***(not so much) Lectures in Hydrotherapy

So I’m not going to lie. I’m about philosophized out. Honestly, its been almost two months of philosophy and I really need to get the heck out of my head. It’s already crammed full and overflowing with random nutrition, homeopathy, acupuncture, and pathology. I swear its going to start leaking out (Kidney 10!!! See? It’s happening again). Anywho, with my last set of finals before boards on the horizon (can’t wait to school some basic science boards!), and philosophy fresh in my brain, I was brought back to my first break. I was an adorable little Q2-  all fresh faced and eager to soak in as much nature cure as possible. So I checked out “Lectures in Naturopathic Hydrotherapy” by Wade Boyle, ND and Andre Saine, ND. First, the cover is amazing…

I wish this picture was bigger. Its awesome. I mean, floating pitchers?

But there is so much more about this book. I really need to reread it because things will make so much more sense to me now (hydrotherapy lab always helps understand hydrotherapy). It also makes me realize how much more we could be learning about it. I wish there was  a class solely about hydrotherapy. It is rumored to have cured Sebastien Kneipp from TB- so we should learn it right? I should probably tell you its a really cool book about hydrotherapy (in case you didn’t gather that from the title or sweet cover) that gives you all sorts of info about hydrotherapy and cases in which it will work. It also gives you a giant recipe book of sorts to help common ailments with hydrotherapy. So check it out. It’s a favorite book of mine. Read it by the pool- that way its kinda full circle.

Google has an interesting idea about what hydrotherapy is. This isn’t it. But it does give you a handy little anatomy lesson. That’s fun!

OK- back to studying for finals.

** After re-reading this, I realized I never explained what hydrotherapy was. Its pretty much alternating hot and cold applications to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system (you might know it as the rest and digest system- the opposite of fight or flight). It helps stimulate the immune system, move lymph (especially when paired with electric stimulation (little muscle tensor pads)), and it makes you feel like you’ve had the best massage in your entire life. This was by far the best class of my school career. I was never so relaxed in my life.

This is what it really looks like – don’t worry. These people are very much alive and very much relaxed now. Luckies.

** Bottom’s up!

It’s interesting that the goal this month is to talk about naturopathic medicine’s philosophy. What’s more interesting is that I chose the therapeutic order to talk about and then I went to a talk on it this week . YAY for happy coincidences. I attended a lunchtime talk by Dr. Cain who was (successfully) trying to explain how to bridge the gap between Hahnemann and Lindlahr. Hahnemann was the founder of homeopathy and, without getting into it too much, pretty much thought disease was caused by untunement of the vital force. This untunement allowed you to get sick. Easiest (though not quite accurate) way to think about it is to think about immune systems. When your immune system is down because of stress, it’s easier for the germs to make you sick. Lindlahr, however, believed that the body getting sick was an intelligent plan to detox your body. This plan makes total sense in the really sick people- The ones who are so toxic from heavy metals, carcinogens, etc that they DO end up being sick. However, when someone has an acute cold, that isn’t the body trying to detox last week’s glass of wine (as Dr. Cain said). If this was completely correct, you wouldn’t detox half the terrible things you do to your body until you get sick. Also, medicine wouldn’t be metabolized and the pharmaceutical industry would be out of a job since they would be, in essence, making everlasting gobstoppers. But I digress. This isn’t what I wanted to go into at all, but I felt there needed to be some history.  Oopsies.

Do you think Willy Wonka was thinking clearly when he made them shaped like this?

What I did want to discuss was the therapeutic order again. So last time, I talked about how, in a perfect world, the therapeutic order would be tackled 1-7.  Well Dr. Cain brought up some good points: A) Its overwhelming to work from 1-7 B) people come to a doctor too sick to start at 1. They can, of course do little things that would support them in the meantime, but if they are chronically ill, it’s too late. We have to go bottom up now. Sometimes that’s all patients can handle. All they can handle is a little palliation or something to treat the pathology before they can tackle the big things like lifestyle changes. They call it “sick and tired” for a reason. You’re tired. You don’t want to do anything except feel better and you want to do the minimum to get there. Not because you want to, but because you have so little energy at that point. Life changes are big energy suckers. Totally worth it, but definitely take a lot of energy. So if you’re sick, and have been for a while, you want the magic (5,6 and 7), THEN, if you’re truly dedicated to your health, you’ll start to implement life changes to support a healthy lifestyle (number 1). And remember, doctors don’t heal- patients heal themselves. We just give them the tools to do so.

Words to live by

**Rant about 6 and 7

One of my favorite things about Naturopathy is the focus on the Therapeutic order. This is supposed to be a flow chart or algorithm of sorts to guide doctors on the best course and order of treatments.

I swear it’s not this complicated

Here they are:

1)      Establish conditions for health

2)      Stimulate the healing power of nature (vis medicatrix naturae)

3)      Address weakened or damaged systems or organs

4)      Correct structural integrity

5)      Treat pathology – with natural substances or modalities

6)      Treat pathology – with pharmaceuticals and synthetic substances

7)      Suppress or surgically remove pathology

The beauty of this order is that it really can be in any order. The actual order in which these are carried out changes with each patient’s needs.

I think that we, as Americans, are too quick to skip to number 6 and 7. We love our aspirin/NSAIDs, steroids, and surgery. If it is broke, you beat it into submission and then maintain that dented, deformed being until you die. Sounds like a pretty crappy plan, right?

