RETRACING AND HEALING REACTIONS
Condensed and edited from an article by Dr. Lawrence Wilson, © June 2017, L.D. Wilson Consultants, Inc.
All information in this article is for educational purposes only. It is not for the diagnosis, treatment, prescription or cure of any disease or health condition.
Warning: Healing reactions are occasionally vigorous and once in a great while, they are dangerous. Most of the time, they are benign and do not require medical intervention. However, please always use common sense during healing reactions, AND PLEASE STAY IN TOUCH WITH US DURING HEALING REACTIONS.
SECTION I. INTRODUCTION
WHAT IS RETRACING?
Retracing is a rather unique process that occurs as one balances and strengthens the body in specific ways. It is a deep clearing of diseases, toxins, imbalances and other types of trauma to the body.
Retracing does not occur with standard medical or most holistic healing methods. It does occur with nutritional balancing and, at times, with chiropractic adjustments.
During retracing, illnesses and other traumas move from a chronic state to an acute state before they are eliminated completely. Chronic means that a health condition does not kill the person, but the person also cannot overcome the condition. It is a stalemate.
As the energy level in the body improves, chronic conditions turn acute because the body now actively fights to overcome a poorly healed infection or something else.
Part of retracing is often a return to a time in the past when the original trauma or illness began. This can be unusual to experience, because one may feel partly like an adult, yet at the same time one may experience feelings like that of a child, for example, if the original illness or trauma took place in childhood.
We all carry unhealed or only partially healed conditions. The need for retracing stems from the fact that as one goes through life, most of the time one does not know how to properly cope and resolve all the insults, diseases, and traumas. As a result, unhealed or partially healed blemishes, traces, scars or diseases tend to remain stuck, sometimes for very long periods of time.
Often, the symptoms of retracing are exactly the same as symptoms that occurred with the original condition or trauma.
Retracing does not occur in a set sequence, such as moving backwards chronologically. Instead, the body decides the order in which illnesses or conditions will retrace.
Retracing does not occur on a particular schedule. It can occur during a nutritional balancing program at any time, and this is also decided by the body. Often, it occurs when one is feeling well because this usually means that one’s energy level is higher, and adaptive energy is needed for retracing.
As a rule, retracing is a very benign process, but it can be scary to experience it. The body will not begin it unless it can complete it safely. However, it often arises suddenly, and it can be vigorous, at times.
Coping properly with stress can be viewed as a wave phenomenon. When one encounters a situation, insult, trauma or toxin, ideally one should move through a series of steps – like a wave motion – in order to fully resolve, regenerate, and restore the body and brain.
These steps are:
1. The up part of the wave = an inflammatory response or sympathetic nervous system response. In this step, the body and/or brain mobilize their forces to fight off and overcome the insult, toxin or situation.
A fight ensues. This is when a child might scream or cry, and it might last half an hour, or as long as it takes to overcome the trauma or insult to the body.
2. The down wave = regeneration or a parasympathetic response. This occurs after the acute up-wave time period. It is a much quieter period of time when the body and brain send nutrients to the area to rebuild, restore and regenerate tissue. If the original trauma was mental or emotional, the person might need a hug, or a nap so that the nervous can rebalance and restore itself to equilibrium where it knows it is loved and all is well.
Ideally, at the end of the down wave phase, one is fully healed and restored, and ready to face the world once again. Retracing is ONLY needed when a person does not fully heal because the phases are interrupted in some way. This is very common.
When it occurs, in order to complete the healing process, one must go back into the situation, or metaphorically “revisit the scene of the crime” and re-process the entire situation correctly. This is what you are doing when you retrace.
RETRACING VS. MEDICAL "CURES"
The retracing process is very different from healing or cures that occur with medical drugs, vitamins, herbs, and most other methods of getting rid of symptoms. In the latter, symptoms may go away, but the whole body system is not restored to its previous wholeness.
With medical and holistic “cures”, one may become dependent upon a remedy, or there is a residual toxicity in the body due to the remedy, or the remedy masks the symptom. With retracing, there is no lingering toxicity or dependency upon remedies or therapies.
