Which is a better healer, medicine or the human body?

It truly is amazing what the human body can do. Many times all that is necessary is to give the body what it needs to heal itself, and it will take care of the rest on its own. Surprisingly though modern medicine doesn’t hold the human body’s healing ability in such high regard. The reason for this is twofold. First of all as a society we want the solution right now and in a pill form. Secondly there is no money in healthy people. There is also no money in dead people. So the real money is somewhere in the middle. Doctors want to keep us alive, but sick enough to keep coming back for more medicine. The following examples help to illustrate this point.

A good doctor should treat the patient not the disease. This means taking a look at the underlying causes rather than the symptoms. The human body works in concert to perform every task. This includes healing itself. Take some wisdom from the song, “The ankle bone is connected to the leg bone” because treating one part of the body, or treating a symptom does not work. Treating the body is the key to health. Take for instance some medicines that claim an ability to help reduce belly fat. This just isn’t possible you can reduce fat, which over time will reduce belly fat naturally. By reducing cortisol and allowing the body to unnaturally deal with the issue of fat in the body does not attack the underlying cause of all that extra cortisol which is stress. By tricking the body you rob Peter to pay Paul. This will ALWAYS catch up to you in the end. Peter must be paid as well. It is sufficient to say that the ankle bone is indeed attached to the leg bone.

Let’s take a look at the placebo effect. There is a study that was done on terminally ill cancer patients with late stage lymphatic cancer. One of the patients had orange size tumors throughout his body in his lymph nodes. The doctor fully believed in the new experimental drug, as did the patient. Three days after administering the drug the tumors had all shrunken to half their size. Within weeks the tumors were all but gone, and the patient was in remission. The miracle drug was saline. The human body healed itself.

I am not advocating abandon all medicine and just hope you will get better by drinking some V8. That is absurd. I will say however that if you are on medication, an especially if you are heavily medicated, have a consultation with your doctor and ask him why you are taking every medicine you are one, if there are any known complications with mixing the meds you are on, and if it would be possible to get off of any of the medicines or reduce the dosage. Give your body a chance to heal yourself, if not new symptoms may occur and your overall health level can continue to go down.
Recently a Grandmother from Seattle checked into the hospital because she was having a severe asthma attack. The MD gave her steroids to stop the asthma; this treatment caused high blood pressure, which caused vertigo. In an effort to treat the vertigo, blood pressure medication was issued, which caused dizziness, which caused the lady to stay in bed for fear of falling, which caused swelling of the legs. The treatment for this was to issue a water pill, which caused her potassium levels to plummet, so a potassium supplement was issued. The good doctors also found that she was suffering from Osteoporosis, so treatment was administered for this, which ultimately caused gastric bleeding. Later the Grandmother commented. “I was sicker when I got out than when I went in”

I am not saying that doctors or medications in and of themselves are bad. I am simply commenting that the system itself is broken. With many doctors keenly treating symptoms with medication, all the while creating more symptoms, the patient is forgotten about as the good doctor chases down the disease. There is no one on the planet more qualified or motivated to take charge of your own health. Responsibly question you health care providers, and find out if you are overmedicated. Give your body a chance to heal itself. And put down that donut, and try some broccoli!

Doctors burning the candle at both ends?

Sometimes it seems life has you burning the candle at both ends. Doctors who are on call or working most of their "awake" life eventually discover they are getting older and have no energy to do the things they always wanted to in life. As tax time approaches some doctors wonder if filing early, on time, or late affects the chances of getting audited. I was just reading over at "Huffington Post" the following - "it makes absolutely no difference whether returns reach the agency early, in between or barely make the due date. That's because it's not until much later in the year that all returns go through computers that look them over for arithmetic errors and also single out those most ripe for audit on the basis of top-secret computations that assign scores to various items--charitable contributions and interest expenses, for instance. High-scoring returns, along with some chosen purely at random, are then closely scrutinized by IRS agents to determine which ones should actually be examined. The odds against any return being audited are reassuringly long--better than 100 to one. Put another way, the IRS examines about one percent of all individual returns. That said, it should come as no surprise that those odds can shorten considerably, depending on such factors as the amount and type of income you declare and what you do for a living. "

So the good news is that if you are late id doesn't increase your chances of getting audited. The bad news..... you can't really decrease the chances expect by not trying to add a $70,000 charitable contribution to some strange charity like "Burning the candles at both ends chairity of Malaysia."

Also remember, working to much bever brings happiness. One of the best ways to relieve yourself from the stresses in life is by giving to others. When you help others it takes the focus off of you and your problems and shifts the focus to the needs of others. Helping others brings about change in the community and a peace to you and someone in need.

More doctors need to remember this and take their eyes off of their paycheck sometimes. What other solutions are their for doctors to prevent fatigue and stress? What do you do to keep balance between life and work? If you want to learn more about stress tests, check out Eddie Blevin's blog here.