How Does Your Body Heal?
- Catherine Nicholls
- 21 hours ago
- 12 min read
Updated: 10 hours ago
What should I expect when my body is healing itself?
Sometimes Patients ask: "What should I expect to see happen? My skin is getting worse, is that a good sign or a bad one? My old knee pain has come back, why?" These are wonderful questions, because the answers reveal something profound about how the body truly heals.
In Homeopathy, we use a set of observations developed in the 19th century which were first noted by Samuel Hahnemann and later compiled by Dr Constantine Hering, to help us track whether a patient is genuinely getting better or simply suppressing symptoms. George Vithoulkas, widely regarded as the foremost living teacher of classical Homeopathy and winner of the Right Livelihood Award (the "Alternative Nobel Prize"), built on these observations to create a complete model of health and healing.
Understanding these principles can transform the way you interpret your own body's signals during treatment.
How your body works to heal itself and how Homeopathic healing works
When your body heals itself, it does so with an innate intelligence: always working to protect the most vital organs first, and ensuring that dis-ease does not become life-threatening if it can be prevented. Whether the body is healing naturally through its own mechanisms, or is being supported by the right homeopathic remedy, symptoms do not disappear in a chaotic or random way. They resolve in a predictable, orderly direction and watching that direction tells us everything about whether a true and lasting cure is taking place.
Understanding Hering's Laws of Cure
Homeopaths study the observations and teachings of Dr Constantine Hering, George Vithoulkas, various teachings from other wonderful Homeopaths, backed by science from clinical papers, books and of course observations in clinical practice.
What this teaches us about pathology and disease, healing and cure and how this relates to supporting patients with Homeopathic remedies is summarised below:
The Four Directions of Cure
1. Disease moves outwards
 | From within outwards The body prioritises its most vital, internal organs. As the body heals, it pushes illness outward, from the deep organs towards the surface. The dis-ease is the same but expressed in different organs. A patient with both asthma and eczema may find the lungs improve while the skin temporarily flares. This is not a worsening, it is the body doing exactly what it should. Example: A patient whose asthma improves but whose eczema briefly flares is showing that healing is moving from the more vital organ (lungs) to the less vital surface (skin). |
2. Disease moves from most important organs to least important
 | From more important to less important organs Disease tends to move from less important organs toward the most vital ones when symptom are not healing and the pathology is worsening. Cure works in the opposite direction. The body, when truly healing, first restores the most important organs and then works outward. Example: You may feel emotionally clearer and mentally sharper before your physical symptoms fully resolve. This emotional improvement is one of the earliest and most reliable signs a remedy is working. |
3. Symptoms move downwards
 | From above downwards As the body heals, symptoms tend to move downward through the body from the head and/or torso (which contain the most vital and important organs) to the extremities, which are less vital to survival. Moving down and out of the body is the direction of cure and healing. Moving inwards or upwards indicates dis-ease and chronic conditions, as the symptoms effect more vital organs. Example: Joint pain that started in the hips may move to the knees and eventually to the feet before fully resolving. If symptoms are 'travelling downwards,' this is often a positive sign. |
4. Symptoms resolve in reverse order of their original appearance
 | In the reverse order of appearance The most recent symptoms resolve first and the oldest symptoms resolve last. Think of layers of an onion being peeled back — the body works its way back through time, undoing illness in the reverse order it was acquired. Example: A patient with eczema (1 years), asthma and hay-fever (5 years) and COPD (50 years) will typically find the COPD clears first, then the asthma and hay-fever, and finally the eczema. |
You may as an adult be experiencing asthma or even chronic lung symptoms (repeated chest infections, COPD, etc), looking at your case history, we note that as a child you had hay fever or even asthma and as a baby you suffered with eczema, the pathology of the disease expression worsening over time. When working with an adult diagnosed with COPD we can see improvement in symptoms from the constant difficult breathing issues and chronic phlegm to less frequent and intense experiences of symptoms, continuing to reduce in severity and occurrence until the lungs are symptom free. It is not uncommon for the person to then experience a flare up of eczema that is similar to their childhood symptoms, these are called clearing symptoms and are short lived and are part of the bodies healing journey to health (the symptoms should not be suppressed, as that would reverse the healing).