THE ESSENCE OF NUTRITIONAL BALANCING
At one level, the process of retracing is the essential feature of a properly designed nutritional balancing program. It is what distinguishes nutritional balancing from most other healing methods. Because most healing methods do not cause retracing, the idea and the mechanics of it are not well known.
WHAT ARE HEALING OR PURIFICATION REACTIONS?
Healing reactions are temporary symptoms that occur with deep healing, at times as a result of retracing. Healing reactions are welcome signs of healing. In fact, if they fail to occur, one knows that a healing method may offer symptomatic relief, but usually it is not as deep or complete as those therapies that cause healing reactions.
Most of the time, healing reactions are mild and may not even be noticed. Once in a while, however, they are annoying and unpleasant.
PRINCIPLES TO HELP UNDERSTAND HEALING REACTIONS
1. The body will not undertake a healing reaction unless it can see it through to completion. Dr. Wilson has found this to be true in at least 95% of healing crises, no matter how vigorous or unusual the symptoms.
2. Due to principle #1 above, reassurance and general supportive measures are usually all that is required, even with an intense purification or healing reaction. These measures are discussed below and include plenty of rest, a simple diet, and keeping a positive attitude.
Fearing these reactions, and reacting with horror or severe anxiety, definitely impairs the body’s ability to move through the reaction.
3. Medical interventions can worsen a healing reaction. For this reason, we urge clients not to immediately visit doctors or hospitals if they feel badly, and to first speak with us. In most cases, with supportive measures, and perhaps changing their program and a few simple remedies, the entire reaction subsides.
4. A nutritional balancing program causes continuous retracing. Healing occurs fast, and at deep levels, causing this. Therefore, any symptoms during a nutritional balancing program tend to be due to only three possibilities:
A) The program needs updating.
B) It is a healing reaction.
C) One is not following the program correctly. The usual way this occurs is that one is not eating enough cooked vegetables. These are absolutely needed to assist the body to remove toxic metals and chemicals, and to renourish the body.
TYPES OF HEALING REACTIONS DURING NUTRITIONAL BALANCING PROGRAMS
Fairly common reactions during a nutritional balancing program:
Fatigue attacks
Anxiety
Colds and Flus
Skin Rashes
Sleep Disturbances
Bowel Disturbances (Constipation, Diarrhea)
Testicular pain in men
Changes in the menstrual period in young women
Ear symptoms
Throat symptoms
Chest wall pain
Liver/gall bladder pain
Solar plexus pain (also called third center pain)
Other aches and pains
Spinal release (discussed below)
Fevers or night sweats
Rarer reactions:
Appendix retracing
Nodules and lumps
Bleeding
Breathing difficulty
Unfortunately, we cannot prevent these symptoms; however, they are almost always benign and due to:
a) Retracing an infection or other condition.
b) Toxin elimination.
c) A need to update the program.
Most symptoms during a nutritional balancing go away on their own in a few days to a week, and do not require any medical intervention. If any symptom persists or is bothersome, always check with your practitioner, and practitioners check with your coach and ask that I check to make sure the nutritional balancing program is correct, and how to proceed.
SECTION II. SYMPTOMS OF RETRACING
Common physical symptoms include:
Diarrhea
Constipation
Aches or pains
Muscle cramps
Discharges
Odors
Rashes
Headaches
Fatigue
A cold or flu
Bronchitis, pneumonia, hepatitis, or some other infection.
Old wound sites, scars, or injury sites often flare up, become painful or reddened, and then disappear
Other symptoms are:
Sleep disturbances
Testicular pain in men
Changes in the menstrual period in young women
Ear symptoms
Throat symptoms
More rarely, some experience:
Appendicitis retracing
Nodules and lumps
Rarely bleeding
Breathing difficulty
Fevers
MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL PURIFICATION SYMPTOMS:
These may include irritability, anxiety, fears, anger, depression, feelings of panic, brain fogginess, or others.
