Everyone seems to know what makes them sick. However what is more frightening is the fact how we define sickness.
Recently I was speaking with my fitness trainer and she said she asks 2 questions. Do you have any medical issues? Usually people say no. Then she asks do you take any medications? They say yes. So she goes back to asking them about the medical issues they take the medications for. It maybe hypertension or high blood pressure, which they are quick to say, is under control and they do not have it anymore! Definition of wellness is not the absence of a disease that can be measured. Definition of wellness should be health and vitality and not disease control.
Speaking to thousands of patients over the years I have been able to identify 4 main reasons as to why we remain chronically sick or on long term medication.
Illusion#1: Our lifestyle. Anyone you ask will acknowledge that eating healthy and exercising is important for our well-being but they simply do not do it or do it incompletely. If there was a bottle of great tasting liquid labeled “poison” and you wanted to drink it daily due to it’s taste would you despite knowing it will eventually kill you? The answer is no.
Most of the time our conscious mind knows what to do and the subconscious mind will not allow the change, as it is too disruptive. People change because they are motivated or proactive or have no other option or reactive. When you are sick the best way to change it is to have a professional mentor help you, someone who will help with resolution not control. This mentoring exponentially increases your success of transformation to be lasting.
However when you dabble on your own by browsing the internet or speaking to a wise neighbor or scouting the shelves of a health food store you simply patching the problem with what may seem “natural “ options but the problem still remains.
If you had an expensive car or a diamond ring I am sure you will not try and get the repairs done by yourself but would choose to take it to the expert. Why do we minimize our own health and not give it more value than the material things we have a price tag on?
Illusion#2: We are confused about our healthcare. Ideally healthcare should be about keeping us in peak state of health and vitality. Instead our health care is focused on early detection and disease management and control. So if you are unwell but your lab work is normal no specific care is rendered till the disease shows up. In other words we are reactive in our approach very much like “whack a mole” game. We focus on suppressing symptoms. We address the end result of a problem and not the root of the problem.
We are fine with this approach as it has been long programmed in us to accept control. When you first get diagnosed with high blood pressure it is shocking. Then you get obsessed with the numbers and how the medication is working or not working. At no time do you ask “why do I have blood pressure and what can I do to change this?” Remember we are all afraid of change and it is the real elephant in the room.
Illusion #3: Need for insurance for health care. We pay such high premiums for insurance that we believe what it will pay for what our care should be. Insurance pays for 2 things essentially; drugs and surgery. The focus is on the disease. Everyone who is a diabetic gets a similar kind of treatment. This protocol is called standard guidelines and evidence based medicine (EBM). EBM studies are done on mostly healthy males or people who are not very sick. We simply extrapolate the findings to our most ill and complex clients with no true evidence of optimal results. An example the treatment of thyroid has not changed in the last 50 years. The 2 options are “burn it” or replace the hormone with a synthetic pill. There is no focus on the person having the disease which leads to us failing to resolve symptoms. Further with the shift in costs of insurance to the patient with high deductibles and co insurance, we respond by going less to the doctor and continuing to tolerate symptoms and diseases. In life we get what we will tolerate.
Illusion #4: We can do it ourselves. There is no dearth for information. There is information overload and online forums with blogs from suffering patients, providers with varying degrees and training all offering the best new solution. They lure people who are suffering with both simple and very complex restrictive explanations, for a small cost. People dabble in these multiple options given to them. In the 22 years of my practice I have seen that every solution on its own does make the symptoms better for a short while. It is never lasting.
Till we re work a person’s story and how and why they fell ill we will continue to deal with this chronic illness paradigm with no shift to wellness being made.
I find women on multiple supplements almost 200 to 300 dollars a month still maintaining the disease and never addressing the root cause.
So how do we resolve this?
We need to first understand that we develop these chronic diseases not get them. It takes years for a trigger or a triggering event to create a problem and the body tries to defend and repair itself and in the process causes symptoms and disease. So seek out the trigger. It may need some detailed work and testing and time to re-build the health, resolving the problem. So when you refuse to tolerate disease and accept nothing short of health and wellness only you benefit. However if you go with the flow you become a commodity for the supplement industry or the drug and healthcare industry, everybody but you benefit. Change your programing and make the right choice and you would not have to tolerate disease but resolve it.
Dr. Chellam
Wellness is wealth. Illness squanders wealth
Leave a legacy not medical bills.
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