Health Care Or Treating Symptoms?

An Interesting Look At Science and Health.

Health care should use the scientific method.

In the study of a science, it’s important to test, retest, and continue to develop new theories with yes even more re-testing.

If something can not be explained from the evidence then a new theory has to be investigated. Likewise if something isn’t working then alternative theories need to be advanced so that better solutions can be found.

As healthcare developed in the early days, medicine gained prominence because of the development of antibiotics that took care of bacterial based infectious disease which leading up to the early 1900’s was the leading causes of disease.

It should be noted that bacterial infections are still a major problem in some areas of the world.

Anyway we had this model that developed where a medicine was the cure for a disease. This model was exceptionally effective for acute infectious bacterial disease.

*Note that I mentioned bacterial not viral. There is a huge difference. Viral infections do not respond to antibiotics aka antibacterial medications. Although they might be prescribed to someone for an associated bacterial infection.

Times Have Changed!

Over the years, the same model of antibiotics treating bacterial infections was applied to chronic diseases including chronic pain conditions. The results are not very good in these chronic diseases of the modern world that are causing so much suffering and death today.

There are many reasons for this.

Identifying The Cause Of Our Symptoms Rather Than Only Treating Symptoms.

One is that the vast majority of chronic diseases and chronic inflammatory problems are lifestyle diseases.

It’s not genetic disorders or just bad luck in most cases even though these also occur at times. Genetics, of course, matter but it’s the epigenetics – whether a gene gets turned off or not due to various environmental impacts that largely determine how genetics effect you. Bad luck or genetics just aren’t the overwhelming majority of chronic cases today.

Since the problems are caused by lifestyle, they can best be helped by improving those lifestyle factors and not only taking a medicine… even if it may be necessary, it’s still important to correct the cause of the problem.

Another challenge is that there are so many diseases and disorders that have underlying processes driving the problems and symptoms that are not addressed by taking a medication for the symptom of the underlying problem.

Root Causes Of Many Health Problems/Symptoms.

These can be considered functional health problems. These aren’t due to something like a malignant cancer or a stroke wiping out important structures in the brain or body. These functional disorders are areas that just aren’t working as well as they should be working.

In other posts, I discussed 2 very common health issues and their treatment that included looking into some things that can be driving the symptom instead of just looking at the symptom, pain and high blood pressure.

I went through some of the important thought processes in helping people improve with these problems… and I mentioned the greatest challenge is the complexity of improving health. This complexity is why a lot of people end up suffering from chronic diseases for years.

The only way to help the underlying problem that is causing a symptom is by identifying it/them and then taking action to change them. This often requires working with a knowledgeable healthcare practitioner. This process is something that we do at Hagebusch Chiropractic in Texarkana.