Healing Takes Time And Understanding
By Mr. Steven Horne

People tell me one of the primary reasons that they continue to take all of these supplements is because they have been told that nutritional healing takes a long time. There is truth in that statement, healing does take time. Any natural process takes time. I may be too impatient in my desire to eat corn to wait for the seeds I am planting today to mature into a crop of ripe corn on the cob, but nothing I can do is going to avoid the process of growth required for such an event to occur.

In our culture people do tend to be impatient-they are conditioned to want "instant relief." But instant relief is not healing. It's simply the masking of symptoms without really restoring the body to its natural healthy state.

Since most drugs are simply masking symptoms, instead of healing, you have to keep taking the drug in order to continue to obtain instant relief. However, the fact that the symptoms return, almost immediately, when the drug is discontinued means that no healing has really taken place. If the drug were actually correcting the problem, then you would take it for a period of time, get better, and not need it anymore.

Think about it. Have you ever met anyone who was "cured" of headaches by taking pain killers?
Have you ever known anyone whose high blood pressure medication "healed" them of high blood pressure so they could discontinue the drug?
If antibiotics really "cure" infections, then why is it that the more people take them the easier it seems to be for them to get another infection?

In contrast, I have seen herbs actually heal the body. That is, I have observed that when one finds a nutritional and lifestyle program that actually addresses the real root causes and that the person stays on the program for a few months, and then get better, which means that the supplements one took did their job and are not needed anymore.

Chronic Illness & Degenerative Condition
Yes, healing does take time-it can take several months to fully recover from a chronic health problem. It can even take several years to completely overcome a degenerative condition. But, this does not mean that it takes that long to see improvement. Just as you can see a seed sprout and begin to grow long before the plant will completely mature, you can also see the signs that your health is improving long before you are completely healed. So, if you start on a particular supplement and you don't notice any improvement within a reasonable period of time, that supplement probably isn't going to do you any good.

What is a reasonable amount of time?
Based on my experience, the following guidelines are fairly reasonable.
With acute illness, you shoul take your remedies anywhere from every 10-15 minutes (for liquids) to every hour or two (for capsules). If the remedy is going to make a difference, you should notice improvement in about 3-5 hours at the most. If you don't see improvement, the remedy probably isn't going to help.

With chronic illness, where you are taking a remedy two to four times per day, it typically takes about 3-4 days to see improvement. If a program does not cause any improvement in your health within 7-10 days, it probably is not going to help. Try something different.

Finally, with severe degenerative conditions, like cancer, it may take as long as 2-4 weeks to see improvement. These cases require a lot of skill to monitor, and they should not be attempted by beginners.

What do I mean by improvement?
It's very simple. You should feel better. Who cares what some expert says, or what muscle testing shows? The true test of any herb, supplement, or healing modality (even if it's a drug or surgical procedure) is how it affects your body. Does it increase your sense of well-being? Do you notice more energy, greater resistance to disease, a better mental attitude or other signs that tell you that what you are doing is increasing your overall sense of feeling alive and healthy? If not, why bother? In other words, the place to begin is to start learning to listen to your own body and trust what it is telling you.

Symptoms and Diseases

When the cause of a "dis-ease" is removed, the symptoms of disease immediately begin to subside, and energy levels return to normal.
On the other hand, if the body is unsuccessful in eliminating the source of irritation, then the irritant overpowers the body's coping mechanisms. As stagnation sets in, the tissue energy slips "below the line" and the system becomes progressively weaker.

There are two reasons why the body may be unsuccessful in mounting a crisis.
First, the body was too weak to resist the irritant and mount an effective response. This is why building health is the foundation of preventive health care. The stronger the body is, the more easily it will resist an irritant. We call this immunity.

A second reason why the body may be unable to mount an effective disease crisis is because the crisis is suppressed with drug medications.

Symptoms, such as fever, runny noses, vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, coughing, sneezing, skin eruptions, and so forth, are methods the body uses to flush the irritants that are causing inflammatory reactions. Relieving "symptoms" is often a matter of interfering with these natural body responses. This is why drugs are usually small doses of substances that would be toxic taken in large doses. These poisons interfere with natural body processes, resulting in the appearance of a cure. Remember the analogy we used in another article about putting "corks" in the body's chimneys? When we do this, the body is not really cured, and the problem is suppressed -progressively becoming a subacute, chronic or degenerative disease.

Steven H. Horne is a past president and professional member of the American Herbalists Guild, a certified iridologist with the International Iridology Practioners Association, and a gifted teacher and consultant in the field of natural health care. He is president of Tree of Light Publishing.