Are We Treating the Symptom — While Missing the Reason It Appeared?

In my previous articles, I have been talking about the human body as an interconnected living ecosystem rather than a collection of separate organs and symptoms. I have looked at what is happening to our soil, our food, our microbiome, our gut, hormones and metabolism, and I have talked about the frustration of knowing that you don't feel well while repeatedly being told that your blood results are “normal”.

There is another part of this story that I think we desperately need to talk about, because this is often what happens next. The symptoms don't disappear simply because the blood results haven't provided an obvious answer, so eventually something may be prescribed to control one of them. If another symptom appears, something else may be prescribed for that. Over time, one person can find themselves taking several medications for several apparently different conditions, while the original question — what caused this person's health to start deteriorating in the first place? — becomes increasingly distant.

We need to move away from simply waging war on symptoms and instead think about regeneration and the environment surrounding our cells, tissues and microorganisms. In other words, rather than continually asking how we can suppress what the body is doing, we should also be asking why the body started doing it.

What If the Symptom Isn't the Enemy?

Think back to the garden analogy from my previous article. Imagine weeds repeatedly appearing in your garden. You could spray them every time they emerge and temporarily everything might look exactly as you want it to look, but if you haven't changed the conditions that allowed those weeds to dominate, have you really corrected the problem or have you simply changed what you can see above the surface?

There is another part to that analogy that I think is even more important. The compound you have used to suppress those weeds has been introduced into an entire living ecosystem. There is soil beneath those plants, microorganisms within that soil, insects moving through it, other plants growing alongside them and water travelling through the ground. You have intervened because you wanted to affect one particular thing, but that intervention exists within a much bigger environment and has dire affects on other parts of it too.

Now imagine repeating that process. The weeds return, so you spray again. Something else within the garden changes, so another product is introduced to deal with that. Another imbalance develops and something else is used to control it. Eventually, you can become so occupied with managing everything appearing above ground that nobody stops to examine what is happening to the soil underneath.

For me, this is a powerful way of thinking about chronic illness. If we continually suppress what the body is expressing without understanding why it is expressing it, we may change the symptom without necessarily restoring the terrain that produced it.

A Medication Doesn't Exist in Isolation Either

The human body is even more complex than that garden. When a medication is introduced to alter one process, it doesn't enter the body and exist in complete isolation from everything else. It becomes part of an interconnected biological environment in which the digestive system, microbiome, liver, kidneys, nervous system, hormones, metabolism and nutrient status are all interacting.

Medications therefore have effects beyond the particular symptom for which they were prescribed. Those effects can involve digestion, bowel function, appetite, sleep, nutrient levels, blood pressure, blood sugar or other physiological processes. Sometimes those effects are recognised immediately; at other times a person may simply notice that something else about their health has changed.

This is where I think we need to be far more careful. If somebody develops a new symptom after another intervention has been introduced, rather than immediately assuming that we are looking at an entirely new and unrelated health problem, why wouldn't we first look at the timeline and ask what changed?

One Digestive Problem Can Become a Much Bigger Health Story

Imagine somebody whose health journey begins with digestive problems that could initially have prompted us to look at the person in a much gentler and more holistic way. We might have explored what they were eating, how they were eating, their microbiome, bowel function, stress, sleep and nutrient status, and asked what had changed around the time their digestive symptoms began.

Perhaps reflux was the first symptom. Rather than exploring why it appeared, however, the immediate focus becomes suppressing the symptom. The burning may improve, temporarily at best, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the reason it developed has disappeared. Meanwhile, the person's internal environment hasn't stopped being an interconnected ecosystem simply because one symptom is now quieter.

As the years pass, perhaps their digestion becomes increasingly uncomfortable, their bowel habits change or they begin struggling with nutrient status. Their energy starts falling, sleep deteriorates and they begin experiencing aches and pains. Later their blood pressure increases, their blood sugar changes or their mood deteriorates. Different symptoms appear at different stages and, because each one is viewed individually, each can acquire its own diagnosis and potentially another treatment.

