caused the pain. Others causes may include feeling emotionally upset, smoking, drinking too much alcohol, regular intake of coffee, soft drinks, or artificial sweeteners, overeating, liver congestion, or not drinking enough water.

The latter is probably the most common, yet the least known cause of stomach problems and many other illnesses. I am using the example of stomach disorders to describe the basic mechanisms leading to disease. Most stomach pains are signals of advanced dehydration of the mucus lining. Consisting of 98 percent water and 2 percent water-holding scaffolding, the mucus layer serves as a natural buffer of protection against stomach acids. The cells below the mucus layer secrete sodium bicarbonate, which is kept there to neutralize any of the hydrochloric acid that may pass through the mucus lining. The resulting chemical reaction between the two chemicals produces salt from the sodium bicarbonate and chlorine from the hydrochloric acid. Consumption of foods that require the secretion of large amounts of hydrochloric acid, such as meat, fish, eggs, cheese, and other high protein foods, thus causes high salt production inside the stomach. This alters considerably the water-holding properties of the scaffolding material of the mucus lining. Regular consumption of such foods in large amounts leads to an intensified acid neutralization, and subsequently, to an accumulation of salt deposits in this layer. This causes ‘erosion’ which will allow the acid to reach the stomach wall, and the result is the well-known pain of dyspepsia.

As long as the mucus barrier is properly hydrated through regular water intake, and protein and fat consumption is moderate, any salt deposits are washed away. In addition, sodium bicarbonate is retained, and the hydrochloric acid is neutralized before it even has the chance to penetrate the mucus layer. Thus, there can be no better acid barrier to the stomach wall than water. Yet the stomach pain, which in most cases is rather a thirst pain, is usually combated with antacids and other medications. These drugs, however, do not offer efficient protection against the natural action of the hydrochloric acid. Most people with stomach ulcers and severe abdominal or dyspeptic pain, experience almost instant and total relief of their discomfort after drinking 1-2 glasses of water. Caffeine-containing beverages such as most soft drinks, tea or coffee, on the other hand, have a diuretic effect, and draw water from the protective stomach lining. One cup of coffee or an alcoholic drink can easily bring on a painful attack.

The stomach pain is the first signal to tell a person that something is off balance with regard to his eating habits or the hydrating of his body. The suppression of this pain through drugs usually prevents the patient from finding out what is causing it. Thus, the ignorance about the mechanism of water metabolism – mistaking the thirst pain for a disease, which is a gross misdiagnosis – can be held responsible for the suppression of the initial symptoms of discomfort that could eventually end up as cancer. Most cancers are the result of repeatedly suppressing mild symptoms of illness such as a cold, pain, infection, or headache and treating them as if they were real diseases.

The purely clinical approach to treatment focuses on the progressive stages of pathological symptoms and keeps producing new findings that promise a cure for each of these problems.

The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing certainly applies to the symptom-oriented approach of conventional medicine.

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This is an excerpt from my book TIMELESS SECRETS OF HEALTH & REJUVENATION