My confusing illness & road for the healing!
It
is a story of last few weeks. I felt seek and my mind started diagnosing the
issue, finding out the solutions. And I realized this time it was not a simple
issue. My symptoms were so confusing that it became difficult to decide the
line of treatment.
It
was a mixture of everything. I was very tired with body ache, my face was
showing it, there was a constipation, the fever was not there but definitely my
body was experiencing high temperature and also there was a little mucus, my
throat was gone. The most overpowering symptom was cough, mostly it was dry,
after coughing for long some little mucus was coming out.
I was
experiencing Vata, Pitta as well as Kapha symptoms! What to do, from where to
start? What is this problem, what to name it? I remembered a guideline from
Ayurveda books which says even though you can’t name the disease doesn’t
matter, just understand the symptoms and start the treatment. Fine, no need to name it. But my next
question was what to balance, Vata, Pitta or Kapha?
I
checked my hunger & thirst. Hunger was low but not totally gone, thirst was
there but I was not enjoying warm water, rather my body was asking for slightly
cold water. Wow, this was a clear indication that my Pitta has gone up. As
there was thirst & little hunger the Kapha was not too much so for time
being I kept my kapha away. I remembered my past experience that whenever my
kapha was high my thirst was minimum, I preferred a warm water and hunger was
totally gone. This was not the case now.
Secondly symptoms like body ache, constipation, extreme tiredness was
pointing my attention towards Vata. Now I started planning my treatment. The
foremost thing I decided to do is taking a good rest. That was the best treatment
of Vata. I also recollect one reason of not getting a good hunger is my extreme
tiredness. I am tired means my whole body is tired, my brain is tired, my liver
is tried and my digestive system is tired. Every cell of body is tired. How can
I get hunger? I have this experience in the past several times. Whenever I was
tired too much my first demand was rest, not food. As I used to take good rest,
my systems were fresh again, my hunger used came back.
Next is eating food when body demands but the lighter one. My body was
rejecting wheat, roti or rice, sweetmeats, mere sight of such food items &
I was experiencing the rejection. I gave a thought on what my body will prefer,
just few minutes of thinking and I got several answers. Puffed rice, churmura,
some fruits like pomegranate, sweet lime etc. that’s all. Also without spices,
body was not ready to accept hot spices, so bland food. As my Pitta was more,
it was so natural & wise signal from the body to go for the bland food. And
of course normal temperature water whenever body demands.
Certain other important
decisions were came in my mind. First is
not to hurry and not to worry. When I look back it was very clear for me that
how this illness came in. For almost a month I was just working, working &
working. Not taking enough rest, not giving a proper nutrition to my body. I
accepted my mistakes and decided to give a very good rest to clear the balance.
First of all I have to let go the big list of what to do in coming days. Very
difficult task but at same time very important one! I must need this mindset to
start the treatment, otherwise I was not really resting. With some initial
resistance I was able to let go everything and then in real sense my rest started.
Rather I started enjoying this resting which I was doing after so many days. Deep within I knew this will be the treatment.
This mental & physical rest activated my healing.
In
Ayurveda one way of treating the illness is treating or balancing the reasons
behind the illness. If the illness is due to eating a lot then eating less or
fasting is the treatment. So for me exertion was the reason of the illness,
naturally rest was my primary treatment. Sometimes I feel that many of the
patients get well after hospitalization because they get good rest over there,
compulsory rest. Rest works for them than any other treatments.
Secondly I decided not to keep any time limit for my recovery. That’s
another important decision. How can you decide the time limit? And if you
decide it then the pressure game starts. Oh, two days over and still I am not
feeling better. Let’s go to another Doctor, let’s change the medicines. That
may lead to over medication, hospitalization! The mind game starts. Mind will
continuously valuate the situation with conclusion that I am not getting
better. A game of expectations! So I took out the pressure of the time. Rather
took the situation positively that my poor body, working for so many days, now
will get a good rest and will become strong again. So decided to observe the
symptoms, any new changes and accordingly changing the mode of the treatment.
