Can I Be The Leader of My Healthcare Team?
I have tons of stories that are good, bad, and ugly. Some of them crank me up. Also, I have an odd sense of humor, so you may hear things that you may not want to hear.
But here it is. I'm not too fond of cold weather. I don't even break a sweat until about 90 degrees. Around 75 degrees, my hands and feet would go numb, and I'll lose feeling. And they'll be extremely painful. So I lose sensation in my feet and hands, which is terrible because, unfortunately, with MS, I already have numbness and tingling. So even when it's warm and everybody in the house is wearing shorts and a short-sleeve shirt, I wear sweatpants and a sweatshirt inside.
Some people don't get it. So, maybe I need to look into nutrient deficiencies. If you have hair loss, don't sweat, or can't get warm, this could mean you have some nutrient deficiencies or malnutrition. I always suggest seeing a holistic or a functional nutrition practitioner because although 80%of your immune system is in your gut. You can change a lot of your health by changing your gut and by changing your gut biome, and figuring out what that looks like to see if you have any allergies or intolerances. I don't think that's the only thing you need to do, so I am never saying "do not do traditional medicine" because I believe there is a time and place for it, especially in emergency medicine. But I always want you to get someone that's more holistic in your corner.
Where you are going to get traditional, DOs are good. They're conventional and more apt to look at more holistic things. Chiropractors are also outstanding because they look at things more holistically. But if you have a traditional medicine practitioner, a specialist or a cardiologist, gastro, neurologist, I want you to be an advocate in your healthcare. I want you to have someone to hold this together and look at it as a team. So often, traditional medicine looks at their specific specialty like cardiology, neurology, gastroenterology. They don't look at the whole system.
In many cases, if you get a holistic practitioner in your corner, they will look at the whole picture see where they seem to have dysfunction or some abnormalities. Then you can go to your specialist and explore that as well. But my thing is to have as many people on your healthcare team as possible, but I want you to lead your healthcare. Because once you start recognizing signs and symptoms as something going on in your body, it may not be related to the pain point. It may be something related to blood or nutrients. It may be related to your brain or your circulation. So I want you to start thinking more holistically. So if you have a traditional practitioner, having a holistic practitioner in your corner can help you look more systematically and get in touch with your body more.
I may come across as someone who thinks you should only do holistic care and completely cut off traditional medicine. That's not what I'm saying. I want you to be active participants and get an entire holistic team. Ask your traditional team if you're going to keep them. I want to be an advocate and be a participant and not a bystander.
My whole goal is for people to know they're not alone but also to give them some options, and I'm going to teach you techniques to get your health back, get your emotional state back, and help you with your nutrition.
It's not just about me telling you about my day, giving advice, but it's really about giving you tools and techniques to start helping yourself because I don't want you to look for just someone else just to find the answers. You have the answers in yourself. So, if this doesn't apply to you, you're going to know somebody it applies to, and maybe they have always been looking for answers through traditional medicine and had x-rays, labs, and all kinds of tests, and nothing's come back abnormal.
That doesn't mean nothing is wrong, and the symptoms should be ignored. It means something is going on in your body. Waiting until your labs and your x-rays become abnormal means that it's been going on for a while. It will take you quite a bit longer to get back your health. If you have a complete healthcare team, they can help you have this resolved quickly and often without medication. Or they can work with your traditional medical doctor and get you some other ways to approach the problem.