How You Can Fix The Problem!

Asking Your Doctor About Supplements…

All of us have heard it said, “Let your doctor know about any supplements you may be taking.” In general, this is not a bad idea and I endorse doing so only because your doctor should know about everything you are taking which could impact your health. The problem is that this is one of those suggestions that sounds good but is actually fairly worthless. This would be like someone telling you to let me know about the plants you plan to put in your garden with the underlying theme of having me give you my opinion as to whether they are good or bad. The fact is that I know VERY LITTLE about gardens. There is little doubt that I have a “brown thumb” when it comes to plants.

So, why in the world would you ask me my opinion about plants when any suggestions I may give will be based on a total lack of knowledge? That would make no sense at all. The same is true when it comes to letting your doctor know about the supplements you are taking. Most doctors will freely admit that they know little about supplements. Why, then, do we continue to bring our supplements to them to get their approval? I believe that we do this because of the deep seeded trust we have in our doctors that has been imprinted upon us since we were children. This trust is so deep that we will even accept their opinions on subjects about which they know nothing or very little.

One of the main reasons we do this is because of the false notion that our doctors know something about everything that is related to our health. The interesting thing is that most people I talk to quickly tell me that they most certainly do not believe that their doctors know everything. Yet, when the time comes to seek their doctor’s help with a health problem they will discuss any topic without even asking about the doctor’s experience with that subject. This includes natural supplements. The fact that almost no one asks their doctor whether they have a meaningful knowledge about natural supplementation speaks to this fact.

We have to get over the inaccurate thought that our doctors know everything and start taking charge of our own health care. This means that you should go to your doctor with the attitude of asking numerous questions. When it comes to getting their opinion about supplements, does it not make sense to first determine their level of knowledge about the subject? I suggest that instead of just asking what they think about taking any supplement that you first ask your doctor this question: “How much have you studied natural supplements and do you know a lot about their use?” If your doctor’s response is that they do study supplementation and that they have a good understanding of their use, then ask them specifically about the supplements you want to take. If it is obvious from their answer that they have a limited knowledge about this subject, what good will it do to ask them their opinion?

One thing I can all but guarantee is that their response will not be overly positive. Even when they say it is alright to take something, you will almost never get a resoundingly positive endorsement of taking that supplement. The response is usually along the realm of it won’t hurt you to take it. That is hardly an endorsement and it raises the question as to why doctors, in general, are so negative towards the use of supplements? I think that this is an important question for you to get answered because when you understand why doctors are so negative it allows you to put their response in its proper place. In other words, you can make a better decision as to how much weight you will give their opinion when it comes to your taking of supplements.

Why So Negative?

It is so interesting to me that many in the medical field only need innuendo or only the slightest negative report about something natural to influence patients against the use of that substance. In fact, they treat many natural substances as if they were poisons. It doesn’t even matter if there are little to no facts to support their position. They gleefully focus on the negative when its concerns anything natural. I hear the word “dangerous” used with natural supplements all of the time. Now be dead honest…do they do the same when it comes to the use of pharmaceutical drugs?

There are proven dangerous side-effects for ALL drugs. Just take a look at the side-effect panel for every drug! The FDA (Federal Drug Administration) reports that Tylenol® type products cause close to 100 deaths and 12,000 emergency room visits each year! Have you ever heard a doctor tell you to stay away from any drug because it could cause a deadly side-effect? If so, what would your doctor do at your next appointment? I guess they would have to pull out a hand puppet to keep you entertained because they most certainly could not prescribe you anything if they were to hold prescriptions to the same standard to which they hold natural supplements.

You may have caught that I stated that the medical community “gleefully” focuses on the negative when it comes to anything natural. I want to give you my opinion as to why I think this is the attitude that has permeated medicine. Take it for what you want, but I think that I am dead on in my analysis!

The reason why doctors are so quick to malign anything natural is because they really do not believe that natural supplements work. I think that there are a number of reasons why this bias has overtaken medicine. First, most doctors received no training of significance in supplementation in their formal medical education. This lack of foundational knowledge leads to a natural skepticism (pun intended).

