...or at least this is how I help my clients in their quest to healthy living.
It starts with a thorough history. I want to know about your life, starting with any health concerns that you have. Not that you have to have any, mind you, as I do have quite a few clients coming in only seeking to improve on the quality of life that they are presently living.
Like I've talked about before, if you are experiencing symptoms, then your stress levels are high enough, or prolonged enough to not be dealt with by your own natural healing powers. It's important for me to know not only about how your symptoms manifest, like where the pain is, the quality, the referral pattern, what increases it, what decreases it, etc, but your current lifestyle and where the stress may come from, such as what dimension- the physical dimension, the biochemical dimension, and/or the emotional dimension.
It's important to find out what dimension or dimensions contribute the most to the concern, because this is where we start in helping the body to regain or improve it's ability to heal. When we we're in the physical dimension, we are generally talking about muscle imbalances, either brought on by a trauma (either recent or even years ago), or posture or positions that a person is in frequently. If those positions are not balanced, then muscles are being strained, and eventually, they, or the muscles that may compensate will be the ones that are injured. What I mean by compensation is that the body always has a "back up" plan. If a muscle is overly strained or injured, the body utilizes other muscles to help assist the function of the injured muscle. There may be several layers of compensation as there is more than one "back up" system. The key is to identify what created the problem in the first place, as this gives me an idea of what types of compensation may be taking place.
When there is a biochemical concern, I always ask first about the digestive system. This system is the interface between the outside of the body and the inside. Besides injections, this avenue is the only way to alter your internal biochemistry. A major source of stress is always how well this system works, which starts with how well you chew your food. It then depends on how much acid your stomach produces, then to how many enzymes are produced to start to digest the food, then to how much bacteria (and the quality of the bacteria) are present to finish digesting, to how fast or slow food moves through your digestive tract, to lastly, how well you reabsorb the water within the gut. There are a lot of processes to cover, but there are specific symptoms that are present when each of these functions don't work properly. For many of my clients, their biochemical issues start with a poor digestive tract. Even for those who eat the "right" foods and take the "right" supplements, the fact that they can't absorb nutrients is what contributes greatly to their ills.
With regards to the emotional dimension, I concentrate on the emotional state of my client. Are they emotional? Do they seem to be suppressing an emotion, such as anger, or fear. Are they anxious? The beauty of a face to face interaction is that you get exposure to a person in an unfamiliar environment, and see how they handle it. Now I do my best to get a person to relax and feel comfortable, but even the slight stress of being someplace new is often enough to bring other, dominant feelings to the table.
At this point I have a good idea of the nature of your concern, and in what dimension(s) your issues lay within. I now go into a little history of your lifestyle, such as previous illnesses, family history, past medical interventions and surgeries and what, if any, medications you may use. We then go into more subtle lifestyle issues, starting with what levels of stress you perceive you have; I want to know what those levels are in both a work environment, and a home environment. This, of course, prompts questions to why those levels may be high.
At this point the history plays two parts, one to gather information from the client, two, to start to educate the client on what an ideal lifestyle might be like. Lets cover a couple of areas.
Recreational activities- do you have any, such as hobbies, sports, or play? Most of us need at least one avocation as a creative outlet. We are here on earth to create- but for most of us that only means to survive. What are you doing to thrive?
Exercise- what kinds, how often, how intense? These could be your recreation, but we are movement machines, and its vitally important to get the muscles of your body working- all of them, but most importantly, the heart (and not just because it helps to pump the blood, but exercise for the heart effects the whole body by synchronizing the muscles to movement, as well as establishing a rhythmic pattern to all our organ functions- but this is a whole other article). Your exercise should be balanced; that is, not working one muscle group while overworking another. Generally, you should be exercising at least 3 times per week, but an ideal is something everyday. That could be an intense workout every other day, and some stretching on the "off" days. It is acceptable to take a down day once per week, but I like the idea of easily incorporating exercise into a daily routine. Even sitting to stretch while watching TV is more movement and better for you then not moving on the couch all day.
Sleeping is a tough issue for a lot of people. A "normal" expected sleep is 6-8 hours per night, and you feel rested when you awake in the morning. It's important to establish a regular pattern of sleep, and it's best to get to bed before midnight every night (10-11 is an ideal). These "ideal" patterns are based on watching hormonal and neurotransmitter levels, as well as stress hormones, and these suggested sleep times and durations maximize the good hormones, and decrease the bad ones. Interrupted sleep, such as waking with tossing and turning, not feeling rested after awakening, and breathing problems with sleeping are all indications that your body is under stress of some kind.
When going into how a person eats we open a huge area for discussion, generally more than I will cover in the initial visit. There is so much that is important- the kinds of foods you eat, when you eat them, how often, how they are prepared, the amounts, the ratios of the macro ingredients, how well you digest them, etc. We can literally spend an hour going over your diet and how you eat. For the intake, I want to know how you consider how well you eat, how often, if you are on any eating plan presently, if you crave any foods, and if you have any food allergies. Cravings are the bodies way of trying to get the nutrients or compounds it needs, but is lacking. With that statement most people would believe that they are low in chocolate, but chocolate cravings can indicate a deficiency in some neurotransmitters, like serotonin, or a lack of minerals such as magnesium, chromium and/or vanadium. The presence of a food allergies tells me that the digestive system is imbalanced. People can have legitimate food allergies, but most develop these allergies as a result of an imbalanced diet, with poor digestive processes. We can often greatly reduce the symptoms of food allergies by cleaning up the diet, and improving the balance of the digestion.
It's not only important to consider your food intake, but your output as well, which bring us to the number of bowel movements a person has per day. Most people consider 1 BM a day a normal frequency, but our systems are set up to eliminate right around when we eat. Food in = food out. Our systems have what is known as a "gastric-colic" reflex, which means that when we stimulate our stomachs with a decent amount of food, this triggers the colon to push waste out. It is generally within an hour of eating, if not sooner. The importance of having more normal bowel movements is that waste products start to create toxins if our systems hold on to them for prolonged periods of time, and create a whole host of symptoms, such as fatigue, allergies, muscle aches and pains, headaches, irritable bowel, lower back pain, rashes, etc. Lots of issues can be attributed to poor BM's.
Lastly, we cover some general areas of lifestyle, such as how much water you drink- here in the desert, 1/2 your body weight (in pounds) should be the minimum you drink in ounces of water. For a general number, 6-8 twelve ounce glasses of water would work. I'm always surprised how little most people drink, and/or count other liquids, such as coffee and beer, toward their water intake. Both of these are diuretics, which means that it increases your overall loss of water through your urine. I know some new clients that drink nothing but coffee and soda through the day. If you have trouble drinking regular water (a taste which I love), then you can flavor it slightly with juice, or lemon. This often helps those who don't like the taste drink more easily.
I'm never fail to be surprised at those that still smoke. No one lives a perfect lifestyle, but I don't understand why, with so much evidence towards its destructive nature, that people use tobacco. What I've found is that it is their only stress release, but only because they haven't developed other, less injurious ways of releasing stress from their bodies. It is one of the toughest habits to quit, however.
With this information, I have a relatively complete picture of what kinds of stress you may be under, and from what dimension it is coming from. I've already started to get a feeling for any issues you may be having, as well as ideas for helping you to improve your lifestyle. It is now time to start the examination, the "hands on" part of our appointment. We'll cover more of that in the next post.
Yours in health,
Dr. Jeff
