Beating the system to be well

Your doctor could be the best person to guide you into better health…

If our healthcare system didn’t get in the way.

Doctors are trained to listen to your complaints, examine your symptoms, come up with the correct diagnosis and then prescribe medications that treat your diagnosis.

That’s the accepted model for treating disease… wait till you’re sick and get treated.

This works well for urgent health issues. In urgent care, patient/doctor interactions are relatively brief and to the point, and the treatment simple and direct.

However, when it comes to chronic illness, it doesn’t work so well. Do you know there are more than 50,000 diagnosis codes (for insurance reimbursement) and a prescription drug for most every chronic ailment?

But medications don’t cure illness… What could?

Allowing doctors to spend more time with their patients, so they can actually “coach” them on wellness instead of treating sickness. Then, people could get off medications and reverse chronic illness.

But there’s not a billable diagnosis code for that. So we have to look outside of the box — and that’s why I’m an integrative physician.

A better way

You might be aghast to know I, like other doctors, only received 60 minutes (one lecture) of nutrition education in my entire four years of medical school. I received even less during my intense three-year residency training.

So as a young doctor, I realized early on that what I was taught in school was not sufficient to really help me help my patients. That’s why I found alternative and natural ways to complement my “schooled” treatments. That’s what integrative medicine is about.

In my private practice setting, a patient appointment can last for 30 to 50 minutes. We address half lifetime of illness. I honestly feel quite overwhelmed, but it’s my duty to try to guide them to better health, and I realize that filling prescription medications is not really getting them any closer to real healing.

The biggest failing of our current healthcare system is its inability to influence change that leads to real health. But the blame isn’t all on healthcare…

The food industry keeps producing harmful and addictive “fake” foods. And we can hardly tell the difference…

From a young age, we’re not taught the principles of real food and nutrition. Home economics class amounts to baking cakes, instead of teaching students about whole foods and the importance of nutrition on your health.

But what we are taught is to be suspicious about health advice that doesn’t come on a prescription pad. I’m talking about alternative or natural medicine. These days there’s even a war on vitamins, for goodness sake.

As patients, we have to shoulder some of the blame ourselves. We settled in nicely to taking pills for this and that because it’s easier than working on our weight, staying active and eating responsibly.

This is just part of the reason why, if your only access is to a doc-in-a-box — by that I mean someone stuck in the four walls of the current system — you’ll be hard pressed to find the health advice you need to make real change.

Finding your health answers

The problems with mainstream healthcare won’t go away anytime soon — even with the best insurance.

So instead of waiting for the system to change, make changes that start with you…

It takes an individual to come to the realization that they are ready to make health a priority in their life. That’s not easy and sometimes people aren’t willing to change their health until they are in pain or a health crisis arises.

I have seen such individuals many times and have had the pleasure of teaching and motivating them through in-depth and serious lifestyle changes. It made a dramatic impact on the way they saw their physical, mental and emotional health…

It caused them to revamp what they ate every day. It energized them into exercising consistently. It gave them the true insight to their passions in this life and tools to stay focused on what made them feel good physically and emotionally. It awakened their spiritual connection and their deeper yearning for love and healing emotions.

And, perhaps, most important, it guided them to be accountable for their contributions to their healthcare in a way that also empowered them to change what needed changing.

You, and only you, are either the creator of your life — or you can wait and experience how life seems to affect you, and you become the victim.

Victims blame others for their circumstances or feelings. Creators on the other hand, take accountability for what they are experiencing and are grateful for their learning. Creators also find a way to accomplish their goals. Creators are accountable for what they have created; are willing to account for how they have contributed to what they are experiencing. You must be of the creator mindset and be accountable at all times.

To me it is obvious that personal life patterns (dietary, exercise, communication in love relationships, thoughts & emotions) are the keys to reversing their disease… not the prescription drugs I have to recommend sometimes.

If I can effectively teach patients about key lifestyle patterns that reverse disease and also order pertinent lab tests, to help them get off as many synthetic medications as possible, and instead use targeted nutrient supplements and bio-identical hormones to be well again, I will feel I’ve done my job.

Likely, you and I will never have the pleasure of meeting face to face, doctor to patient. But that’s why I founded Easy Health Options — so I can share with you even if I never see you in my practice.

To your long-term healthcare and to feeling good,

Michael Cutler, M.D.