HEADACHES

I have great news. I just finished writing a book about what it takes to achieve optimal health and how to demand optimal healthcare. The book entitled WHY, The Question that Could Save Your Life, is now available on Amazon. In it I spend some time describing two factors that interfere with the above goals of optimal health/healthcare, the legal demand that doctors must follow the “Standard of Care,” and the institutional demand that a doctor is expected to use “Evidence Based” procedures in his/her practice. If these rules were used universally we would still be living in caves and could never consider the everyday conveniences that we enjoy.

Headaches are a significant portion of what I help to resolve at my TMJ and myofacial pain practice. One of the problems with the current accepted methods of treatment is the overdependence on drugs, not only to treat the symptoms, but as a diagnostic tool.

In a course on headache diagnosis that I recently completed, the protocols for interviewing the patient were quite thorough with over 40 questions to ask the patient regarding everything from family history to social history, associated symptoms, etc. A key factor that was left out was a description of the patient’s eating and exercise habits

The proposed blood tests were extensive, but left out the C-Reactive protein test, a test that detects the existence of systemic inflammation. The test for low Vitamin D was left out as well. There were also no suggestions for saliva or urine tests for hormone imbalance and/or heavy metals.

One of the chief concerns I wrote about in my book is that giving a medication to take away a symptom can actually result in allowing the underlying cause of that symptom to continue, thus possibly resulting in a potentially easily cured disease to become incurable or to cause irreparable damage.

What is vitally important is that chronic inflammation must not be allowed to persist. When the body is crying out for attention using a symptom such as a headache, a rash, excessive fatigue, etc., never say ‘shut up’ and ‘take this’. Instead, listen to your body’s plea and look for why it is crying out. Once the disease is diagnosed, for the ultimate treatment, a lot more WHY’s must be answered if the disease is to be permanently eliminated and the damage to be repaired. Too often, once the symptoms are gone, the patient then thinks they are “home free.” However, the real cure finds the root of the cause: what was wrong in the first place that made this malady occur.

When I hear a patient say, “my arthritis” or “my headaches,” it makes me wonder if the patient has accepted these ailments as an unchangeable part of their life. I myself used to have arthritis and was given several drugs like Celebrex to mask it. It wasn’t until I fought back by correcting my diet and adopting a regular exercise program that I eliminated this form of inflammation completely.

Many rheumatologists are taught in their training that arthritis is incurable and diet has little to do with it. My patients relate this belief to me regularly. The pharmaceutical industry wants everyone to think this way. Take some time to look up the side effects of many of their wonderful drugs for arthritis. It’s not a pretty picture.

I am aware that this article is on headaches, not arthritis, but in my practice many patients are suffering from both and the same holistic approach is necessary to end these problems. You must get to the very root of the cause. Most of the time this requires changes in lifestyles, habits and diet along with nutritional, and sometimes hormonal, supplementation to make up for the damage.