OSTEOPOROSIS AND THETUBERCULAR MIASM

Linda Showler, N.D.

AUTHOR'S COMMEI;II: AVplicilHnablogy (AK) hastun tdfuileqilcs W *ny khils of eltcrrutir- lrarlth src ?rooiilqs. fhabninnunaabb systms of diagnais tlut inatTomtc AK,br.tnor tta sb$ cnciting $ inlon ultiwt-thcy all rcIy n a ilifiewttial in tlu clicttt' s (mhis,,or hcr surrogatc testct/s) muxb rapn*. Hene, AK is alm oltenullql 'muxh te$ing.' In nry yaclicc, I uaully rek questions sibntly -in otha worils, I lhink tlu qrcsfiot* and racioc 'y6' cnd tno'anstms lhrwghmuxh testing. To ue AKin this nantur suce:ssfully,it is importmt to stuily with an apeiencd Vaditiota in orilcr to aooidtlu innumaabb ?itfalls thd can easily funrc aocyracy.

Sandra is a 6&year-old woman whocame to me inNovember196. She is a soft-spoken" welldressed woman and had neverventured outbeyond allopathic medical carebefore. Shehad beengut on Synthroid by her M.D. for asymptomatic hypothyroidism.This was discovered on routine lab work in Marclir fg6, at whichtime her TSH was 6.4 MIU/ml (normals 05 - 6.0). She developed amild artMtis afterbeginning the Synthroid and stopped taking itin August. Her arthritis abated but earty in October her TSH was7.41. She wanted to know if altemative medicine could provide herwith a workable option to Synthroid. Sandra also wanied to knowif she could safely stop taking Estrace as post-menopausal hormonereplacement therapy (HRT).

Sandra happened to make her appoinbnent with me at apivotal time in_the evolution of my practice. I had recently learnedto use AK (appliedkinesiology) asa method totrackdownenviron-mental and food sensitivities. With the help of a colleague, Idiscovered that I could also use AK to receive diagnostii andtreatnent information for clients. This appears to occur th-,rghsome kind ofbenevolentguidance via AI( and it has improved tf,equality and depth of the work I do, o<ponentially.

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So, using AK, it was determined that the primary cause ofSandra's hypothyroidism was emotional. I had asked about sbes-sors earlier in the interview, and she recounted that a daughter haddied sixyearsearlierof septicemia,andhermotherhaddied shortlythereafter of heart hilure. Five years ago, a close friend hadcommitted suicide. ,?ut I've worked through all this; I have a veryrelaxed life," she observed. After we spent a few long minuteskying to unearth the source of the emotional shess, Sandra beganto weep, much to her surprise. For a good ten minutes she wasovercome with deep wracking sobs, and finally managed to blurtout that she hadnit realized that shdd held so much emotionregarding these long-past traumas. After she'd regained her com-posure, we prceeded and found through AK that she also neededadrenal support to heat the hypothyroidism; no direct support wasneeded for the thyroid gland. Also using Atr( it was determinedthatSandra did not need the Esbace. I had ordered lab workbeforeshe arrived for this first office call, and now her TSH was 11.7.

The treahnent plan at this point included:1. Encouragement to allow time for more emotional release, if

needed.2. For adrenal supporh 1 gram of vitamin C t.i.d., 300 mg.

pantethine b.i.d., a tincture of licorice and bupleurum 1:1, 30 gtt, 3- 4 times daily.

3. Gradual weaning off of Esbace, with 250 mg. Vitex, t.i.d" toassist the body in adiusting to lower doees of exogenous eshogen.

It was determined usingAK that it would take three monthson this program before we would see an appreciable reduction infSH. At tr'r'i months, her TSH had dropp,ed to 8.3. In early Marchit was 4.9.

Atthe follow-upvisit inMarch,I wanted to focusontheHRTissue, as she was now taking very scant amounts of Estrace. UsingAK I checked again to see if Sandra needed HRT for her health andwell-being. Agairg the result was nep.tive. Concem about thedevelopment of osteoporosis (OP), however, still brought up apositive test. Through AK I looked for the appropriate level onwhich to focus heatmenh Physical (vitamins, minerals, naturalhormones, exercise, etc.) tested negative. Emotional, also negative.

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The only remaining caEgory I could think of was the inherited/genetic/rniasmatic level. Testing with AK I received a positivereading-that we needed b consider dearing a specific miasm inthis patient.

This surprised and excited rre. Although I knew that manychronic diseases can have a shong miasmatic componenf I'd nev&really thought about osEoporcis in this light At this point, I usedAK again to screen Sandra for the five maix miasms (psoric,s-ycotic, qphilitic, hrbercular and cancerous), testing specifically bdetect which one would predispoce her to OP. According to tlreresults of this energy testing itwas tre tuberruliar miasm alone thatrelated to her cteoporotic process.

