The Wellness Bitch

Epidemic is one of those scary medical words. Make me think of smallpox or avian flu or pus-filled postules.

But, really an epidemic is an illness (or anything really) that is widely prevalent or spreading rapidly.

I first heard the term epidemic used in conjunction with childhood chronic illness when a friend recommended Dr. Kenneth Bock’s book, “Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma & Allergies.” His explanation of why and how these illnesses are becoming epidemic really made sense. And turned me into a bitch on a mission.

I want people to start friggin’ listening to parents who know that something is wrong with their kid.

And I want the people in charge to start taking these epidemics seriously the way they would a mass influenza outbreak. I’m not looking for masks and yellow jackets, per say. But a pamphlet or a PSA would be nice. Or how about a statement from the AMA or the AAP?

Recently, I started reading a new book on the subject: “A Compromised Generation: The Epidemic of Chronic Illness in America’s Children” by Beth Lambert. I’m still only in the introduction, but already the author has shared a really, relevant, and aptly stated WAKE UP CALL:

All children exhibit occasional temper tantrums, hoarding of toys, constipation, and hyperactivity… However, it is not normal when children exhibit any of these symptoms chronically or with particular intensity and severity…

Below is a partial list of the 50 or so symptoms Beth Lambert includes in her book that, if occuring with regularity, should serve as WAKE UP CALLS for parents and practitioners.  So many people I know (including the best and brightest doctors) tell me that the symptoms below are not a big deal. And, as the author says, “because these are normal child behaviors they are often dismissed.” Personally, I have been dismissed by my child’s doctor for colic, IBS, gas, runny stools, heartburn, and eczema.

Which of these symptoms has your child’s doctor pooh-poohed?

• Red cheeks after eating
• Chronic runny nose or cough
• Red or hot ears after eating
• Chronic or recurrent ear infections
• Chronic strep or sinus infections
• Frequent diaper rashes in babies
• Cavities or excessive tartar, or bad breath despite proper dental hygiene
• Dark circles or bags under eyes
• Mood swings
• Tummy aches
• Distended pot belly
• Constipation
• Excessive gas or flatulence
• White coating on the tongue
• Frequent loose stools
• Recurrent urinary tract infections or yeast infections
• Excessive hyperactivity
• Sensory seeking behavior” always looking to crash into people, objects

WAKE UP. All are potential symptoms of a bigger deal. Just because they have become so prevalent, doesn’t mean they are normal.

While we’re on the subject of doctors.

Do you know the question I get asked the most (by far) as founder of Mindful Living NJ?

“Do you know a holistic-minded…?”

MD. Dermatologist. Dentist. OB. Pediatrician.

Unfortunately, the answers are few. And the ones I can recommend are not covered by insurance, which is always the follow up to question #1, or have closed their doors to new patients.

I have plenty of recommendations for qualified and compassionate chiropractors, naturopaths, acupuncturists, herbalists, energy healers, bodyworkers, midwives, psychotherapists even,…all people who offer incredible healing services and much relief in the areas of chronic emotional and physical pain. Of course, these practitioners also help their clients in preventing the colds, viruses, and chronic illnesses that usually bring them to the conventional doctor’s office in the first place. So, commiting to the added, out-of-pocket expense of seeing out-of-network, non-conventional holistic-minded practitioners will surely save you money and time in the long run.

But, that’s not the topic at hand today.

The topic is: “Why aren’t doctors heeding the call?”

Why isn’t there enough supply for our demand?

Why aren’t more MDs looking into follow up education in the area of integrative medicine? Or even self-teaching, as I know a bunch of MDs are, as more and more of their patients are asking about alternative and complementary therapies?

I’ve heard from physicians who have taken this route that it’s not an easy one to navigate. Those who began accepting insurance no longer can because insurance companies don’t appreciate the amount of time they are spending with each individual patient.

To be fair, I don’t know the ins and outs of a physician’s office or business management.

But I do know that people want a product and a service that is mostly unavailable. And, what I’d like to do is extend both an invitation and a less than gentle WAKE UP CALL to doctors.

There is an untapped market for a mainstream audience who just wants a little more attention. They just want to be listened to and honored. They just want you know to a little more about alternative therapies or, at the very least, admit that you don’t know about them and suggest they see someone who does.

They want someone who doesn’t subscribe to prescribe. Someone who makes the time for a lengthy new patient intake and subsequently pays attention to family history. Someone who knows that sometimes science has been proven wrong and anecdotal evidence has been proven right.

