No Man is an Island Entire of Itself

Can chronic gum recession / bad teeth health be linked to other health issues? 

This is a question asked recently in the Teeth FB group I help run. I thought it was a great question, and so I started writing this blog.

As human beings, we love to see things in isolation from each other when in fact, everything is interconnected. Modern medicine, historically, separated the body and the mind as 2 distinct, separate parts. Descartes was the one who led the way on this.

Nowadays, that distinction is not so black and white.

In many energy based medical systems eg Traditional Chinese Medicine, cranio-sacral therapy, Ayurveda to name a few, there has always been knowledge that the body and mind are intertwined, interrelated and one effects the other. Homeopathy is one of those systems of medicine. And this knowledge came in the 1800s, originating in Germany.

Homeopathy views he body/mind as a dynamic system. And no part exists on an island on it’s own, without a connection to some other parts and the whole.

What does that mean?

It does not work in a straight and logical way. We have complex bodies with lots of different things going on at the same time. A bit like the Butterfly Effect: a change in atmospheric pressure from the beating of a butterfly’s wings leads to imperceptible, tiny changes in air/wind pressure, and that in turn affects other things till the cumulative effect results in a big change such as a tornado on the other side of the world.

How is that relevant to homeopathy? I think it illustrates a similar process in our bodies and mind. An imbalance in one local area affects the whole person. As long as the body is well balanced, healthy and functioning well, the symptoms remain local but if there is imbalance or disharmony, the body cannot cope and it might affect other parts.

Which parts? That is the interesting question, and the answer is that each person is different, so it will depend on that person’s genetic inheritance, environmental load, their nature and physical make-up, nutritional input, use of medicines/drugs/ hormones, exposure to environmental poisons and more. Where there is weakness, stress in any shape or form will find it’s way there.

What is stress for me is not stress for you. What is weak in me may not be weak in you. It is quite individual.

Teeth do not exist in a vacuum in the body. They are part of the whole body system that is self regulatory. When something in the system breaks down or weakens over time, it may find an expression  elsewhere.

Homeopathy can trace this journey, identify a cause/imbalance/disharmony and based on the  principle of Like Cures Like, it uses carefully individualized remedies to nudge/encourage and help the body/mind to at least function better on the road to recovery and achieve a better level of health. Sometimes, even little changes can be powerful and far reaching.

A little goes a very long way in homeopathy – I am sure you have heard this before, and it is true on many levels.

No health issue is an island unto itself a la John Donne. This famous English poet wrote his famous poem about the interconnectedness of man in 1624.

No man is an island,

Entire of itself,

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

I love the way he visualises the interconnected nature of man.

I visualise the interconnectedness of the body/mind in a similar way.

Thank you for reading my blog! I enjoyed writing it.