Allergies
Historical and
Present Day Protocols.
Allergies as
a physiological irritation rather than some illusory or
psychosomatic problem, has been a twentieth century
phenomena. Clemens von Pirquet MD, who wanted to describe
altered reactivity, coined our present use of the word
allergy in the turn of last century. By the thirties
another physician Albert Rowe regarded allergies as being
so frequent that he commented that they were possibly
second to infections. It is inferred by some ecologists
that in our present time, allergies may well be the prime
underlying factor behind many medical problems. In the
early seventies, however physicians still saw allergies as
part of psychosomatic problems, labeling certain reactions
as neurotic in origin or through hysteria. Fortunately this
has now changed.
Historical
protocols
The ancient Greeks, Hebrews and Chinese appeared to have
considered diet and what we ate as prime suspects in the
acute discomfort and irritation that we now know as
allergic reactions. They changed the person’s diet. In our
present time we have had a revolution in clinical ecology
and allergy specialists. Depending on whom you have gone
to, the clinician has now a formidable arsenal to help
alleviate the symptoms, at the least. Most people working
in the realm of allergies will advise a restricted diet.
There are many protocols that give good results for those
whose prime allergy is food intolerances. Basic rotation of
differing foods will unmask and reveal the particular
irritant. Avoidance of this often does the trick and the
person may well be free of any symptoms whilst off the
food. Often times, people go 'off' a food and then become
once again allergic to another food, not always of the same
food type or food containing similar proteins (the
allergen). Some physicians will give subcutaneous
injections of the allergen to enable the immune system to
become de sensitized - that is, it begins to recognize the
allergen as friendly, rather than an irritant. These have
limited success, but nevertheless, for some are an
effective treatment protocol. Unfortunately there a many
types of allergens, so those who have problems with house
hold dust, mites and other microscopic insects need to keep
their houses spick and span. Pollens and other airborne
irritants give the makers of antihistamine and other
receptor blockers good business to help those afflicted
during pollen season.
The root
cause
We can take a look at allergies with a completely different
map. That is, if we have always seen an allergy as
something our body doesn’t like, or that there are
offending ‘things’ in the atmosphere, we will always look
outside of ourselves at other causes. In the very early
part of the last century the German physician Samuel
Hahnemann introduced Homeopathy into general medicine. He
found that minute or infinitesimally small amounts of a
‘potentized’ substance which in its gross or raw state
would cause a reaction and a series of symptoms, would when
administered in these minute amounts, would initiate a
healing reaction with those who exhibited similar set of
symptom. Homeopathy exists parallel to mainstream medicine
in most European countries. He published what is known as
the Organon in 1812 that stated his principles and
findings. He wrote that all of humankind was influenced by
our constitution. Our constitution was the nature of our
physical body, and our inherited qualities as well as the
state of our health. We all possessed a constitutional
state. This state, Hahnemann would argue, predisposed us to
certain illnesses. These illnesses had been the scourge of
humankind throughout the millennia. He suggested that those
who contracted these diseases, although ill, were able to
have children who carried then the memory or code in their
DNA of the illness. This would be passed down through
generation to generation, making those in their ensuing
lineage to be predisposed towards that disease or to
present with symptoms of some other disease that carried
similar symptoms. These predispositions he termed miasma, a
word first used by Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, to
denote stain or defilement.
Miasma
Miasma comes from the Greek, and also infers an unwholesome
and foreboding atmosphere. Shakespeare in Macbeth describes
this as he writes the scene of the three witches stirring
their cauldron and muttering arcane sayings. The
surrounding fog, oily and mysterious, not unalike the
humors of medieval germ theory, were said to permeate our
structure, through our cells, as an inherited stain.
Hahnemann initially said there were three primary miasmas –
Psora, sycosis (gonorrhoea) and syphilis. Later he added a
further miasm that he termed pseudo-Psora which we
associate now with a tubercular constitution. Hahnemann
stated that the primary miasm was Psora. He would say:
?Psora is the most ancient, most universal, most
destructive, and yet most misapprehended chronic miasmatic
diseases which for many thousands of years has disfigured
and tortured mankind, and which during the last centuries
has become the mother of all the thousands of incredibly
various chronic diseases, by which the whole civilized
human race on the inhabited globe is being more and more
afflicted".
