Kristine L. Soly, M.D, F.A.C.C.

Holistic Cardiologist

 

Waiting to Get Sick Is the Wrong Way to Stay Healthy

Doctor Soly’s Articles

 

But that’s just what most of us do, even without intending to.  Think about it. We usually see the doctor because something is wrong.  We have a pain or a funny feeling, a lump has appeared, we have a fever or nasal congestion, indigestion won’t go away, we’re tired, we’re constipated, there’s blood in our urine, we feel dizzy...the list goes on.

 

When we see the doctor, there are only three things we want him or her to do -- find out what’s wrong, assure us that it’s not fatal, and then give us something or do something to make it go away.  In most cases we get better, although it usually has little to do with what the doctor did.  90% of ailments are self-resolving and would go away without treatment.  The 10 % which must be treated in order to improve or be cured are usually acute conditions like infections, heart attacks, strokes, or accidents (trauma).

 

Of course, most people usually can’t know whether they are in the 90% or the 10% group, so you should see a physician if you have significant symptoms.  Unfortunately your doctor probably won’t have enough time to tell you whether you (luckily) have one of those self-resolving conditions, then explain why it’s not worrisome and tell you about a natural way that might make you feel better while you heal yourself.  These days, time is a precious commodity for most physicians.  It’s easier for them to just prescribe a drug or a procedure, whether or not you actually need either.

 

As a result, 90% of patients end up with unnecessary drugs and/or procedures.  The risk of having an unnecessary procedure is obvious--that’s why they make you sign a consent form ahead of time so you’ll assume the risk if something “unfortunate” happens.  But the risk of unnecessary drugs is not so readily apparent and you are rarely (if ever) warned that prescription drugs are the 4th leading cause of death in this country (exceeded only by heart attacks, cancer and stroke). 

 

In fact, the way medicine is currently being practiced often creates more disease than it cures.  Even worse, treating disease is not the same as making you healthy.  While “disease” is the absence of health, “health” is not only the absence of disease.  A healthy person is healthy in mind and spirit as well as body, and waiting until you have a symptom or a disease before you go to the doctor is not the way to stay healthy.    

 

We’ve all likely seen the popular and fast paced television program “ER”.  Having served as an Emergency Room physician, I can tell you that although the intensity and dramatic situations are overblown, the way the program depicts individual situations, with a little stretching for dramatic effect here and there, is generally accurate.  But, the program is instructive because it points up a glaring deficiency in our health care.

 

We know that the ER physicians usually meet their patients as they are being wheeled in on a gurney with paramedics yelling what they know about the circumstances, along with a barrage of vital signs.  The victim is then transferred to a table and the team of doctors and nurses go to work.  They figure out where the trouble is and take steps to bring the emergency to an end.  Once the patient is stabilized, he is treated or sent for tests to confirm a diagnosis or sent for corrective surgery.  Then on to the next emergency.  Not the ideal doctor-patient relationship! 

 

By going to see physicians only when something is wrong, we mimic, on a mini scale, what happens in the Emergency Room.  And physicians respond in the only way they know; to address your problem and try to fix it.  This is all that they can do because physicians are only trained to recognize and treat disease.  They have little (if any) training in prevention.  But nowhere is the axiom “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” more applicable than to patients and their diseases.

 

As an example, let’s consider coronary heart disease, America’s number one killer. It’s a degenerative disease that starts early in life and most Americans have it to some degree.  It has devastating outcomes and often presents without warning as a heart attack or sudden death.  It is preventable and reversible, but few people know this including many physicians.  Worse, most who are diagnosed are sent for invasive procedures or bypass surgery which are usually not necessary and certainly not in the patient’s best interest. 

 

This is one of those cases where waiting to get sick is not only the wrong way to stay healthy, it can be and often is fatal.  The next time you hear of someone who dies suddenly from a heart attack and who was considered to be in “perfect health” -- he wasn’t.  He was seriously ill for many years, and in all likelihood the fatality could have been prevented had his physician had the time to ask the right questions and had known how to prevent the progression of the disease.

 

Since coronary heart disease is preventable and even reversible and most of us have it, why aren’t we taking those steps to change our lifestyles that would prevent the disease or get it to regress so we could live fuller, more enjoyable lives?  Why aren’t we learning what our own risks are for this devastating disease and eliminating the ones we can and minimizing the others?  Why don’t we know how to stay healthy? 

 

We don’t, because our physicians have neither the training nor the time to give us the education and encouragement we need in order to be healthy.  Being an “insurance doctor” (where the physician is contracted to multiple insurance companies) in the present health care system, means seeing many more patients per day in order to sustain income levels of previous years.  This has reduced the average physician visit to 6 minutes--certainly not enough time to get to know you (body, mind, and spirit), examine you thoroughly, decide if you have a condition that requires treatment, advise you about necessary diagnosis and treatment, and counsel you so you can stay healthy.

 

The medical care system is in turmoil, and if you don’t take charge, you’re going to be treated with Emergency Room medicine every time.  So, what can you do?  Make clear to your physician that you want to learn how to prevent disease and not wait until you get sick.  Despite how it seems, some physicians are responding to patient pressure for them to learn more about health maintenance rather than just disease treatment.  Some medical schools are even starting to train their students about nutrition, exercise, stress management, and spirituality.  But for now, it’s pretty much up to you to be sure you get the help you need to stay healthy.

 

Go to any free seminars you can find, read books, and use the computer to get information on staying healthy, and then discuss what you’ve learned with your physician.  He may or may not like what you have to say (some physicians get resentful when asked about things they don’t know much about).  Don’t be surprised if your doctor has neither the knowledge or the time to help you.  Ask for referrals to other health professionals if your physician can’t help you in your quest to get and stay healthy.

 

Schedule visits when you’re not feeling sick so you can spend time talking about diet, exercise, taking supplements, stress management--whatever you need to stay healthy.  And don’t be afraid to ask your physician for what you want.  It’s your life, and your healthcare dollars pay his fees.  Don’t wait till you get sick--it’s the worst possible way to stay healthy.

 

 

 

Dr. Soly is board certified in Internal Medicine, Cardiology, and Holistic Medicine, and is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology.  She practices Holistic Cardiology and is director of the Holistic Cardiology Learning Center of Cape Cod at Sunflower Market Place, 923 Route 6A, Yarmouthport, MA 02675

Phone: (508) 362-5925, Email:  ksolymd@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Kristine L. Soly, MD, FACC