Blog 157 True Healing Addresses Root Cause

Many wise people have shared this sentiment, varying the words slightly.  Sometimes, true cause is easy to find and address.  A young child may have fallen and scraped their knee.  Often, all that is needed is to wash off the scrape, disinfect it, and maybe apply a bandage or gauze.  There may be a deeper level of cause even here, however.  Possibly the child’s shoes do not lend enough stability for standing and walking.  Maybe the child needs a little more guidance and/or practice before they venture out onto the driveway or sidewalk.  Maybe the surface on which the child is trying to walk is uneven, possibly having gaps and “potholes” that are likely too difficult for an early walker to navigate.  The child may have some sort of postural or structural abnormality in spine, leg, knee, foot or other area of the body, or a misalignment due to a previous injury.  The child may even be inordinately fearful or distracted and this may interfere with stable standing and walking.  So you see how many possibilities there may be just to correct and (usually) prevent future slips and falls.  

I will discuss two further situations, in increasing complexity, which also can be addressed by dealing with cause.  Type 2 diabetes can often be controlled, reversed, and even apparently cured when a person changes their diet and increases their exercise level.  Diabetic-reversing diets usually eliminate or greatly reduce sugars, especially corn syrup and other greatly processed sugars.  Processed carbohydrates, such as white breads, pastas, and other foods made with refined flours also contribute to high blood sugar and pancreatic stress and fatigue.  Processed oils are yet another problem food.  Any foods that contain high levels of pesticides or other harmful chemicals push the body off balance and increase the likelihood for diabetes to develop.  Whole, truly organically-grown or biodynamically produced foods help support and strengthen the body and mind.  Regular exercise can help strengthen the musculoskeletal system, drain the lymph, improve blood circulation, oxygenate the tissues, reduce stress and elevate the spirit.  Support these choices with long-term discipline, genuine love and respect for self and others, and positive expectations for success and healing, and remission from type 2 diabetes is much more likely than when one or more of these factors are not present.  Over the years, I have seen quite a few people heal themselves from type 2 diabetes, and one thing is sure: these people accepted responsibility for their own recovery and were consistent in their efforts.  They also truly wanted to regain their health and reduce or eliminate their dependency on pharmaceuticals.

Here is a third situation which had to be cured by eliminating factors until the mystery cause was found.  One day, seemingly out of nowhere, an elderly man who was fifty pounds overweight and diagnosed with type 2 diabetes noticed that he was having some difficulty in fine muscle coordination, especially when writing by hand.  Since he did most composition on the computer keyboard, he did not worry much about this.  After all, he figured he was getting older and maybe some loss of coordination came with the territory.  However, about a week later, he noticed that he was having trouble pronouncing some words, and, had he imagined it, or was he also having trouble swallowing?  He scheduled a visit to his PCP (Primary Care Physician), the doctor who ordered his lab work, wrote his prescriptions, and did routine physical exams for the man.  This PCP sent him to the hospital for some tests, which revealed nothing out of the ordinary, and since the man did not have any symptoms while he was in the hospital, he was sent home.  A couple of weeks after the hospital visit, he noticed that he was having a little problem walking, but since for several years he already had some issues with stumbling and falling, he thought maybe this walking problem was more of the same.  But then one evening, he fell on the sidewalk on the way to the L station and could not get up.  Soon, a passerby called an ambulance.  At the hospital, the staff found that the man was no longer able to walk, had great difficulty even holding a spoon or a glass of water, and his speech was severely slurred.  Soon, due to swallowing issues, he was intubated.  No stroke, no heart attack, no Parkinson’s, what was this?  His symptoms steadily worsened over the next three weeks while he was hospitalized, and he very likely would have died were it not for his PCP’s decision to order every lab test he could think of, including some allergy tests.  That was when it was discovered that his patient was allergic to Statins.  His PCP had prescribed Lipitor for him several months ago, as a precaution to protect his heart, since this man was 50 pounds overweight, elderly, and suffering from type 2 diabetes.  Once the patient was taken off Lipitor, he slowly began to improve.  However, he remained hospitalized for five months, taking nourishment through a feeding tube, and stayed three more months at a rehab facility after that, where he re-learned how to walk, use his hands, swallow and talk.  Health professionals visited him three times a week for the next two months after he returned home, making sure that he was able to swallow again and would not be a choking risk.  So cause was finally discovered and this man’s life was saved.  An even deeper cause or solution would be the universal enactment of the policy to check for allergies to prescription medications before having patients start taking them.  And, even further toward cause, would be to not even prescribe medications that were not needed, for in this particular man’s case, his cholesterol was not elevated.  And a deeper still step toward cause: to work as much as possible with safer, non-prescription treatments, such as weight loss programs and exercise with nutritional approaches to health. In this case, the health issue would involve control of type 2 diabetes, an illness this man had developed in the past few years. Of course, patients must care for themselves enough to cooperate with this healthcare approach.  

So, removal of initial presenting symptoms might not be cure in the above three cases, but discovery of cause and addressing it could result in long-term resolution of the problems.

This blog’s offer:  feel free to contact me to discuss a health challenge you have for which you would like a more lasting solution than you currently have.  It is possible that after we talk and I take a detailed history, I can give you some ideas regarding deeper causes to address.