Words matter, especially when it comes to our health.
Often when I ask people if they have ‘heart disease’, they say no, but then go on to tell me about their statins, blood pressure and blood sugar medications, or their recent stroke or stent.
They still very much do have heart disease, but believe that it is ‘under control’ and ‘being managed’ and that a medication or procedure made it all better, like a kiss and a band-aid from a family member when we got a boo-boo as a kid. A cardiologist once referred a patient to me who had 27 stents who was frustrated that he needed to find a different solution going forward. There were no more band-aid options for him.
The questions we ask will determine the answers we get.
We often have only 7-10 minutes for a typical doctor’s appointment:
- Intake review
- the exam
- the results (and sometimes the trends)
- the ‘next steps’
Most doctors encourage their patients to move more, eat better, and stress less. However, in the short time we have together, our medical system centers mostly around managing symptoms through pills and procedures to at least keep chronic health conditions from getting worse. As long as medications are advertised on TV, (the US is only 1 of 4 countries in the world to do so), patients come into their offices looking for short-cuts.
Sadly, doctors typically aren’t compensated based on their patients getting better, staying off medication and avoiding surgery, just the opposite. And it can be hard to recommend the power of plant-forward lifestyle changes when the doctors themselves are not doing so.
So what can you do to take back control of your health? Choose your words carefully. The next time you meet with your doctor, before you discuss treatment next steps, ask to compare options based on 2 simple words.
Is this for Relief or Recovery (aka Remission or even Reversal)?
What if you knew you could do something to treat the root cause, to fix the issue you are having for good, to avoid the side effects of another medication?
This fork in the road, literally, can make all the difference. Wouldn’t you like to at least be presented with an option to choose?
It can be the difference between…
- Relief – a temporary pain killer, like aspirin or much stronger and overused drugs, or
- Recovery – eliminating inflammation at its source by replacing some of the foods you eat with equally delicious and less inflammatory ones.
It can be the difference between…
- Relief – a common procedure with a long list of side effects and/or risks. Some may not surface until much later or may interact with other pills and procedures, or
- Recovery – helping the body to heal from the inside and just maybe avoid medication side effects for good.
It can be the difference between…
- Relief – something easy to take or do today with consequences buried in the fine print, or
- Recovery – something that requires a little more effort up front to make new choices and habits and can be easy to manage for a lifetime.
Ask for what you need.
Words matter so listen carefully and adjust as needed. Though research is plentiful across several health conditions, there is not much in the way of official guidance for medical professionals or even insurance companies about what constitutes full disease reversal, so remission or recovery might be more familiar terms to your doctor. The good news is that all of these represent the possibility of changing the outcome and not just managing the symptoms.
Once you know your options, the choice is now yours. Is your goal is to live younger with fewer medical conditions getting in your way? Are you willing to put time in right now to finally make those lifestyle changes that your doctor has been telling you to try so you can spend less time in waiting rooms in the future and get back to living? If so, follow the advice of Yogi Berra, ‘when you come to a fork in the road, take it’.
ps. Want to find out how to make lifestyle changes that last and as your symptoms improve get your doctor’s support to reduce your medications? Join my Eat to Heal Over 50 waitlist for next group starting soon.
