“Well, peel an onion, there’s lots of layers.”

I find myself using analogies with onions often in relation to health issues around our house. The body is a complex system and I find it difficult to wrap my brain around how and why it does what it does.

If you are on the road of healing chronic illness, you will experience the phenomenon I call peeling the onion. You get rid of one symptom and hurdle to a new level of healing and a new symptom suddenly appears. Where did that come from?

Let me give you an example of something that happened in our house recently.

Parasite in one of my kid’s guts.

Treat parasite.
Get constipated.
Treat constipation.
Still have same gut pain.
Treat emotions.
Less gut pain but not gone.
Treat yeast/candida.
Less guy pain but not gone.
Treat allergies.
Pain fluctuating but not gone.
Treat barometric pressure.
Pain gone.

Peeling layers of an onion. Have you ever treated a virus and had it disappear only to have a rash suddenly pop up? Or some other weird symptom leave when another one arrives. Healing chronic illness involves many layers and levels to restoration and healing – and believe me, just like peeling an onion, some of the layers cause serious tears.

Imagine the body has a certain amount of soldiers for “battle” in your immune system. All the soldiers are on the battle with a virus, so they are completely unaware of a  histamine reaction in the form of a rash, so until they are done fighting the virus, they cannot even acknowledge the rash so it doesn’t appear. When the body is done with the virus, the soldiers are free to look for another fight and they find one with the rash reaction.

It is also called masking. The body can only handle so much, so it masks the rash reaction until it can “download” it, the reaction is just waiting in the queue. There are also some offenders/microbes that work in stealth mode so the immune system cannot detect them until the right substance or environment is introduced.

When we were fighting for my son’s health in the beginning before we knew it was Lyme, we saw many instances of the peeling an onion phenomenon. It was as if, after conquering one layer, like climbing a mountain, the body needed to rest before acknowledging and attacking another layer or offender.

If the immune system is “full” or “overloaded” all the other offenders or microbes that happen after “full” is reached just lie in wait to be found. So the symptoms felt are not the microbe itself possibly but the body’s response in trying to get rid of it, like the rash.

If you alter your diet to Gluten Free, you will free up some soldiers. If you go all organic and rid your body of toxins, you can get to another layer. Try detoxing via foot baths, infrared saunas, or 10 day detox regiment and you will strengthen the soldiers you have to fight another layer. Quit giving your good immune system soldiers petty little work to do fighting the sugar intake, the fast food, the dyes, processed food, tobacco or alcohol. Free your body to do its work by eliminating what you can on your own.

It’s a marathon not a sprint. Get excited when new symptoms emerge after conquering a “layer”, it means you have soldiers to spare and they are doing their job, going after something to kick it out! The more random the symptoms and varied the reactions, the more fronts in the war where battle is being waged.