Does the medical model work? Is it helpful going to the doctor? Can the doctor’s advice improve your health? Here are recent experiences I had where I was invited to join the popular paradigm but declined the invitation.
Gynecologist Recommends Hormone Replacement Therapy
Two years ago I menstruated heavily for a month after not menstruating for two months. I went to see a gynecologist. She performed a pap smear and had my blood tested for vitamin D and anemia. I was deficient in D and anemic. She prescribed 50,000 iU D2, which I took because I didn’t know any better (vitamin D3 is better), and I also sunbathed every day. I ate iron-rich food. I’m very grateful to her for checking my vitamin D, because supplementing made a world of difference, and I do appreciate diagnostic tests.
However, she also suggested I go on hormone replacement therapy to regulate my menstrual cycle. I declined. I believe the hormonal system is a highly regulated, sensitive and precise dance, and if I introduce one hormone I throw off the dance. If I am deficient in any hormone, I must first address it nutritionally and emotionally. If that fails, then I will consider resorting to hormone replacement.
I also trust my body. If it bled for a month, then it needed to bleed for a month. Prior to and during this menstrual cycle I was getting surges of blood in my face, neck and chest along with heat. My whole face would turn beet red. This has not recurred after I shed the blood and improved my nutritional status.
I’m glad I didn’t follow my gynecologist’s advice and take hormones, because from what I’ve read they’ve caused a lot of problems for women. (My menstrual cycle has normalized since supplementing and increasing my protein intake.)
Life in a New Balance © courtesy of Duquesa Mercedes
Doctor Suggests Drug for Benign Positional Vertigo
A few months ago I went to the hospital because I was having several dizzy spells that became quite frightening. The doctor ordered a CAT scan and a blood panel. No tumors, no abnormalities in the blood. The doctor said I had benign positional vertigo (fancy name, eh?), something about a condition where calcium deposits in the inner ear break free and cause imbalance. He said he was going to prescribe a drug for me that I could take every day that would minimize the dizzy spells.
More U.S. adults are taking prescription drugs than ever before, fueling $12 billion in additional spending during 2006 alone. The number of people with at least one prescription increased from 67% to 74% between 2000 and 2006, according to a new Geographic Variation in Prescription Utilization study by pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts. The number of prescriptions per person rose to 14.3 from 10.8 in 2000–a 32 percent jump. — Reuters, February 13, 2008
Drugs mask symptoms. They don’t cure. And I didn’t want to mask my symptoms or “find relief” or take a poison every day. I wanted a cure. There was something wrong with my body, and I needed to do something about it.
This doctor basically ruled out various disorders from his cornucopia of potential diseases and guessed what was wrong with me, expecting me to trust him and take a drug based on that guess for the rest of my life. (And they say people like me giving out free “unqualified” advice are dangerous!)
Well, it turns out that the mochas I was drinking at Starbucks were causing the vertigo. When I cut back, the dizzy spells stopped. If I’d been like most people, I’d still be drinking too many mochas and popping pills every day to avoid dizzy spells.
Nearly 2.7 billion retail prescriptions were dispensed in 1999, amounting to $110 billion in sales.
In 1997, 44 percent of the prescriptions dispensed were refills.
Almost two-thirds of Americans currently use medicines: 49 percent use prescription drugs and 30 percent use nonprescription medications.
Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) may be the fourth-to-sixth leading cause of death. Serious ADRs occur in 6.7 percent of hospitalized patients.
32 million Americans are taking three or more medications daily.
Almost 29 percent of Americans stop taking their medicine before it runs out.
22 percent of Americans take less of the medication than is prescribed on the label.
12 percent of Americans don’t fill their prescription at all.
12 percent of Americans don’t take medication at all after they buy the prescription.
The No.1 problem in treating illness today is patients’ failure to take prescription medications correctly, regardless of patient age.
10 percent of all hospital admissions are the result of patients failing to take prescription medications correctly.
23 percent of all nursing home admissions are due to patients failing to take prescription medications accurately.
At any given time, regardless of age group, up to 59 percent of those on five or more medications are taking them improperly.
