The Value of Natural Medicine
Most people live with some evidence of poor health. For example, many people get headaches on a somewhat regular basis. Many folks suffer from some arthritic joint pain. People even identify with their symptoms and use phrases like “it’s just my allergies” or “my indigestion is giving me trouble” and “it’s that time of the month, ugh!” It is not unusual for a person to have the opinion that they are healthy, yet be on a blood pressure pill or antidepressant and have a medicine cabinet loaded with over-the-counter medications all used on a regular basis. We have been trained to believe that the need for medication has nothing to do with our health. The reality is that these drugs simply turn off the smoke alarm, while the fire of ill-health remains smoldering.
The medicines that heal our bodies have been on this planet ever since man has. They are the foods and herbs that work synergistically with our normal physiology to bring about optimal function. By facilitating healthy organ function, symptoms are relieved. A symptom is any non-optimal feeling and the purpose of that symptom is to alert the person to something in the body that is in need of attention. A truly healthy, optimally functioning body does not have symptoms. And herein lays the difference between how pharmaceuticals and natural medicines work in the body. While pharmaceuticals force change to stop a symptom (and at times this is life-saving and necessary), natural medicines facilitate normal physiology and feed the body so it can heal itself. A truly healthy body does not exhibit symptomatology and therefore, does not need pharmaceuticals to handle discomforts. Like Dr. Piro’s patient wrote after shedding the need for 5 different medications, “I now have more energy, eat better, sleep better and have an overall improved quality of life.”