{"id":4172,"date":"2015-05-27T15:44:01","date_gmt":"2015-05-27T15:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.nielskunze.com\/?p=4172"},"modified":"2015-05-27T15:48:03","modified_gmt":"2015-05-27T15:48:03","slug":"the-paradigmatic-shortfalls-of-modern-medicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.nielskunze.com\/?p=4172","title":{"rendered":"The Paradigmatic Shortfalls of Modern Medicine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whatever I may lament in the words which follow, it is my own lament. There is no medical advice intended or implied.<\/p>\n

The first thing that needs to be stipulated is that acute trauma emergency care in our modern mainstream hospitals is generally topnotch. The people who put back together all variety of accident victims are doing excellent work. I am sincerely grateful for their presence and expertise.<\/p>\n

As for the rest of the modern mainstream medical establishment, it\u2019s not for me.<\/p>\n

About twenty years ago I noticed something. People, relatively young people, people I knew… were getting cancer and dying, some of them in their early fifties. Of course there was nothing new there, just the fact that I suddenly noticed it, once it actually impinged on the periphery of my own life. And another horrifying fact became immediately clear too: the treatment was often worse than the disease. The answer to the relentless scourge of cancer was immediately obvious to me; prevention was the only reasonable answer. It was this conclusion which inevitably led me away from conventional medicine… and into everything else. Health became an adventurous exploration; I honestly wanted to know exactly what was best for me.<\/p>\n

I am responsible for my own health; that is the basic foundation of my health. It makes no sense to take responsibility for one\u2019s own health only when health has already been compromised; by then, it\u2019s largely too late… The opportunity for prevention has obviously already passed.<\/p>\n

If I wish to be effective in my preventative strategies, I have to engage in a dialogue with my body, its innate and superb intelligence. I trust my immune system to function impeccably if it\u2019s consistently provided all that it needs. In order to know what those needs are, I\u2019ve honed my intuition through relentless practice and a great deal of experimentation and trial-and-error. But it\u2019s really very simple: when symptoms arise– especially those mysterious ones with no discernible physical cause– I understand that some aspect of my lifestyle needs adjustment. I\u2019ve learned over time that it\u2019s best to address symptoms as soon as they\u2019re detected, rather than waiting for them to get more serious before making lifestyle adjustments– ranging from nutritional tinkering to new meditation protocols.<\/p>\n

Modern doctoring, at best, ignores the conversation I may be having with my body\u2019s innate intelligence, and at the worst, denies that such a conversation is even possible. The diagnose-and-drug-\u2019em paradigm can only rudely interrupt that conversation and further disrupt and corrupt the very language employed. Unpredictable side-effects are like gibberish infecting the internal dialogue.<\/p>\n

As an adult (I\u2019m nearly 49), I have never had a prescription… for anything. As a child, I once had an 8-day course of penicillin for an ear infection and a prescription skin cream for severe dryness, at the end of my 8 years of competitive swimming. That\u2019s my medical history as far as modern medical history is concerned.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh Niels, you must have very good genes then.\u201d Be that as it may, it is of very limited relevance. Decades ago, geneticists led the public to believe that genetics were a powerful determiner for physical expression, but that\u2019s not quite how it turned out. The newer science of epigenetics has since taught us that only 5% of our physical expression is pre-determined; the other 95% is a result of our responses to our environmental conditions. Our choices in everyday life are what determine which specific proteins the genes are coded to produce, selecting from among as many as 20,000 coded proteins for a single gene. There is such a variety of expression! And that expression relies directly on the choices we make for dealing (or not) with every stressor in our environment, inside and out.<\/p>\n

From my vantage, drugs, surgery and radiation look a lot like a box of hammers. In simply trying to respect my body, and taking full responsibility for my own wellbeing, I have come to appreciate my health and clarity in a way that is immeasurably beyond merely being disease-free. In this internal conversation, I have come alive. My body tells me everyday of new ways to become more alive; they\u2019re subtle, but cumulative. I have to invest my belief into something; I believe in the relationship between myself and my body\u2019s innate intelligence above anything a pharmaceutically-based paradigm can offer.<\/p>\n

With the products for sale in the modern medical marketplace, I am forced to ask repeatedly \u201cBut is that really the best we can do?\u201d<\/p>\n

How much effort and funding– honestly– really goes into research and education for preventative medicine? And then compare that to the money propping up drugs as the answer.<\/p>\n

My health relates very little to the convenience of market concerns.<\/p>\n

I believe in root causes, and those causes can be physical\/chemical, emotional, spiritual or other, or any combination of those. Pharmaceutical use is based primarily upon statistics, and typically ignores or circumvents root causes. \u201cHere, let\u2019s try you out on this,\u201d says the doctor, scribbling in his prescription pad. \u201cWe\u2019ve had the most success with this brand in treating your condition, but if it doesn\u2019t work for you, or the side-effects are intolerable, there\u2019s still plenty of other brands we can try.\u201d From a health perspective, I find that particular conversation rather absurd.<\/p>\n

I so much prefer being proactive with my health. Some say I\u2019m just lucky, but honestly, I\u2019ve never understood the science of luck; please enlighten me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Author Narration with musical accompaniment: Return to Egypt by James Asher) Whatever I may lament in the words which follow, it is my own lament. There is no medical advice intended or implied. The first thing that needs to be (…)<\/p>\n

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