Hanging Out For The Health Of It!

Nobody likes to be the bearer of bad news, but there really isn’t a magic pill to make you healthy. The closet to a magic pill would be a good vitamin. I know, I know, you been living it up, eating whatever you want whenever you want, not moving many muscles, except the ones that bring your hand to feed your mouth, and now that your body needs a fix and hopefully a pretty quick one, there’s none. No magic bullet. Ok you're not that bad. You do walk once in a while, you eat more or less OK, you do tend to drink too much coffee (need that energy) and you take vitamins sometimes so you can't figure out why you don't have the stamina and energy you used too. You get sick more than you used to and now you get heartburn regularly. You might have already gone to see your doctor and he’s informed you that you now have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, sugar level is a little high and your forty pounds overweight. Not too bad. But your doctor wants you to take three prescription pills and thank God you have good insurance. They’ll pay for all but about $150 a month for your medicines. Or should I call them what they are, prescription drugs. The dictionary definition of both medicine and drugs; any substance used in the treatment of disease or illness. Let’s not get sidetracked on what we should call them. If you didn’t know, prescription drugs are the third leading cause of death in the United States. And by other doctors and scientists opinions, prescription drugs are the number one cause of death in this country. Is that amazing? The very stuff that the doctor prescribes! It reminds me of a conversation I heard between a couple of pharmaceutical reps talking about the lifestyle they had. They had the big fancy houses, brand new expensive cars, playing golf several times a week living the good life. Until one of them had three friends end up in hospitals and almost died from the very drugs, I mean medicine, their doctor had prescribed. The other drug rep (funny how they are NOT called medicine reps) finally had had enough. His conscious could no longer take it so he started voicing his opinions to the company and guess what happened to him. Yep you’re right. They found a way to get rid of him. Hasta la vista baby.

This also reminds me of a good friend of mine who told me her doctor had prescribed Actonel to prevent osteoporosis. She started breaking out with skin blemishes and wondered if Actonel had anything to do with that. I googled Actonel and found 34 side effects ranging from bone loss (the very thing that it is prescribed for) to infection, bone pain, dizziness, depression, skin rash and on and on. It won’t surprise me if she doesn’t stop taking it. Her doctor prescribed it, it must be good. Unfortunately some people will never get it.

Here’s part of another story I was recently sent: “For some reason my sister, Lisa, and I both came down with some weird flu thing. I went to a holistic doctor and Lisa went to her MD. She started with the pain meds. She died of liver cancer within a year.”

The good news is that there is something YOU can do. Educate yourself and don’t leave it up to your medical doctor to know how to get you healthy. They don’t know how. They are excellent at trauma and saving lives but they have not been taught how to get sick people really healthy. They have been taught how to prescribe drugs to treat symptoms not fix the cause. I’ll be the first to tell you that if I think I’m having a heart attack, or have gunshot wound or some other really bad trauma (obvious fracture) I’ll be the first to go to the nearest emergency room. But even then you need to have a little knowledge. About ten years ago I flipped a motorcycle without my helmet on and crashed onto the street. I know I was stupid for not wearing my helmet even if it was just to ride it down the street before putting up in the garage. I was knocked unconscious, came to after a series of seizures, was taken to the hospital because my wife insisted I go. They took Cat Scans and X-Rays and found that I had a couple of cracked ribs, laceration to the skull (which they closed with three staples), and my right scapula was shattered the size of a quarter in the center and two fractures from there. The bones did not pierce through my skin but fractured and stayed contained as the scapula is sandwiched between muscles. The doctors kept insisting that I needed surgery. I kept refusing. It being a teaching hospital and my feelings of not needing a surgery, I had my wife call an orthopedic surgeon that I personally knew and explain what was going on. He told her that he did not believe that I needed surgery. I left the hospital the next morning with only three staples in my head.

Educate yourself. There is tons of information on the internet. You just need to be aware of who is sponsoring the website. Many sites are sponsored by pharmaceutical companies and guess what their recommendations are going to be? See your medical doctor and ask him for Actonel or Boniva, or some other prescription drug or some needless surgery.

Take responsibility for your own health. It is your body and you know your body better than any doctor because you know what you feel, what you feed or don’t feed your body and whether or not you are taking care of your body through regular exercise etc.

Now think of all the time commuting and sitting in doctor’s offices, testing, waiting, more doctor’s visits, more waiting…. get the picture. Think of all the wrong diagnosis (this is actually a big problem more than most people realize) which means the wrong drugs (medicines), which means a waste of money not to mention the bigger problem, the side effects and possible allergic and at times severe and even fatal reactions. It happens. What if it happens to you or your husband/wife/child?

Let me end by saying this…everybody is different. What works for some does not work for everyone. Most healthcare professionals that are into holistic healing will agree with the following; there are certain basics we should do to promote a healthy lifestyle. Eat healthy, take a good vitamin/mineral supplement, exercise regularly, manage stress, get a good night sleep, make sure your nervous system (master system) is functioning at its optimum and reduce the amount of chemicals you either ingest, breath or apply to your skin. In my humble opinion these are the basics to preventing most diseases (97%) and to a healthier life. There are certainly other areas I did not touch on which would be gravy. Check out my blog, THE SEVEN PILLARS OF HEALTH for a little more detailed discussion and in greater detail in my book, HANGING OUT FOR THE HEALTH OF IT. It should be available soon as a downloadable e-book. Remember, if you just do the basics you’ll be way ahead of most of the people on this planet.