In part 1 of this article, you learned how your body works to remove the causes of the symptoms you have when an illness strikes, and how to identify the changes that occur before the physical symptoms appear. You also learned how to work with your body to help it heal faster, and to look towards natural means such as homeopathy to assist the body’s efforts and diminish your suffering.

Also discussed were the main reasons why acute, short-term conditions become chronic, long-term conditions, with the main reason being suppression of symptoms with chemical drugs that allow diseases to move deeper into the body and weaken the body’s ability to heal.

In this article, I will discuss how chronic diseases occur and how people adjust their lives to accommodate the diseases, not health, and how supporting and "managing" the disease keeps the disease and continues to weaken the ability to heal.

What is a Chronic Disease?

In the medical community, a chronic disease is a health condition that has existed longer than 6 months, requires medical drugs to maintain and is deeply rooted or deep within; and a person will probably have the disease for the remainder of his life as it will probably not diminish in its affect on the person.

It is the opposite of "acute" which means short-term, superficial and usually will disappear within 6 months.

How Do Chronic Diseases Form?

As mentioned in part 1 of this article, only when an acute, new condition isn’t healed does it become a chronic issue. The body sends signs that something isn’t right before the physical signs of an illness appear. If a person doesn’t recognize these changes as significant, the physical symptoms appear; most people don’t ignore those.

Even if a person doesn’t assist the body at this point, the body usually does its job to eliminate the cause of the imbalance and physical symptoms so long as the symptoms are not suppressed. The body returns to balance and is stronger. The key here is: so long as the symptoms are not suppressed.

There are several reasons why the body doesn’t return to balance:

**The body’s efforts are suppressed or reduced: this is the number one reason, and the number one way is through a chemical drug. Using the example of the flu: if a person takes a fever-reducing agent, the virus isn’t slowed so it moves quicker and infects deeper. If a person takes a cough suppressant, the virus can go deeper into the lungs and cause pneumonia. If a person takes an anti-nausea agent so he can eat, he can develop an inflamed stomach. When the body is faced with an illness that is more serious than the virus (such as pneumonia), it has to change its healing focus away from the virus to heal the more-serious illness. In doing so, the virus continues to invade the body and can become "dormant," meaning it’ll stay there for a long time, weakening the body because the immune system doesn’t remove dormant viruses easily, if ever. But the presence of the dormant virus can weaken the body just enough to allow other health issues to crop up. An example is the shingles: if a person suppresses the healing of chicken pox, the virus lies dormant in the nervous system; during times of high stress, the virus presents itself again as a painful rash—Shingles.

**A different health issue appears as a result of the first health issue: this was kind of discussed in the first reason. To reiterate: a person develops pneumonia so healing the pneumonia takes precedence over the healing of a virus.

**An organ is surgically removed: example, if a person gets a "gallbladder attack" and the gallbladder is removed; the imbalance will remain and cannot be healed completely because the gallbladder is missing.

**The healing ability of the body weakens: when a new illness appears, the body works strongly to remove the imbalance and restore the body to balance. If the body isn’t supported in its efforts, the strength of the "fight" weakens. In time, the ability to heal becomes so weak that the illness cannot be removed by the body without help—the help is usually the right homeopathic remedy.

Only when the body’s healing ability is too weak can a disease become chronic. Think of a chronic sinus infection. You’ll always have signs of the infection so long as it remains, but after a while, you ignore them. You may have swelling and discharge all the time, but it becomes a part of life for you. Only when it gets really bad do you give it attention now.

The same is true for your body. When it gets too weak to do anything about the sinus infection, it moves on to other things. Only when it gets a little stronger does it again try to remove the sinus infection—unfortunately, when this occurs, most people think their sinus infection is worse and work to suppress the symptoms again, thus again weakening the body’s healing abilities so the sinus infection remains…..and the cycle continues….

How are Chronic Diseases Supported?

When a person realizes that a disease isn’t going to "go away," they adapt their lifestyle to keep the disease from affecting their life too much. In essence, they decide that the disease is going to stay and try to make their life as enjoyable as possible. Depending on the disease, a person will alter his/her life to accommodate it. Here are some of the usual ways:

**Changes in Diet: example: those with diabetes avoid sugar; those who are over-weight drink diet sodas; those with allergies avoid foods that cause sensitivity reactions, and so on

**Changes in Sleep: you may feel tired more often so you sleep more; or you may use a CPAP or BIPAP if you were diagnosed with sleep apnea

**Changes at Work/School: you may work part-time or less hours; or you don’t work at all and receive disability benefits

**Changes in Activity: pain in your legs causes you to use a wheelchair or not walk in the park

**Changes in Social Interaction: anxiety keeps you home instead of going to the restaurant with your friends; fears of being victimized keep people locked in their homes.

