Tools In The Toolbox
As a Health Coach I’m often asked my opinion on medications vs diet & lifestyle to manage chronic disease or symptoms like anxiety, depression, etc.
First, let me say that I am not a doctor, and I do not give medical advice…
I do, however, help people optimize their health through diet, lifestyle & supplementation.
I used to be all in on conventional medicine. I worked as an EMT for almost 2 decades. I got my B.S. in Dietetics during that time as well. In both of these areas it was drilled into our heads that anything Holistic was “quackery” and should be condoned…
Yes, even the Dietetics program, where we learned anatomy, physiology, nutrition, different disease states & biomedical sciences…
We were never taught that food is medicine.
We were taught about Calories & macros. We learned about micronutrients. We learned how to manage symptoms of disease with diet…
But, we were never taught how to HEAL through diet.
We learned that medicine is the only way to handle chronic disease, and that our job was simply to give advice that wouldn’t make the patient worse.
Then, I got sick…
The first & only thing I was offered was medicine from conventional medicine.
“Maybe you’re depressed.” Here’s an antidepressant.
No. I wasn’t depressed… something was “off” in my body… I could feel it, but I just didn’t know what…
So, I turned to Holistic medicine.
Life-changing.
This is where I took a deep dive into nutrition, and I learned that food has the power to harm or to heal… not just to make you fat or lean.
I learned about inflammation, hormones, stress, sleep, mindset & more…
How the body works as a system… not individual parts.
Through diet & lifestyle I healed myself I got back to about 90%, but that last 10% still affected me. My ego wanted to prove that I didn’t need medicine, so I completely shunned any conventional medical treatment whatsoever, but after years of not feeling like myself I eventually got tired of suffering. So, I humbled myself to see what the other side could offer…
I was introduced to Functional Medicine.
With this approach it is a root cause approach, where diet & lifestyle are first line treatments, and then medicine can be used if necessary…
This was the sweet spot for me.
Being REALLY sick/depressed is like swimming in the ocean…
You’re suddenly drowning because you’ve got chains & cinderblocks around your feet. It’s really hard to stay afloat while you’re thrashing around, trying to kick these shackles off…
Yes, it’s important to figure out how the hell these chains & shackles got there… Yes, it’s important to find the key to remove them… but, in order to do all of that, you need to be able to keep your head about water & to free your arms…
What I’ve learned is medicine is like a life preserver. It’s not the solution to the problem of drowning with cinderblocks shackled to your feet.. You wouldn’t just decide everything is fixed because you’re floating with this life preserver… you’re no longer drowning, so everything is fine…
No, you still need to remove the shackles, because eventually you want to swim back to dry land & live your life. The life preserver allows you temporarily stop struggling… to free your arms, to evaluate the shackles, and to find the key to unlock them…
Medicine can be used as a tool to give you relief, so you can get to the root problem & find a solution to fix it, but medicine doesn’t heal.
Today, I primarily manage my health issues with diet & lifestyle, but I do also take a couple of medications for things that I simply wasn’t able to reverse on my own. I tried every natural approach possible, but my body was unable to undo some of the damage I had done… at least up to this point. I’ll be forever trying to heal, so who knows about the future…
The point of all of this is…
There is no shame in taking a medication to optimize your health. I feel like in the last few years there’s been a shift away from conventional medicine & a mistrust of our “healthcare” system… which isn’t unjustified. Our “healthcare” system is a for profit system in this country. It’s run by insurance & pharmaceutical companies, which don’t have the patient’s best interest in mind… they have their profits in mind when it comes to treatment. Our “healthcare” system is actually a sick care system… conventional medicine tends to try and isolate the one thing that’s causing the problem, and it puts a bandaid on the problem by prescribing a medicine first… instead of looking for the underlying root cause of the problem. The problem with this approach is the condition worsens over time, and the medicine no longer works… and the person’s health deteriorates even more. It keeps the patient coming back, which is good for the bottom line.
I’m in no way saying that there are malicious people out there wanting people to be sick, but I am saying that the way our healthcare system is set up in this country the human aspect is often ignored, a whole body systems approach is discounted, and actually restoring health isn’t always the focus.
If you’re “drowning” in symptoms of pain, fatigue, depression or anything else… using a medication to catch your breath does not make you weak… it doesn’t make you broken beyond repair… it doesn’t make you anything at all. Your body & your health are yours… NO ONE has authority over you… not even your doctor. Your doctor should be your partner, that helps you navigate what approach is best for you. They should discuss all options available, including non-traditional medical approaches. There’s a reason why Eastern medicine, Indigenous medicine & Holistic medicine have been around for thousands of years… it’s because they’ve healed people… even if it hasn’t been shown in a double blind study. Western medicine, that we’re used to in this country, has only been around for a very short time… it’s in its infancy compared to other approaches. It’s very much like most people I know… we thought we knew EVERYTHING when we were younger, but as we get older & wiser, we realize how little we actually know… it’s the ones who humble themselves to learn more that grow & thrive in old age… hopefully Western medicine will do the same.