I have been studying diagnosis and treatment methods in the middles ages for a potential Kingdom A&S project. Healers in the middle ages eg. doctors, herbalists, priest, surgeons, treated patients based on the symptoms that presented themselves. They didn’t understand body systems or that symptoms had a definite cause. In other words, if you had a headache you were given a remedy for pain. If you had pain in your chest, you were also treated for pain. The reason for the pain was not investigated, unless your healer was a very progressive person.
Now, I’ve been thinking about this, and it seems to me that in a lot of ways modern doctors still treat patients for symptoms, rather than causes. For example, if patient is diagnosed with cancer they are sent to specialists who work to get rid of the cancer. That is a good and necessary thing, but very rarely do those same doctors explore with the patient why the cancer started in the first place. It’s the same way with simple conditions like bacterial and viral infections. Think about it – you get bronchitis and head to the doctor’s. The doctor does a culture and determines that you have a bacterial infection, writes you a prescription for antibiotics and an expectorant. Then sends you home with instructions to call his office if you don’t start feeling better in 4 or 5 days. You head to the pharmacy to have your prescription filled. When you pick up your medications, the pharmacist talks to you about how to take your medication, and what adverse affects you can expect. Or..here’s another example – You start sneezing, coughing, running a fever and have all over body aches. You head to the doctor. She/He says you have the flu and suggests rest, fluids and OTC pain meds. She/He might tell you this could have been avoided if you had gotten “the flu shot”, and he sends you home. Now, I’m not going to get into a debate (on this post,anyway) about the flu shot. Personally, I have not had one in…. well.. actually, I’ve never gotten a flu shot, and I have not gotten the flu since I was 15 years old (for those counting, that’s 28 years. ) even though I used to work with high risk clients and was exposed frequently. But.. that’s not the point of this post.
The point is that nobody tells you what changes you can make to keep you from getting sick in the first place. Your doctor won’t tell you how to avoid getting cancer, or how to keep your cut from getting infected (other than “cover it and put antibiotic ointment on it”), and the medical community today pushes “the flu shot” like it’s the end all and be all of flu prevention when there really are better ways to keep yourself healthy.
They never tell you that there are herbs and supplements you can take, diet changes you can make,and things you can do that will make it almost impossible for you to develop cancer. It’s never mentioned that you can prevent a cut from getting infected by taking care of your body chemistry so that the environment in that cut is not one in which bacteria can grow. They never tell you that maintaining adequate vitamin D levels can take care of your immune system so that you don’t get colds and flu.
People who develop kidney stones have the same issue. The stones are treated, but unless you get stones often and have an outstanding doctor, kidney stone prevention is rarely discussed.
For people who have a combination of conditions, doctors rarely look at the underlying cause of all conditions together. They treat each condition as if it were a separate issue, especially if those conditions seem unrelated. For example, high blood pressure, swelling in the legs, and indigestion/stomach distress… these seemingly unrelated conditions could very well have the same root cause.
I could go on, and on. The sad thing is that modern medicine knows how to keep the body healthy and disease free for most people.
So, why aren’t today’s doctors sharing this information?
** Disclaimer.. I am not implying that every single medical provider on the planet does not share this information. The number of medical people who practice alternative and real preventative medicine is growing. But the average doctor treats the presenting illness, instead of the whole person with an eye to prevention.
Image courtesy of lemonaid / FreeDigitalPhotos.net”.