Someone who will take a leap of faith. Someone who sees me as a whole person. Not a manilla folder filled with papers and scribbles.

I invite you to be that doctor.

Sometimes it’s ok to stick what the doctor orders up your ass.

Meaning: Take the little paper from the prescription pad, or the free sample, and shove it where the sun don’t shine.

A less violent, and more eco-friendly version of this tactic would be to respectfully decline the prescription before she hands it to you. Or to give the free sample back to the nurse.

I’m not suggesting you be careless, ignorant, or defiant. I am suggesting, however, that you don’t HAVE to do exactly what your doctor orders every single time he proclaims a medicinal answer to your problem.

Instead, I hereby grant you permission to visit the doctor to have something checked out, and only checked out, not “fixed.”

I hereby grant you permission to see the doctor so you can have your insurance pay for routine bloodwork that you then turnaround and give to your acupuncturist.

I hereby grant you permission to take your child to the doctor to make sure it’s not a bacterial infection, and then say “no thank you” when you are offered antibiotics for what may or may not be viral (and won’t be cured by the penicillin anyhow, but will surely cause a yeast infection.)

I hereby grant you permission to take up more of your doctor’s time than he has allotted.

I hereby grant you permission to ask him to look up the contraindications of a medicine he’s planning on prescribing you.

I hereby grant you permission to say “yes,” “no,” and “maybe” even if it makes you come off as insolent.

I hereby grant you permission to have second thoughts about a test or a medication you are unsure about.

I hereby grant you permission to stand up for yourself or for your loved one in the face of being told you are wrong.

(You might be. Or you might be right.)

I’ve had three C-sections. And while I’m grateful to say I welcomed three healthy children into this world, I’m less than thrilled with the manner in which they arrived.

None of my C-sections were by choice. Sure, I signed my name to a consent form each time. No one literally forced my hand. But they might as well have.

With the first, I was told by my physician that inducing me at 41 weeks would lessen my likelihood of a C-section. I didn’t have enough information at the time to know that was bullshit.

With my second, I searched high and low for a midwife backed by an OB who would “allow” me not just a trial of labor, but the chance to go into labor on my own. My mother had three children, all post-term (and all by normal vaginal birth). I knew my kids needed more time to bake. Do you know how hard it was not only to find a licensed practitioner, let alone someone who would “let” me go to 42 weeks without forcing me into a repeat C-section? Practically impossible.

By the hair of my chinny chin chin, I went into labor on my own at 41 weeks 6 days. (A repeat C-section was scheduled for me the next day.) I labored for 15 hours, but when the baby stopped dropping, I was given a window of two hours to show any sign of progression. When there wasn’t within that window, I was sent to the operating table. He wasn’t in distress; neither was I. It didn’t matter. Rules were rules.

As I laid on the table awaiting the surgery, the OB on call said to the intern before he cut me, “She’s a failed VBAC.”

When I got pregnant with baby #3, there were even less options. The only way I could even contemplate having a trial of labor after two Cesareans was to find an unlicensed homebirth midwife. No hospital in NJ would take me unless I scheduled a Cesarean. And not even the most VBAC-friendly OB or midwife in the state would entertain the thought of allowing me a trial of labor as a “VBA2C.” Repeat C-section it was.

Now, new guidelines supposedly seek to reduce the C-section rate in this country, which have risen to obscene rates. I appreciate with pleasant surprise the honesty displayed by writer Denise Grady in this recent article from The New York Times, when she writes that decisions to insist upon scheduled repeat C-sections are due largely to fear of lawsuit and liability. You won’t hear those words coming out of a doctor’s mouth, though.

What will you usually hear instead?

“Risk’s too great.”

“Your pelvis is too small.”

“You make babies a little too big for your frame.”

“The hospital is not VBAC-friendly.”

And it’s not just doctors who practice near me. Almost every single one of my female friends who had a C-section with her first (and it’s a frightfully high number), chose a repeat C-section for her subsequent pregnancies. And most did so out of fear. (A handful did so out of convenience, but that’s a bitch of a different color.)

It’s not easy too chose VBAC. Even the most natural-minded woman needs to be very brave and very sure of herself to consider VBAC when her doctor tells her she risks killing her baby by doing so.

It’s once again the medical industry pressuring patients to make fear-based decisions. Sharing some of the facts, but withholding those that don’t support their case. (My doctor never told me about the increased maternal death rate for a woman giving birth by C-section. I had to learn that fun fact on my own.) And it’s once again, individuals placing blind faith in what their doctors say.

