By Valli Manley B.C.N.D, CNHP
A few years passed after my mother’s death, and I was married with two small children. I was on my way back from a church event, and I suddenly felt cold and feverish. My stomach began to hurt and I started throwing up. This went on for 2 days until I decided to go to the doctor. When I arrived at the doctor’s office, he said that he would give me something to stop me from regurgitating. He suspected that it was some sort of virus, but his objective was to allay my symptoms (not get to the bottom of what was really causing the problem). I clearly understand the conventional medical model, he was doing what he was trained to do to help me.
He asked me a few questions and then gave me a shot of a drug called Compazine. The mechanism of action of this drug was to stop something called reverse peristalsis, in layman’s, terms it’s when you vomit. The wave-like motion that takes food down into the stomach is called peristalsis.
After he administered the compazine, I stopped throwing up, but to my surprise, I began to battle a case of severe diarrhea. This is where I discovered that we are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made by God.
The doctor gave me something to stop me from throwing up, not neutralize the pathogen that was causing me to throw up. The foreign body remained in me and my body said, if I can’t get it out one way, I’ll get it out another. My body was violently rejecting this foreign pathogen. I was literally up through the night every 10-15 minutes going to the bathroom. I went so frequently and became so irritated and inflamed
that I began to bleed from my rectum.
I called the doctor and he told me that I was bleeding because I was irritated from going to the bathroom so frequently. He had already given me the drug of choice to combat my little problem, but beyond that, there was nothing that he could do. I hung up in great dismay; the sad part is that he was right; conventionally there was nothing else that he could do. He is trained to get rid of the symptom, but I really needed to eradicate the cause.
It was the afternoon of day four, and my sister called me as I sat shaking and crying from the constant intestinal spasms that I was experiencing. She asked me what was wrong and I told her that my stomach was really messed up. She simply responded by saying that she had read in an herbal book that comfrey tea was good for an upset stomach. She told me that whenever her children had an upset stomach, she would give it to them and their stomachs would recover from whatever had upset it.
I immediately asked my ex-husband to please go and find this tea; I was willing to try anything to get some kind of relief. He found the herbal root and I mixed it with peppermint tea to give it a more palatable flavor, and within 30 minutes diarrhea had stopped. I was pleasantly surprised. When I looked this herb up, I found out that it was used for gastrointestinal inflammation amongst other things, and it had a healing effect on the mucous membranes that line the intestinal tract. It also stops bleeding. This is not an herb that should be taken every day it is used for medicinal purposes only (and for a limited amount of time. Some studies indicate that it can have an adverse effect on the liver if used improperly).
Although I had heard about herbs and their healing properties, I had never had a first-hand experience with them. This was indeed a pleasant surprise to know that something so simple could actually work. This experience opened up my curiosity and ignited my interest in natural health remedies.
Needless to say, I was ecstatic and disappointed at the same time that the doctor couldn’t recommend anything sooner. But I have come to realize that it is not a part of their conventional training. Doctors are excellent in emergency situations, If someone is having a heart attack, an asthma attack, or anything else that can be life-threatening, I would certainly tell everyone please call 911, they are trained to save your life. I believe that modern medicine is a gift from God when used properly.
It is in the area of chronic diseases, and acute non-life-threatening situations that I think conventional medicine fails as evidenced by my situation. In my opinion, this is where sick care kicks in as opposed to real healthcare. If the disease is the result of toxicity or a deficiency, then drug therapy is not going to cure the condition, it only puts a band-aide on it.
Toxicity and deficiencies must be addressed when there is a health compromise through detoxification and proper nutrition, and the implementation of the basic tenets of health
My daughter who is a Doctor of Pharmacy told me that drugs at their best would be anti-biotics; basically, they just bring your bacterial load down to a level whereby your own immune system can kick in and neutralize the problem.
I once read that we should not have more than two courses of antibiotics in a lifetime. The reason is that you don’t want to destroy your microbiome which is your colony of good bacteria that supports immune health in the gut.
The experience that I had opened up the door to the fact that natural remedies work; you just have to find them. It also ushered me into the holistic health space, and a desire to help people to find natural solutions from God’s garden. Knowledge is power and could make the difference between sickness and health.