On helping ourselves, regardless of what the doctors say

LucySW

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Just got the Terry Wahls book (she is the MD with multiple sclerosis who got a lot better after researching what nutrients support the mitochondria), and feeling emotional after reading this, at the end. The point is, Just because established medical practice takes no account of non-medical ways of reasserting control over our blood sugar, it doesn't mean that we who want to be well and are prepared to work hard for it should be put off improving our lives. We have very little to lose. And established medical practice will probably mainly catch up, in the end.

Here she is:

"You know my story of decline. You know I got out of my wheelchair. Now I’d like to finish that story. When my body began to heal, I didn’t fully understand what was happening at first. In spite of the changes occurring with amazing speed, I still did not consider that I might recover. I had accepted for years that people with secondary progressive MS did not improve. It did not occur to me that the improvements I was experiencing could continue. It was not until nearly six months after my symptoms began to reverse that I first dared to wonder if recovery might be possible.

"I began to dream of biking again. On Mother’s Day weekend in 2008, I was feeling so much better and my mobility had improved to such a great degree that I decided to try riding a bike. I went to the garage, picked up a helmet, and walked to my bike. Five years earlier, when I got the wheelchair, I’d given my bike to my son, Zach. Now I wondered if I was ready to take it back. I adjusted the seat downward, clicked on my helmet, and began rolling the bike out.

"My kids heard me in the garage and came to investigate. Zach grabbed the bike from me and called out for Jackie to stop me. We all looked at one another. I told Jackie that if she thought I wasn’t ready, I wouldn’t attempt it. She responded by getting out her bike helmet and bike and told Zach and Zebby to jog alongside me.

"We all got into position. Jackie gave the all-clear that there was no traffic. I pushed off. The bike wobbled, but I did not fall. My kids cheered as they ran behind me. Tears streamed down my cheeks as Jackie and I pedaled around the block. When I stopped, Zach, Zebby, Jackie, and I all stood together, holding one another and crying. I had a new future ahead. I had proof: I had ridden my bicycle. My steady decline was not the rule, not anymore. I was rewriting my future and who knew what it might become! I still have tears in my eyes when I tell that story. It is and always will be miraculous to me.

"Doctors and scientists don’t often believe in miracles. My getting up from that chair wasn’t really a miracle from a scientific perspective, even though it felt like one to me at the time. My getting out of the chair and onto a bicycle was just the facts related to my body’s ability to regain strength and health. We may not fully understand all the facts … Scientific inquiry is a long and complex process, often taking twenty to thirty years for proven successful treatments to become accepted clinical practice or the standard of care. Why wait for accepted clinical practice to catch up when you want to begin turning your health around today using the commonsense things under your control, like the food you eat and what you choose to do every day? Let the public choose whether to take back their own health by learning how to adopt the many wonderful health behaviors embedded within [her paleo-based diet] ... "​
 
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I always try to do the best I can and today, active again, I walked up the stairs at the hospital and walked back down again. I do a lot of walking anyway and try to get out into the fresh air as much as possible and to eat healthily too, as I love raw vegetables and try to eat them every day.
I have heard that changing a diet does help MS ( a MS sufferer told me this)
 
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tim2000s

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@LucySW I completely agree with her sentiments. I tend to treat myself and use the various indicators that are available via the healthcare profession as markers for whether what I am doing is working, e.g. my comment in my other topic about basal rate adjustment in response to bg management when not fasting.

I am the most easy to observe experiment that I have and if I think about a problem and what I might be able to do to fix it, then I undertake that experiment on myself. I do have to do the hypothesising first and set my course of action based on that, but I feel that I know me as well as anyone else, so why wouldn't I?
 
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CollieBoy

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I feel that with the medical profession it is neccessary to have the dual capacity to say "thank you for enabling me to do THIS" and the capacity to mentally flip them "the bird" and say to yourself "I did THIS, DESPITE YOU you b$%*d!! , depending on the medic concerned.
 
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CheeseJunkie

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I completely agree with the author's sentiment.

Sometimes it feels like some doctors exist in a parallel universe.
A doctor tells me that, first, most people lie (to her and to others) about what they eat and the exercise they take and, second, she knows, "we know", when patients are doing what she told them to do. The numbers don't lie, y'see. Crikey! And I've done probably the opposite of what she would tell me, and yet, and yet, I'm getting the results that she'd supposedly expect if I did what I was told! She knows nothing yet feels she knows everything. So if the numbers don't give the result she seeks, then the patient is lying. I have to just park all this mentally and ignore, or I would go crazy.
 
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mrspuddleduck

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Doctors expertise is based upon the theory, our expertise on the other hand is based on the reality. Therefore it is only logic to conceded that the expert doctor is the one than listens to their patient. Sue x
 
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LucySW

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I always try to do the best I can and today, active again, I walked up the stairs at the hospital and walked back down again. I do a lot of walking anyway and try to get out into the fresh air as much as possible and to eat healthily too, as I love raw vegetables and try to eat them every day.
I have heard that changing a diet does help MS ( a MS sufferer told me this)
RRB, oh dear why are you in hospital? Are you all right? xx LSW
 
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CheeseJunkie

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Doctors expertise is based upon the theory, our expertise on the other hand is based on the reality. Therefore it is only logic to conceded that the expert doctor is the one than listens to their patient. Sue x

I totally agree with your second point.
But on your first point, I'm no longer sure. Most GPs have little post-grad training, while many people in the rest of the population increasingly do have such training. So that's training in assessing research, and in dealing with research statistics. Including in sciences.

What I think is that GPs just have a reasonable general and very basic grounding in a fairly wide (but not comprehensive) range of health issues. AFAIK, they do not get any training in nutrition. Or in interpretation of statistics. (An early boyfriend was studying and graduating from med school at the time, so I got some insight into what they did and didn't study.)

With the GP I've just encountered: well English is not her first language, clearly; she's from somewhere in eastern Europe. I have no idea of details of training there (but I know quite a lot about training in southern Europe, where until just a few years ago there was no non-theoretical training prior to qualification.) But she seemed to be grasping at straws (pretty graphs, "lying patients") and very confused and defensive. And I'm the one with the medical condition! But at least I get to see a doctor now - in previous practice that was (almost) impossible... (They would just send everyone to A&E if 'dying' and ignore the rest.)
 

donnellysdogs

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My hospital consultant and nurses are superb but my GPs are a waste of time. Had it pointed out to me by last GP that from 9500 patients I'm only one on a pump... So??? I still deserve to have hassle free blood tests etc that I never get ftom the Practice. As for diets and for eating there isn't one single dosctor from 5 or the nurses that will even listen to how I maintain my slim physique or good bloods.
They are soleley interested in what they were told at medical school and the diabetic doctor was just told he was in charge of diabetics. He has no additional knowledge or understanding and doesn't want to either.

So its a case of doing our own research and looking after our health. No understanding or wanting to educate themselves beyond their GP medical learning...
 
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RRB, oh dear why are you in hospital? Are you all right? xx LSW

Thank you for asking, Lucy, but nothing bad, just my hand therapy clinic and I was discharged that day.:) I just try to keep fit and active as much as possible :) x
 
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