What is \u201cpreventive\u201d?\u00a0 Whole-person, common-sense, logical, proactive.\u00a0 And not always in line with our established, maladaptive-but-comfortable habits.<\/p>\n
What is \u201cchronic illness\u201d?\u00a0 For one thing, expensive.\u00a0 Chronic medical conditions need constant maintenance so they don\u2019t spin out of control.\u00a0 This usually means medication in our healthcare world, or a restricted diet, or ongoing consumption of therapies like dialysis.\u00a0 If that\u2019s all it were, we could grudgingly handle it.\u00a0 But unfortunately, each chronic condition doesn\u2019t tend to stay caged in its organ system.\u00a0 Chronic illness all too often leads to multi-system breakdown.\u00a0 But that breakdown doesn\u2019t usually start with all systems at once.<\/p>\n
A chronic illness isn\u2019t isolated but rather is incorporated into other systems, because the body is comprised of integrated organ systems.\u00a0 (\u201cOrgan system\u201d is actually a construct that we map onto the utterly complex functioning whole of a human body, in order to make sense of it.\u00a0 Systems are categories that we invent.\u00a0 Chinese medicine sees the body as comprised of systems that are foreign to Western medicine.)\u00a0 Different genetics, different stressors, determine which system is the weakest link in the chain for each person.<\/p>\n
The good news:\u00a0 everything you do in terms of lifestyle changes affects the chronic illness that you may happen to have\u2014as well as others you don\u2019t have (yet).<\/p>\n
In other words, when you make targeted changes in your lifestyle to address one chronic illness\u2014the one you have, or the one you\u2019re afraid you\u2019ll get\u2014you usually decrease your risk factors for collecting new diagnoses.\u00a0 IF, if you make the right changes.\u00a0 The health fad of the moment, whether it\u2019s drinking coffee with butter or buying \u201cgluten-free\u201d snacks, may not be what you really need.<\/p>\n
Until we understand more about our genome and how our external environment, activity, stressors and food impact on it, we probably won\u2019t be able to customize health advice perfectly.\u00a0 It\u2019s already generally accepted (as profiled in a May 25, 1917 Time Magazine cover article), that no one weight-loss diet fits all, for example.\u00a0 But doctors like me can help you make an educated guess about what is likely to have the biggest positive impact, and help you formulate a realistic, step-wise plan of action.\u00a0 To tell the truth, you need a plan of changes in action\u2014that\u2019s even harder work.<\/p>\n
What makes this hard work easier?\u00a0 The fact that the plan of changes in your actions is multi-faceted.\u00a0 That means that you can usually make a shift in your health in many ways, via many approaches.\u00a0 Usually, there\u2019s more than one way in.\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to start with the most challenging change in lifestyle, nor to change everything at once.\u00a0 You can choose the slice of the action pie that\u2019s most digestible.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s an example:\u00a0 Osteoporosis is a chronic disease that needs to be managed. \u00a0Osteoporosis has been called \u201cthe good news disease,\u201d because the lifestyle changes you make to control osteoporosis help just about everything else.\u00a0 More exercise, improving balance, better diet\u2026the lifestyle components of treatments for osteoporosis are actually prevention for cardiovascular disease , diabetes, arthritis, etc.<\/p>\n
The example of osteoporosis is a counterexample of the role of fear in medical care\u2014a segue to denial and avoidance that costs patients so much good health, and the system so much money.
\nFear is a large part of the reason why people don\u2019t take action to reverse or slow chronic illness when they have it.\u00a0 The bar can be set so high, the worry so gripping, that patients become frozen in their fear.\u00a0 The thought of starting a new lifestyle can provoke so much anxiety that people just push it out of their minds. Or rationalize inaction. So the diet change they ought to make for their diabetes\u2014or whatever\u2014never happens.<\/p>\n
Fear-based medical motivation is as likely to trigger denial as compliance.\u00a0 Non-compliance with medical care is a problem that doctors grapple with, but it\u2019s a problem of our own making.\u00a0 And to minimize this problem, we have to go outside the medical system and look at our culture as a whole.\u00a0 (Advertising, the rewards we give out children and ourselves\u2026.etc.)<\/p>\n
Our current system implicitly encourages fear:\u00a0 a bizarre reality show where each person is the star of what could be the drama of their medical journey\u2014do I have heart disease yet?\u00a0 Cancer?\u00a0 Parkinson\u2019s?\u00a0 Titillating, but worth it to be able to walk away from an annual exam with a clean bill\u00a0 of health and do what I\u2019m doing and take the pills I\u2019m taking (maybe with a change in dose)\u2014till next year. Or will it be an ambulance trip to the emergency room with chest pain?\u00a0 Nope, so far so good.\u00a0 Don\u2019t think about it. Or think about it and worry, instead of doing something constructive, like exercising and eating well.\u00a0 As noted above, what \u201cwell\u201d is differs slightly for different people with different conditions.<\/p>\n
Prevention offers a way out of a fear-based mindset.<\/p>\n
First, when you do what you do for prevention, you change the overall body system context and give chronic illnesses a chance to lift.<\/p>\n
Second, part of getting out the exit door of the medical treatment cycle \u201dbuilding\u201d is not getting sick again.\u00a0 Preventive care (vs medical care) helps the chances that you will not get another illness.<\/p>\n
A \u201ccare\u201d system should be one that searches for health, not one that is organized around searching and treating illness.\u00a0 Illness will be found in a health-goal system just as well, if not better than in an illness-goal system\u2014but I expect that it will be found less often because it will occur less often.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What is \u201cpreventive\u201d?\u00a0 Whole-person, common-sense, logical, proactive.\u00a0 And not always in line with our established, maladaptive-but-comfortable habits. What is \u201cchronic illness\u201d?\u00a0 For one thing, expensive.\u00a0 Chronic medical conditions need constant maintenance so they don\u2019t spin out of control.\u00a0 This usually means medication in our healthcare world, or a restricted diet, or ongoing consumption of therapies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[59,117,152],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/drcathiedunal.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3264"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/drcathiedunal.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/drcathiedunal.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drcathiedunal.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drcathiedunal.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3264"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/drcathiedunal.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3266,"href":"http:\/\/drcathiedunal.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3264\/revisions\/3266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/drcathiedunal.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drcathiedunal.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drcathiedunal.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}