I listened to a fabulous podcast the other day by a Naturopathic physician, Peter Glidden, who wrote “The MD Emperor Has No Clothes: Everybody Is Sick and I Know Why”.   The majority of his discussion was about how America is not a free medical society.  In his reports of his hundreds of successes with chronic illnesses he referred to Herrings Law.  Herrings law is applied mostly in homeopathy but is entirely relevant and purposeful in trying to dig for the root cause of sickness.  I had one of those ‘aha’ moments and thought it worth sharing.

Herrings Law goes something like this:  when the body responds to a stress or stressors it can’t handle, the body responds in layers.  The outermost layer of defense is the skin, the next most affected layer are the mucous membranes, then the ligaments, tendons and bones, the internal organs, the brain and finally the heart.  In using an example, a child with ezcema, if left untreated (or suppressed with a symptomatic therapy and the cause not identified) then the child may then develop chronic sinus infections.  If the source is still not found then the child may develop sore muscles or ‘growing pains’ and then eventually a thyroid problem, etcetera.  Keep in mind that the source may not be related to a new laundry detergent that created the skin condition, but could have been related to a food sensitivity, a digestive issue, or adrenal problems, etcetera.   This is all hypothetical, since as individuals we express in unique ways, but I’m hoping you  get the gist.  

This law also applies to the healing process and can be seen as reverse to the above breakdown.  For example, a client that’s digestive tract heals, loses the discoloring under the eyes or stops experiencing skin eruptions.   I’ve also seen a few clients develop a skin reaction to healing.  In both situations, I think of this as the body healing from the inside out.

Perhaps as an individual with deeper symptoms you can think back to a time when your skin ‘expressed’ itself first? Or as a child you suffered from ear infections, asthma or allergies?

More to think about.

Be well,

Lynn