Only some of these will be experienced by each individual, and the healthier his or her general condition, the fewer symptoms there will be. The symptoms are also characteristically transitory, sometimes lasting only a few hours or maybe days. Steady and extensive physical activity will speed up the cleansing process, which is why all effective dietary regimes include exercise. As I was writing the first draft of this section, I received a call from an old friend. Unaware of the subject I was immersed in, he urged me to write about what happens when one makes dietary changes and begins to heal! It turned out that four days earlier he had( once again) abruptly stopped consuming coffee, cheese, and sugar in order to get rid of a cyst he had developed at the back of his neck. He put himself on a regime that included flaxseed( to help bowel elimination), miso soup, vegetables, corn, and small amounts of whole grain. He also forced himself to walk a half hour daily through the hilly terrain of his neighborhood. For the first day or two he was extremely tired, had difficulty walking, swallowing, and developed strange headaches that started at the base of his neck. By the fourth day the headaches and the swallowing difficulty had disappeared, and the walking had become much easier. Slowly he was beginning to feel like his old healthy self again. He pointed out to me that if he hadn’ t been aware of the reaction-and-discharge syndrome that accompanies healing, he would have panicked and perhaps stopped his semifast. His cyst was still there— it had only been four days!— but it didn’ t hurt anymore. He expected that after a month or two of careful eating it would open by itself and drain, as had happened to him already a few times before.( And that was indeed what eventually happened: Two months later his cyst had all but disappeared.) Following is a table of possible symptoms that can arise when certain foods are eliminated. Think of what happens when you have a crutch taken away after you’ ve used it for a while, even though your legs are perfectly good: Because the use of the crutch has weakened them, you will be a little wobbly until you regain your normal strength. The symptoms, then, are the wobbliness; they will go away once the body becomes strong again.
ELIMINATION AND SYMPTOM CHART WHEN YOU MAY ENCOUNTER
FOR
YOU ELIMIN ATE
Sugar Tiredness, drowsiness, depression, feelings of alienation, lack of coordination
Coffee Headaches, shakiness, nervousness
1 to 5 days
1 to 10 days
Alcohol |
Tension, inability to relax |
2 to 5 days or more, depending on |
|
|
the extent of the drinking |
Milk and Milk Product s
Meats, Fats, Protein
Mucus elimination through skin, sinus, mucous membranes, lungs, sex organs
Foul body odor, coated tongue, feelings of being toxic, skin eruptions
Starting up to 3 months after the food was stopped— for a year or two
Varies: 1 to 4 weeks with a fast, 6 to 10 months for the deeper accumulations
If you have made a change in diet and are experiencing certain troubling symptoms, how can you tell whether they are signs of a healing crisis or of erroneous habits still persisting? A mistaken judgment in this situation could spell much additional trouble. First of all, you can refer to Kushi’ s list of symptoms on this page; if your symptom is on the list, and you feel OK about it, it’ s a healing reaction. Or you can consider a very helpful concept about the nature of healing symptoms noted by practitioners of homeopathy: They have found that discharge symptoms in the healing mode tend to follow a specific order, or progression, namely: 1. Symptoms move from the inside to the outside of the body( mucus in the lungs is coughed up; toxic matter from deep within the system comes out as boils or rashes). 2. Symptoms move from the upper part to the lower part of the body( medication that affects the kidneys, such as steroids, can be discharged by a rash on the legs).