Like It Is With Most Things...Fix the Right Thing and It All Changes

If the power company has a power outage in your area you will not return to full power by changing a light bulb.  If your brakes are out on your car changing the oil will not help.  If your house is a mess it will not improve if you take a walk.  If you have headaches constantly it may be “all in your head” but taking a psyche drug does not handle it.  If you have a medical condition taking a drug for it will not solve the reason you have it, but it may mask the symptoms.  Taking a drug for depression will not handle the fact that your family member has died.
Health care needs to change but not in the ways proposed by the government.  If you have high blood pressure taking a drug to control it does not solve the problem;  the reason it is high is undiscovered.  Having your blood pressure checked is not preventive medicine but taking action to avoid developing high blood pressure in the first place is prevention.

The thing you could concentrate on is demanding doctors and other health care workers discover WHY something is what it is and fix that!  Find the cause of your health problems.  Do not accept any masking treatment protocols but rather insist on getting help to find the cause.

Here are some startling facts provided by Grace E Jackson, MD in a 2010 presentation entitled “Psychiatric Drugs“  based on her experiences while employed as a clinician and Medical Director within several agencies that deliver publicly funded services to the mentally ill.   She cites  The Department of Veteran Affairs comparison of death rates of demented veterans who avoided psychiatric drugs to those who took newer antipsychotic medication or old “conventional” antipsychotic medication.  Of 12,821 patients who avoided these medications  18% died within one year.  Of the 10,615  veterans who experienced treatment with antipsychotic drugs the outcome was  quite different;  23%  of veterans died within 1 year who took newer antipsychotic meds, 25% of veterans who took older antipsychotic meds died within 1 year and 29% of those who took both (sequentially or concurrently) died within one year.

The United States comprises 4.5% of the world’s population but consumes 90% of the stimulant sales, 63% of the antipsychotics, 51% of the antidepressants.  Our enemies will have an easy time of it because drugs cause apathy, inaction and disinterest in life by the user.

What about the deaths caused by properly prescribed medications? Dr. Barbara Starfield, in an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) 2000, pointed out that her research estimated the adverse effects of medication taken exactly as prescribed resulted in 106,000 inpatient deaths due to the pharmaceuticals and 199,000 outpatient deaths due to pharmaceuticals EACH YEAR.  In 2006 there were 629,191 deaths in the US attributed to cardiac disease, 560,102 due to cancer and 305,000 due to adverse drug reactions.  There is not a physician in existence that could possibly predict which of his patients are going to die due to a properly prescribed pharmaceutical drug.  Some doctors are not willing to live with that.  Some doctors have decided to look for other ways to help patients.  When you minimize prescription use you have to find out what CAUSES a patient to have a problem and then,  addressing that cause, you can figure out what the body is missing resulting in poor health or you can figure out what toxin is causing the difficulty.  It is not glamorous to talk to patients about their diet and exercise habits, it is not glamorous to prescribe nutrients to handle deficiencies but guess what… it avoids unnecessary complications and patients like it when they get better.  It is simple when someone breaks a leg to make the right recommendations to heal the leg, it is obvious what needs to be done when someone is pregnant, it is obvious to decide what to do when someone is in a car wreck and requires surgery but those solutions do not work for the common everyday chronic health problems like digestive disorders, fatigue, headaches, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis…. and on and on.  Those problems are chronic, complex and deserve a comprehensive evaluation that is unique for that patient and results in clear paths to solutions and the alleviation of the problem.  Yep, restoring circulation and wiping out aches and pain and increasing energy are things any conscientious doctor can help you with.

 We need real health care and real health care reform and we are not going to see effective medical care until we demand it.  It will take the public outcry to change any of this so start talking if you care.  You know, organic food did not magically appear in the grocery stores, it was demanded by enough of us for someone to finally listen and then competition took over.  Competition for your interest and your health care dollars will change America for the better so start talking about what you want.

In choosing your doctor what is the most important consideration?

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Encouraging experience...

