Healing Crisis
When you choose to use nutrition, exercise, intense sweating, and other forms of detoxification, you may experience what is known as a healing crisis. According to Dr. David Jockers, “The medical term for healing crisis is the Herxheimer Reaction. This occurs when the cells release toxins into circulation but the elimination organs (skin, lungs, liver, kidneys, bladder & GI tract) are not able to eliminate them quickly enough. The toxins remain in circulation and can affect the brain stem region leading to nausea, poor coordination, headaches, fatigue, malaise, fever, etc. Another common cause of the healing crisis has to do with the dying off of certain pathogenic organisms in the body. These organisms can be Candida yeast infections, viruses and bacteria. Any sort of natural health program can cause a massive die-off of these organisms. This die-off releases stored endotoxins (within the microbes themselves) that circulate and again interfere with normalized function. The more pathogens in the body, the more endotoxins that will be released into the bloodstream.”
I have experienced many of these fevers after energy work, massage, intense mental evolution, or after obtaining a lot of exercise and high quality food. Although sometimes people get sick because of a poor immune system, it is also possible that your body waited until you were healthy enough to go through a detox (which can involve not eating for days). This sounds weird at first, but it does make sense that if your body needs to detox without food, then it would want you to be strong enough to withstand the time without nutrition. Time and time again when I make a strong effort toward physical health and I start to feel my best, I experience a strong but fast detoxification through diarrhea, fevers, etc.