Secondly, doctors get the vast majority of their professional information from the pharmaceutical industry. This is an industry that has a vested interest in making anything natural look bad. The naked truth is that every time someone decides to take something natural instead of a prescription, the pharmaceutical industry loses the almighty buck. Doctors vehemently argue that they have the ability to scrutinize the information provided to them by the pharmaceutical companies and are thus not influenced or biased by this industry at any significant level. Yah, right! Not only do I not buy this, but I think that it is very dangerous when any group loses the ability to clearly identify what influences their decisions. The most effective way to influence someone is to make them think they are in control when they really are not. Obviously, the pharmaceutical industry is the master at creating this illusion for the medical community.

Next, let’s be critical of the supplement industry. The supplement industry is riddled with scam artist and is not well regulated. How many times does it take to hear someone claim that almost any illness can be cured by drinking some nasty-tasting, multi-level marketing juice before you determine that you cannot put any faith into the supplement industry as a whole? The medical community has arrived at the conclusion that natural supplements are more hype than substance. Can you blame them? Because they know that much of the information touted by companies selling products is nefarious, the medical community is more than happy to throw the good out with the bad.

Another important factor is that treating patients with the natural approach requires an investment in time from the doctor. How much time does your doctor spend with you asking probing questions about the factors in your life that affect your health like diet, exercise, level of stress, etc.? How much time does your doctor spend with you, period? Even with spending very little time with their patients doctors routinely run way behind in their schedules. It is not uncommon for a patient to wait 20, 30, or even 45 minutes past their scheduled time to see the doctor. The truth is that your doctor cannot financially afford to practice natural medicine the way traditional medicine is practiced today. Let me share some comments I have personally heard come right out of the mouths of practicing medical doctors. These examples represent the typical mindset of doctors, not the extreme.

One doctor told me that she was an A.C.A.M. (American College for Advanced Medicine) medical doctor. A.C.A.M. is an organization whose mission is to teach medical doctors about nutritional medicine. So, this was a doctor who pursued additional training in natural medicine. When I inquired as to why she was not using natural supplementation in her practice she said, “A.C.A.M. type patients take up too much time. I realized that I could see 3-4 regular patients in the time I saw 1 A.C.A.M. type patient.” The blunt translation of this is that she would lose money seeing these types of patients.

Another doctor who was not overly friendly towards the natural approach told me (and another doctor in our clinic) that he would rather not prescribe drugs for any of his patients. However, he only had 15 minutes scheduled with each patient and he had to complete his notes and orders in that time. He then said something that I thought was very honest, yet shocking. He said that he did not have the “time to counsel patients on other courses of treatment!” When you dissect his statements you come to the realization that he just admitted that prescribing drugs to his patients was not the best option, but that it was his only option due to time restraints. I’ll be honest…I did not have the guts to ask him whether he became a doctor in order to simply peddle drugs or in order to help his patients improve their health. Striping his statements down to their real meaning you find that he simply meant that he was unwilling to take the time needed to be a good doctor! What would be the reason why any doctor would choose to do what was best for them and not their patient? Right, $$.

The final reason why I think the medical community so gleefully embraces anything negative about natural supplements is because they feel threatened. Imagine if a doctor came to the conclusion that the natural approach was actually superior to the pharmaceutical approach in many cases. What would they do with this reality? They would have to change EVERYTHING! They would have to spend time that they do not have learning about natural approaches. Since the pharmaceutical industry would not hand them the information they would have to seek out educational sources on their own time. They would have to spend an extended amount of time with each patient meaning that they would see fewer patients each day. This would translate into a much lower income. Do you see their dilemma? They would have to make what is called a complete paradigm shift.

