{"id":2813,"date":"2015-11-09T16:19:18","date_gmt":"2015-11-09T16:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/?p=2813"},"modified":"2015-11-18T17:17:21","modified_gmt":"2015-11-18T17:17:21","slug":"invisibility-illness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/invisibility-illness\/","title":{"rendered":"The Invisibility of Illness: The Healthicine Creed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you have an invisible illness? \u00a0Do you know someone\u00a0who has an invisible illness? What is an invisible illness? \u00a0InvisibleIllnessWeek says that most chronic illnesses are invisible and estimates that “Approximately 96% of people who live with an illness have an illness that is invisible.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

What do we see when we look at an illness?<\/p>\n

Let’s look at\u00a0a trivial illness, one that is easy to understand, easy to cure. Suppose you have a hangover, from drinking too much alcohol last night, and maybe too much coffee, and not enough water. \u00a0Your mouth is dry, your head is sore, and the smallest\u00a0noise is jarring. \u00a0You are severely dehydrated. \u00a0Your illness might be diagnosed as ‘hangover’, or perhaps simply as dehydration.<\/p>\n

You\u00a0can see and feel the signs and symptoms of your\u00a0illness. \u00a0Headache, dry mouth, bad breath. \u00a0But signs and symptoms are not the illness, they are the consequences of the illness, or consequences of the cause.<\/p>\n

We know the causes of the illness: too much booze in too little time (last night). \u00a0Maybe too little sleep, too little water. But, the causes are not the illness, they are just the causes. These causes don’t always lead to a hangover, just sometimes, depending on how fit you are, how much alcohol you consumed, your level of tolerance for alcohol, how much water you drank to compensate, and even your level of tolerance for your symptoms.<\/p>\n

We know how to cure a hangover. \u00a0It’s trivial, although many pretend otherwise. The simplest cure is adequate hydration and time. \u00a0You can take a medicine for your symptoms – but these do not cure, they only help with the symptoms. The cure is not the illness.<\/p>\n

Where is the illness? Where is the hangover? Where does it go, when it is cured?<\/p>\n

Illness is invisible.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Illness-hole\"“Health is whole. An illness is a hole in your health.<\/em><\/strong>” The Healthicine Creed.<\/a><\/p>\n

Where does the hole go, after you eat the doughnut?<\/p>\n

Where does your illness go, after it is cured?<\/p>\n

An illness is more accurately\u00a0defined as an active, negative hole in your health<\/em><\/strong>. A hole that is not active might be\u00a0a disability, but not necessarily an illness. A hole that is not negative, a pierced ear, for example, is not an illness.<\/p>\n

If you have a migraine, and you cure it, where does it go? If you have a cold, and you cure it, where does it go? \u00a0If you are dehydrated, and you drink some water, where does your illness\u00a0go?<\/p>\n

Illness is not something that can be touched, or seen. \u00a0There are no visible illnesses, only visible causes and visible symptoms. An illness is a hole in your health. \u00a0Holes are invisible. We only notice their presence by observing healthiness.<\/p>\n

Illnesses Caused by Deficiency<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

If you have a nutritional deficiency, like scurvy, or beriberi, or dehydration, you don’t actually ‘have something’, you have the absence of something. \u00a0Your illness consists of the symptoms of your deficiency, and might\u00a0even extend to symptoms and\u00a0damage caused by your deficiency. If you have scurvy, the symptoms include swollen gums, bleeding teeth, joint pain and shortness of breath. \u00a0But these symptoms are not the illness, they are the symptoms. Each of these\u00a0symptoms that might be caused by many different illnesses. Shortness of breath might even be caused by healthy exercise.<\/p>\n

When the illness is cured, these symptoms might all go away. \u00a0In some cases, not all\u00a0of the damage will be healed; some joint damage, even joint pain, might remain. The joint pain that remains might become a chronic illness, but that illness is not the nutritional\u00a0deficiency illness, it’s consequence, a handicap, a deficit, or damage that might heal over time.<\/p>\n

When you have scurvy, we can’t see the actually illness, we can’t touch it, and when it is cured, we can’t prove that it is ‘gone’ either. Scurvy is an invisible illness.<\/p>\n

When you have a minor, short term nutrient\u00a0deficiency, you don’t have an illness. \u00a0You have a small hole in your health. \u00a0When the hole grows to a certain size, symptoms begin to appear. \u00a0You still might not have a diagnosable illness. \u00a0Then, as the hole grows, it reaches a certain invisible size, where the symptoms reach a diagnosable level. You have an illness. As you address\u00a0the cause, the hole fades, and the invisible illness fades away.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t there. \u00a0Then it was there, but it was invisible. \u00a0Then it disappeared.<\/p>\n

Illness Caused by Excess<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

What if you have carbon monoxide poisoning? You have something. \u00a0But we can’t see carbon\u00a0monoxide poisoning, we can’t touch it. \u00a0We can measure the level of carbon monoxide in your blood. The result of a\u00a0measurement is\u00a0a sign, or \u00a0a symptom, perhaps indicating an illness – but the measurement, the results of a measurement are not the illness. The symptoms of carbon\u00a0monoxide poisoning, which include headache, dizziness, upset stomach, vomiting, and confusion. But these symptoms are not ‘the illness’.<\/p>\n

