Alternative Medicine 8:
Taking Responsibility for Our Own Health

Granted I am being cynical here, I've heard so many horror stories over the years from my patients that I sometimes feel like I could scream. I have also heard that statistics reveal that more people die in the U.S. each year due to some medical procedure/treatment than are killed in automobile accidents each year. I hope I am starting to make clear the need for each and every one of us to take full responsibility for our health.

We need to simply consider our health care providers (be they traditional western medical or alternative practitioners) as advisors who we seek out for their particular knowledge, experience and expertise. We will then go to them for advise on how to understand and best deal with our current situation, listening to what they advise us to do (or for their skill and experience in performing certain procedures). We then, based on this advise, choose an appropriate course of action that will best support our own unique healing process. This course of action may be decided immediately in their office, may require another opinion(s) or simply thinking it over first before deciding what to do. Obviously if we arrive unconscious and alone at the emergency room, the medical staff on hand will need to make an immediate decision as to the best course of action.

If we take the time, which may sometimes be just a momentary pause, to consciously make this choice of action, we will be taking responsibility for our own health. For it is only ourselves that have to live in our bodies 24 hours a day for the rest of our lives. We are the ones that will suffer the consequences of poor decisions in health as well as reap the benefits of good choices--not our doctors or health care providers. So by holding this in mind, we are more apt to make responsible decisions about our health in other situations in our life as well. Such decisions may involve our diet, exercise, drug and alcohol consumption and may even involve our mental and/or emotional health, including who or what we choose for friends, relationships and work.

This truly is all part of taking responsibility for our health. Including if we are not happy with our health insurance plan, then perhaps we need to make choices there too, so as not to feel that we are victims by only seeing those providers or receiving those treatments that are "authorized". Do we really want some insurance company or managed-care bureaucrat, that is only concerned with making profits and cutting costs, dictating our health? For if we stay in the old model of believing that someone else will take responsibility for our health, we may end up budgeting for our vacations, food and entertainment and have nothing left for the care of our health--perhaps not even being healthy enough to enjoy those fun things in life. Choosing a less expensive insurance plan with a high deductible, that will still cover all the catastrophic conditions but with a lower premium, can leave us with money in our pocket to pay for the higher deductible should we need it, or for the office visits for the providers and treatments of our choice. This is one real way to take responsibility for our own health.