Kapha caught me a few days back. It started with itchy and soar sensation in the throat, lack of appetite, reduced thirst, heaviness in the body, heavy head & lethargy. Also my stools were sticky. Even normal temperature water was irritating my throat. With these signs I was clear with the diagnosis that Kapha has increased in my body.
The first thing that came to my mind was fasting i.e. not to eat anything till I feel really hungry. As i was not feeling thirsty i naturally followed the rule, not to have water till i feel thirsty. And even with the minimal thirst i had my body preferred warm water. Body was not demanding rest so i continued doing the routine work.
It took me almost 12-14 hrs to start feeling slightly hungry. It was very little so had some puffed rice (murmura) with a lot of spice, red chilly. Usually my body doesn’t accept any spicy things. My pitta immediately flares up. But on that day I was enjoying red chilly. What an amazing & wise body. It knew that today this red chilly will be my treatment as it will take care of my excess kapha. I felt a little better and the itchiness in my throat was a little less. At night I applied a strong balm, tiger balm on my throat, in really good quantity as shown in the ads. The warmth due to the balm gave me a soothing feeling. As the effect of it wore off I kept on applying it again.
Next day I started getting the soar feeling in my body. What is this feeling? The raw kapha is accumulated in my body. And why has it accumulated? I started thinking and got the answer that for the last few days I was eating even though I was not hungry and that too a little more than my hunger. Also remembered that I ate quite a lot of curd every day. The reasons were very clear to me. I did not take it as some infection. It was mere excess kapha in the body due to my own wrong doings.
I knew the slow nature of the kapha. It takes lot of time to accumulate and it will also take a long time to go away. I was prepared mentally to fight out this situation.
Next day hunger did not ignite fully. I ate just twice during the day and that too very minimal lighter murmura. That day I ate two tea spoons of Chilly along with the murmura. I was enjoying it. I felt the warmth of it in the body immediately. I started sweating in the head. I was feeling better with both these feelings. Along with this I was taking grated ginger with honey three – four times a day. Almost half spoonful of ginger with one spoonful of honey every time. Let’s understand what I was doing.
I accumulated Kapha in my body. Now this kapha is in the raw form. That is why this soar feeling. And this raw kapha does not come out easily. Its treatment is to ripen it. And what is the element which will ripen it? Yes the fire element. So I was providing my body the fire element through red chilly, through the balm. Also I was preserving the small fire I had with me, which meant not eating when i was not hungry, eating up to the hunger and light murmura only. This way i was trying to ignite the fire in me.
If I ate without feeling hungry or ate heavier food then for the hunger it would be something like putting a big log of wood on a very small flame of fire. It will go away and will not come up again. In the same way, if whatever small fire I have goes away then how can i get a fire to ripen the raw kapha? Also eating in this way means putting some dried grass on the small fire to flare up the fire. So with this wise action my fire will flare up and will help to ripen the kapha. A very very important action, much more important than taking any medicines.
I was also taking care not to make my body cool by taking a bath or taking a cool breeze etc. Rather, i was keeping myself warm even in the house. If I make my body cool with a bath or a cool breeze then again I am utilising whatever small fire I have with me to neutralise the coldness. Of course my wise body was guiding me in everything by her wants, likes and dislikes. So I was ripening my kapha.
Second day I was feeling a little weak so took some more rest. That day I did not pass motions. How can I expect it when I was not eating any solid food?
Third day I got really hungry in the morning. The soar feeling was much less or almost gone. Some thirst was there and lightness in the body. The stickiness of the stools were also reduced. I knew the kapha is going down. Also some kapha started coming out when I was spitting. When Kapha ripens it comes out easily. Remember the example of lemon. Try to take out a juice from the raw lemon. It won’t come however hard you press. But try with a ripe one, just squeeze a little and the juice comes out easily.
I ate little better. Something made form Besan(chickpea flour). As pulses are dry in nature they are very good for balancing kapha. Also continued the same treatment.