Eventually, somebody whose story began with an easily addressed digestive complaint can end up with a long medical history and several medications, while nobody has gone back to the beginning and asked whether some of these events might be connected.

The timeline matters. If we don't continually return to that timeline, we can lose sight of the person underneath the growing collection of diagnoses and powerful medications.

This Is How a Prescribing Cascade Can Develop

There is actually a term for one particular version of this process: a prescribing cascade. This happens when an unwanted effect of one medication is interpreted as a new condition and another medication is prescribed to manage it. If the second medication then produces another unwanted effect, the picture can become even more complicated.

This is why I think asking somebody what medications they take isn't enough. I want to know why each medication was originally introduced, what symptoms existed beforehand and what changed afterwards. I want to know whether their digestion, energy, sleep, mood, appetite or bowel function changed and whether new symptoms appeared after another treatment was added.

When you begin putting those events onto a timeline, a health history that previously looked like a collection of unrelated problems can start telling a very different story.

Nutrient Depletion Can Become Another Layer

This is also where the subject of medication-related nutrient depletion fits into the bigger picture. Some commonly used medications affect the absorption, metabolism or excretion of particular nutrients when used over time. That matters because those nutrients don't exist in isolation either; they are involved in processes throughout the body.

Imagine somebody who was already struggling with poor digestion and fatigue and whose nutrient status then becomes compromised as another part of their health journey. They may become increasingly tired or weak, their concentration may deteriorate or other symptoms may develop. If those symptoms are viewed independently without revisiting what has happened to the person over time, another piece of the story can easily be missed.

This is why I think we should be interested in much more than whether a medication has successfully moved the number or suppressed the symptom it was prescribed for. We should also be asking how the whole person is doing and address why it has happened what is your body trying to alert you to - what is out of balance - its certainly not a lack of a certain medication!

Are We Mistaking Suppression for Health?

This is the question that keeps coming back to me. If somebody's blood pressure comes down after taking medication, we have changed the number. If their reflux disappears after suppressing the symptom, we have changed what they feel. If pain is reduced, we have changed their experience of that pain. The problem is that when symptoms are suppressed new symptoms pop up elsewhere in the body because the body wants you address the problem not suppress it.

So understanding why it appeared is key.

Regeneration rather than suppression becomes so relevant to me. The human body is based upon interconnected biological systems and the environment in which those systems are functioning. From that perspective, health isn't simply the absence of an unwanted symptom; it is about the resilience and communication of the whole living system.

So when somebody's blood pressure begins rising, I don't only want to know how we can lower the number. I want to understand why it changed. When somebody develops reflux, I want to know what changed within their digestion. When somebody's blood sugar begins increasing, I want to understand what is happening to their metabolic health. If their energy suddenly disappears, I want to know what changed before that happened.

Medications have side effects causing further health issues rectifying the initial issue brings vitality and optimal health to enable you to live the you want to and to be able to do the things you want to do.

Have We Forgotten That Symptoms Are Information?

Throughout this series I have talked about symptoms as information, and I think this is incredibly important. I don't mean that we should ignore serious symptoms or simply endure pain. I mean that when the body changes, I want to know why.

If your digestion has functioned perfectly well for years and suddenly changes, something has happened. If your energy disappears, your menstrual cycle alters, your blood sugar begins climbing or persistent pain appears, your body is giving you information. The symptom cannot tell us by itself exactly what caused the change, but surely it should prompt us to investigate rather than simply silence it and move on.

It reminds me of a warning light appearing on the dashboard of a car. If you cover that light with black tape, you no longer have to look at it and the dashboard appears perfectly normal again, but nothing about that action has told you why the warning light came on. You have removed the signal from view without necessarily correcting what produced it.

That is the distinction I think we are in danger of losing when it comes to chronic health.

Chronic Illness Requires Us to Look Backwards

Chronic illness, can be a story unfolding over five, ten, twenty years or more, and that is where continually adding something for each new symptom can leave us moving further away from the beginning.

If somebody has slowly been losing their health for a decade, I want to work backwards through that decade. What happened before the first symptom appeared? What changed with their digestion, food, sleep or stress? When did their hormones begin changing? When did their blood sugar start moving? What environmental exposures were present? When was each medication introduced, and what happened in the months or years afterwards?