A holistic approach to childbirth? It’s not natural vs. epidural. Nor VBAC vs. C-section. Nor hospital vs. homebirth.

It’s taking the time to know each woman and each pregnancy. It’s providing all the facts, not just some. It’s allowing women the time and opportunity to labor on her own, while also supporting her in the case of a true, medical emergency.

Educated, informed choice is not too much to ask for.

TIPS: International Cesarean Awarness Network. Choices in Childbirth. BOLD.

Welcome guest blogger, Cat Delett, who visits us from Consume This First, a blog dedicated to sharing food intelligence with families who eat.

An Open Letter to Jamie Oliver
Re: McDonald’s and Hospitals

Dear Jamie Oliver,

When you are finished fixing school lunches, can you and your Revolution please get McDonald’s out of hospitals?

Recently, we spent the evening in the emergency room with our three-year-old. By 8:30 pm we knew we weren’t leaving anytime soon so my husband took our six-year-old to the cafeteria to get some dinner.

Half an hour later they were back with a McDonald’s bag. The cafeteria was closed, but the McDonald’s was open. In the hospital. Where people are trying to get well.

We ate it. We didn’t have much choice at that point, but it seems crazy to me that an institution dedicated to the idea “do no harm” would be giving people easy access to such unhealthy food and, by allowing it in the hospital at all, silently implying it’s okay to eat.

It’s not just nighttime ER visitors who are impacted. I look around at the many overweight hospital staff, especially the ones who work at night when the cafeteria is closed, and I think – rather, I know – easy access to McDonald’s in the hospital is a contributing factor. And then there are the families of patients needing long-term care. I’m sure the “comfort” of McDonald’s food is psychologically welcome, especially for kids – a Happy Meal to take their little minds off of sad issues. But at what price?

You of all people know, Mr. Oliver, that fast food is directly connected to heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. It may cut down on travel time to get the food that’s making you sick right in the hospital and it may be good for hospital revenues, but it’s killing people.

Sure, people need to take responsibility for what they eat, but such unhealthy, fried, trans fat-filled, sugar-laden food and drink doesn’t belong in a place dedicated to healing and health. People should have to leave the hospital if they want it.

Mr. Oliver, I implore you: Use your Food Revolution influence to bring some sense back into the health industry. A hospital is no place for a McDonald’s. We need to get toxic fast food out of places that should be teaching us about nutrition and healthy lifestyle

I know a lot of people who deal with some form of mental illness. No one I know is in the crazy house, per say, but I know a bunch of people with diagnosed or undiagnosed depression or obsessive compulsive disorder or anxiety. It’s gotten to the point where “mild depression” should be listed as a synonym for “creative” in the thesaurus.

I’m not trying to make light of what can often be a serious illness and life altering condition. I can speak from experience as someone who has walked out of a shrink’s office with a prescription for an SSRI and an anti-anxiety med.

On the other hand, I’ve gotten fairly fed up with the careless drug dealing that’s going on and lack of responsibility, as I see it, on the part of practitioners who are not holding their patients accountable for making lifestyle changes that may make as much of a difference as meds (if not more) on emotional wellness.

The most obvious (and one that is backed strongly by research) is exercise. IMHO, practitioners should write a script cocktail for an anti-depressant + three days a week of aerobic exercise. AND, hold their patients accountable for the exercise or else no refills.

Less obvious, but just as significant, are dietary changes. For example, if you suffer from anxiety and you’re popping three atavans a day, and you’re still drinking your double skim capp every morning, WAKE UP. You are working against yourself.

Or if you suffer from depression and you eat a diet heavy with refined sugar and processed foods, you are only contributing to your despair. I am not making this up.

It drives me batty that people with mild depression do not first casually research the food-mood connection, nor do they consider how our 9 - 5 sedentary schedules impact our emotional and mental state. Obviously, each person needs to be responsible and accountable for their own health and well-being. (For the record, I’m not talking about suicidal individuals or schizos or psychotics or bi-polar).

However,

Psychiatrists who basically serve as drug dealers: What do you have to say for yourself?

Psychotherapists who do not hold your clients accountable for their diet and exercise: What do you have to say for yourself?

Readers who are medicated, but keep eating sugary foods with no nutritional value and don’t exercise: What say you?

I’d like to know. Because the state of affairs as it pertains to mental health in this country just makes me sad.