Just watched Escape Fire: The fight to rescue American Healthcare. I spoke with the director and praised him for a job well done in empowering the American people to understand the paradigm of health in the US and get better "around the system". When I give lectures, there will always come a time when the attendees will ask, how do I take care of flare ups? This could be with anything from pain, to stable disease states to family dynamics. I always say the power of prescription medicine is in the impact it can have on symptoms immediately. Surgery, big gun medicine, acupuncture can change things fast. The sacrifice is the side effects that piggyback. In most cases, an immediate relief does allow patient to get back into the game faster (by continuing with work, training or functioning as a parent/partner) The wise man will plan the wean off during the same day as writing the prescription or performing the procedure. With the 10 minute visit (....minute clinics in Walgreens or Wal-Mart) providers specifically only address a single problem and only give just-enough medicine for a week-hoping the patient will follow-up with primary care to address the true reason for "life-imbalance". The problem I used to "prescribe to" was in seeing a patient for follow-up. If I didn't have time to fully investigate/dive into history that led to "imbalance", I would opt to just continue the big gun/high side effect/behavioral addictive medicine and get the patient in for a longer visit a few weeks down the line outside my scheduling back log. By that time the symptoms were worse, big gun med has stopped or caused a side effect, or problem fixed itself. My training would usually call for initiating the lifestyle change I have been urging the patient to go through from before. I take advantage of nutrition, stress reduction, supplementing deficiency and mind-body techniques. All those things that patients sometimes postpone for lack of time, are now easily translated as the "cure" for the crescendo of problems they comeback with.
The rub is; with the current model of medicine, RESCUE technique only works when disease has been ignored and postponed. The "rescues" only accumulate and become complex resulting in a constellation of diagnosis and intervention....yet resulting in poorer health and high financial expense. Mega-hospitals are built to care for postponed problems. Average health expenditure per person in the US is 5000-7000 dollars per year. We are also low on the list of world nations for health so the current system of constant "rescue" is flawed. What ever you do, I encourage you to listen to what you know is out of balance and start planning the fixes. Even if the plan spans over a few months to years, enlist the help of someone with nutrition experience, behavioral health knowledge and complementary medicine. Still trust in you current doctor to look out for big problems but understand the predicament with healthcare providers and that the insurance based system is stressed.
In Ayurveda, when the person preparing the meal is stressed to listen to the hunger, pick the ingredients, cook the dish, and present it......the "bad energy" of the cook-is "eaten" by the person dinning. This leads to health problems. If the person you entrust your health to is stressed to make financial deadlines, see "X" number of patients per hour, and come up with a plan for a lifetime of health and wellness....the likelihood is the plan with have the same "bad energy" in it that the provider is feeling.
Patient heal thy self, find your own "center for healing", keep western medicine "on a leash" and if you find a doc that listens and is an example of health...never let go and share with others.
