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In this podcast I’ll be exploring two healthcare models — Conventional Mainstream Medicine (CMM — the main one that’s used in western societies today) as well as Holistic and Functional Health (HFH):
- I’ll talk about how each model works and what they are
- We’ll go over the negatives of each as well as the positives
- Finally I’ll talk about which healthcare model you should use for particular health issues
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CMM. This includes your standard medical doctor, surgeon, regular dentist and all the specialities in between such as cardiologist, neurologist, oncologist, immunologist, gynaecologist, and all the other specialists and experts that are involved in this model. This model you can really call a disease-care model instead of healthcare and the reason I say that is because it’s mainly focused on diagnosing and treating symptoms and diseases. If you go to your doctor with a problem they normally give you something or suggest surgery to remove the problem. There’s no further investigation. There’s no further discussion. It’s just ‘what’s the issue?’, ‘let’s get rid of it’. It’s really disease focused so I like to call this a disease-care model. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its place, but that’s how this particular model works. It’s really focused on diagnosing and treating your symptom and disease.
Now if we compare that with the HFH care models (this includes practitioners like naturopaths, chiropractors, functional medical doctors, holistic health coaches, acupuncturists, energy healers, holistic biological dentists, as well as shamans), these models are focused on you and they want to get to the root cause of the problem. You go to a HFH practitioner, you say you have a problem, and they say ‘well let’s investigate further to find out what’s causing the problem’. This model you can call a self-care model or a patient-care model. It’s really focused on you, the patient, the self, the person. The reason it’s more you focused is because they look at the holistic, the whole picture of you and your lifestyle. They look at movement, sleep, nutrition, hydration, your breathing, your connection with yourself and others, your exposure to outdoors and Mother Nature, and your exposure to toxins at work and at home.
The reason HFH practitioners like myself investigate further is because symptoms are not the problem. They are the result, they are the last thing to show up after a problem has already occurred. What we do is look and get to the underlying root cause of the symptom, of the disease. It’s not about treating the disease. It’s about treating you, the person, what’s happening in your life, your whole life — holistic right. That’s what HFH is all about. It’s a self-care model that gets to the root cause of the issue. We don’t diagnose or treat any specific symptom or disease you may have. We look at you holistically and support your lifestyle in order to have the symptoms and the diseases remove themselves from your life.
There you have the two healthcare models. One being a disease-care model focused really only on symptoms and diseases. The other one is a self-care model where it’s about educating not medicating you and focusing on the root cause of your problem. Because ultimately when you get rid of the root cause the symptoms and the diseases go away all by themselves.
Now let’s look into the negatives of each model.
Negatives of CMM. Well a major negative is that it doesn’t get to the root cause, it’s only treating the symptom and symptoms are like the tip of an iceberg. There’s a lot more going on underneath that CMM just doesn’t look at. If you’ve got an ongoing chronic issue you don’t want to treat what’s coming up to the surface. You want to look deep down and get to the root cause.
Another negative of CMM would be the time factor, wasting a lot of time waiting and stressing about the results and not knowing when you’re going to be seen. It’s a major stress on the body, on your mind and I had recent experience of this. I spent 11 hours, 11 hours in one day having to go to three hospitals seeing four doctors to find out whether my what I thought at the time was a slight swelling of my eye, but it turned out to be a really bad eye infection, possibly a really severe eye infection where I could have lost my vision and needed surgery. But thankfully it was not a really serious infection. It took 11 hours to get to that point to find out whether I needed surgery or stay overnight for observation or just go home with drugs, which is what I ended up doing. But 11 hours, three hospitals, four doctors… man… timewaster, but it had to be done.
Alright another negative, another downside to CMM — the side-effects of the medications and the surgery. The thing that people don’t realise is they go in with one problem, they’re given a drug or surgery, they take the drug or have the surgery and then they leave with another problem possibly more. I was watching this documentary I can’t remember the name, it’s about juicing, and the people who sign up they’re all reading the side-effects of the drugs that they’re currently on and this one guy whose reading his slip, it’s all in fine print, he’s reading it and one of the side-effects is death… DEATH! Oh man that was classic, but yeah so side-effects of the drugs you take.
Now on my recent journey into the CMM world seeing four doctors having to visit three hospitals and wait 11 hours (I’ll say it again!) is that I was injected with antibiotics. I was also injected with dye for the CT scan. I was injected with dye and I also had dye eye-drops in order for the doctors to see better what was happening inside my eye, they had to put dye, drops of dye in my eye. So dye in my eye, dye in my body, antibiotics in my body and I’ve been given antibiotic eye-drops and antibiotic pills. I’m all drugged up at the moment. I’m still finishing the pills and I don’t know how long it takes for that dye to get out of my system. I don’t know what side-effects I’m going to get from this, but I know the side-effects I’m getting from the antibiotics already. My thinking, just the feeling of, just feel there’s something a bit off about me. So side-effects people you got to think of it.