Many of us are in the throes of helping parents who are suffering from Alzheimer’s or simply needing to leave their homes behind to find simpler ways of living.  Our family recently found a care home with an apartment for my father and a care unit room for my mother.  My brother found this facility not far from our family home,I am happy to say, with a staff that has restored my confidence in retirement and care facilities.  They respect our choice to refrain from using pharmaceutical drugs as treatment choices and actually prefer when families and residents choose a drug free path. 
Both of my parents are doing well with their given situations; my Mom is easy to handle, although needing full care, in that she is happy and cooperative with her care givers and my Dad has an apartment in the same building where he can come and go as he pleases but the staff offers some oversight and encouragement to keep participating in life.  I have returned home after helping them move and now find I do not wake up in the middle of the night thinking of them and worrying about the next problems on the horizon.  Each day brought moments of dread filled thoughts about their life and deaths.  One of my friends said that when her parents died, she felt like an orphan.   I will too, one day.  Right now I feel at peace and encouraged, befriended by strangers.

The nursing staff and care givers are respectful of our wish to use non-toxic personal care products and some homeopathic things to help with the care of my mother.  My Dad is being cared for mainly by my brother for his personal needs, but the activities staff keep him informed and involved in activities.  Truthfully, my Mom who seldom smiled unless she had her family around her and was sitting on her deck on a home visit, started smiling on her first day in this facility and stayed up all day, smiling away and enjoying those others in her area and she did not go to bed until 10.  I know she cannot express herself but she can tell when she is in a good and caring place and it showed.  Reports are she is still smiling a lot.  Sleep WAS her favorite activity, next to food.

I sincerely hope there are other facilities like this one because there are so many people who get into a cycle of a drug for this and then a drug for the side effects of the first one they wind up falling or injuring themselves because they cannot really “see” their environment or they are made dizzy and wobbly from the drugs.  The quality of life is always enhanced with drug- free living and good food made from scratch.  When you add in policy and procedures that respect individual differences you have a staff that is revered and loved for their help and hard work.

My Mom used to tell us that if she ever become disabled like this to “just shoot me”.  Can’t do it.  There are too many moments when she smiles or when she sees my Dad and they look at each other with such love and longing creating for all who saw that look the knowledge that lasting love and respect is possible no matter what comes.  I do not want to live the way my Mom has to but I sure hope Conrad and I are able to keep the love we have today alive in all our tomorrows, no matter what.   My parents are actually doing just fine, its love.

Private doctor and patient relationships

Dr. Maulfair and so many doctors across this nation have spent a lifetime in a career they love.  They love helping people improve their health and avoid bad outcomes.  They can do this because they understand functional medicine and they wonder why people have symptoms so they look for underlying causes.  Not quick to use pharmaceutical drugs they keep their patients safe and healthy.  When you remove the impediments to good health you help people for real.  It takes longer, the visits are longer, the relationships with patients are more extensive but it works.  They even talk to their patients about money and their patients know the charges because many of them pay out of pocket.
If health care is changed to restrict the practice of medicine you will loose these doctors because they will not fit in the pattern and you can’t have that in a system run by someone other than the doctor and patient.  Take a look. The problem with the current system is the middlemen making money off the patient and then off the doctor.   I think these lawyers, rather lawmakers, in DC should try this government run health care system in the form of a  pilot program on the legal system first.  Let’s develop mandated insurance programs for legal troubles and then the insurance programs can work like malpractice insurance.  The insurance company decides outcomes.  How about that?  Why not let them try this on their profession first.  Let the companies set their fees and then pay them less each year and start to tell them how to defend their clients or go after the offenders.

I remember when freedom and personal responsiblity were important.  I worked in the insurance industry when it first took over health care.  I remember the early days of the “going rate charged” in an area.  The company would only pay the customary allowable rate.  Flat playing field for all but the “flat” part was not designed by the players but the payors.

Find an independent physician and watch your health improve and the actual costs go down.  Use health savings accounts with high deductible insurance policies and you will have more say over your care and you will save money.  Avoid anyone outside the exam room telling you what treatments are best and what you need, do your own research and find treatments that avoid the health robbing effects of pharmaceutical drugs.