HOW TO BE EMPOWERED IN ILLNESS
At one time or another, everyone will get sick and need care, even if we are living at the very pinnacle of full spectrum nourishment. I remember hearing a story on Yogaland podcast of a woman who always ate healthy organic plant-based foods, practiced yoga, exercised, and did all the “right things” and then she got cancer. She described how at the time of her diagnosis, she felt like all the care she had taken was a “waste” and she should have just been “letting loose”. Her story went on to share that she put her cancer in remission with a combination of Western and Eastern medical care, and of course she realised soon after her crisis how much faster she healed compared to if she wasn’t always so well nourished. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. AND we need to know how to empower ourselves if/when we get sick.
For any significant, acute (meaning sudden, short term) illness or injury, definitely go to the Western medical doctor- either a general practitioner (GP) or to the emergency room (ER, A&E) depending on what it is. There are different phone hotlines and online tools which can put you in touch with a nurse or other healthcare practitioner to give you some basic advice depending on your symptoms as to what to do or where to go. Anything mild like a sprain, a cold, a mild bout of gastroenteritis for most folks needs rest, plenty of fluids, and nourishing food. If you have a favourite herbalist, they are a great source of advice for supporting herbs too.
It's for the chronic (meaning long term) illness or injury where things get a bit tricky. Maybe you didn’t know this, but chronic illnesses are always MULTIFACTORIAL. This means that there are multiple factors contributing to the illness, and not just in the physical body, but also emotional and possibly social and spiritual bodies. A bit more about this here.
Our bodies only have a limited number of ways that they respond, and the biggest way our bodies respond to problems and tell us something is wrong is with inflammation. Inflammation is when immune cells are called to one or multiple areas of the body to respond for many different reasons, and they react by producing and releasing a variety of different substances which cause damage. When this goes on for a while and isn’t fixing the problem, that’s when we feel chronically unwell, and depending on where the inflammation is and what could be triggering it, it can present as a variety of different symptoms. Disease.
An immune cell, called a neutrophil. This is from a dog for any human haematologists who are confused.
WHY YOUR DOCTOR ALONE ISN’T ENOUGH
In Western medicine, we have many treatments targeted at killing infections, controlling inflammation or immune responses, killing cancer cells, and for managing diseases that appear in different organs as a result of all this. When you have disease affecting one body system, you may be referred to a specialist doctor in that area e.g., cardiologist for hearts, pulmonologist for lungs, nephrologist for kidneys and so on. Specialist doctors know so much about the way their organs work, what treatments to use, and we are so grateful for their expertise. But often chronic diseases will affect multiple body systems over time, and/or the treatments will cause side effects in other organs. Then you are likely to be referred to another specialist. For really significant illnesses, you might have a whole team of specialists. This is fantastic to have so much expertise: modern medicine is truly a marvel; but because they are specialists, they do not have the knowledge and skills to really integrate everything together for all the systems and treatment interactions. “I don’t know about kidneys, I’m a cardiologist”. There are no general specialists who know everything and integrate care from all the other specialists – there’s too much! Though internists come darn close and hopefully you have a great one on your team if you need it. I have a friend who had to tell the nephrologist that they couldn’t prescribe a certain drug for her husband because it was contraindicated for a heart condition he had! Ultimately, it’s up to you.
HOW TO ADVOCATE FOR YOURSELF
It is very important that you feel empowered to care for your own health, and those of any dependent folks in your life. I am amazed and impressed by how quickly non-medical folks can learn about their diseases, and become extremely well-informed. And I really want to encourage you to do this for yourself or dependents.
First and foremost, learn all you can from your doctor. Write down a list of questions and ask them at any point- though the earlier the better. If your doctor won’t answer your questions, or if in your gut you don’t feel like this doctor respects you, or if the treatments aren’t working within the timeframe they initially outlined, FIND ANOTHER DOCTOR. The earlier you do this, the better. And even if you like your doctor and everything is grand, whenever possible, always get at least one or ideally two other opinions, especially before starting any radical treatments or surgeries. Everyone practices medicine in a different way, and everyone has different experience.
