I feel like my health supplements are working against me
Today's blog has to do with a client who's been battling long term health issues - chronic weakness and fatigue, constipation and diarrhea, headaches, and whole-body pain. She's worked with many different providers, and collected a small arsenal of health supplements that are supposed to be helping her. But she doesn't feel like they are. Some don't seem to do anything, others seem to help but mess something else up, and others just seem to make things worse.
First think I do when someone shows up with lots of supplements, mineral, vitamins, essential oils, etc is to make sure they understand that I am not a doctor and am not telling them what to take or stop taking. They can use the info we gather in the session to talk with their doctor and start making changes as they see fit. Then I like to use Muscle Monitoring to start sorting what they have into piles:
Pile 1 - Stuff the body does not give a hoot about
Pile 2 - Stuff the body likes
Pile 3 - Stuff the body likes, but also causes a stress response
Pile 4 - Stuff the body does not like
Piles 1 and 4 get set aside for obvious reasons. Piles 2 and 3 are the ones we then focus on. Let's start with Pile 2, which seems like a no-brainer to keep taking, but I like to dig a little deeper. What have you been taking it for, how long, and does it seem to be doing something? Depending on these answers, it might be worth digging deeper. Being on something forever gets really expensive, and often indicates that the product is being used to try and put out an eternal fire. Sure, it's providing "in the moment" help, but it's being used as a band-aid instead of something that actually progresses the person. I'd prefer to work with the actual issue - maybe bio-absorption or bio-utilization, hormones, digestive microbiome, genetics - but taking product for life is an alternative (until it doesn't work any more...).
Pile 3 is often where the interesting stuff shows up. Many people have a hard time understanding that nutritional products (or even an upswing in quality diet) can cause stress in a person, but they most definitely can. Lot's of possibilities as to how:
- Item taken is running up against sabotages the person set up to protect themselves from something they view as a bigger stress. Huh? Think about these:
- Person 1 - all these vitamins I'm taking are competing with my body's protective goal of being overweight and reducing my sexual appeal so I can escape being abused again. It's not safe to lose the weight.
- Person 2 - my damaged muscle is preventing me from being able to be the star athlete, so now I can retire on my former glory instead of risk being overtaken by some wet-behind-the-ears upstart. Stupid supplement is threatening that.
- Person 3 - the supplement to reduce my body pain means I will be now have to go interact with the world, and what if I fail at my activity and they laugh at me?
- Person 4 - this thing I am taking can calm my mind and help me focus, but then I will lose all that attention from mom and dad and I will no longer be able to just do whatever I want and get my way.
- Item taken is great for something, but puts too heavy of a load elsewhere. People forget that even though things are "natural" and "healthy", their body still needs to physically deal with high quantities of whatever they took.
- Lungs: "Wow, I like that thing. Let's take it because it will help with this problem I have here."
- Liver: "Are you freaking kidding me?!? We're already running at a deficit, and this is gonna crush me."
- Kidneys: "I'm with Liver. We're barely holding on here as it is."
- The actual increase in health can have unexpected negative consequences:
- Thanks for detoxing everything from the liver, but we have problems with our ability to excrete it, so now it's actively harming me instead of stored safely in a fat cell...
- Thanks for killing off all my candida, but now I have nothing to absorb all these heavy metals that have been floating around here for a long time...
Pile 3 is what I focused on in today's client. She had 6 products addressing digestion, viruses, immune support, and vit D. We cleared up the stress response in the body, and all then moved to Pile 2 (stuff it likes). Now her body can more fully benefit from it , and it can do it's job without her body fighting it. Next time I see her, I will hear how her body responded. Many of my clients report that the stuff now seems to be working, or it seems they no longer need it....
So if you are wanting to learn how to become a practitioner, check out Meridian360.
Or if you are looking to get some help with your own issues, check out Meridian180.