What is the number one most difficult thing about treating long-term disease?
If someone where to ask you what the most difficult part of medicine was when trying to treat disease, you would probably think of the medication that people take. We are inevitably searching for the cure to disease on a 24/7 basis looking for the next great medication to make those darn symptoms go away. This medication could be natural and it can also be pharmaceutical. Both natural and pharmaceutical medications are important at treating disease but they pale in comparison to the larger issue at hand. Have you guessed what it is yet? Lets see if you can understand what it is by this example.
Say a person has high blood pressure and they have been dealing with it for the last 5 years. So far they have been treated with herbs, acupuncture and a beta-blocker (a drug to slow the contraction of the heart) all of which will help bring their blood pressure down while they are doing it. But the interesting thing is that over time. their blood pressure slowly creeps back up. Now the question I ask you is, why is this happening? It is happening because these treatments have not addressed the cause of the disease. They are only being used to treat the symptom. When you begin working with a health professional to address that cause, CHANGE has to be part of the treatment plan.
CHANGE is the number one obstacle in treating long-term health problems. Our culture and society is overwhelmingly resistant to change. But if you do not understand how your daily life is playing a role in your health, it doe not matter how much new innovative medication you take, you will never reach the quality of life that you deserve.
Jesse Buttler, ND