The hierarchy of organs: which matters most?
Vithoulkas described health at three interconnected levels — mental/emotional, physical vital organs, and physical peripheral systems. Disease always moves toward the most vital areas; healing always moves away from them.
Most vital | Brain and nervous system — mental and emotional wellbeing |
Vital | Heart, lungs, liver, kidneys — core life-sustaining organs |
Important | Digestive system, hormonal system |
Moderate | Muscles and joints |
Least vital | Skin — the body's external boundary |
Disease tends to move downward through this list over time. Poorly managed eczema can eventually lead to asthma; suppressed asthma may affect the heart or mind. Cure reverses this: the body restores the most important organs first, then works its way outward.
What does 'getting better' look like in practice?
True healing shows itself through three measurable changes that we watch for carefully during treatment:
Reduction in intensity: Symptoms that were an 8 out of 10 become a 4, then a 2. They are the same symptom, but softer and easier to manage, impacting your life less and less until completely resolved.
Reduction in frequency: Headaches that came every week come every fortnight, then once a month, then only under significant stress.
Shorter duration: When symptoms do appear, they resolve more quickly and the person bounces back faster.
Resilience: You become more resilient, less prone to expressing these symptoms and reacting to your triggers.
Chest Infection as an Example:
This case shows where someone came to me suffering with an ongoing chest infection after having cold symptoms where their body was unable to heal on its own and which they didn't support to resolve.
Stage 1 of Symptoms
When the first symptoms of the cold presented, they had a sudden runny nose, sneezing and a sore throat. They were unable to rest at this point due to work commitments, so carried on even though their body had raised these symptoms to resolve dis-ease in the body and show the patient it was in need of support.
When the body was unable to rest and wasn't provided with the right nutrition, enough water and was put under pressure with mental demands from work causing stress, the body was unable to resolve the cold symptoms. The patient got worse, they now have a fever, they have started to cough and have a headache. The body is trying to heal itself:
the fever is there to "fight" off pathogens and boost the immune response
The cough is there to clear the lungs of the mucous that instead of coming out of teh nose, has become a post nasal drip. The lungs don't want that mucous in it and are coughing to expel it
The headache happens as part of the immune response, blood pressure rising, pressure from the mucous, signalling drainage etc to help the body, but also it is of no surprise that the often desirable conditions for a patient when a headache is present is rest, reduce physical exertion, darkness, stillness, reduced caloric demand, which would allow the immune system to dedicate maximum resources to fighting infection. A body that felt fine during a cold would continue to expend energy on normal activity, diverting resources away from healing. The headache may therefore be understood as the body's way of redirecting energy inward, toward the vital work of recovery. As we know a headache is extraordinarily effective at one thing: making you stop!
Stage 2 of Symptoms
Unfortunately the person was again unable to listen to the signals their body was producing and decided to take a pharmaceutical medication (in this case paracetamol) to "turn off/ignore the symptoms" - this can be referred to as suppression of symptoms.
What happens next again continues to brilliantly show the direction of dis-ease when it is going unsupported in the wrong way. Whereas the original symptoms were surface level, being in the lesser important organs, they are at each stage of suppression/being unsupported being driven deeper, effecting more important organs.
Remembering the fever and headache has been stopped by the paracetamol, so the person carried on working hard and didnt rest, the fever which was trying hard to boost the immune response and fight any virus or bacterial pathogens was stopped in its tracks. Now the patient reports that the cold has gone to their chest. They now have a chest infection which the body cant fight as all of its usual lines of defence and ability to heal itself has been stopped.