Would it not simply be easier to subconsciously embrace anything negative about natural supplements and ignore the positives in order to justify continuing on in a system that most doctors will freely admit is broken? It is much easier to pretend that the Emperor is wearing clothes (the medical system is fine) than to suffer the consequences of pointing out that he is ugly and naked (the system is broken)! Remember that Hans Christian Andersen childhood story? The story involves a situation wherein the overwhelming majority of observers willingly share in a collective ignorance of an obvious fact (the Emperor was naked/the Medical System is broken), despite individually knowing its absurdity.

How Do We Fix The Broken System?

Now, I am admittedly throwing some big stones at the medical community’s glass house. I hope that you can see that my goal in pointing out the hypocrisy of how medicine treats anything natural is not meant to be mean-spirited. No, my goal is to shake up the status quo in order to stimulate change. I do not want you to walk away after reading this article feeling that I think I am better than my medical doctor colleagues. I most certainly think that I, too, would have been caught up in the same broken system had I gone to traditional medical school. Being honest with myself, I sincerely doubt that I would have the guts to disrupt my personal and professional life to buck a system that encouraged me to continue on without any consequences for doing so. In other words, there would be no repercussions to keeping the status quo but there would be serious repercussions if I decided to completely change how I practiced medicine. I really have to doubt whether I would voluntarily end my comfortable way of life when all of the incentives were in place to keep on keeping on.

Thus, I really do feel sorry for those caught in the net that is the way medicine practices today. My heart genuinely goes out to medical practitioners. I think, however, that these statements fall on deaf ears unless I provide for a viable solution to this problem facing medicine. Throwing the stones is the easy part. Helping pick up the pieces of glass and rebuilding is a lot harder.

Dr. Z’s Five Simple Questions To Ask At Every Doctors Visit

Patients have to start viewing their doctors like a fairly inaccurate health care Map Quest®. You input information and the doctor suggests a route for you to take to get where you want to go. The major difference is that the roads in the health care world constantly change. New roads are build every day and other are closed. If your doctor does not keep up with the changes, not only will they not be able to suggest the best route to take, but it may actually be the wrong one! In this analogy the pharmaceutical companies would own all of the toll roads and, of course, would only tout the benefits of using those roads to the doctors. Many times you will not realize that you have been told to go down the wrong road until you have traveled it for some time and realize that you are still not at your destination.

At the beginning of this article I stated that you have to stop thinking of your doctors as infallible and all knowing. The point I am trying to make is that you cannot just blindly accept what your doctor tells you. You should question your doctors as to why SPECIFICALLY they think you should follow any course of treatment. If you are one of those people who are afraid to ask too many questions because your doctor may get frustrated with you, GET OVER IT NOW! This is not about your doctor it is about YOUR health. Take charge! You are paying A LOT of money to visit a doctor. Get your money’s worth.

But, how do you take charge when you do not even know what questions to ask? It is always tough to come up with questions at the time of your visit. I have taken care of this problem for you. I have devised a group of questions that you can use at any encounter with your doctor. These questions have been formulated to force your doctor to THINK at a deeper level about your condition and to help you identify the appropriateness of the treatment your doctor is suggesting.

Ask these Five Simple Questions at every single doctor visit.

Let me give you examples to help illustrate how a visit may play out. You go to the doctor with heartburn. After asking you very few questions your doctor prescribes a proton pump inhibitor like Nexium®. Instead of simply saying, “O.K., I’ll take that.”… I am challenging you to ask the Five Simple Questions questions.

Question 1: Doctor what is the specific cause of my heartburn?

Answer: Your stomach is producing too much acid.

Question 2: What caused my stomach to produce too much acid?

Answer: You might get: “I don’t know” but most times it will be “The cause was probably stress” or “You are eating the wrong foods.”

Question 3: How does your suggested treatment address the true cause of my problem? (If it was stress or improper diet, how does blocking stomach acid fix these problems? Or, if they don’t know what is causing your stomach to produce too much acid, are you really treating the true cause?)

Answer: The treatment would not treat the stress or improper diet, only the low acid.

Question 4: Are there any other options for treating the true cause of my symptoms. (If they cannot give you any solid recommendations you will have to start looking elsewhere.)

