What Do Your Symptoms Say about You?

 

We all have our own constitution and symptom picture which is based on our hereditary patterns and on factors such as how we live our life, the amount of stress, what we eat, how much we drink or smoke.

Most of the time we manage to keep our ailments at bay but when the stress goes up or our vitality lowers we can often spot a pattern to our symptoms. Some clients will say ‘I always get a cold when I go on holiday’ or ‘I get headaches at weekends’.

A health practitioner is like a detective trying to find a solution but often the answer can be in the root cause of a disease. This is the basis of natural medicine, and it’s not as simple as a quick diagnosis and taking a pot of pills. I use various assessment techniques in my practice to look at a patient’s health and was recently interviewed by BBC radio to discuss this, as was Sam, a patient of mine. You can hear the interview on my website.

Sam's symptom picture was loud and clear. When she came for help she was 4 stones overweight, on drugs and bulimic. She was suffering from anxiety and depression and seemed to be on antidepressants endlessly. She felt completely out of control. She was also asthmatic. Quite a picture, but it was a combination of factors that led her to the point where she really couldn’t go on any longer because she was getting nowhere. Reminds me of a quote by Einstein where “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Something had to change.

Unpacking her symptoms was quite a revelation to her. Getting her to focus on building good physical health, using nutrition and herbs but also getting her to understand her emotions and how she was processing them was part of her integrated health programme.

One of the toughest challenges is changing our habits. I often ask people, how bad does it have to get before you listen to your body and do something?

Sam has now lost over 4 stones, she does not need to take anti-depressants and is no longer bulimic. She is a picture of health. Sam has blogged her story, which you can read on my website.

Your health and healing journey doesn’t have to be a chore or painful. In fact I have just launched "Fizz into Life" with life coach Joo-Lee Stock where you can hold your own Wellbeing event/evening with friends and invite us to take you through issues to do with life and health in a fun way. It’s a great way to start to focus on some of the issues many leave until the last – looking after ourselves.

 

Rumana Zahn is a Naturopath and Medical Herbalist and runs clinics in Newcastle (within a GPs practice), Darlington and Seaham Hall’s Serenity Spa. She is a leader within the field of Natural Medicine, writes and speaks extensively on the subject. She can be contacted on 01325 722803 or www.rumanahealth.com

Rumana is a member of the British Register of Complementary Practitioners.

 

< BACK TO MAIN ARTICLES PAGE