Long-forgotten memories occasionally surface, or one may have unusual dreams as the brain processes traumas or incidents from the past. Unusual dreams are not uncommon.
In fact, symptoms may include almost anything. Most healing reactions are mild and pass quickly.
SECTION III. HANDLING PHYSICAL HEALING REACTIONS
GENERAL SUPPORT FOR HEALING REACTIONS
1. Any time you do not feel well for more than one or two days, please contact us.
A program that needs updating, or drinking water that is not hydrating you, often causes symptoms that look just like a healing reaction.
Over half the time, that which appears to be a healing reaction is simply a need for an updated program. Your body chemistry has shifted, and your nutritional balancing supplements, and perhaps the diet, need to be updated. This is very important! We will let you know if we think you are moving through a healing or purification reaction.
If the problem is a need to update your program or drink different water, your symptoms should begin to improve within two or three days. If symptoms continue, then please ask us to check your program again. At times, a combination of factors is in play and this procedure is required.
2. If we tell you that you are experiencing a healing reaction or retracing, remain in close touch with us. A full nutritional balancing is not a do-it-yourself program. Do not try to solve things yourself. This is a hard and fast rule.
3. Rest lying down as much as possible. Resting more will allow the reaction to proceed much faster. Also, reduce stress and strain. Conserve energy for healing. Reduce mental as well as physical activity.
4. Eat lightly. Chicken soup with chopped vegetables in it is superb during all healing reactions. Reduce grains and meat during healing reactions, as these can slow them down.
Acute reactions. If you are very uncomfortable, it may be best to skip a meal. However, usually a bowl of chicken soup is better than fasting. Definitely, do not fast for more than one or two meals. Fasting depletes the body of nutrients and is yin, and harmful in the long run.
While drinking adequate water is important during healing reactions, guzzling extra water is usually not helpful.
5. Discontinue nutritional supplements until a reaction passes. This is general advice only because at times, supplements are needed. However, until we check your healing reaction, it is best to discontinue them. Many reactions will proceed without them.
6. The detoxification procedures are often helpful, but use caution with sauna therapy.
The need for sauna therapy is variable during a healing reaction. Long sauna sessions tend to bring up more toxins for release. This can make one feel worse. The heat of the sauna may also cause more inflammation, which can make one feel worse. Often, it is best to reduce sauna sessions to less than 20 minutes, or skip sauna sessions entirely during a healing reaction. We can let you know about your situation if you ask your practitioner to check about saunas.
Use of a single red heat lamp during healing reactions is also variable for the same reasons.
7. Use care in discussing healing reactions with physicians and others unfamiliar with them. Healing symptoms can easily be misinterpreted as illness. This is an extremely common problem.
Unless your doctor, friend or family member understands the difference between illnesses and reactions, they will frighten you, perhaps run unnecessary tests, and often give you toxic medication that you don’t need, and which is rarely effective.
We never discourage people from visiting doctors. However, very few understand healing reactions or understand nutritional balancing programs. Most do not even know what questions to ask you to properly assess the situation. Please stay in touch with us.
SUPPORT FOR INFECTIONS
Retracing infections is often a bit scary, as one can develop fever, rashes, dizziness and other disturbing symptoms. However, if a person is following a nutritional balancing program, retracing most infections, no matter how vigorous they seem, is a benign and controlled process that requires little more than supportive therapy such as more rest, enough water, and a light diet. At times, colloidal silver, vitamin A or bee propolis are helpful.
Always make sure that one’s temperature does not rise above about 103-104 F. If it becomes higher, ways to lower it naturally include sponging the body with cool water, and a coffee enema or two will almost always lower a fever. This will have to be repeated every few hours, but that is okay.
Also, be sure you are well-hydrated when fever is present, as the body can easily become dehydrated. Drink water, and not tea or juice, please.