Answer: This answer would vary. (You are forcing them to think deeper about your problem and not letting them just get rid of you with a prescription.)

Question 5: How long will I have to stay on this treatment?

Answer: This answer will depend upon the suggested treatment.

Here is another example: You go to the doctor because you think you are depressed. The doctor prescribes you a popular antidepressant. You ask:

Question 1: Doctor, what is the specific cause of my depression?

Answer: You are low in serotonin which is your mood elevating neurotransmitter.

Question 2: What caused my serotonin to become low?

Answer: I really don’t know or may be it was stress. (You will see that stress will rightfully get blamed for a lot.)

Question 3: How does your suggested treatment address the true cause of my depression?

Answer: My treatment would not address the true cause. (Make sure you pull out your B.S. detector just in case you need it at this point!)

Question 4: Are there any other options for treating the true cause?

Answer: The answer will vary. (From this answer you will know if you will have to search for other avenues on your own.)

Question 5: How long will I have to stay on this treatment?

Answer: Depends upon the treatment

One more example: You go to the doctor because you woke up with significant low back pain. You ask:

Question 1: Doctor, what is the specific cause of my low back pain?

Answer: You pulled a muscle.

Question 2: What caused my pulled muscle?

Answer: Maybe you slept wrong or it was something you did the day before. (How can you pull a muscle in bed? [while sleeping] or if it was a day earlier, how do you pull a muscle without any knowledge of doing so? If the answer doesn’t make sense ask more questions.)

Question 3: How does your suggested treatment address the true cause of my muscle pull?

Answer: My treatment would address only the pulled muscle not the cause. (Shouldn’t you find out the true cause so it won’t happen again?)

Question 4: Are there any other options for treating the true cause?

Answer: The answer will vary. (From this answer you will know if you will have to search for other avenues on your own.)

Question 5: How long will I have to stay on this treatment?

Answer: Depends upon the treatment

This set of questions will work for just about any condition. What you are doing is training your doctor to know that you will make them think about your care beyond just trying to figure out what drug to give you. You will be able to find out in a non-threatening way whether your doctor is giving you the brush-off. If so you know that you will have to pursue other avenues to find a viable treatment for your condition. Do not be afraid to ask any questions that may come to your mind.

I am amazed at how many of my patients do not want to aggravate their doctors with too many questions. As I said earlier in this article: GET OVER IT! This is about YOU not them! If your doctor begins to become agitated simply ask him/her this very easy question:

“Doctor, are my questions bothering you?”

This will remind them very fast that you are not there for them, but they are there for you! If they do not accommodate you, FIRE THEM!

I was once told by one of my patients that they didn’t ask questions because they did not know what to ask. Now you know what questions to start asking. The first part of my solution is that you have to start taking control of your own health by making sure that your doctor is thinking beyond what drug they want to give you so they can quickly move on to the next patient. If all of their patients start to do this, they will be forced to start seeing fewer patients in order to give them the care they demand.

What Medical Doctors Will Have To Do?

Part of the solution that will be required of Medical Doctors will be stimulated by your increase in questions. The second part of my solution requires doctors to spend the time needed to learn about treatment options beyond giving you a prescription drug or referring you out to a specialist. As a larger part of their patient base keeps asking questions about alternative treatments, doctors will be FORCED to learn about these options or they will face losing both credibility and patient visits. Additionally, as your doctors realize that alternative therapies make sense and are very effective in some cases, they will begin to soften their bias against using these types of treatments.

Final Thoughts…

Now, I am not a simpleton. I know that this will take time and will be a slow process that may even take decades to accomplish. But, do we not have to start somewhere? The only thing that I know for sure is that this change will not take place on by itself. The reason is that the forces controlling medicine care NOTHING about your health. The forces controlling medicine care about the bottom line. We have seen what this has gotten us. We have a broken system that is incapable of fixing itself. The only chance we have is by demanding more out of the system in numbers. It starts with YOU! Start demanding more at your very next visit.

Please feel free to email me with your experiences. I will use your experiences as examples in future writings.