The Paradigm of Modern Medicine
I’m not one for celebrity gossip. I don’t watch the shows or read the magazines. But the other day two celebrity health issues came across my path which highlights to me so much of what is wrong with modern medicine.
I watched more TV than usual on this particular day as I was recovering from a painful infection in my elbow. I’d had a mosquito bite a few days before I hadn’t thought much about. I don’t even know if that was the source. But I woke up with my elbow 5 times its usual size, hot and very painful. I couldn’t move my arm from about 90 degrees.
I got a telemedicine consult just in case; it was easy to do and included at no charge with my plan. The doctor took one look at my elbow and declared I needed antibiotics. I said I wasn’t interested in going on antibiotics unless he thought I was about to lose my arm. One course of antibiotics can decimate your microbiome causing many more problems and suffering down the line. (See A Better Way to Treat a Sinus Infection). I told him I preferred a more natural approach. His expression turned to disdain. He told me to watch out for red streaks down my arm and fever indicating it had spread beyond my elbow joint. But after a parting comment that turmeric was a great anti-inflammatory he ended the call.
Anyway, I was on the mend in a few days. I put Essential Oils on my elbow (frankincense, tea tree, lemongrass and peppermint) and took large amounts of Vitamin C and D but that’s not the point of today’s post! I also made sure I rested both my body and my mind so it could focus on healing. Which brings me back to the TV…
I started watching one of those dumb movies that doesn’t require any thought and one of the characters looked familiar. It turned out to be the singer Celine Dion. I was curious how she came to be in a movie. My investigation led me to a sad summary of the health challenges she has been having the last year or so. Health challenges are difficult for anyone but the saddest part of this story is that the doctors have told her she has “Stiff Person Syndrome”. (I am not making this up!). “Now I know what is causing it” she is reported to have said. No you don’t! That is just a label to distract you from asking awkward questions about what caused it. (How many Covid shots did she have for example that told her cells to make a protein that was toxic to humans and incites the body to attack itself?) If you don’t know what caused it then how can you hope to solve it? Oh I’m sure there’s plenty of expensive drugs doctors are flogging her which are likely to lead to a body further out of balance. I didn’t bother to read any further.
Later that night I found myself watching the new documentary about Michael J. Fox and his battle with Parkinson’s disease. Another very sad endeavor. It was quite upbeat as he has the resources for a personal trainer/bodyguard who keeps him mobile, and a loving family close by. But the sadness for me was the re-enactment of the way he lived up to his diagnosis before he even turned 30. From aged 18 onwards he was living exclusively on fast food like McDonalds in the cheapest part of Hollywood, barely able to afford the rent in such a rundown apartment he had to wash his dishes in the shower. Most likely toxins abounded in the form of mold or chemicals with no nutrient ingestion to support his body’s detoxification processes. Already a recipe for disaster. Then in his early 20s he had a 3-month period working simultaneously on a hit TV show (Family Ties) and a major movie (Back to the Future). He recounts proudly how he went from one studio to the other every day achieving maybe 2 hours sleep a night. (Read my blog posts on what a lack of sleep does to the brain).
Once he started suffering tremors and was formally diagnosed, all he recounted was the drugs he took throughout the day to generate the dopamine his body was struggling to produce. At no point in his story does he reference improving his diet, addressing nutrient deficiencies, detoxing his body or prioritizing rest. Maybe he embraced these strategies but chose not to mention them, in which case it’s a disservice to viewers who could learn that chronic disease is not just bad luck. There is a root cause and usually a better way to address it than simply pharmaceuticals. If you keep giving a body dopamine for example it will assume it doesn’t need to produce it itself anymore and matters will only get worse. The disease label such as Parkinson’s just directs the medical establishment of what drugs to push.
No disrespect to either Ms Dion or Mr Fox as I’m sure there is much more to both their stories. But media is very powerful and it’s a shame the power wasn’t put to better educational use.
