Happy New Year! The coming of each New Year is a time to work on ways to improve our lives. Almost everyone I've ever known has faced a hard-to-solve health problem at some time in his or her life. This month I thought that I would address the subject of healing yourself when answers are hard to find. I speak from personal experience as well as clinical experience with my clients. Soon after my bout with Lyme Disease was treated in 1991, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Dealing with that mysterious disease has been one of the most challenging tasks of my life. Now that I'm on the road to recovery, I've been asked how I found my way to the treatment that made the change. It was a circuitous route, compounded by the fact that I was unable to heal myself with homeopathy, and some of the things I learned may be of help to you.

Although you may get used to the pain and even a level of disability, don't get so used to the disease that it becomes who you are. People may call it fight or will to live or even stubbornness. Homeopaths call it vital force, and it's what makes us put one foot in front of the other when it hardly seems worth doing. Be aware of it every day that you're ill.

Whether you decide to use standard medical treatment, alternative healthcare, or a combination of both, you'll need to have good records of what has occurred. Patterns in illness are especially important, and you'll only be able to track those properly on paper. Keep records even if you decide that you're going to treat yourself. Illness has a way of making us lose perspective and forget details.

Keep in mind that there's a difference between diagnosis and treatment. You can get a diagnosis from a doctor without doing the treatment he suggests. To heal, you must rule out common the problems that could be causing your illness like high blood pressure, low thyroid, and infections to name a few. (Are you one of the “Baby Boomers” who's getting sub-standard medical care because of your dislike of the medical community? If so, remember that too little can be just as damaging as too much.)

First, get a regular physical with a physician. (You do have a physician, don't you?) Then "the best bang for your buck." is standard blood work. If you don't find answers there, you can have an X-ray before going on to CT scans, MRI's, biopsies, etc. Tests don't have to be expensive to give us a lot of information.

I'm a fanatic about researching on the Internet, and it can be your best source for up to the minute treatments and developments. Remember that, for the most part, Internet information is unmonitored and can be incorrect. It can also be the one way that you'll get to hear about some ground-breaking doctor or an unusual therapy that you would have never had the chance to learn about without the information highway. If you don't know how to research on the Web, ask a computer-literate friend. If all else fails, Internet research is a service that I provide.

Your team will consist of a few knowledgeable healthcare professionals. They should be able to listen carefully, be compassionate, and be willing to learn about new treatments. They should be able to work in conjunction with each other and not have ego struggles with the other members of the team. Each of them should want you to get well more than they want to be “right”. The last thing you need when you're ill is to be caught in-between conflicting opinions. Listen to the healthcare people that you trust, but remember that it's your body and your agenda. Keeping in mind that your healthcare people are YOUR employees can help you keep things in prospective.

It doesn't matter what worked for someone else, how fast it worked, or how much better they got. Your own body will tell you over a period of time whether you're getting better. I like to give a treatment a fair try of three months as long as it isn't making me terribly ill. It would be a shame to abandon the correct treatment before you gave it a chance. Doing too many things at once out of desperation can cloud the results of all the treatments. Stagger the start of treatments by at least month if you're doing more than one thing at a time.

This rule may seem a contradiction to what I just said in the last rule, but it isn't. Every illness imaginable has a community. Talking to others with the same illness or undergoing the same treatment will give you a lot of information about what you might expect. Internet newsgroups are a good source of information as long as you remember that the information could also be wrong. Use it to piece together a much bigger picture.

You don't have to dwell on symptoms or ask for a "free pass", but you can get better support if you let people know that there's a problem. You should also let them know that you're working on the problem and that while you do that, you're still the same person with a few extra challenges to deal with. Keeping a “stiff upper lip” leads to isolation that doesn't aid the person or the healing process.

Especially when a disease has taken a long time to develop, it can also take quite a while to heal. You can expect extra need for rest, attention to your diet, and the time to do treatments and see healthcare professionals. You must also cut yourself some slack. Despite the connection between mind and body, you didn't create your disease and feeling guilty or angry with yourself will not make you get better any quicker.

If you are someone that has traditionally steered away from medication for reasons of purity, consider the undesirable chemicals that your body is cranking out in response to pain.

I prayed. Others meditate, chant, sing, dream, write, or do other things that help them escape the pain of frustration of being ill. If you're agnostic or atheist, help others and be an activist in ways that you can. It may help you feel attached to a collective consciousness when it would be easier to become imprisoned in your own body. Isolation will breed isolation and make your disease seem more overwhelming.

I'm sure there are many other things that help healing, but those are the things that helped me. So much of what I've learned about healing has come from watching the people that I work with deal valiantly with diseases, which currently have no known cure. It's helped me at the most difficult times to think of the courage of people who were dealing with so much more than me. On a larger scale, people like Lou Gehrig, Ryan White, Christopher Reeve, and Michael J. Fox give hope and strength to people who have previously not had a role model for how to handle their disease. Seek out those role models, but in their absence, become one yourself. Although a cure is not always within reach, being a strength and comfort to others is possible. This newsletter is dedicated to a true hero: Christopher Reeve

In 2003, I changed virtually everything that it is possible for a person to change. Some of the changes were painful, some difficult, and many surprised me by being easier than I would have imagined. The sum total is a new life that feels lighter and more “mine”. I guess what is central to our being always remains. My work as a homeopath is still my pride, my joy, and my consuming passion in life. I hope that you are similarly blessed in 2004.