We hear of people that ‘feel’ fine that are never sick and then they drop dead of a heart attack, have a stroke or maybe get a check up only to find they have cancer…sometimes advanced cancer. It is true that how you feel is no indication of healthy you are.
Many people get their annual physical that may include a blood test. This annual blood test is done through regular doctors and paid for by insurance however, the list of tests has been getting shorter over the years. In addition, the test ranges have changed over the years to correlate with population averages.
To illustrate this point: suppose a blood test has a range of 10-50. Many doctors will only see a problem with the test results is less than 10 or greater than 50. Does this mean that you are healthy and have optimal health if the test result is an 11 or 49? It just means that you aren’t bad enough to be officially diagnosed with a ‘disease’ and therefore warrant recommendation of a drug or other medical intervention.
Over the last 15 or so years there have been significant changes in medical ranges for blood tests. In some cases the results have been changed from 10-50 to 5-65.
These ranges are often based on population averages. These new ranges correlate with over all poorer health in our country and the result is that now most disease has to be even more advanced before a condition is now medically diagnosed as determined by medical and insurance guidelines. Regular doctors cannot diagnose or treat a condition before it is clinically documented because he has to justify treatment based on diagnostic testing. Waiting until a disease is advanced is like having a car problem and waiting until it won’t run anymore.
Catching problems early and avoiding problems and disease are the best ways to living a long, active and healthy life. Truly, the oldest living people have avoided the serious and common diseases like heart disease, diabetes, cancer etc. Don’t get sick and don’t be sick are important and long term drug use for chronic conditions is only a band-aid covering a smoldering progressive disease process.
Drugs do not increase life span.
At times they may delay or avert a premature death or “crisis”. Blood pressure drugs are used so that you don’t have a heart attack or stroke today. Antidepressants are used so that you aren’t depressed today. Diabetes drugs are used so you don’t have high glucose and have a seizure today.
Drugs taken for chronic conditions and even for acute disease are to avert a disaster or problem today. However, the cause of the original condition is rarely considered and then there are the added side effects of the drugs. Life is in the blood and most health problems and diseases will show up in the blood long before symptoms are noticed…before you feel bad.
For instance, only 20% of liver function is needed to be relatively symptom free. By the time symptoms of liver disease are noticed, it is often too late. So, proper comprehensive testing must be done, including investigational testing to see metabolic problems, deficiencies, system functions, inflammations and infections.
Ranges Matter
Reading the blood test more closely is very beneficial for avoiding or catching a condition early. Instead of waiting until a blood test is below 10 or above 50, some health experts, including us, will pick a middle range, maybe from 20-40, and this is then used as a guideline to monitor the optimal or healthy range. Test results of 10-20 or 40-50 are those results that aren’t yet ‘disease’ but are warning signs of developing problems. Treating these early warning signs are often much easier to resolve. It is like putting out a fire when it is just beginning to smoke versus waiting until the problem is a raging fire. Just about anyone can tell when there is raging forest fire or a problem that is causing a lot of damage with the need for expensive crises care, maybe hospitalization, drugs and prolonged recovery.
Crises care is what our current medical system is excellent at.
When conditions are ignored and diseases are not caught until they are advanced or you have a fall or bad auto accident then go to the emergency room. Regular medical doctors are great at getting people out of a crisis but are not trained or are poorly trained on how to restore health, avoid disease and get off of drugs and use natural safe alternatives and remedies. The fortunate thing about modern health care is that there are natural alternatives that can make most drugs unnecessary. Drugs aren’t bad. If you have high blood pressure, you need to be on blood pressure drugs. I would rather treat someone and deal with the effects of high blood pressure drugs than deal with the effects of a stroke or heart attack. We tell nearly all of our patients that we have the privilege to take care of, that our job isn’t to get them off of their drugs.
Our goal is to get our patient as healthy as they were before they needed the drug. If you are 50 years old and have been on a drug, maybe a blood pressure drug, for 5 years, all we have to do is get you as healthy as you were 5 years ago before you needed the drug(s). Something is different, why are you sick now? This is why we do extensive testing of the blood, hair and other more extensive testing to seek out “why”.
A lady in her middle 50’s presented to our office a few weeks ago with persistent high blood pressure, hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms and insomnia. She was taking Diovan for the high blood pressure and Tri-Est for the menopausal problems. These drugs were not working. The blood test showed mild anemia, mineral deficiencies and some mild inflammatory condition among some other minor findings. A lot of little problems can have big effects. We commonly do a hair test to check for toxic elements and she was extremely high in Arsenic, high in Lead and Aluminum. We also did a toxic element DMSA chelation urinary challenge. This test is used to detect those elements that are not easily eliminated or being eliminated in the hair. She had very high levels of Mercury and high levels of Lead with this test. These three very toxic heavy metals will cause hormonal problems and are known to cause high blood pressure. Obviously, none of the drugs addressed the real cause of her problems. As the level of toxicity increases in her body, her health problems will get worse too. Now that the real cause of her health problems are known, a program will be developed to safely remove and eliminate these from her body. Reducing exposure to these toxic elements is also important. I am confident based on previous cases that as her toxicity is decreased that her blood pressure, hormonal problems and insomnia will resolve and in a few weeks she will no longer need the blood pressure drugs or hormone medication.
Comprehensive testing is key to identify serious and developing problems, develop natural therapy and vitamin recommendations and then testing or should be used to determine effectiveness of treatment. Taking vitamins without blood, hair and other objective testing is really just guessing. The nice thing about natural care and taking vitamins is that guessing and taking vitamins generally won’t make a problem worse and the side effects of vitamins, minerals and most herbs is insignificant. But there may be an underlying condition that is being missed, which is why at the Back To Health Center we usually have very good results treating patients with a wide range of conditions, including MS, Fibromyalgia, Lupus, Chronic Fatigue, menopausal symptoms, diabetes, cancers and even some very rare conditions.
Regardless of the disease, the goal at our clinic, as it should be for all health care providers including medical doctors should be to restore health. As health is restored, then symptoms and disease will improve and probably in time even disappear.
Call your [city] [profname] today at [phone] for a complete blood analysis.