Changing as per the present situation!
I also did very important
thing is to discuss about my decisions with my close ones. Sometimes you get
unnecessary pressures form your near & dear ones and the process of
recovery may slow down. You are not hungry and you get a pressure for eating
something, you want to take a good rest & everyone around you are
discussing about how much rest you are taking. There is great pressure within
ourselves and outside of getting well soon.
So I took all this permissions of eating
whenever I want, whatever I want, resting a lot and taking my own time to
recover. I was happy for getting the cooperation from my close ones. Now I was
very relaxed, only work remained was ongoing observation.
For the first day and two took a very good
rest, slept & slept a lot ,was not much hungry so was eating very light
food, was not getting pressure for
stools ,so accepted it. Within two days
started feeling better, the tiredness reduced, body ache reduced drastically,
face was little better. Within two days of rest I felt like I can do some work
and started doing it. But I was wise enough to do appropriate work, was not
getting tired with the work.
Suddenly my face turned red, there was a
red colored rash on the hand, dark colored urine, requirement of fan and a deep
craving of having sweet and cooling things. I understood my Pitta has surfaced, a
different turn in the story.
Respecting these new body signals, I
jumped to cooling & sweet things, but of course the lighter ones as my
hunger was still not good. So I had guava, Gulkand (Rose petals & sugar),
little ghee and sugar, fresh coconut and a cooling medicine made from khus.
Again I was right, my body responded well, the heat with in went down, redness
of my face diminished, the color of urine became light yellow. My wise body
reduced the demands of sweet and cooling things. I was surprised by the
sensitivity and wisdom of my body. My confidence strengthen once again and I
saluted to my natural wisdom. I was much better in every aspect than the
initial situation.
And then came the time of kapha,
it started coming out. Again I followed my signals, as hunger was not strong I
was enjoying the lighter food. Now felt like having something made from Pulses,
dals, a little heavier food. So had chilla, dhokla, dals etc. Felt like no need
of having cooling food so stopped it. But either I didn’t felt to have spices (which
are the good medicines for kapha), so didn’t took it. But started taking honey
which is the best medicine of kapha.
It took almost two weeks to come back to
normal hunger and strength. There were times where my mind came up with doubts
such as whether I am on a right track, whether I have do something else. But
then I used to check my improvement. Oh, my tiredness and body ache has
reduced, my redness & heat has gone, and day by day my strength is coming
up. That gave me confidence again to walk on the path.
So this may happen to anyone, no diagnosis
of the disease, confusing symptoms, or a diagnosis such as Dengu, viral fever
where there is no treatment as such but road to health is respecting body
signals, observing, understanding & tracking yourself, lot of patience and
taking actions as per the present situation. Knowing the positive signs of
health is also important. Tiredness has reduced and freshness has gone up, food
demands are changing, body is asking for heavier food than before, body is able
to work little more than before, and then you are on a right path.
If I my symptoms were
worsening, my tiredness was increasing, high fever came in again & again,
body was not showing any signs of improvement and then I must do some
intervention, some expert advice, and some investigations! If you are walking
on the path and there is no positive signs then be wise to change the path.
Don’t follow it blindly. Give some initial time of 2-3 days and if you
experience some positive signs then only move ahead. Otherwise think
differently. Don’t go to extreme.
No one like to be seek, it’s not a
pleasant situation. Everyone wants to come out of it soon. But sometimes this
extra hurry, impatience puts us in more trouble. Too much medications, changing
the Doctors again and again worsens the situation. With so many healing factors
Ayurveda always mentions about time, very important healing factor. One must
give appropriate time for healing.
See how much important is to
choose the right food. Today we choose medicines very easily but don’t choose
the appropriate food. We must give lot of importance to food, my experience tells it
is a very important factor for our healing, far more than medicines. See how I was changing my food as per the situation.
So our learning is giving
importance to rest, food and above all is our mind set. Then you are on your
road to True healing!
Dr Nikhil Mehta
Pune
26 th Aug 2016
