Have you ever noticed that a symptom improves… only to return again a few weeks or months later?
Maybe it's bloating that settles and then comes back. A skin flare that seems to appear during stressful periods. Anxiety that returns even when everything on the surface seems “fine.”
One of the things I've learned over the years in practice is that our symptoms rarely exist in isolation.
All of our systems are constantly communicating with each other: digestion, hormones, the immune system, the nervous system and more. This is why I believe it's important to look at the mind, body and gut as an interconnected system rather than simply isolating individual symptoms.
What was happening when this first started?
What makes it better or worse? Is there a pattern to when it returns?
These are questions I love exploring with patients.
I often say that the body gives us clues. Rather than simply suppressing or removing a symptom, we can become curious about what the body may be trying to communicate and what it needs to move toward balance.
There is a voice that doesn't use words. Listen.
So, what do we do?
This is what I love about holistic medicine. There isn't necessarily one supplement, vitamin or herb that brings you back to center...
Instead, when we begin supporting the organ systems and the terrain of the body, we give the body an opportunity to move back toward balance. As that happens, we often see the symptoms begin to shift too. Rashes improve, digestion becomes easier, mood lightens, and energy and vitality return.
A Patient Example
I had a patient recently, let's call her Bella. She was 49 and came to see me with bloating, constipation, weight gain, poor sleep, low energy and a recurring rash on her hands.
About a year earlier, her mother had passed away and she had become the primary caretaker for her father. She was exhausted and hadn't really had the space to grieve.
At first glance, these could look like unrelated symptoms. But I love looking for the pattern.
- In Chinese medicine, the Lung and Large Intestine are associated with grief and letting go. Her constipation began shortly after her mother passed, and interestingly, her rash appeared along the Large Intestine acupuncture meridian.
- Her digestion gave us another clue. The Small Intestine is paired with the Heart and is responsible for absorption. During grief, we can have difficulty taking in the new while we are still trying to process the old.
- Then there was her sleep. She was consistently waking between 3–5 a.m., the time traditionally associated with the Lung & Large Intestine in the Chinese medicine body clock. Another connection back to grief.
Her symptoms were not so random after all.
We started balancing her gut while using my emotionally focused acupuncture, which incorporates a combination of homeopathy, hypnotherapy, breath work and guided inquiry to help identify and remove patterns that may be keeping the body stuck.
Rather than treating each symptom separately, we worked with the underlying pattern and supported her body as a whole.
Symptoms are usually not random at all. When we step back and look at the whole picture, the pieces can start to come together.
The body gives us clues. We just have to learn how to listen.
With so much warmth and gratitude,
Dr. Rena