Think of your body as a house. There is a giant leak in the ceiling, the paint is bubbling and the carpet is wet. You throw a bucket under the leak and slap some paint on the ceiling. Carpet isn’t wet anymore, right? But each time you walk past, you trip over that dang bucket. Those are side effects, my friend. And really, is the problem fixed? No. You are masking the problem. All these pharmaceuticals are doing the same thing. Granted, they can and will save lives, but nine times out of ten, they are the buckets in your leaky house.

See? Even buckets aren’t perfect.

I think it all starts with number 1 (naturally). You establish conditions for health. You make the good habits and eradicate the bad ones. You prevent as much as you can. You eat good food (not to be confused with decadent food), get some sun, and try to stay away from toxic things (I promise, health really is that simple). You keep your house clean and maintained if we’re gonna stick with my house metaphor.  Maybe a car metaphor was better because I’m not really sure what you do to maintain a house. Owning a house sounds pretty terrifying to me, but we’ll stick with it because it’s serving my purposes here.  Regardless—its easiest and cheapest to just do maintenance rather than do big fixes.

That looks awesome- hopefully 100 degree heat doesn’t accompany it.

I like to think of pharmaceuticals and surgery as the big guns. It may be easier to go straight to them (heck, you don’t even have to aim), but think about all the destruction that is happening on the side. Doesn’t it make more sense to just do little things here and there to ensure health than wait for them to get out of control?

Quick post about Medicine that works (even though its palliative) and fickle friends

So I had real experience with Naturopathic medicine this week. The problem I have is that I have not been exposed too much to naturopathic medicine as a patient. I’m relatively healthy and would rather experiment with diets than follow one selected for me. My family doesn’t really buy into the whole natural thing and most of my friends are healthy also. That’s great news (well the healthy people part)! But, then I don’t get to see how fast and awesome our medicine works. Well that changed somewhat this week. 

First thing you should know about me: I have a tendency to eat my feelings. I’ll be pretty good on a diet for a while. But when the going gets rough, I go to the junk food. We had a total of 4 quizzes/tests on Monday and Tuesday, two of which are the biggies. I studied really hard but honestly, didn’t feel like I did too well. Disappointed (me, I can’t speak for my roommate) and exhausted (I can speak for both of us here) decided we needed pizza. We ordered a large between the two of us, finished it, and decided we needed another. When all was said and done, I think I ate an entire large pizza (there were healthy toppings on it like artichokes… hahhaahaha) and half a cinnamon wheel (what amounts to a medium sized pizza). Yeah. I’m a glutton. 

Google “Stressed student” – its funny.

I have some past hip issues, which seem to be under control if I keep it relatively mobile (yay squats). Well I woke up Wednesday morning in so much pain. I couldn’t lay on my back, it hurt to be flexed, it hurt to be bent. It was tight and angry. I originally thought it was my piriformis because I had been sitting so much this last weekend from studying. I had someone work on it to minimal success. I went to the gym and concentrated on stretching and foam rolling my IT bands, my hip flexors, and my piriformis (piriformi?). It was starting to feel better again. Then it seized back up. I finally got the bright idea of taking fish oil. It obviously wasn’t a muscular problem per se, but something more. But those magical Omega 3 fishy oils made all the inflammation go down and I could move and sit and be comfortable again**.

Don’t believe this guy. There is nothing to smile about until AFTER the rolling is done.

So it got me to thinking. I have had minor reactions to gluten in the past. I feel achey all over with joint pain and lethargy. But I had cut it out and then slowly reintroduced it. I was eating a sandwich a day with no problems (my bread is omega 3 laden however). I think my pizza binge (yes, now that I think about it… ANOTHER one) sent me over that edge. So now I know… gluten is a fickle friend and not a true one. Its one that is nice to your face, but when they know too much about you, they talk about you behind your back. Gluten is a jerk. A tasty, tasty jerk. 

**Now I understand this is palliative care. At that point, I couldn’t care less what kind of care I was getting, I was in pain. I also know the cause: gluten, in extreme doses, hates me. So there is your cause too. 

**Philosophy

The challenge this month is Philosophy. It’s supposed to be about our ideas of the philosophy of our medicine. I addressed a lot of that in Paradigms and Paradigms 2. So that’s a good starting point. However, I think one thing really needs to be addressed before I dive into my ideas of the therapeutic order and my naturopathic heroes. We need to remember that philosophy is all about ideas and knowledge and not absolutes. Ideas are fluid, beautiful wisps of thoughts that recombine in our heads to form new concepts and wisdom. They are not iron clad absolutes that ostracize or harm others.

I’m pretty sure this is how my brain works..if not- it’s really pretty.

I was talking to a friend of mine this weekend about our philosophies as naturopaths. We both came to an agreement that first, we are doctors. That means we need to treat the person and be responsible while doing it. Next, we are naturopaths. So many classmates and peers seem to forget this. They use the idea of naturopathy as that iron-clad absolute. I think doctors and naturopaths are 2 sides to the same coin- fluid ideas that flow and ebb into one another. My friend made the profound statement that some diseases and dysfunctions need to be treated by allopathic means- meaning antibiotics, surgery, immune suppression, etc. This is to say it isn’t possible to treat almost all diseases naturopathically. Our elders and the true practitioners of nature cure absolutely can treat diseases that are very difficult to treat naturopathically or are very serious. We need to take very careful stock of OUR own abilities and not adhere to just our beliefs- otherwise the safety of our patients and our reputations are at risk.

Still a good bet though. Edison knew a lot of stuff… also a lot about stealing ideas. But that’s another thing.

I guess my message is to strive to adhere to our philosophies, but take a hard look at yourself and your own abilities before blindly following the dogma. This preserves the philosophy and doesn’t sully the name of naturopath. We are doctors first.