Heal-Thy-Self

Coming back to my blog after quite a few years of break, I think this piece of writing which I wrote about 10 years ago is reminding me of the track which I have almost lost in this last decade. Its a good reminder and am thanking my younger self for having written it down in clear language. Here it goes...

Heal-thy-self….

What is disease? Dis-ease is the body telling that it is not at ease. And what do we do when we have a disease? We go to a doctor, empty our pockets for a prescription and gulp down a few tablets accordingly. Now what are these medicines that we take? These are nothing but us saying “Shut up” to our crying body. Wonder why?

Lets take a closer look at the science behind our life saving and peace giving conventional medicines. Say you have fever or a headache. You take anti-pyretics (Pyrexia = fever) and analgesics (algesia = pain) like Paracetamol. Paracetamol belongs to a class of drugs called Non Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drugs or NSAIDs.  These drugs block some steps in the multi-step production of some chemicals called prostaglandins and other related inflammatory (inflammation = burning fire) chemicals by the body which are involved in production of fever and pain, thereby relieving us of the symptoms.

Say you have cold. You take Cetirizine or some other anti-histamines (histamines are the allergic reaction causing chemicals) . As their name suggests these drugs block the production of histamine in the body which is involved in mucous production among other things.

The most widely used drug in dermatology and rheumatology (joint-related-logy) is steroids. Steroids work like NSAIDs blocking some step in the pathway of inflammation (A localized physical condition in which part of the body becomes reddened, swollen, hot, and often painful, as a reaction to injury or infection).

This type of treatment with anti-pyretics, analgesics, anti-histamines and steroids too (in many cases) is called symptomatic treatment. Now coming to non-symptomatic treatment or we could say direct-disease treatment. A bacterial infection causes fever, instead of suppressing fever by symptomatic treatment we can take anti-biotics. What does antibiotics do? They kill all the bacteria inside our body. Antivirals and antibiotics work in a similar way, anti-viruses working against viruses. Thus we are rid of the fever and cured from the disease as well. But to think of it why did we get the infection when our family members or other people who may have been exposed to the same amount of the same bacteria remained free? Do you have any idea of the variety and quantity of bacteria we are exposed to daily? Then why are we not infected and diseased daily? Its due to our immunity, which is the body’s own defense mechanism against harmful external agents. Why does this immunity fail us at certain days while mostly it is successful all other days? Is the infection really the disease, or the reason behind failure of the immunity the disease, the infection being merely a symptom?

Another type of disease is the auto-immune disease, diseases where the body’s own immunity mistakenly fights against certain specific parts of the body. Rheumatoid arthritis, Type 1 diabetes (the one occurring in children) and Psoriasis (a skin disease) are common examples. All medications block some pathway in the production of molecules involved in this auto-immune reaction, in other words it kills or pacifies the mistaken soldiers. None of us know and mostly don’t try to know the reason the soldiers are suddenly mistaken and over aggressive. The one that we call the disease is actually a symptom of some deeper imbalance in the body (or mind?), the real disease. So everything we treat may just be a symptomatic treatment.

Now consider your body as a baby. When a baby is hungry it cries. Consider that being intelligent and all "logy" loving that we are, we devote enormous time and energy in studying minute details of the biochemical pathway for hunger and develop a novel drug that blocks some step in hunger development while having minimal side effects. Thus we administer the miracle drug to the baby and guess what! The baby stops crying, and we are happy!