Symptoms now are:
Cough - rattling, chesty cough with some production of mucous but the chest is tight, painful and hot and the body is unable to expel the contents. As the body was unable to expel the mucous which had been forced inwards instead of supported to come out, this is now sitting in the lungs and as the paracetamol has reduced the bodies ability to fight and heal.
Chest pain - the chest is tight, painful, the patient is finding it hard to breathe and taking deep breaths causes sudden unproductive coughing fits.
Fatigue and brain fog - the patient is exhausted as the body has been trying to heal itself over an extended period and carry on working at the same time.
Fever - the fever has returned as the "infection" has set in, it is now a higher fever and the patient is burning up.
The patient's body is unable to mount an immune response - this has been turned off, each of the symptoms have intensified and gone deeper into the body, to more vital organs.
Stage 3 of Symptoms
This led to this patient being prescribed antibiotics after being diagnosed with a chest infection, thankfully they decided to use Homeopathic remedies instead to support their body to heal.
Healing occurred in a wonderful way which again beautifully shows the direction of cure. After using a Homeopathic remedy acutely:
The patient was able to expel the mucous as the chest loosened and they were able to cough out and eliminate the mucous. Coughing increased, production/expulsion of mucous increased but these were both positive actions not cause for concern.
The patient was now in a position where they were forced to rest more, concentrating on listening to their bodies signals and symptoms, eating and drinking also increased to help support the bodies healing actions.
The fever was supported Homeopathically to resolve any symptoms of infection.
The headache resolved as pressure reduced and rest was taken.
Breathing became easy and clear, the fever, the fatigue and brain fog resolved too.
Before complete healing was achieved the patient noticed that they now had a free flowing cold, the body had worked the symptoms and dis-ease back out of the body to the original and first symptom, this time they were resting and supporting the body to do what it is designed to do, supporting its natural immune response.
If after a series of acute illnesses like this which the body was unable or was unsupported to heal, chronic illness occurs, the body is overburden by dis-ease and the continued weight of "stress" that it is not able to heal itself, so chronic, low lying, potentially a less intense but constant symptom pattern sets in, this is where chronic disease comes from.
Reducing susceptibility: the deeper goal of treatment
Susceptibility is the tendency to be affected by certain stresses, whether physical, emotional, or environmental. A highly susceptible person becomes ill easily, takes a long time to recover, and is affected by things that would not bother a healthier person.
As homeopathic treatment deepens, susceptibility reduces. Patients begin to notice they are experiencing fewer colds. Stressful situations feel less overwhelming. Seasonal allergies are milder.
The body's defence mechanism, what Hahnemann called the vital force, becomes stronger and more responsive.
This is the difference between suppression or palliation (temporary relief) and genuine cure. Palliation reduces symptoms while the underlying susceptibility remains. Cure reduces the susceptibility itself and as it does, the symptoms have no foundation left to grow from.
A note of reassurance: when old symptoms return
One of the concerns I see is a patient whose old symptom returns briefly. Perhaps a rash from childhood reappears for a week, or a digestive problem that cleared years ago comes back temporarily. This understandably causes worry.
In the context of Hering's observations, a brief, mild return of old symptoms, particularly when accompanied by improved energy and emotional wellbeing, is a positive sign. It means the remedy has reached a deep enough level to resolve something that was previously unresolved.
We watch carefully to ensure these returning symptoms are indeed brief and mild. If they are severe or prolonged, we will reassess. But a gentle revisiting of old ground, moving swiftly onwards toward better health, is exactly what we hope to see.
In summary: signs to watch for during treatment
What you might notice | What it may mean |
Old symptom briefly returns | Healing going deeper — a positive sign |
Skin flares while breathing improves | Illness moving outward — a positive sign |
Symptoms less severe but still present | Intensity reducing — healing is in progress |
Feeling emotionally clearer before physical cure | Most important level healing first |
Getting ill less often, bouncing back faster | Susceptibility reducing — deep healing taking place |
Why we often see skin symptoms at the start of disease
Skin symptoms are often seen at the start of dis-ease, many childhood illness commonly have a skin expression, like chicken pox, rashes, fevers etc.
