Health Advice

[Guest guest]

http://www.doctoryourself.com/advice.html

 

It’s called curbside advice, and if you are in the health field, you are asked

for it a lot. I cannot tell you how many thousands of times people have, in

passing, asked me what to do for their health problem.

It takes no time at all to formulate the question: “What is your advice for this

condition?” If only the answer were as quick and easy as the question is.

Now, after some years of reading, writing and deliberation, I now have what may

be the closest thing to a concise answer, and here it is:

You need to change your entire life.

Change your life. If you want to get better, that is what you have to do. The

first step is to read a lot, a whole lot. As we said in college, “Don’t start

vast projects with half-vast ideas.” You have to be willing to develop an

entirely new relationship with libraries. If you are well educated, and

especially if you are a health professional, you will have to unlearn much of

what you’ve been taught and start afresh with the rather disruptive thought that

natural healing may actually work. If you are not highly educated, you will

need to abandon your anxiety and fear of reading and doing research.

If you have never tried being a vegetarian, start.

If you‘ve never juiced vegetables, start.

If you’ve never read articles in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, start.

If you’ve never taken vitamin C to saturation, start.

If you’ve never taught your doctor something, start.

If you’ve never taken a course in how to meditate or otherwise reduce stress,

start.

If you have never done a half-hour fitness workout each day, start.

If you’ve never given up alcohol or smoking, start.

If you have never used an interlibrary loan to get a valuable health book,

start.

If these things are impossible for you, than what are you asking the question

for? If you have already limited your response, why inquire at all? This is a

hard teaching, but it hits home fast.

To quickly cut through the treacle, I ask clients this most pointed of questions

early in a consultation:

“What are you willing to do to get better?”

The answer I want, of course, its, “Anything.” But as with wedding vows or new

year’s resolutions, I know better than to hold people too rigorously to their

dreams. Flexibility was never more necessary than with self-health care. I will

accept a two-thirds effort, for, as a teacher of some experience, I pass anyone

at a 65%. More is better, but if you were to entirely change two-thirds of your

life, I’d be satisfied and also impressed. Especially if you hold to it for

more than a year.

I think you’d be even more impressed with the results.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, a quick fix, or a magic wand to cure

illness. I wish there were easy answers to people’s health questions. There

aren’t. There are answers, all right, but they are not easy.

“Give a man a fish, and he will be hungry tomorrow. Teach a man to fish, and he

will always have food.” This is my personal and professional philosophy, because

it is true.

Modern medicine has created more co-dependents even than co-pays. We’ve learned

to hold out for a magic bullet, such as a new miracle drug, breakthrough

surgical procedure, or new organ transplant. What rubbish. Oddly enough, we’ve

also “learned” to discount the healing power of Nature, and the tremendous

therapeutic benefit of lifestyle changes, vegetarian diet, raw food juices, and

vitamin supplements.

Okay, that was then; this is now. There is a new paradigm, an entirely new way

of seeing health, opening in front of us. You may have heard that the Chinese

word for “crisis” is the same as the word for “opportunity.” On the other hand,

the very word “patient” implies passivity and powerlessness. The Doctor

Yourself philosophy is against that. When people ask me for a solution to their

particular health problem, they would have me fall into the role of being their

doctor. The Doctor Yourself philosophy is against that, too.

Me-teacher-you-dumbell, or me-doctor-you patient, or me-politician-you-voter, or

any other paternalistic or maternalistic stay-in-your-place tradition will not

pass muster with me. Such were the old ways, and they are obsolete and

unproductive. You want productive, you follow leads and dig. Whether it is for

oil, gold, or information, it requires action, your action. Question authority.

Do it yourself.

If you want to change your health, you have to change your life.

 

 

Copyright 2001 and prior years by Andrew Saul, Number 8 Van Buren Street,

Holley, New York 14470 USA Telephone (585) 638-5357