Common sites of chronic infections are the sinuses, ears, eyes, throat, bronchioles, lungs, intestines, kidneys, skin and bladder. Most people have dozens of chronic infections that commonly flare up as they are healed. They go from chronic to acute, and are then eliminated. This is the reverse order in which they took hold in the body. Here are some simple and safe supportive therapies that are excellent for retracing infections.
Coffee enemas. These are excellent to help one move through any infection or fever. Up to four per day is fine.
Heat. Heat activates the immune system and may disable or even kill some microorganisms. For this reason, sauna use is excellent to help heal some chronic infections. Do not continue with sauna therapy if it just irritates the body, which occasionally occurs. It can be confusing, however, because at times the seeming irritation can be a healing process.
The light of the reddish heat lamp and the heat of the sauna definitely upsets most parasites, which is a type of ‘cold’ or ‘yin’ infection.
One can expose an area of chronic infection to more infrared as this can speed healing in some cases. This works very well on the sinuses, for example, and can work well with parasites in the intestinal tract or elsewhere in the body.
Another excellent idea is to shine one or more red heat lamps on the thymus gland area, which is the middle of the chest or breast bone. Do this for 30 minutes at a time, twice or three times daily. This may also speed up healing.
Diet. Eat lightly. Drink plenty of spring water. Chicken soup helps with some infections. Do not eat fruit or fruit juices, as they are too yin. Stay with the recommended diet but just eat less, especially if you are not too hungry. Never eat a lot when sick.
Infection remedies when retracing. If you contact us, we will advise you on whether or not you should take any additional supplemental products.
Lifestyle. Rest lying down as much as possible.
Any infection that persists for more than several days may not be a healing reaction. In this case, consult a knowledgeable medical practitioner as infections can become serious threats to one’s health.
IS IT RETRACING OR A WORSENING OF HEALTH?
Warning: At times, reactions are not due to healing and indicate a worsening of a health condition. This happened to the author when he followed a vegetarian diet for a few years. One reads about retracing, and just assumes that any symptom that arises is a healing or retracing reaction.
It can be vitally important to know if a reaction is due to healing or a worsening of a condition. Answering the five questions below can help one to know which is occurring.
1. Was the person following a nutritional balancing program, including diet, rest, supplements and the proper application of the sauna? Healing reactions occur most often when the body is given all that it needs. If the complete program is followed fairly strictly, the reaction is likely due to healing.
However, if a person is not following the program, or on a different regimen, then it is more likely that it is not a healing reaction. Also, if one is terminally ill, it may not be a healing reaction.
2. Was one feeling better before the reaction occurred? Healing reactions require energy. One’s energy level often increases until sufficient to initiate a reaction. Thus, a reaction can occur and often does just when one is feeling stronger. If one had been feeling worse, the reaction is less likely due to healing, however.
3. Have the symptoms occurred in the past? Often, old symptoms or conditions recur during healing reactions. If one experienced the symptom in even the distant past, it is more likely, though not always, due to healing.
4. Are the symptoms unusual? Healing reactions often produce odd symptom pictures. One might develop a sore throat or flu without fatigue. This occurs when one is really not ill, though one may develop some features of an illness.
5. How long have symptoms lasted? Healing reactions usually do not last long. They may be vigorous but end in a few hours or at most about a week. If a reaction or flare-up lasts more than several weeks, it may be a worsening of one’s condition.
This one is tricky, however, because a deep-seated physical or emotional problem may take weeks or months to retrace completely in a few cases. Look to the other questions for more clarity, or do a hair analysis retest to gain more insight as to what is going on.
EFFECTS OF RETRACING ON FAMILY MEMBERS
When a person moves through a healing reaction, it can be hard on other family members. First, it can seem like the person is more ill, which is always disconcerting. Also, the person is partially present, but at times another part of the personality is literally living in the past, reliving, redoing, and/or reframing something from the past.
This can cause the person to be less aware of the present, and sometimes causes one to “act out” in some way because a part of the person’s mind is literally back in the past when the person was five or ten years old, for example, and therefore less mature and less aware. This can be difficult on spouses, for example. Fortunately, it usually does not last too long, but it can be difficult to understand.