What this does is allow us to see the person as one continuous story instead of pretending that everything happening today appeared independently.

We Have Become Very Good at Treating Numbers

This also connects directly with my previous article about blood testing. We measure blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, HbA1c, thyroid markers and weight, and those numbers can provide valuable information about what is happening within the body.

The problem comes when moving the number becomes the entire objective.

If a marker is changing, I want to know why it is changing. What happened upstream? What has changed in the person's food, gut, metabolism, hormones, movement, sleep, stress or wider environment?

If we continually force downstream markers towards the numbers we want while never addressing what is happening upstream, I think we need to ask ourselves a very uncomfortable question: are we creating better health, or are we sometimes simply creating better-looking numbers?

Everything Keeps Bringing Us Back to the Terrain

This is why these articles belong together. The first looked outside the body at soil, food, chemicals, microorganisms and our increasing disconnection from nature. The second looked at what happens when somebody feels increasingly unwell but is told that their blood results are normal. This third part asks what happens when the symptoms continue and we begin treating each one individually.

Every part of that story brings me back to the same question: what is happening to the terrain?

I want to know what is happening in the gut and microbiome (our soil), how somebody is eating, whether their blood sugar is stable, what their hormones are doing, whether they are sleeping properly, what is happening with their nervous system and nutrient status, what they are being exposed to and which medications they are taking. Most importantly, I want to understand the order in which everything happened.

That is completely different from simply looking at today's symptoms and today's prescription list.

Perhaps We Need to Stop Fighting the Body

One of the things that resonates most strongly is this constant language of war. We fight bacteria, viruses, inflammation, cholesterol, blood sugar, symptoms and disease. Outside the body, we fight weeds, insects, fungi and microorganisms, and then inside the human body we seem to repeat exactly the same philosophy.

But what if constantly fighting biology isn't the only way to think about health? What if we also became interested in creating the conditions in which a living system can become more resilient?

That doesn't mean doing nothing. Quite the opposite. It means asking a much bigger question than “What can I use to make this symptom disappear?” It means asking what has changed within this person and what can be done to support the environment in which their body is trying to function.

Follow the Story Back to the Beginning

This is what I try to do when somebody comes to me with a long list of symptoms, diagnoses and medications. I want to follow their story backwards, because quite often nobody has ever asked them to tell it in that way.

They may suddenly remember that the digestive problems came first. Several months later their sleep deteriorated and then the exhaustion appeared. Over the following years their joints began hurting, their hormones changed, anxiety appeared and eventually their blood sugar began climbing. Different medications were introduced at different stages, and some symptoms appeared before those medications while others developed afterwards.

Once we put that story together, what initially looked like seven unrelated problems begins to look like one person's health journey.

It doesn't mean that we instantly know the cause. It means we have finally started asking the right questions and you do not feel completely in the dark.

One Body. One Terrain. One Story.

This is ultimately what I want people to take away from these articles. We are not separate organs, separate diagnoses, laboratory numbers or a list of prescriptions. We are living ecosystems in which our food, microorganisms, gut, immune system, hormones, metabolism, mitochondria, nervous system and environment continually interact.

So when health begins to unravel, I don't want to chase every symptom without looking backwards. I want to understand where the story began, what changed in the terrain and what happened to that terrain with every intervention that followed.

Perhaps one of the greatest mistakes we can make is assuming that because we can no longer see the weed, the soil must therefore be healthy. Sometimes we have simply suppressed what was visible above the surface, and if the intervention we used has also changed other parts of that living ecosystem, we may find ourselves dealing with more consequences while moving further away from the original problem.

For me, this is where the conversation needs to change. We should certainly ask what can help somebody feel better, but we shouldn't stop there. We should also ask why the symptom appeared, what happened before it, what changed afterwards and whether the different problems that followed might form part of a bigger story.

Because suppressing a signal and restoring the terrain are not the same thing, and I believe we need to become much better at understanding the difference and understandinf how to listen to your own body.

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