"Sticks and stones might break my bones but names will never hurt me." An old saying.

People don’t like the unknown. People don’t like unanswered questions. And many people don’t like mysteries that have no end.

So, unfortunately, too many people spend years having tests and seeing a multitude of specialists while looking for a medical diagnosis for a set of symptoms that are troubling them. People want a name for their discomforts. As the set of symptoms aren’t typical signs of a disease, no one would give a diagnosis. Patients become Guinea Pigs as each specialist tries different drugs to reduce the symptoms.

Unfortunately, while they are running around looking for a name to give their ailments, their health deteriorates to the point when the final diagnosis is usually something terminal, some disease that would not have been terminal a few years earlier at the start of their disease.

What if you could be healing during all that time you went looking for a disease name? What if there was a method of healing available where the disease name was not important, but the symptoms were important? What if the disease could be treated without a name? Would that be something important?

Diseases Diagnosis

Illnesses come in all kinds of shapes and sizes these days. Some are trivial and go away on their own, where others are deeply rooted and either takes a lot of healing to remove or the person dies with them. No matter the disease or illness, a person tends to suffer and do just about anything to not suffer. When the suffering gets too severe or too common, medical treatment is usually sought.

All diseases come with a set of symptoms from which a medical doctor makes a diagnosis: the name given to your set of symptoms. For example, asthma is diagnosed by the set of symptoms: wheezing, shortness of breath and coughing; although other symptoms may be present, if a person has these 3 symptoms, there is a good chance he will be diagnosed with asthma and given the standard treatment plan for all asthmatics: a quick-acting inhaler, a steroid inhaler, and probably an anti-histamine drug as most doctors feel asthma is linked to allergies. Depending upon the severity of the asthma, you may get other medications too; but all the treatments you will receive are based on the medical diagnosis of asthma.

In order to be medically treated, you must have a diagnosis. Your set of symptoms must have a name.

Disease Prognosis

Once the disease receives its name, doctors can tell you what will occur with the disease, whether you have it for the rest of your life, or if it will be terminal in 6 months—as based on what their reference books tell them. This is called a prognosis—a general pattern of how the disease will expand during your lifetime. Using asthma as an example, the usual prognosis for asthma is that you will have it for the rest of your life once diagnosed, having to take medical drugs for symptom management, and that your asthma will get worse as you age. As the disease will be occurring for a long time, it is also called "chronic;" all chronic illnesses get worse as a person ages.

Disease Treatment

All medical drugs and treatments focus on helping the person suffer less. For asthma, the goals are to keep the lungs from wheezing, keep the lungs working to get air in and out, and keep the person active; they are also designed to keep a person from having flares or exacerbations that greatly impact the person’s life (and pocketbook with increased medical bills and hospitalizations).

As most diseases today are chronic (long-term), the goals for their treatment remains the same, but it becomes much more difficult. As the body ages with the disease, the body becomes weaker and has a harder time fighting off viruses and such. Times between flares or exacerbations lessen, and more medications need to be taken daily. A person, for example, who may be hospitalized only once every five years now is hospitalized 2-3 times in those five years, then every year, then several times each year.

Medical care does not cure a disease. It manages your disease and tries to keep it from impacting your life dramatically.

What’s in a Name?

"Sticks and stones might break my bones but names will never hurt me." An old saying.

But, unfortunately in medicine, a name can hurt you; that name is a diagnosis given to a set of symptoms that you have.

Having worked in the medical system for all those years, I saw the changes in people who were given a terminal medical diagnosis—they gave up living. The same diagnosis, when given to people who did not understand that they were supposed to die in 6 months, rarely developed the terminal aspect of the disease in the given time-frame; they often lived several years beyond when they were estimated to die.

A disease name also puts you into a group; you lose your individuality. For asthma, the standard treatment for the group is two inhalers and an antihistamine; is the standard treatment plan what you should receive? How many drugs do you take because you have a diagnosis not because you have symptoms of the illness?

And how long did you look for that name? More than half of my new patients stated they looked for many years, saw many doctors, and were "experimented" upon with drugs before any doctor could tell them the name of their ailment. MORE THAN HALF! Sometimes it was 3 years, sometimes 2, and sometimes it was only 5-6 months. Needless suffering was endured as they tried many drugs and continued to watch their health diminish. And, unfortunately, by the time they were told a disease name for their set of symptoms, it was something terminal, a condition that didn’t need to become so.

Look for Yourself, Not for a Name

"A man who knows a lot about himself can heal; a man who knows a lot about his disease has lost his identity." Ronda Behnke

Who are you? Do you have a name or a disease? Are you that disease?

Each medical diagnosis is a name for a given set of symptoms. The name and the symptoms are not you. You may be a man with asthma or a woman with menstrual difficulties; but you are not an asthmatic or you are not a grumpy pre-menstruating woman. You are John Smith (or whatever your legal name is) who has difficulty breathing; or you are Jane Doe who gets sad before her period.

You are a PERSON who has symptoms that something isn’t right. Those traits that make you an INDIVIDUAL are your keys to being free of those symptoms—FREE, not managing, not hiding…FREE of the symptoms, which means freedom from the disease as well.

What individualized symptoms makes your asthma different from your friend’s? Things that are:

• not associated with your diagnosis: perhaps you get sad every day at noon, you crave pickles and you are always cold when you feel a draft.

• associated with your diagnosis but not usual for your diagnosis: you may have wheezing (characteristic of asthma), but that wheezing always shows up at 2 p.m. (not a typical sign of asthma therefore it is something specific for you).

What Can Be Done if I am Ill?

"The disease ‘speaks’ to you through the language of the ‘signs and symptoms.’ Give heed to the language of the body and you will not need to create empty theories to explain the phenomenon of nature." Dr. Manish Bhatia, Classical Homeopath

Wouldn’t it be nice to find a way to help your health without having to first wait for a medical diagnosis?

Well, there is…it’s called Classical Homeopathy. Classical Homeopathy is symptom-based medicine (natural healing medicines). A disease name (diagnosis) is only important to Classical Homeopaths in that they know the usual set of symptoms associated with the diagnosis (such as the wheezing, shortness of breath and cough associated with the diagnosis of asthma). But a diagnosis isn’t important for a Classical Homeopath to proceed with your health care.

What a Classical Homeopath wants to know is how YOU are affected by your symptoms, your general reaction to your life, and how your symptoms are unique. A Classical Homeopath takes this information and finds the 1 remedy out of the 4,400 available that will assist you in healing. Not disease management, not suppressing symptoms, but healing them.

When it’s time to heal, call a Classical Homeopath. You don’t need to hunt and search for a disease name—symptoms tell you all you need to know to answer your question, that question that sends people of all ages to 10 different specialists at 10 different hospitals for 10 months: "What is wrong with me?".

What is Wrong with Me?

Technically, there is nothing wrong with you except an imbalance within your body. The symptoms are your voice; the symptoms are the keys to unlocking the imbalance within and setting your health back on track.

You can go to your 10 different doctors, take 10 different drugs and have every lab examination done. But while you are waiting for the answer to your question, "What is wrong with me?" see a Classical Homeopath. The voice of your symptoms does not need to be suppressed—it needs to be heard.

Best wishes,

Dr. Ronda

Classical Homeopathy is centuries old. Classical Homeopaths use minute medicines to assist the body with healing. The Food and Drug Administration has regulated homeopathic medicines since the FDA’s creation; they acknowledge these wonderful healing remedies as over-the-counter medicines can treat illnesses.

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.