The body's elimination pathways:
why symptoms at the surface are a sign of intelligence, not failure
The human body is equipped with a remarkable set of elimination pathways: the skin, lungs, kidneys, bowel, liver and lymphatic system, whose shared purpose is to move waste, toxins and the products of disease outward and out of the body.
These systems work together to remove harmful substances and waste products, each playing a distinct role: the liver processes and neutralises, the kidneys filter and excrete through urine, the lungs expel volatile waste through the breath, the bowel eliminates through digestion, and the skin releases through sweat. In a state of good health, these pathways flow freely and the body maintains its internal balance with ease.
When the body is under the burden of chronic illness or excess environmental toxins these pathways can become congested or suppressed: the disease is held inward rather than being expressed and released. This is why, during homeopathic treatment, patients sometimes notice increased discharge, looser stools, more perspiration, a productive cough, or a skin reaction. Far from being a cause for alarm, these are signs that the vital force is actively pushing illness outward through the correct channels: exactly as Hering's law describes.
When elimination pathways are open and functioning, the body is able to process and release what it no longer needs; it is when these pathways become blocked that illness is driven deeper and symptoms worsen.
A skin rash appearing as respiratory symptoms ease, increased urination as the kidneys engage, or a productive mucus discharge as the lungs begin to clear - these are not new problems. They are the body doing precisely what a healthy body is designed to do: moving disease from the inside out, and from the vital to the less vital. In homeopathy, we consider this one of the most encouraging signs we can witness.
The danger of suppression - when silencing symptoms drives the disease deeper
Many common pharmaceutical drugs work by suppressing the body's protective responses: reducing fever, stopping inflammation, drying up discharge, stopping elimination pathway excretion or clearing a rash.
While this can bring welcome short term relief, in Homeopathic understanding this approach carries a significant risk: it can push disease inward, away from the surface and elimination pathways, and toward more vital organs. This is the opposite direction to the one the body is trying to take. Rather than helping the body complete its outward, eliminative process, suppression interrupts it, and the unresolved burden of illness must go somewhere.
A telling example from conventional medicine itself illustrates this principle. Ibuprofen is not recommended for children with chickenpox: a condition the body naturally expresses through the skin, one of its primary elimination pathways.
Taking ibuprofen can compromise leukocytosis function (the process where white blood cell counts increase to combat infection and can also inhibit the migration of leukocytes (white blood cells) to the site of infection, causing the infection to become more severe and penetrate deeper into the skin. https://gpnotebook.com/en-GB/pages/infectious-disease/shingles-zoster-and-varicella-chickenpox-and-ibuprofen https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9585108/
Clinical guidelines in the UK do not recommend the use of NSAIDs in children with chickenpox, due to concerns that their use is associated with an increased risk of severe skin and soft tissue infections. In the most serious cases, this can result in necrotising fasciitis: a life-threatening infection of the deep layers of the skin. This is a striking conventional medicine example of what Homeopaths have long observed: suppressing a surface expression of disease does not resolve it. It simply forces it inward to a deeper, more dangerous level.
A number of medications, In practical terms, interfere with the immune response that the body is mounting, whether that is at the skin surface or deeper. For further examples, please see my blogs: The role of fevers in the body and Elimination Pathways and how to support them.
If you have any questions about your own healing journey please do get in touch. Understanding what is happening in your body is one of the most empowering parts of homeopathic care.
Sources and further reading
Hering's Law of Cure, homeopathy360.com
George Vithoulkas, The Science of Homeopathy, IACH
George Vithoulkas, Levels of Health, IACH
Samuel Hahnemann, The Chronic Diseases (1828)
