Why Conventional Approaches May Not Be Working
It’s frustrating when your life seems to revolve around chronic pain or illness —
especially when you are sensitive or have feelings of anxiety or depression.
Is this the way it’s going to be forever?
What is your story?
Whether you are experiencing the debilitating pain of an accident, a chronic or life-challenging illness, or the emotional or spiritual pain of feeling stuck, anxious or depressed; pain is something that shakes you and your life up.
Perhaps there was some point where you health suddenly changed, and you have never quite seemed the same since – or you have strange and difficult to describe symptoms that baffle your physicians. It’s frustrating and depressing when all of a sudden you can’t do the things that you took for granted – and even worse is the moment you begin to wonder, “So that’s it? Is pain going to be the center of my life from now on?“
Why isn’t anything working?
And why should Natural Medicine be any different?
Are You Getting Your Needs Met?
If no, it may be due to one these eight structural flaws in our current health system:
* Lack of time (due to insurance pressures)
* Lack of training (in natural & holistic options)
* Lack of interest (bias of one’s own specialty)
* Lack of motivation (easier to prescribe)
* Lack of infrastructure (special interests get in the way)
* Difficulties in diagnosis
* Treating symptoms instead of the root cause.
* Lack of awareness around the needs of sensitive individuals (including anxiety, trauma, and HSP).
- The average time a physician spends with a patient is 13-16 minutes.
- Pain is complicated and most physicians aren’t pain specialists.
- Because of #1 and #2, it’s much easier to prescribe a medication (manage the pain symptoms) rather than get to the source of the pain. (see “opioids”)
- Many physicians aren’t trained in natural pain relief options – so either they don’t know to refer, or don’t know when to refer.
- Pain can be hard for find for a non-specialist, and may not even show up on traditional imaging.
- “Muscle strain and inflammation are common causes of pain, yet they may be extremely difficult to detect.”*
- “Chronic pain can develop in the sense of gross skeletal changes detectable with current technology.”
This is why touch-based therapy like massage and acupuncture can be so useful to feel what is not easily seen.
*Source Evens, Roberson, Schmid, 2014, p.17
Most conventional physicians have received little to no nutritional instruction, let alone education about natural ways to treat pain (although this is happily changing with younger generations of doctors).
In fact, many are taught pain management rather than pain elimination – meaning they will manage the pain, not actually get to the root cause. Usually this translates to medications.
Although your body is the vehicle through which you have a human experience, and medications can help in some cases, it is not just a car in which parts can just replaced as needed. Humans are a dynamic interaction of systems that (when working together) contribute towards health and wellbeing.
This is why at Impower Healing, the goal is to provide a holistic approach with no parts of the self left behind! Counseling + natural medicine (and other appropriate referrals) can help pain relief happen from the inside and the outside at the same time.