Sunday, March 3, 2013

Brain washed to fail



Last post I spoke of doctors being taught to use a hammer.....and consequently everything looking like a nail.

For those patients who come in with numerous prescriptions for diagnosis after diagnosis.....then more prescriptions for side effects from the first set, perhaps its not the fault of Dr Hammer.  It may be the insurance company and the drug advertisements have convinced people they are the "nails".   Viagra improves your marriage.  Statins stop heart attacks.  Hydroxycut makes the fat melt off in 3 weeks.  Cymbalta takes the pain away.   Vaccines are harmless.  GMO doesnt have to be labeled.  Gastric bypass gets you back to high school life.  You deserve a break today.  This bud's for you.  Your approved for a home mortgage even if you don't have a job. 

There is the compassionate view of everyone working to better humanity....then there are people who take short cuts.  Its not everyone otherwise our species would have died off long time ago.  Unfortunately, there are people who like to take advantage and ride the wave, survive at the expense of others.  Doug Lisle coined the phrase the "Pleasure Trap" where humans can be swayed to take the easy way out.  Maintaining a whole food plant based diet will have its merits in giving the user an overwhelming feeling of health and wellness  (dont care what my bodybuilding friends say about needing animal protein!).  Having processed foods can "concentrate" the pleasure of eating into a compact package that gives the same feeling without the fiber, nutrition, time prep, love and community.  If not trained to note the benefit of fiber, nutrition, kitchen family prep....the brain will want you to go "straight to guns" (Tom Cruise in Top Gun) instead of setting up the shot safely.  Then the brain will always want the quick short cut leading to obesity, deconditioning, cravings, food addictions......just to please the pleasure center of the brain without considering the consequences. 

I believe this is why I usually get 30-40 year olds in my office looking for a way to get off the medicines accumulated just in the "last few years"-as if disease just sprung up as they entered into the decade without any relationship to the improper living from high school and college.  Change is soooo difficult but postponing it is like a downhill truck with no brakes....the longer you wait to run off the road, the more damage will occur.  Change takes more than one visit, it is a learning curve that has to be done gently but effectively with several teachers.  I may be able to construct a campaign for winning the war but the battles I leave to my warriors.  I think the best successes for damage accumulated in the medical insurance disease maintenance model are treatment plans outside standard paradigm.  It sounds like an up sell but medical insurance does not pay to get you healthy, it pays to stabilize and manage your disease.  (I remember a patient saying I did a "bait and switch"- saw her and took the standard insurance reimbursement then sent her over to non insurance providers in the same office.  She was right but insurance doesnt pay for nutritional guidance, personal exercise, relaxation therapy and alternative healing therapies.......It Pays For Medicine!!!!)  Western Medicine in the rare case it reverses what you have-some lymphomas, congenital heart valve problems, cataracts to name a few but the majority of medical diagnosis are maintained and accumulated over an average lifespan.  What's worse is if you get a diagnosis and your doctor looks statistics up, you will be treated like the average no matter how healthy or poor you live.  Cures are thought of as chance miracles and why waste time with giving "false hope".  Lets look at miracle cures.....when a billionaire goes outside western medicine or people refuse and step away from their insurance doctor and come back from asia with a cure. 

We devalue -nutrition, relaxation and community (usually the basis to healing in indigenous systems like traditional chinese medicine, ayurveda, american indian healing).  We hold high -material possessions, drugs, surgical corrections.  I believe it stems from exposure to symptom-only bandaid care made popular by the people selling the bandaids.   If only we spent Superbowl money on TV ads for Deepak Chopra teaching meditation, Wayne Dyer teaching empowerment or Andy Weil Educating on nutrition!!!  Watching PBS programing isnt as channel surfing eye grabbing as 10 seconds of an Xbox, beer comercial with the prettiest girls wearing little to no clothing.  Advertisers bank on the fact that if you suffer from disease (adhd/sleep deprivation/chronic pain/economic and emotional instability) your brain is under stress and will grab at fast relief of pain.  When I get a patient that works 60+ hours per week-guaranteed s/he has multiple problems and wants a short fix stating s/he cant stop working since not having the current salary would lead to death.   Then the V8 momement comes up that "the lifestyle is the disease".    As Deepak once told me, we spend money we don't have to buy things we don't need to please people we don't like....and I think this is the root of poor health.