A quick summary then. The three negatives of CMM are not getting to the root cause, wasting a lot of time, and the side-effects of the drugs and the surgery.
Let’s go to HFH and the negatives of this model.
Number one I would have to say is it takes a lot of effort. Takes a lot of energy, desire, willpower, motivation, inspiration, you really have to want to get better in this model. Because in this model there’s no pill or cream or surgery that you can take that’s going to fix you. We guide you, we support you. We can show you the path, but you have to walk it, right. Here’s the door, only you can open it. It takes a lot of energy and effort and you have to want it. You really have to want it in this self-care model. Remember we educate we don’t medicate and the education is only as good as what you do with it. Bruce Lee said:
“Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.”
So until you can put that knowledge into action, get your desire and willpower moving in the right direction this model is not going to do much for you.
Okay, the second downside to this model is that it is going to take time to heal if you have a specific health condition that you’re trying to get over. Normally for however many years you have had the health condition it will take that many months to heal it or to have the symptoms reduce dramatically. Okay, it’s going to take time. For example my suicidal tendencies I had those for 16 years. After following a HFH programme — 12 months — I was fortunate enough to get over those dark thoughts in 12 months. It could have taken 16 months, it could have taken 24 months. Whatever you’re dealing with it took a long time for you to get into that state and it is going to take you a long time to get out of that state. That’s one of the downsides, it’s going to take time to heal.
Another negative, last one I’ll speak of is the financial cost. Governments and insurance companies they don’t really support this health approach as yet, in the future that will change. Right now it’s cheaper to go to your local doctor than to see a HFH practitioner so you’ll have to put your money where your health is. If you look at it as an investment it’s not too bad, but it is more than you’re used to paying for your local GP (general practitioner). Just be aware of that.
There you have three downsides there of HFH. It’s going to take effort and a real want to achieve your goals. It’s going to take time to heal and it’s going to cost more than what you’re used to paying for your health.
Alright let’s look at the positive sides now of each of these models.
CMM positive number one, major one, obviously it saves lives. The doctors, the nurses, everyone involved, the technology, the drugs, the surgery, it’s all part of this massive machine that in the end saves lives every day. It saved my eye. My eye is healing. It’s still a bit red, but who knows what could have happened if I didn’t have any of that. There’s not enough chinese herbs, sunlight, and positive affirmations that would have got rid of my eye infection. Lets put it that way. CMM came to the rescue, saved my eye. Hallelujah, I’m very appreciative of that so there you go. Positive number one it saves lives.
Another positive would be the initial financial cost. Seeing your local GP, going to the emergency department the cost is low and as long as it’s just a one-off health issue that you’re dealing with, this one-off visit can cost you next to nothing. Especially compared to the HFH model. However, if you are sick for longer periods of time the cost does rise, but initially the good thing about this is that it’s a low cost way of getting your health issue looked at.
The last good thing I’ll talk about, this model is very accessible. It’s the mainstream and it’s called that because it’s popular. It’s on every corner almost. You got hospitals everywhere, clinics everywhere so it’s very accessible. It’s a lot easier to gain access to this model for most people because it’s more popular and it’s what people know. In time that will change, but for now it is the mainstream model, it is the one that’s easier to get to.
So there you have it. CMM saves lives. The initial cost is low and it’s really accessible for the majority of people.
Now let’s get into the positives for HFH.
Obviously the main positive here is that this self-care model gets to the root cause of the symptom or disease. Alright, we don’t treat the symptom or disease specifically. We investigate further. We dig deeper. We don’t worry about the tip of the iceberg, we want to see what’s happening underneath the water. Get a good picture of the entire iceberg and by doing so, by investigating further the root cause can be found and can be worked on. So that’s positive number one.
Another upside to the HFH model is the time that you get to spend with your practitioner. A good HFH practitioner will spend on average 45-60 minutes during their consultations with a client or patient. I spend 60 minutes during my consultations. What it allows is for each of us to get a better understanding of where you’ve come from and how you’ve got to be where you are and discussing and having a dialogue on where you want to see yourself in the future and what’s really happening that’s preventing you from getting what you want right now. It’s a great way to build a strong connection, a bond, friendships can be created over this time. Which is why this model does have a lot more positive outcomes, because it has a more community family friendly feel to it. So the time you get to spend with your practitioner that’s a huge plus here.