When doing AK with clients I ky to keep my questionsfaused on the dient, btrt my cwiosity got thebetter of me duringthis office call and I couldn't help throwing in a quesfion withbroader scope: "Is tlre TB miasm strongly rclated tothe development of osteoporosis in the general population? 'Again" theanswer was positive.

lAt this point I would like to acknowledge that I am wellaware that Applied Kinesiology is not generally considered tobe areliable form of informaHon access. I[ is not my purpose here toexplore this issue--rince it is bound to provole cohtoversy, evenamong the ranks of the conhoversial. The purpose of this paper isnot to state unequivocally that (based on information acquiredthrough applied kinesiology) there is a stsong relationship beiweenosteoporosis and the tubercular miasm-but to acquaint alterna-tive health care providers who use vibrational medicines such ashomeopathy in their practices tothis potential method of obtaininginformation that may otherwise be difficult to garn. As we haveseen with homeopathy, it is the vibrational medicines (.s., themedicines that work on an energy level rather than through chemi-cal effects) that have the power to clear miasms. Sinci medicalunderstanding of OP and its prevention is sHll not welldeveloped,a miasmatic link seems worthexploring.l

I would like to say a few words here about tuberculosis. Thelungs are the usual primar', location for TB infection" b,ut in itsactive stage it can also manifest in qhapulmonary sitx.Myfuc-

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/arium htbratlosisthrives in environments with high oxygen En-sion,suchas thelungandkidney. Theliverand spleen, on the otherhan4 havea verylow PQ, and thusTB rarely takeshold in theseorgans. Most people who host tuberde bacilli have dormant TB,btrt recrudescence of the disease can (rcur decades after initialspcure. Thecganematcomnonlyaffected inthisway, inorderof frequency, are the lungs, kidneys, and male genitals. Othercommon sites are the Fallopian tubes, bones, lymph nodes,meninges, and adrenal glands. Osseous TB is uroot commonlyacquired in childhood. It is the lcrg bones and vertebrae that areafued. Thie is because of the high PQ assciated with thevasctrlarity at the epiphyseal plaEs and the vertebrae duriqg activebone growth (Harrison's). In OP, the bones most commonlyaffued are the vertebrae, and the prodmal humems, distal radius,proximal tibia, and ftmoral neck. In other words, both TB and OPhave a shong predilection for the ends of the long bones and thevertebrae.

Homeopaths have long recognized the relationship betweenthe tubercular miasm and chronic respiratory tract weakness. Theurinary tract, the lymph system, the CNS (mental weaknesses), andthe circulatory system Gg., essential hypertension) can also beaffucted by this miasm. It follows that other parts of the body thatTB frequently invades, such as the bones, could be significantlyweakened by the TB miasm. Another possibility along these lineswotrld be the adrenal glands (adrenal insufficiency, CFS), and theprostate (BPH) and testes.

As part of Sandra's March office call, I also used 45 todetermine if anything else was needed to prevent a recurrence ofhlpothyroidism. According to AK the needs of the physical andemotional levels had bem heale4 but now the inherited levelneeded to be addressed, in order to make the healing more com-plete. Since TB has an affinity for certain glands, its seems probablethat Sandra's adrenal and thyroid problems are, in parf related tothis particular miasm. It is interesting to note thatldum and itssalts are remedies that, if indicated, have the power to dear thetuberctrlar miasm. Iodine is, of course, intimately involved with thefunction of the thyroid ghnd.

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In my readingon hrberculosis, I cameacroos andherintsigu-ing bit of infcuration. A distinguishiqg characEristic ofll{pohc-lcriclcellg is their ability b "markedly promob the development ofdelayed hpersensitivity to proEin antigens' (Youmans) whenthey are delivered into the body dong with the antigm. Theassociation between the tuberular miasm ard datry allergy inchildren is well known. In the past a common route of entry forh.rberculosis into the body was through the GI tract. This wasbecause cat0e were often infecdwithMycfuaaiun boais(whidrcan cause TB in humans), and this was hansmitted ttuough theirmilkinlargequantitiespriortothe adventof pastetrization Couldthis be the origin of the relationship between the tubercular miasmand sensitivity to dary products? I wonder if this miagm prdis-poses people to mote easily develo| certain bod allergies, becauseof the adiuvant properties of the Mycfuclcrblcells. I rccently sawa dientwithapronounced wheatallergy,and was surprised bfindthrough testing that it was specifically caused by the tubercularmiasm. It is my experience that allergies can have an amazingplethora of primary causes, miasms being only one of many.

It has been observed that genetics plays a very shong part inwhether or not a woman will develop cteoporosis. Perhaps theanswer to this 'genetic' puzzle lies in the transmission of an un-treated miasm through the family line. Today, a whopping 30% ofpost-menopausal women in this corntry will develop the clinicalmanifestadons of OP. In the U.S., over 80% of the population wasinfected with TB before the age of 20 at the turn of this cenhlry(Harrison's). During that time in history, TB was the leadingcauseof death in the U.S. Clearly, this miasm could be affecting a heftypercentage of the population. There are, of course, lifestyle facforsthat can lead to excessive bone loss. These are an important part ofthe prevention of osteoporoois and as naturopaths, we routinelyaddress these factors in our practice. But these account for onlyapproximately 7O% of the total eHological factots involved in thedevelopment of OP in the U.S. Is the 'genetiC aspect of OPprimarily miasmatic in origin?

I wanted to present Sandra's case, partly because it is a niceexample of the multifactorial nature of many chronic dir4ses.There was an initiating etnotional suppression that affucted the

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adrenal and thyroid glands. It affeced these glands because thetuberctilar miasm exerbd a weakeningeffect onthese glands. Thisgupp:ecsion required emotional release, and-on the physicallevel-the adrenal glands needed fortification In ordenb helpprevent rccurrence of illness in these areas of the body, the tuber-cular miasm, representingthe inheribd level of disease, needed tobe cleared.

Resources:Hardson s PrirrcipJe. of InErnal Medicine.lOth editionThe Merck ldanual, 16th editionTheBiologic and Oinical Basis of Infectious DseasesYoumans

Linila Shoutlcr, ND, is e grdtde o f h*yr Uni*tsity. Shc Vactiu inP ort T unxnd, Washingt on.

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