When carbon monoxide poisoning is cured, the symptoms go away. \u00a0The body recovers its health. Where did the invisible illness go?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Are there any visible illnesses?<\/p>\n

Illness Cause by Excessive Growth<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

We often think of illnesses as visible things. One of the most visible illnesses is a wart. When you have a wart, it\u00a0can be clearly seen. \u00a0When it is cured, it is clearly gone. \u00a0It flakes away, or falls off. Or does it?<\/p>\n

Warts are caused by a skin infection that causes rapid growth of skin cells near the infection. The skin cells, the wart cells, are actually ‘your cells’, reacting to, or to fighting the infection. When the infection is defeated, your skin cell growth goes back to normal, the overgrown skin, the wart, dies and flakes off.<\/p>\n

The wart is gone. The wart was not the infection, it was a symptom, your body’s reaction to the infection. Is a wart a ‘visible’ illness? We might debate the question, but what is the purpose of the debate? Does it help us find a cure? \u00a0No. If a surgeon cuts off the wart, does he have a wart? No. The result is a piece of deformed dead skin. If he “get’s it all”, every bit of the wart, is it cured? Not necessarily. \u00a0The wart is caused by a viral infection that is not limited to the location of the wart. Cutting off the wart might not actually address the ‘so small it’s almost invisible’ cause of the illness. \u00a0The wart is not the illness. Removing it does not necessarily remove the illness.<\/p>\n

The cause is not the illness, it is only the cause. Not everyone gets a wart from the virus that causes warts. \u00a0The virus alone is not the cause.\u00a0We think of a wart as a visible illness, because the symptom has the same name as the illness.<\/p>\n

A simple error. We often make the\u00a0same error with cancers.<\/p>\n

Is cancer a visible illness? Isn’t a cancer tumor a visible illness? Actually, no.<\/p>\n

It is possible to have cancer cells, but not have the illness cancer. \u00a0Researchers tell us that, after a certain age, almost everyone has cancer cells. \u00a0It is possible to have a benign cancer tumor, and not have an illness. \u00a0Autopsies of dead people find that many elderly people have ‘many cancer tumors’ that are not ‘cancer illnesses’. The healthy body often isolates cancerous cells into a capsule so the cells cannot grow, cannot escape. \u00a0You don’t have a cancer illness until the cancer escapes, or until the cancer starts unrestrained growth.<\/p>\n

Cancer cells are not the illness, they are not the cause of the illness. They are symptoms of the unhealthiness that causes their presence and growth. The illness\u00a0is invisible, it is only present, can only be diagnosed, when the cells growth causes danger to your health. \u00a0Cancer cells are only an illness when they create an active hole in your health.<\/p>\n

Diagnosis<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Defining an illness is as challenging as finding the hole in a doughnut after you’ve eaten it.<\/p>\n

Diseases are diagnosed by measuring signs and symptoms. \u00a0But signs and symptoms are not the disease, they are the physical consequences of the cause. Medical professionals diagnose a disease by observing and measuring a set of symptoms, because a single symptom can be caused by many diseases.<\/p>\n

Diagnosis is an error prone activity, with both positive errors – over diagnosis, and negative errors – under diagnosis, and even simple wrong diagnosis, being relatively commonplace. \u00a0Why does this happen?<\/p>\n

It happens because an illness is a hole. The actual illness is invisible. Disease only exists when the diagnosis is completed. \u00a0Without a diagnosis, the patient cannot get time off work, cannot get a prescription for treatment, cannot get insurance to pay for treatment. A medial diagnosis is often a legal requirement for an illness, because the actual illness is invisible.<\/p>\n

It is possible for an illness to exist because of a wrong diagnosis, and then disappear when the diagnosis is corrected. How does it disappear? It never existed. \u00a0It existed legally, when the initial (incorrect) diagnosis was completed. But it didn’t really exist. Now that the diagnosis has been corrected – a new invisible illness exists.<\/p>\n

Every Illness has a Cause<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

When we recognize that every illness is a hole in your health, every illness is invisible, we can turn our focus to the\u00a0important issue: the cause.<\/p>\n

Every illness is invisible. Every illness has a cause. Causes are not invisible. We need to make causes visible.<\/strong> When we pretend illnesses are visible, it’s too easy to ignore cause. Too easy to focus our attention on the symptoms, on what is visible, and to ignore, or to make the cause invisible.<\/p>\n

We cannot cure an invisible illness, we can only address causes. When we address the causes, invisible illnesses disappear. \u00a0When we address causes, we are healthier. The holes in our health are filled in, they disappear, the invisible illnesses disappear. Make it so.<\/p>\n

to your health, tracy<\/p>\n

Tracy is the author of two books about healthicine:<\/p>\n