This very strong statement has interesting undertones for
it infers that this is the prime locus of our ills.
Psora – the
heart of the problem
The word Psora actually comes from tsoret, a Hebrew word
with varied root meanings. The word arises in its original
use from the Torah, and the Old Testament. It came from the
experience of Leah and her younger sister Rachel, whose
combined marriage to Jacob prompted the feelings of
separation, sadness, shame, loneliness. Leah was the elder
sister, who was married to Jacob through a ruse, even
though Jacob loved Rachel the younger sister. Laban, their
father wanted to marry off his oldest girl first. Jacob of
course, discovered the ruse, and in the morning went to
Laban, who for a further 7 years of work, would allow Jacob
to marry Rachel. He did so, and although married to both
sisters never really loved Leah. She did bare male
children, who became 6 of the 12 founders of the tribe of
Israel, naming the first four with names that hinted of her
despair. This is in essence the feeling behind the word
tsoret. Whether Hahnemann's original usage of Psora came
from this deeper understanding, is not known. Hahnemann
wrote that Psora was our primordial itch. This is the itch
and scratch of scabies and fleas, as we lived, close to our
animals to keep warm at night when we were pastoralists and
wanderers. This itch reminds us of our bestiality and
kinship to the beasts of the field. This primary itch
reminds humankind of our origin.
Present
models
In 1984 Alan Beardall DC, a chiropractor from Oregon came
over to England to train a mixed bunch of osteopaths,
acupuncturists and chiropractors. He taught over the next
several years a precise and detailed process using
kinesiology and hand modes. This process help pinpoint
whether the person had either food sensitivities or was
allergic to environmental pollutants. For the first time
this protocol allowed accurate understanding of what people
were allergic to, and which organs and tissues were
involved. Practitioner’s were able to get very good and
fast results. However there appeared to be some missing
factor for although Beardall’s protocol was very precise,
practitioners saw that the process often would not help the
more difficult patients. Their allergies would re appear as
before.
A revised
model or map
Let us go back to the idea of Psora. We can further
elaborate. The word infers isolation or separation. The
root word is used in psoriasis, an skin condition that
inflicts many people. It often disfigures their skin,
making unsightly blemishes, scaling and itching. Their itch
and irritation is very obvious, and often we may shy away
from them; however unconsciously. We isolate them. They
too, in their psyche feel unsightly, unclean or
untouchable. They are truly isolated in many ways. In a
less obvious scenario, think of how we react to the
unsightly look of dandruff, and how we might unconsciously
brush away the dead skin on someone’s clothes. Is it that
we tidy them up, or is it that we cover their stain?
The underlying pattern of allergy is that it is a display
or signal for us to notice something about ourselves. This
is a harsh statement when your child has dermatitis, cradle
cap, eczema and intolerance of milk. This is the great
conundrum about allergies. When their milk source is
changed, foods eliminated, or they are given steroidal
creams or shots, we may change the stigmata of their
display, but will not get to the root cause.
It is hard for a mother to see that there may well be some
association with their child’s allergies and their own
history and state. It means that we are responsible for our
own state and for our own children’s. As Hahnemann
suggested, we inherit our constitution. When parents
acknowledge that there is some allergy in their own
families, even if it skipped them, they begin the process
to see that they are involved. The gift is to find the root
of why we are irritable.