Another upside, another positive for the self-care model is the self-care part of it. It’s about teaching you right. It’s about education, not medication. It’s about giving you the knowledge and the power, empowering you to look after yourself for the rest of your life. So the education you receive in this model equals freedom! Because you’re no longer in front of a guy or a gal in a white labcoat bowing down to their all knowingness of what’s going on with you. Because really they don’t know. They’re just going by a book that someone else wrote. What we do in HFH is we don’t know about you either, but what we do is we work with you in those long consults over time to help you get to know you. We don’t want to know you. We want you to know you. Once you know who you are, once you know how you work then there’s no longer a need to go seeking knowledge about yourself through someone else. Isn’t it weird how we go to someone and ask them ‘what’s wrong with me, can you help me?’ and that’s fine that’s what coaches and teaches and people like that are for, but a good coach won’t say ‘I know exactly what’s wrong with you’. What they’ll say is ‘I know how to help you find out what’s wrong with you’ and that’s our role — educating, and the education you receive is priceless!
So there you have the three upsides of HFH. Get’s to the root cause. You get a lot of time to spend with your practitioner and the self education, the knowledge that you learn about you.
So how do you know which model you need to use for your health issue? Well, quite simply if you’re dying, if it’s life or death, if you have major trauma, major bodily harm, a major infection like I had recently with my eye, yeah CMM is where you want to head. Yeah you don’t want to be going to a holistic or functional practitioner like a naturopath if you’ve got exposed bone or if you’re bleeding internally I don’t think a supplement or chinese herb is going to stop that or heal you. So major trauma, major bodily harm, life or death situations, major infections, then you want to go the CMM route.
Now if you’re suffering from a chronic health condition, something that you’ve had for a long time that’s ongoing or if it’s just really annoying, these are health issues caused by living an unbalanced life. These are lifestyle problems. Things such as migraines, headaches, digestive issues, skin issues, depression, anxiety, back ache, muscle and joint pain, autoimmune diseases as well such as diabetes, Hashimoto’s and Graves’ disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and of course the major lifestyle disease of this century obesity. These have all come about because of a lifestyle that’s out of balanced and you don’t want to take medication from CMM just to get rid of the symptom because that’s not going to get rid of the imbalance of the way you’re living. So the HFH approach where we can teach you on how to balance different parts of your life to get to the root cause and to remove the symptoms that’s where you want to go. So for chronic health complaints, for issues that you just can’t get rid of, anything that’s not life or death basically, you want to go with the self-care model.
Now also you don’t actually have to be sick, fat, and nearly dead to see a HFH practitioner. Remember we educate you on how to live a healthy lifestyle that’s particular to your needs. You might be feeling okay, but you want to feel awesome. Or you might be an athlete who wants to perform better. You might be someone who works in an office, an executive. You might be someone who’s got a lot going on at home, a stay at home mum or dad and you just want to perform better. A HFH practitioner that’s what we do best. Whether you’re sick or not we will always help you find ways to perform better in life. You wouldn’t go to your medical doctor, there’s no pill a perform better pill (well for some guys it’s the blue one). No, you need support. You need coaching. You need mentorship and that’s where HFH really shine. So even if you’re not suffering from a health condition the self-care model is great for helping you find ways to improve your current lifestyle.
Okay, where do you find these HFH people? I’ll tell you where to find them. Actually there’s one talking to you right now. If you did want to work with me you can go to my website wholeguidance.com, go to the contact page, get in touch with me, see if we’re a good fit for each other, see if there’s a connection between us. No point working with anyone who you can’t relate to or don’t think they’re on the same page as you so make sure you do get that initial contact and find out more about the practitioner you’re thinking of working with.
Remember it’s your health it’s your life. You will always be the most interested in getting your life better, but the next person down should be your practitioner and if they’re just taking you on for a job, that’s not what you want. You want someone to take you on as a student. We educate so I want to teach, I don’t want to preach.
But that’s just me. You can go to these other websites where you’ll find HFH practitioner’s. First up we got chekconnect.com. Also fdnselfcare.com. Another good site to go to is primaldocs.com where you’ll find doctors that are primitive, these guys are primal, old-school. Old-school is the new-school right. Finally, functionalmedicine.org. Those four websites including my own you’ll be able to find HFH practitioner in your area or not in your area. Today a lot of consultations are done over the Internet. Skype calls, Google Hangouts it’s all done online. If the person that you’d like to work with isn’t local that is an option that is available thanks to technology. Not all technology is evil right. There some good parts to it
Okay so go to those websites, find someone, but remember have a dialogue with the person you want to work with. Make sure they’re on the same page as you. Make sure they see you more than just a number. Be sure to use your sixth sense, ‘does this person have my good intentions in mind’.
Links and Resources
- Where to find Holistic and Functional practitioners:
* chekconnect.com
* fdnselfcare.com
* primaldocs.com
* functionalmedicine.org - Resources page at wholeguidance.com
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