Respiratory System Disorders and Therapy From a New - Louis Bolk ...

4.8. Acute and Chronic Aspects of Illness
The symptoms of chronic illness generally progress with exacerbations and remissions.
From the viewpoint of chronicity, the symptomatology of the various exacerbations
is generally the same and specifically ‘belongs to the patient.’ It would be an extreme
exception if the same patient reacted one time with the symptoms of asthma, the next time
with the symptoms of epilepsy, and yet another time with chronic intestinal complaints.
It is characteristic of a chronic illness that precisely the same symptoms, over the course
of time, occur to a varying degree and frequency. There can also be longer periods during
which the patient is symptom-free.
A second aspect is the acute moment of the exacerbation. Many patients themselves
know very well what makes them ill, which ingredients may provoke an exacerbation. In
other words: the acute moment is usually provoked by specific factors. Something which
the one patient reacts severely to is for another patient with ‘the same disease’ irrelevant,
and vice versa. The ‘sameness’ of the disease becomes modified by various individually
determined factors that provoke an exacerbation. Many patients are also aware of the
lifestyle that can specifically help prevent exacerbations. A change in lifestyle could then
help them to improve their own health.
4.8.1. What is the Role of Constitution?
When we use phenomenology to look at patients, various symptoms can be recognized as
belonging dynamically together. Two symptoms that, at first glance, appear to be clearly
different, such as, for example, insomnia and increased muscle tension, can be recognized
in their mutual relation and common cause. Thus, a dynamic and coherent picture of —
the symptoms of — a disease is created.
The description of the asthma patients in Chapter 2 made it clear that, before the first
acute moment in the ‘illness’ emerged, there was already a certain innate imbalance,
which makes these patients extra sensitive (see figures 3.6., 3.7., and 3.8.). They had
Bolk’s Companions RespiRatoRy system DisoRDeRs anD theRapy - 59