The average length of stay in hospitals due to medication noncompliance is 4.2 days.
More than half of all Americans with chronic diseases don’t follow their physician’s medication and lifestyle guidance.
Two-thirds of all Americans fail to take any or all of their prescription medicines. –Statistics You Need to Know, AHA
Doctor Wants to Put Me on Statins
A couple months ago I went to have blood work done so I could check my vitamin D levels and track my cholesterol and triglycerides to compare later after being on a paleolithic diet for several months. My vitamin D was lower than I like, so I have increased my daily intake to 5,000 iU.
My cholesterol came in high at around 260. Despite my telling the hospital that I wanted to deal with my health nutritionally, they wanted to put me on statins to lower my cholesterol. I declined. I’ve been reading about the science behind the lipid hypothesis and find it wanting.
It seems cholesterol isn’t the big problem the doctors say it is. But statins are definitely a problem. I was just looking yesterday at some side effects of statins. No thanks! I’ve also learned that triglycerides are what you need to watch for. As for LDL, there are two types, only one of which is harmful, but the hospitals don’t differentiate between the two or test to determine their composition.
Muscle pain and muscle weakness are two of the main side effects of statin drugs. While muscle pain and muscle weakness sound ordinary enough, due to the manner in which statin side effects can act in the body they are potentially dangerous side effects of statin use. Another is memory loss. Anyone who is taking statin drugs for any reason should be aware of these side effects and their symptoms. The medical establishment recommends that anyone who suspects they are experiencing any of the possible statin side effects consult with their medical professional. –Major Side Effects of Statins
The Wide Path to Destruction
In the past two years I’ve been given the opportunity to take hormone replacements, a drug for vertigo, and statins. If I followed the advice of my doctors, I would now be taking three drugs a day–forever!
These drugs would have allowed me to continue harmful habits without consequences. But I would have been reducing my vitality and creating a host of negative side effects.
Oh, and if I’d been like most people I would have gone to the doctor last year for the pain in my right hip. The doctor would have diagnosed arthritis and prescribed an anti-inflammatory for me. That would total FOUR PRESCRIPTIONS.
And, if the doctors knew of the stress and depression I was struggling under as I lost my business and home, I’m sure an antidepressant would have been in order as well for a total of FIVE PRESCRIPTIONS.
Then there’s the time I slipped on my porch and landed on my back. OUCH! That would have been good for a prescription of muscle relaxers and an anti-inflammatory. I healed just fine on my own, thanks.
Wait, how about my injured Achilles heel that has bothered me for six months but is almost healed. Just a little twinge. I would have gotten a drug for that, no doubt.
All this would have made the pharmaceutical companies very happy and me very sick. I would have been counted among the “typical middle-aged Americans” on multiple pharmaceuticals.
I have not taken a drug in over five years. Not even aspirin. The only thing that concerns me right now is my thyroid. I am taking an iodine supplement and intend to take a thyroid blood panel when I recheck my cholesterol. If I cannot improve my thyroid with nutrition, then I will consider taking a thyroid hormone. But only as a last resort.
None of what I write is to imply that I am immune from disease. I could drop dead of a heart attack tomorrow. I abused my body for years with cigarettes, coffee, alcohol and bad food. But I believe that I will live longer and healthier by managing my own health.
Cutting the Cost of Health Care
If more people were proactive about their health, if they were more knowledgeable about nutrition and addressing cause, if they understood the rudiments of natural hygiene, they would have more confidence in their own ability to manage their health instead of handing it over to the care of a physician or drugging away their discomforts.
Marketing and drug education by pharmaceutical companies drives medical diagnostics. Treatment is typically aimed at symptom suppression via pharmaceutical intervention while the underlying disease process progresses. We are all guinea pigs unless we take charge of our bodies. I can’t stress this enough.
Additional reading:
How Your Paradigms Determine Your Beliefs
The Power of the Mind for Illness and Health
What’s Wrong with Pharmaceuticals
Book recommendations:
Human Life Its Philosophy and Laws by Herbert Shelton
The Great Cholesterol Con by Anthony Colpo
Reclaiming Our Health by John Robbins
