Each of you has your own story.
Today, I'd like to share mine.
When I was just 30 years old I saw my doctor for a routine physical.
I knew I was out of shape by looking at myself on the outside.
What I didn't know was how sick I was on the inside.
Here is what my blood work revealed: Total cholesterol was 240 LDL (bad cholesterol) was high at 180 Triglycerides were high at 170 Blood Pressure was 145/95 Weight 205 pounds The conversation with my doctor sounded like this.
"Tim, I'm going to give you 6 months to lower these numbers with diet and exercise.
If you're unsuccessful, then I'm going to have to put you on medications that you'll have to take for the rest of your life.
"With that, my doctor patted me on the back and sent me home with zero instructions about how I was supposed to accomplish this feat.
I was completely lost on what to do next.
Now it's not that my doctor didn't care or want to help.
The real problem was that he didn't know how to guide me.
My doctor is a medicine guy, like most doctors, which means that when there is a problem he prescribes a pill.
Simple solution! That may sound normal but here is the problem with taking a pill to treat these conditions: for the most part they fail to treat the underlying condition.
When it comes to medications, let us use an analogy: Imagine that you have a stone in your shoe.
Every time you take a step you experience foot pain.
The stone is the problem and the pain is a side effect of that problem.
We can treat this problem in one of 3 ways.
Option 1: We can give you medications to treat the foot pain.
Option 2: We can surgically remove your foot, which will remove the pain.
Option 3 - What if we simply remove the stone from your shoe? This makes perfect sense, right? But in medicine, we do not always think of the obvious.
Consider some of the common medical problems and how they're treated: - We treat migraine headaches with pain meds, instead of looking at a possible magnesium deficiency (the stone in the shoe).
- We treat high cholesterol with medications, instead of treating a pro-inflammatory lifestyle (the stone in the shoe).
- We surgically remove gallbladders, tonsils, adenoids, thyroids, appendix, ovaries, uteruses, colons and small intestines without ever asking what's causing them to function improperly.
And finally, here's what happened to my friend who had severe psoriasis.
Her doctor wanted to prescribe very strong immune-suppressive medication.
Since psoriasis is an inflammatory condition and inflammation is regulated by the immune system, these drugs work well at treating psoriasis.
The problem is they can have major side effects, an increased risk of cancer being one of them.
They also do not treat the cause.
Guess what the cause of her psoriasis was? It was Vitamin D Deficiency (the all too familiar rock in the shoe).
Here's the good news: she's been on vitamin D for 3 months now and her condition has almost completely resolved.
So if you're confronted with high cholesterol or any other ailment, the first thing that you need to look at is the cause, instead of just treating the symptoms of that cause.
High cholesterol is a symptom of an underlying condition and a sign that the body is unhealthy.
Normalizing high cholesterol levels with medications doesn't ensure good health because it doesn't address the underlying condition.
So when your doctor wants to prescribe a medication or cut out an organ think about the rock in the shoe and decide for yourself if there is a better option.
By the way, my cholesterol, triglycerides and blood pressure have all normalized and my weight is now 160 pounds.
I did it by choosing option 3 as opposed to options 1 or 2 and I am very thankful I did.
Today, I'd like to share mine.
When I was just 30 years old I saw my doctor for a routine physical.
I knew I was out of shape by looking at myself on the outside.
What I didn't know was how sick I was on the inside.
Here is what my blood work revealed: Total cholesterol was 240 LDL (bad cholesterol) was high at 180 Triglycerides were high at 170 Blood Pressure was 145/95 Weight 205 pounds The conversation with my doctor sounded like this.
"Tim, I'm going to give you 6 months to lower these numbers with diet and exercise.
If you're unsuccessful, then I'm going to have to put you on medications that you'll have to take for the rest of your life.
"With that, my doctor patted me on the back and sent me home with zero instructions about how I was supposed to accomplish this feat.
I was completely lost on what to do next.
Now it's not that my doctor didn't care or want to help.
The real problem was that he didn't know how to guide me.
My doctor is a medicine guy, like most doctors, which means that when there is a problem he prescribes a pill.
Simple solution! That may sound normal but here is the problem with taking a pill to treat these conditions: for the most part they fail to treat the underlying condition.
When it comes to medications, let us use an analogy: Imagine that you have a stone in your shoe.
Every time you take a step you experience foot pain.
The stone is the problem and the pain is a side effect of that problem.
We can treat this problem in one of 3 ways.
Option 1: We can give you medications to treat the foot pain.
Option 2: We can surgically remove your foot, which will remove the pain.
Option 3 - What if we simply remove the stone from your shoe? This makes perfect sense, right? But in medicine, we do not always think of the obvious.
Consider some of the common medical problems and how they're treated: - We treat migraine headaches with pain meds, instead of looking at a possible magnesium deficiency (the stone in the shoe).
- We treat high cholesterol with medications, instead of treating a pro-inflammatory lifestyle (the stone in the shoe).
- We surgically remove gallbladders, tonsils, adenoids, thyroids, appendix, ovaries, uteruses, colons and small intestines without ever asking what's causing them to function improperly.
And finally, here's what happened to my friend who had severe psoriasis.
Her doctor wanted to prescribe very strong immune-suppressive medication.
Since psoriasis is an inflammatory condition and inflammation is regulated by the immune system, these drugs work well at treating psoriasis.
The problem is they can have major side effects, an increased risk of cancer being one of them.
They also do not treat the cause.
Guess what the cause of her psoriasis was? It was Vitamin D Deficiency (the all too familiar rock in the shoe).
Here's the good news: she's been on vitamin D for 3 months now and her condition has almost completely resolved.
So if you're confronted with high cholesterol or any other ailment, the first thing that you need to look at is the cause, instead of just treating the symptoms of that cause.
High cholesterol is a symptom of an underlying condition and a sign that the body is unhealthy.
Normalizing high cholesterol levels with medications doesn't ensure good health because it doesn't address the underlying condition.
So when your doctor wants to prescribe a medication or cut out an organ think about the rock in the shoe and decide for yourself if there is a better option.
By the way, my cholesterol, triglycerides and blood pressure have all normalized and my weight is now 160 pounds.
I did it by choosing option 3 as opposed to options 1 or 2 and I am very thankful I did.
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