Second, leverage the internet. Start with Pubmed, the best Western medical journal database. Type in your illness and look for articles from the Journal of the American Medical Association, British Medical Journal, New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, The Lancet, Annals of Internal Medicine. These are the top journals and their articles are peer-reviewed which means that one or multiple independent people critically review the articles for errors, bias, and study design before it is published, with the aim of only publishing really good science (though the process is definitely not perfect). Look for Review articles in these journals, and in these or elsewhere meta-analyses, and randomised controlled trials. These will typically represent the best science. When searching, you can put your illness in quotes to find your exact terms, e.g., “systemic lupus erythematosus”. You can leverage the Boolean search to get specific, e.g., breast cancer stage 2 AND chemotherapy. Also you can look at the most recent edition of medical textbooks to give you a start- you could ask your doctor or web search your local School of Medicine for the ones they use. Be aware that by the time they are printed, textbooks are usually a couple of years out of date, but they’re a good start.
Third, ask your network. Do you know someone else with this illness or a similar one? Do you know a doctor, nurse, healthcare practitioner, or a veterinarian, and do you feel comfortable discussing with them? If so, reach out. If they are available, make sure you ask them for what you need: be it advice, an idea of whether you’re going in the right direction for you, help finding resources, or if you could be missing something.
Fourth, find a community. There are many in-person and online support communities which can be so helpful, and provide support in addition to your family and friends. Your doctor may be able to help you, there might be specific groups or organisations for your illness, and of course you’ll find something with a good ol’ web search.
Fifth, look beyond the doctor. Your doctor can help you with some of the physical elements of the illness, but Western medicine does not understand the more subtle or energetic elements of a disease. Depending on your disease and preferences, I strongly recommend to work with one or more of the following for support (and there’s many more): an herbalist, traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner, ayurvedic doctor, functional nutritionist, holistic practitioner, physical therapist, counsellor, spiritual advisor. Make sure you are discussing any other treatments these practitioners recommend with your medical doctor. If one thing doesn’t help after a few sessions or weeks or the period of time outlined in the beginning, try something else. In my opinion, it is most important that every person with any chronic illness has some type of counsellor, therapist, psychologist, mentor or similar for support. And if they are not resonating with you, find someone else. I am not a person who really likes conventional talk therapy, but I found someone who I respected and who worked on multiple levels.
Some complementary practices are covered by health insurance. Acupuncture is now widely accepted by Western medicine as extremely beneficial and is often covered. Acupuncture can be helpful for every illness or condition as it works both overtly on the physical body, and on the subtle energetic body through the movement of chi (life force).
You need rest, nourishing food, gentle and appropriate body movement, energetic support, emotional support, to gently work through trauma including ancestral trauma, to come back to more natural rhythms of life however you can, and to be surrounded by loved ones in community. This could mean a massive life change for the better.
Sixth, dodge the quacks. I may write an entire article (rant) on quacks at some point. I see a lot of quackery in the realms of holistic health and spirituality, and a lot of it is white supremacist and bro-culture. Don’t get me started on biohacking. Anything that says “this is the one thing that causes…” or makes promises of cures, relies on testimonials to push over-priced and branded products, anything that a white dude or hippy lady between 30 and 50 years of age says on a podcast, be skeptical. Beware of the use of the word ‘toxic’. I know that it is really magnetising to hear these folks speak, to have promises of cures, to be able to place all the blame on mercury or 5G or glyphosate or vaccines; “the government”, “big pharma”, “big ag”. The reality is that things are really much more complex. It’s all of everything physical, emotional, social and spiritual. Yes, and. There’s no silver bullet. But many, many things can be helpful. If you’re going down kooky rabbit holes and into the depths of forums, make sure you’re running things by your most pragmatic friend to check yourself. And beware of the snake oil salespeople, ok?
They say it takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a village to support folks with chronic disease. You absolutely need the doctors and nurses, but you also need any complementary or alternative medicines or practices that you can access, feel resonant with you, and that are affordable. Many of these practitioners offer sliding scales for payment, and some will even discount or make some things free for black and brown folks and indigenous folks, as an acknowledgement of the harmful and racist gaps that exist in access, and also as part of reparations. You can absolutely try different protocols for diets and herbs and other treatments, but always discuss it with your doctor first. Miracles do happen. But some things may be harmful for your particular condition or treatments you are taking which may be beyond the knowledge of the alternative provider or the website or book you are resourcing.
PERSONALISED MEDICINE
In sum, every person (and animal) is unique, and requires a different way to manage and hopefully emerge from chronic illness. Chronic illness is multifactorial, and typically has contributions from the physical body, the emotional body, as well as often the social body and spiritual body. All aspects need to be addressed to give you the most nourishing care. Our avatars are extremely resilient, and have amazing healing potential if only we are supported appropriately.