In the diseased state the body shows symptoms. The symptoms are produced by altered chemical concentrations and / or by altered anatomy of the cells and tissues in terms of number, size, shape, consistency, etc. which in turn are the result of the deviated body process.

Symptoms are the signs or signals given by the body e.g. pain, fever, etc. showing that the body is not normal, and its body process is deviated, and it is no longer under the control of body force due to some causative factor.

Symptoms are of 2 types
a.) Subjective: felt by the patient only and cannot be seen or felt by anyone else like pain, vertigo, weakness etc.
b.) Objective: it can be felt by patients and seen by other attenders including the doctor and may be seen in investigations (tumor, skin eruption, fever, etc.)

Disease follows the following stages
Body force loses control of one or more body process ---> changes in the chemical concentration in the body ---> changes in the consistency, size, shape, number of a single cell and tissue or many ----> death of the cell then tissue then the organ and the organ system fail, and person dies.

The body gives signals in the form of signs and symptoms when it is in a diseased state. The changes that occur in the body can be documented in the investigations, but it is very important to know at what stage of the disease the investigation can document these changes.

Stages of disease, symptoms, and their correlation with investigations
Stages of disease.
1) Body force loses control of the body process, leading to
2) Altered chemical concentration in the body,
3) Altered cell or tissue in terms of consistency, shape, size, or number

Let us see in detail all these stages

1) Stage of body force losing control of the body process:
. Nothing is seen in investigation and the reports are normal at this stage.
. This stage may remain for a few minutes, hours, or a few days in an acute disease while months and years in a chronic disease.
. It may not show any symptoms or may show some trivial symptoms because of the following reasons:

a) No symptoms develop because the body can manage the altered chemical substances (substrate or end or intermediate products) by increasing or decreasing the pace of some other bodily processes, but the body can manage the alteration for a short period and then symptoms do develop.
b) Many trivial general symptoms are felt by the patient like
. weakness, less stamina, increase or decrease in appetite
. increase or decrease in weight.
. mental dullness or irritability, change in mood, difficult concentration,
. change in bowel or bladder habits like constipation etc.
. sleeplessness or sleepiness,
. mild body pain or abdominal pain,
. Hair loss, skin discoloration
. menstrual disorders, etc.
Many such general symptoms will be felt by the patient, but nothing comes in investigations.
c) Patients approach the doctor for such trivial symptoms and the doctor advice investigations which usually come normal. Once the investigation report comes normal, some doctors assure the patient that nothing is wrong with them (though trivial symptoms are present) and prescribe some multi vitamins, appetizers, stamina gaining pills, pain killers, sleeping pills, etc. After a few months or years, most patients develop some or the other chronic diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, hypothyroidism, cancer, etc. and most diseases have progressed to an incurable stage, unless intervention with lifestyle management (teen aahaar mantra) and correct homoeopathic treatment is provided within a stipulated period.

2) Stage of altered chemical concentration
a) As time progresses, the altered process gets more distorted resulting in altered levels of chemical concentration which leads to further deviation of many other normal processes one by one. The body is unable to manage the altered chemical concentration or compensate for the changes that occurred in the structure of cell and tissue efficiently. This gives rise to symptoms pointing to a particular organ or function of the body which is more affected and gets added to already present general symptoms
b) In the early stage of the disease, investigations show certain chemical concentrations at extreme levels, and we still stamp it as a normal report, which is not correct because few general and particular symptoms are still present.
E.g., if the previous post lunch blood sugar was 110 mg/dl, then after a few months if post lunch sugar goes up to 130 mg/dl, though in the normal range but on the upper limit of normal as compared to the previous reports. We cannot label it as normal, because some trivial symptoms do persist like weakness, craving sugar, weight gain, etc.
c) As time progresses, chemical concentration in the body gets severely altered and it can be easily seen in the investigations. The patient thinks that the disease started now, which is not true because investigations just helped the doctor and the patient with the diagnosis of the disease which started long back especially in the case of chronic disease. Now when it can be detected in the investigations, there may be no cure (in case of chronic disease only) and only the chemical concentration levels (end or intermediate products or substrate) can be kept under control that too for a short period of time. The actual cause for this alteration in the chemical concentration levels or cells and tissue is the deviated body process which is still left undiagnosed and untreated which leads to further complications in future by causing further alteration in the cell or tissue structure leading to the death of the person, unless proper treatment is administered in a stipulated time along with rectification of the deviated body process (discussed in concept of treatment).
E.g., Patient taking medicine for chronic diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, hypothyroidism, etc. have their investigational reports normal many times, still they suffer from complications of diabetes mellitus or hypothyroidism like heart attack, paralysis, kidney failure, etc. This is because the treatment was targeted only to manage the altered chemical concentration level (substrate, end, or intermediate products) which is the result of the deviated body process which was not rectified during the treatment
d) Thus, in this stage investigations can pick up and document the altered chemical concentration levels.
e) In this stage subjective symptoms are more prominent and severe, with few objective symptoms

3) Stage of altered structure of cell or tissue or organ in terms of consistency, shape, size, number
As the altered chemical concentration remains for a longer time in the body along with the altered body process (which may be single or more than one), after some time the structural deformity starts from cell to tissue and then in the organ. The changes may be in terms of:

a) Changes in the consistency of the cell membrane or in the cell organelles
b) Change in size, shape and number of organelles, cells, or tissue.

We can document all these changes in the investigations. At this stage the disease has advanced further and here investigation is very important but only to know how much destruction has been done in the body by the disease. But this altered structure in the cell or tissue is the result of altered chemical concentration and /or deviated body process

So, investigations are important, but we should never overlook the long-standing symptoms which may be trivial but can be a signal for some grave disease in the future