It was an interesting day. To get rid of kapha faster I again took some red chilli with my food. It was my greed for faster recovery. Oh, that day it gave me acidity. I understood that now my body does not want it in so much quantity as my kapha is reduced. Such a wise body. And I was under estimating its signals.
I was much better on fourth day. Mucus was coming out very easily, hunger was better and i was able to tolerate normal temperature water. But again i missed my wisdom and ate a little heavy food and in more quantity. Again same soar feeling started in my throat. Here my greed to overcome the weakness faster made me inclined to make such a mistake. This taught me a good lesson. I became cautious and followed the regime strictly without any doubts of failure, without thinking about infection, without going for a strong dose of antibiotics. And I was better the next day.
It took me next 2-3 days to totally combat my kapha. It was coming out from my nose, from my throat throughout the day. I was happy that it was coming out. Is there any sense in holding it inside? I have seen some patients with whom once it starts coming out they take medicines to stop it, to suppress it. They don’t like the way it comes out. They feel better in the short term but this suppressed kapha comes up again when it gets a chance. And then it becomes a good opportunity to welcome stronger, newer antibiotics. It’s a natural process that this unwanted kapha is coming out of the body. Why do you want to keep it inside? So every time it was coming out I was feeling better.
In fact suppression of this kapha turns out to be very dangerous as it accumulates inside the lungs causing asthma or it may come out of the skin leading to very chronic skin issues such as eczema. When there is some leakage in the walls of the house and you supress it there, it will come out from some other place. I have seen some patients, some small one with such dangerous outcomes. They kept on supressing the kapha and had to suffer from asthma and skin diseases.
Sometimes this supressed kapha will not allow your digestive fire to come back and you can suffer with chronic indigestion problems. The sad part is that the so called treatment in such issues takes an entirely different path neglecting the root cause and such patients have to undergo lifelong dosage of medicines.
Sometimes in such situation fever comes. Ayurveda understand it as the digestive fire which has now gone everywhere in the body and will help to ripen the kapha accumulated in the body. So the plan of action should be to preserve this fever, not to supress it with some anti pyretic medicine such as Crocin. Rather help the fever by giving hot spicy foods. That is why traditionally they say that one should not have bath during fever. Only if the fever is very high reaching 103-4 degree Celsius take care that the brain remains cool. So put cold water or rose water strips on the forehead.
You can recall your own experience. Such fever goes up, remains for some time and sweating starts, one feels lighter. Why lighter? Because Kapha reduces, so heaviness of kapha reduces. Then fever comes down. It may happen many times. As kapha reduces substantially one starts feeling lighter, hunger comes back, thirst comes back, and then there is no role of fever. If it comes now, we can take some medicine to pacify it.
There are some other types of fevers where hunger& thirst are there. If there is no kapha (i.e. Vata or pitta fever) then there is no need to preserve the fever. One can take antipyretic medicines.
One can follow the same line of treatment for children. Only for small babies one has to be careful as they may not sustain without food.
So finally I recovered totally. Totally in the sense, without supressing kapha, without any strong medicines, with some household remedies and with some investment of my time! Most importantly with a great understanding of all this is happening. I experienced a feeling of relaxation during the whole episode. I did not have clouds of doubt & uncertainty, I did not feel the burden of stress. That was a great satisfaction!
Next few days were given to balancing the debt. My body was mad with hunger and asking a lot more than the normal quantity. I understood that it is the recovery phase. Again I followed the signals. I Ate to my satisfaction and as per the demands of the body. If the body was demanding sweet I was eating sweets, if fried I was eating fried and so on. That brought my strength back soon. Once recovery was over my hunger came back to normal. Hats off to this wise body.
I have seen that many patients don’t respect this hunger after they come out from illness. And it takes months to recover their lost strength. So be wise about what went wrong before your illness, what happened during the illness and what will happen after your illness. Be wise & be healthy.
Dr Nikhil, Pune.
18Th Sept 2015