**Changes in Intimacy: you have no interest in intercourse so you avoid sexual intimacy

**Changes in Finances: your medical drugs cost $200/month so you buy less food

**Changes in Medical Coverage: your insurance premiums are higher if you have a chronic condition, and you REALLY want coverage so your medical bills aren’t too high.

**Changes in How You Handle Health: you choose to see those practitioners that are covered by your insurance, and use those drugs covered by your insurance because you don’t have any money to spare to buy natural remedies or see a natural practitioner or to buy organic foods, etc.

Is it True: Once I Have a Chronic Disease I’ll Have it Forever?

No.

But things will have to change. If you’ve had your chronic disease for some time, and if you realize that whatever you are doing now isn’t fixing it, then it’s time to try something new.

One of the first lines that I used to tell myself when I began my natural studies was: "When it’s time to heal, call a Classical Homeopath." I used to laugh because I was studying to be a Naturopathic Doctor and only a little of my studies was in homeopathy. But when I graduated as a Naturopathic Doctor, I KNEW I needed to become a Classical Homeopath to help others heal, not just manage their disease symptoms with natural supplements.

So, no, you don’t have to have a chronic disease forever….you just need to call a Classical Homeopath.

One Chronic Disease Tends to Become Two or More In Time

When the body weakens to the point where it has to accept a chronic condition, it changes its focus now towards preserving life. Most chronic conditions require medical drugs and/or surgery to maintain the disease. Medical drugs and surgery weaken the body’s healing abilities further to the point where the healing focus must now be on life—protecting your life. The way the body protects your life is by protecting the five vital organs: heart, lungs, kidneys, liver and brain.

As the healing ability gets weaker and weaker, non-vital organs tend to develop diseases because the healing ability of the body cannot protect all organs any more.

So you may start out with a sinus infection that becomes chronic. But then your tonsils enlarge so you have them removed. Then you have trouble digesting meat so you cut meat out of your diet, but all those vegetables cause gas so you eat as few of these as possible, sticking to mostly carbohydrates and grains. You gain weight and develop diabetes. So you modify your diet further with the help of a few drugs to help with the effects of the new diet. Twenty years later your kidneys begin to fail……and so on.

One chronic disease with one drug daily at age 8 can turn into 5 chronic diseases and 10 drugs by age 40. According to StateMaster.com, the average American adult takes 10.8 prescription drugs daily (the most is Tennessee with an average of 15.5; Alaska is the least at 6.5). The earliest age when a chronic disease is diagnosed is 7 months of age; unfortunately, this is becoming more common to where it is not unusual to have a toddler with asthma, diabetes, or attention-deficit disorders (according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, June 27, 2007).

Please, don’t become a statistic of an article like this.

What Are My Options?

Generally, you have two options:

1. Continue as you are, accepting your health as it is

2. Change, accepting that you can be healthy

The First Step

When it’s time to heal, call a Classical Homeopath.

The Path Ahead

If you choose the route of health and healing, you can work with a Classical Homeopath to improve your health. Depending on the length of your illness and the measures you have taken to make your life okay with that illness, the Homeopath can give you a good idea of what is ahead.

If you choose to continue to adjust your life to accommodate your disease, know that all chronic diseases get worse as time goes on—it has been a proven fact. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 99% of people in the United States die of their chronic diseases, medical care or drug mishaps or other medical-related incidences (of the other 1%, about ½ die of accidents, injury, etc; and the other ½ die of "old age" not disease-related). Those who live fruitful, vibrant lives after the age of 65 usually aren’t those who have chronic illnesses. Those in nursing homes aren’t those who are healthy.

So, how do you choose to spend the next 50 years? Do you want to live and thrive, or do you want to just survive?

And remember, when it’s time to heal, call a Classical Homeopath.

Best wishes….

Dr. Ronda

Disclaimer: The information provided by Dr. Ronda is for educational purposes only. It is important that you not make health decisions or stop any medication without first consulting your personal physician or health care provider.