Traditional Doctor of Naturopathy: Stimulation & Release
How will you ever know what it's like if you never try it? Read about our resident Doctor of Naturopathy, Donette’s recent discoveries, personal testimonials, the new things she’s constantly learning, and her experiences while testing the most recent topic trends in naturopathy!
It’s estimated that 20 million Americans undergo surgery every year for a wide range of conditions, and that’s just for procedures that require general anesthesia. This doesn’t include something like a c-section birth, a procedure that is also classified as major surgery. Taking this into account, along with all the other surgeries that use local anesthesia, the number of annual surgeries in the U.S. could easily be as high as 50 or 60 million. Our casual attitude toward surgery comes from seeing it as the solution to a healthcare problem. Once surgery is performed, the problem will either go away or get better. That is often the outcome, and it’s beautiful, especially when a life is saved. Even so, we never contemplate that surgery itself, even when the result is good, may leave us with new problems. I’m not talking about medical malpractice; I’m talking about the undiagnosed medical conditions linked to post-operative surgical scarring and blocked meridians.
The human body is a self-contained organism with everything it needs to thrive existing within it. Any intrusion into this sealed environment, such as the incision for an operation, upsets the body’s natural processes and leaves residual trauma from the “injury” behind. The result is a scar that not only holds the negative energetic memory of the event but also acts as a barrier that prevents the natural flow of the body’s energy from going beyond or through that point. The effect is an accumulation or stagnation of power that often results in new physical problems cropping up in the same general area of the body.
This happens because scar tissue disrupts the pathways along which our life energy or Qi flows, called meridians. These invisible pathways run throughout the body, penetrating every cell, organ, and system, vitalizing them with the life essence they need to function optimally. The source of this energy is the earth. It enters the body through the bottom of the left foot, travels along each meridian, and returns to the planet by exiting through the bottom of the right foot. The 12 major meridians pass through many areas of the body but are named for the major organ or system along their route. They include the lung, large intestine, spleen, stomach, heart, small intestine, bladder, kidney, pericardium (circulation/sex), triple warmer (head, also assists pericardium meridian), liver, and gallbladder meridians. Because alternative therapies such as acupuncture are achieving much success with patients, more traditional healthcare institutions are only now beginning to investigate the importance of energy meridians.
If we think of energy meridians as highways that run through the body, a scar is a roadblock along that route. Keep in mind that scarring from either surgeries or injuries can be internal, as well. These roadblocks create a condition known as reverse polarity and can affect the body’s energy flow in one of two ways.
As we’ve seen, the barrier a scar creates results in turbulence as moving energy hits the wall and begins to back up in that location. This over-saturation creates new health problems in the same area or vicinity where the energy radiates. We see many women who’ve had breast surgery, either for augmentation, reduction, or a mastectomy, who later experience an inexplicable erratic heartbeat or arrhythmia. With absolutely no history of heart problems, some of them have been taking medication to stabilize their heartbeat for years. Anyone with a working knowledge of how the body meridians function would be able to recognize that the energetic turbulence generated by the scarring near the breast is radiating in the direction of the heart and interfering with its rhythm.
It's important to remember that there is hope. In the case of the women with heart arrhythmia, it only took a few treatments to stabilize their heartbeats and get them completely off their medications. It’s incredible and yet understandable that once a surgery corrects one problem, we never suspect the scar it created might be connected to a secondary health problem that appeared shortly after that. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of c-section births.
The second way a scar affects meridian energy is by rerouting it in a completely different direction. Let’s return to our analogy of the meridians as city streets and the energy as the traffic that travels along them. The cars always move in specific patterns along predetermined routes during the morning commute, afternoon interval, and evening rush hour. It’s like choreography, and you can set your clock by movement.
Now imagine a roadblock was set up right in the middle of the most traveled highway during rush hour. Thousands of cars would suddenly pour off the highway and attempt to take alternate routes where they normally don’t drive and aren’t supposed to be. The result is chaos in a distant location far off the main highway. The same thing can happen when the body takes on scar tissue. Instead of collecting in the area of the roadblock, the energy can ricochet off it and get directed down a completely different meridian where it’s not supposed to be, causing problems in a location that’s nowhere near the scar.
In Chinese medicine and acupuncture, there is a contralateral philosophy to healing. This approach emphasizes the interconnectedness of the body, stating that whatever affects the top affects the bottom, the front affects the back, the right affects the left, and so on. If you imagine the arm superimposed over the leg, the shoulder corresponds to the hip, the elbow corresponds to the knee, the wrist corresponds to the ankle, and the hand corresponds to the foot. So, from the contralateral perspective, if a patient is experiencing a problem with the right shoulder, the left hip is treated.
I read an amazing article recently where a patient was experiencing debilitating and inexplicable pain in his right wrist. After all tests failed to provide a logical answer, the physician noticed a scar on the man’s left ankle. The patient said he’d recently had surgery following a skiing accident that required several pins to be installed in his ankle. Luckily, a doctor colleague understood the principles of contralateral philosophy. The man’s scar was stimulated, and his wrist pain vanished within days, never returning. This success story is a powerful reminder of the potential of alternative therapies and the importance of considering the whole body in the healing process.
If you’ve been suffering from an unexplained physical condition, we would advise you to investigate your previous surgical history. Remember that sometimes the scar doesn’t have to be near where you’re experiencing the physical problem. Also, keep in mind that scars can be internal. We can’t stress enough the incredible healing power of this simple intervention. We live for the moments when I can see a patient wholly relieved in a matter of days from chronic pain or a limiting condition they have dealt with for years. Remember that when you’re on a healing journey, the illness can be the symptom pointing to a scar that’s guilty by association.
