Has medicine finally reached its destination

In 1978 I made the conscious decision to see if it was possible to treat ill health without drugs. In the early days my tools were very few. I use a simple diet of potatoes, onions and green vegetables as a cleansing diet, Kelp and Brewers Yeast as nutritional supplements, acupuncture to manage painful conditions, and a sympathetic ear to listen carefully to the clients that came my way. I called this approach 'Alternative medicine' as it was very different to the way I had practiced as a conventional doctor.

I soon realized that what I was doing was not treating the disease but paying attention to supporting health and actually allowing the health to do the healing. This seemed the natural way to initiate healing. Doctors like myself began calling what they were doing as 'Complementary medicine' as they were using approaches that complemented their practice of conventional medicine. The problem for me was that I had decided to see whether it was possible to practice medicine without drugs so that I soon began to recognize that I was not complimenting natural approaches with conventional approaches but using natural remedies to complement what the body was doing to heal itself. Other names that came up at the time was 'Holistic medicine' which pointed to the fact that doctors were using both conventional approaches to treat the disease but also more natural approaches to support healing.

As these doctors discovered other ways to treat disease and support healing, the field of medical practice enlarged and spread out becoming more and more complex. This was aided by an increasing understanding of physiology and biochemistry and how the human system of functioning seemed to work. There was an increasing integration of the conventional approach with these more natural approaches and this became known as 'Integrative medicine' also known as 'Functional medicine'. Integrative medical doctors used the increasing breakdown and understanding of the biochemical pathways in the body which uncovered the nutrients required to maintain optimum health to further their approaches using these nutrients to manage ill health.

The more conventional approach driven by pharmaceutical companies was to identify the biochemistry and find synthetic chemicals which could interfere with these physiological functions and reduce the symptoms and signs of ill health.

Clearly there were now two pathways at work to deal with ill health:

1. An approach using drugs to interfere with biochemistry and reduce symptoms eg antihistamines, proton pump inhibitors, Serotonin uptake inhibitors, beta-blockers and many others. Almost all drugs work by blocking pathways and why they can lead to mild to life threatening side effects.
2. The other approach adopted by Integrative and allied approaches used tools and remedies that were generally not strong enough to interfere with functions and instead supported those function's that were compromised and relatively ineffective to fulfill the work that was necessary to maintain good health.

Two very different approaches that that most integrative and Functional doctors try to combine for the benefit of their clients. Surgery for example may be indicated but supporting health to do the healing is also an essential requirement.

Has medicine finally reached its destination.

I personally think we are far off still and there may never be an end to finding solutions to ill health. There are many reasons for me saying this.

1. Ill health may be the way the system re-configure itself and finds a new healthy balance. In that sense it is not something wrong happening but an important shift in understanding that may be required. Infectious diseases in children for example may be perfectly timed to activate the immune system resilience. Even more serious chronic disease may still be an effort by the body to find a creative edge to a new level of health that has not been attended to in the wrong understanding that symptoms must be alleviated rather than listened too.
2. The underlying problem of ill health may not be biochemical but energetic and using drugs or even natural remedies without attending to the energetic disturbances may be just incomplete.
3. Evolution of the human species has not just come to an end. There may be changes happening constantly in the matter-energy-informational systems making up the human species that require different approaches to what is being used now.
4. Ill health is not only a problem to solve but an invitation to going deeper. This going deeper is what makes ill health not just a challenge to overcome but a journey in which we can if we want discover new insights into the very nature of being human.

I am excited by the possibilities that could unfold if medicine was not just about treating disease but also about healing the whole person i.e. the matter-energy-informational being and the body-emotions-mind-spirit-consciousness being. I recognize the enoumous burdon that ill health can be and I don't want to diminish the pain and discomfort, nevertheless expanding our view can influence both the outcome and the way we experience the journey.

Late night musing

I am amazed at how quickly people are prepared to take synthetic drugs to get rid of some of their problems quickly. Drugs are the first, second or third most common cause of ill health and death depending on the article you read. Yes, some scientists believe that drugs are the most common cause of ill health and death. When people take more than two drugs at a time there is not even science to support this combination and enoumous number of people over the age of 50 years are already taking between 3 to 8 drugs at the same time. Drugs are powerful enough to block physiological processes. Just listen to their names... antihistamines, beta blockers, serotonin uptake inhibitors, proton pump inhibitors. There is very clearly a place for them but certainly taking 8 drugs at the same time does seem to be an over reach.