Who Do You Trust? Who Can You Believe?
This is a very good question, and it is especially relevant if you
are using the internet to research, or to buy, what could be life-saving
or life-damning products, supplements or health products, health
products, or advice, that could change your life for better or worse. It
is confusing. It is so damnably confusing, and it is only destined to
become more confusing. Why? Even that answer isn’t an easy one, but I
will name a few that I can think of right away because of my own health
quest/s:
- Because of lightening speed changes in technology.
- Because of lightening speed changes in science due to technology.
- Because of lightening speed in communication due to technology.
- Because market forces are alive and well due to communication and technology.
- Because alive market forces are subject to good and bad marketers and good and bad communicators.
- And because everything is subject to time.
And money is almost always the name of the game–
I’m not even saying that is a bad thing. It just is a thing.
What Does Money Have to Do With Health, Anyway?
So, let’s start this discussion with the $$$. We’ll come back to the
above mentioned causes of our confusion over multiple choices in health
care.
When you see advertisement after advertisement coming from the
pharmaceuticals and insurance companies, what are your thoughts? Ever
wonder who pays for that? No, it’s not free, that prime-time TV, even if
they do speed up the boring time-consuming speech, describing the side
effects of any particular drug.
My husband and I used to run a food service for a senior retirement
home. We were located, conveniently, under the circumstances, next to
the hospital and medical services. In seeking out extra revenue sources,
we learned about an opportunity to serve lunch to some of the doctors
and nurses, paid for by the drug reps. This was a daily, free lunch to
the medical staff, compliments of the pharmaceutical company of the day,
selling their drug wares to the medical staff, who would further
prescribe them to their patients. I live/d on drug samples, too
expensive even for Medicare, another story for another page. Watch for
it.
Hospitals, doctors, nurses, and all their staff are extremely busy,
much too busy to research every drug passing through their
chain-of-command. We all know this, because most of us live it every
day. I can so relate to this time problem. Sometimes you just do the
best you can do. Remember lightening speed, and market forces?
Granted there is medicine out there that may alleviate some health
conditions– And for the most part, the medical world follows their vow to do no harm–
But, Watch for It, the Biggie–
We Are Responsible to Monitor Our Own Health
Are holistic choices or alternative remedies not subject to the big money question?
Of course, they are. And if you haven’t learned it yet– that most
businesses are in business to make money, you are Polly Anna, living in
Eutopia. Good luck.
Now, just because businesses are in the
business to, usually, eke out a bare living, does that make them bad?
Really. No! We’ll take up the subject of economics another time.
Excuse me, or is that politics?
Let’s not get too far off-track. But I do want you to think. Because that is what we must do in order to meet those lightening speed challenges
that are, more or less, unavoidable. There are people in the so-called
sticks, living care-free, drug-free, and digitally-free. I envy them
often– but usually not in the winter time.
Changing Technology in Science
Because of lightening speed changes in technology, no one can have
all the facts at the same time, not even the experts, the researcher,
the teacher, the doctor, the scientist, or the etc. And for this very
reason, specialization is becoming ever and ever more specialized.
Therefore, each of us is charged with learning about the best health
alternatives that are right for us, and for our own particular health
situation at any particular time. And then we have to discern between
the many answers, including the ones which have no merit at all. That
answer may be a prescription drug, or it may be a reasonable
alternative.
That is one reason why, in my opinion, within the science community
there are varying opinions, even among the scientists themselves, on a
particular subject. Each may understand a part. Each may hold a key. The
trick is when their science/s leads each of them toward an answer,
albeit from a different beginning. Then we may have one good answer. But
until then, we must learn our own situation and find the best answer
for us, the individual. Because one thing which works for you, may not
work for me. This, of course, is easier said than done. But we must do
it, because no one else cares as much as we do about out own situation.
Changing Technology in Communication
Changing Technology in Communication, that is also happening at
lightening speed. When my husband took a computer class at the
University of Washington, the equipment took up an entire room. I grew
up with a pre-dial-up-phone, permanently attached to the wall, on a
party line– And the operator said, “Number, please.”
Many of us have had to adapt, at lightening speed, to the computer,
smart-phone, and Facebook. If we don’t, we really do risk being at
someone elses’ educated, or not, opinion.
The Alive and Well Market Forces Know How to Use Technology
Remember the driving force: that is money. Whatever the market forces
are driving us to buy (or to drink), may, or may not, be good for us.
Who’s going to tell us? And in the case of our health, who do we
believe?
Because alive market forces are subject to good and bad marketers and
good and bad communicators, how can it be any other way, than to be up
to us? If you trust someone else for your health information and
solutions, pick them wisely.
My personal opinion is that there are many reasonable alternatives to
any given health question. But we have to find it, research it, learn
about it, and try it. But I’m no doctor. Read the medical disclaimer
below. Find a medical doctor who knows about alternatives to confer
with. This is your commission, to find a medical doctor and/or nurse,
who is open and curious about integrative medicine and alternative
therapies.
More and more of these individuals are appearing on the scene, because they genuinely do
mean to do no harm.
And because everything is subject to time.