Separation
Psora means itch. It infers as we said, isolation or
separation. By default, we are often separate from the
allergy – as we do not know the reasons why. Our lives are
full of separation; indeed each birthday celebrates a
passing. We start our separation as we are birthed from the
'heaven' of our mother’s womb, and again as we are weaned
from the breast. As we move through our kindergarten years
and suddenly emerge at the onset of menarche and a first
wet dream we pass from the innocence of childhood into
potential fecundity and our animal needs. As we grow and
develop and move onward into marriage, letting go of the
irresponsibility of youth into the responsibility of love
and children, we again separate from another part of
ourselves. As our children flee the home and we fall into
our dotage, menopause and retirement, we again separate
from productivity and work to gracefully or otherwise seek
return to the unknown. This too may make us irritated, as
we may fear the unknown of death. All of us live with this
primary miasma - the fear of isolation but the promise of
unity.
So how do we remind ourselves of this internal process that
goes on despite our momentum as we speed through life? We
need a signalling mechanism, and this is our allergic
response. Our body systems become irritated with something,
and thus we attack it violently. We become irritated,
reddened as our tissues swell with increased blood flow,
and our tissues fire off their protective cellular
mechanisms that are involved in the allergic response. We
react; go to the doctor who gives us some chemical that
takes the sting and the message right out of view. We have
just blotted out our handy cellular screen so that the
message becomes obscured.
What is the reason for this mechanism? It is simply a
device, very well executed, to help us notice something is
up. Our internal self can display in several different
ways. If we do not notice our initial allergens - for
example dust and fungi, then our body makes us aware of the
problem - we get a little reddening, swelling, gas or some
sort of physiological sign. If again we do not really sit
up and become aware, the mechanism takes power through our
skin and mucous membranes reacting - eyes, nose and
occasionally ears. Sometimes with a few people, a massive
anaphylactic reaction may occur, almost to a detrimental
affect, with massive over reaction to mucous membranes,
their breathing becomes labored, restricted and dangerously
altered. We have over reacted but certainly put out the
message. Only we seem to be able to read it short hand.
That is, we see it only as a massive but inappropriate
reaction rather than a why? Similarly we see in autoimmune
reactions simply as a failure of our allergic response to
identify a part of the body as part of the self. So we
suppress the immune system that is attacking the joints,
epithelial tissue, mucous membranes skin or similar. Have
we ever asked the question what part of your self do you
not recognize and why?
Allergy: from
symptom to source
1] Armed with the model of separation, in the protocol and
the educative aspect of allergic mechanism, we also employ
an ontological model.
2] Ontology is the study of the chain of events that causes
our state. We employ metaphor to take the ‘sting’, chagrin
or self-consciousness out of the process.
3] Using a simple series of metaphorical models we take
people into an internal process or journey to look at the
root of their itch. Parents do this for their children. The
root cause starts in us rather than our children, even
though their physiology has become hypersensitive to the
allergen(s), and they are independent from us. We start
from the root.
4] In the public talks and half-day workshops we package a
model for people to take away and employ.
5] This task unveils the root cause – although sometimes
only partially, when unaccompanied by a trained
professional, we may not be able to be very specific.
6] The protocol will assist you to begin to change your
physiology. How?
7] We know that the mind can be trained to do things, to
command our physiology. This is psycho neuroimmunology at
its best. Knowing can alter things. Becoming in charge and
taking authority over your own signpost or display – your
allergy – makes you take charge and become autonomous. This
changes the flexibility or over sensitivity of your
allergic response, dampening down the prostaglandin
mechanism – the chemicals that are often involved in the
cellular reaction. Although knowledge is worn often as the
‘crown’, sometimes we have to employ other ideas; we will
suggest other avenues that will help the process.
8] Is this going to work full time? Will it get rid of all
my allergies? Yes. The proviso is, if you do your homework.
A caveat here: sometimes an allergic mechanism will appear
again. However if you have done the homework, and the
allergic mechanism has been quiescent (this includes
hypersensitivity to food, dust, mites, dander, chemicals)
and then re appears this time it becomes the gift. For this
time you will know you have repeated the mistake or
scenario that led you to the irritated state in the first
place. This is a human approach to illness rather than a
medical process of masking or hiding the symptoms. Let the
Psora be your guide for a more fulfilled life, through
seeing the re appearance of the pattern as the way to
observe your own state, then use it as a way to change.