Choosing the Best Treatment (May 6, 2014)
Let us assume that something about your body is not working the way you think it should. And you have decided to quit just hoping that it goes away, and instead try to take some steps to solve the problem and head off any complications that might eventually otherwise result. Now what?
If your problem is anything but a very minor and temporary one, I do recommend you see a doctor for an accurate diagnosis. But even specialists usually do not understand treatments outside their own area of expertise, so for any chronic problem you will end up becoming your own expert. The internet is extremely useful, but if you know little or nothing about the issue you are dealing with I would not begin there. Start by picking the brain of whoever diagnosed you until you have thoroughly annoyed them, and/or ask someone else who is knowledgeable on the subject, until you have a basic understanding of what you are dealing with. Then read the relevant WebMD and Wikipedia articles, and maybe find a website where there are fellow sufferers who discuss the ailment and the different treatments that they have tried.
Sooner or later you will find yourself focusing on one treatment in particular. Ask yourself why you picked that one. You can be either your own best friend or your own worst enemy when it comes to your health, and you have to understand your own reasoning processes. With that said, there is no reason not to select the treatment that you find most palatable – as long as there are some grounds for choosing it other than simply your preference.
Medical care, and medical practice in general, is supposed to be grounded on science. I say “supposed to” because there are many, many treatments in conventional (as well as alternative) medicine that are employed based solely on tradition, experience, “logic”, etc., that have never been really put to the test.
Does that mean to avoid a treatment that has not (yet) been proven to work? Not necessarily. Proving something scientifically takes a long time and a lot of money, and the process is never really complete; we simply reach a point where the accumulation of evidence one way or another is sufficient for us to accept the conclusion it supports. Still, my advice in choosing a treatment for anything would be to first find out if there is any EBM (evidence-based medicine) evaluation of the disorder and available treatments, and begin with those. Two good sources are the Cochrane Collaboration and the USPSTF (U.S. Preventive Services Task Force).
I would ask as well, is the problem lifestyle related in any way? Then you will have to change your lifestyle. You CANNOT skip this part and solve a lifestyle-related problem, and most problems, especially chronic ones, are lifestyle related. If you have knee pain and are carrying fifty extra pounds, or even twenty, you will have to lose the extra weight. If you are short of breath and still smoking, you have to stop smoking. And so forth.
Most people are comfortable with the life that they are living and resist making any changes in it, thus the enduring popularity of unnecessary drugs and surgeries. I think that if more people realized the power inherent in the step of changing their habits, they would do so a lot more readily. It is amazing how many problems, including very serious ones, substantially diminish and even disappear once people figure out, and change, how they are contributing to them. As just one example, many people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes become asymptomatic and do not need any other treatment once they reduce down to their normal weight.
Once someone has “sucked it up” and changed a habit or preference and seen their lives improve as a consequence, a whole new reality can begin for him/her. You often hear from people who have lived through a life-threatening illness that it was the best thing that ever happened to them, because it shook them out of their old ways of thinking and living and caused them to re-inspect their lives and think about what they really wanted from them. You can achieve some of that same insight and sense of empowerment just by getting more sleep or cutting out sugar, if that’s what you need to do. Improved health and a better life is available to anyone who really tries for it.
--dr. diane holmes
Copyright © 2014
Let us assume that something about your body is not working the way you think it should. And you have decided to quit just hoping that it goes away, and instead try to take some steps to solve the problem and head off any complications that might eventually otherwise result. Now what?
If your problem is anything but a very minor and temporary one, I do recommend you see a doctor for an accurate diagnosis. But even specialists usually do not understand treatments outside their own area of expertise, so for any chronic problem you will end up becoming your own expert. The internet is extremely useful, but if you know little or nothing about the issue you are dealing with I would not begin there. Start by picking the brain of whoever diagnosed you until you have thoroughly annoyed them, and/or ask someone else who is knowledgeable on the subject, until you have a basic understanding of what you are dealing with. Then read the relevant WebMD and Wikipedia articles, and maybe find a website where there are fellow sufferers who discuss the ailment and the different treatments that they have tried.
Sooner or later you will find yourself focusing on one treatment in particular. Ask yourself why you picked that one. You can be either your own best friend or your own worst enemy when it comes to your health, and you have to understand your own reasoning processes. With that said, there is no reason not to select the treatment that you find most palatable – as long as there are some grounds for choosing it other than simply your preference.
Medical care, and medical practice in general, is supposed to be grounded on science. I say “supposed to” because there are many, many treatments in conventional (as well as alternative) medicine that are employed based solely on tradition, experience, “logic”, etc., that have never been really put to the test.
Does that mean to avoid a treatment that has not (yet) been proven to work? Not necessarily. Proving something scientifically takes a long time and a lot of money, and the process is never really complete; we simply reach a point where the accumulation of evidence one way or another is sufficient for us to accept the conclusion it supports. Still, my advice in choosing a treatment for anything would be to first find out if there is any EBM (evidence-based medicine) evaluation of the disorder and available treatments, and begin with those. Two good sources are the Cochrane Collaboration and the USPSTF (U.S. Preventive Services Task Force).
I would ask as well, is the problem lifestyle related in any way? Then you will have to change your lifestyle. You CANNOT skip this part and solve a lifestyle-related problem, and most problems, especially chronic ones, are lifestyle related. If you have knee pain and are carrying fifty extra pounds, or even twenty, you will have to lose the extra weight. If you are short of breath and still smoking, you have to stop smoking. And so forth.
Most people are comfortable with the life that they are living and resist making any changes in it, thus the enduring popularity of unnecessary drugs and surgeries. I think that if more people realized the power inherent in the step of changing their habits, they would do so a lot more readily. It is amazing how many problems, including very serious ones, substantially diminish and even disappear once people figure out, and change, how they are contributing to them. As just one example, many people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes become asymptomatic and do not need any other treatment once they reduce down to their normal weight.
Once someone has “sucked it up” and changed a habit or preference and seen their lives improve as a consequence, a whole new reality can begin for him/her. You often hear from people who have lived through a life-threatening illness that it was the best thing that ever happened to them, because it shook them out of their old ways of thinking and living and caused them to re-inspect their lives and think about what they really wanted from them. You can achieve some of that same insight and sense of empowerment just by getting more sleep or cutting out sugar, if that’s what you need to do. Improved health and a better life is available to anyone who really tries for it.
--dr. diane holmes
Copyright © 2014