Whenever there is a health problem in the family (often having to do with Audrey and new symptoms of the Tuberous Sclerosis), I often get friends and family saying how they're in awe of how "in tune" I am with my kids and when something is wrong, how dedicated I am to finding an answer or cure. People have said how shocked they are that often I correctly "diagnose" the problem with my kids before a doctor does. I hear what an "amazing" mom I am, which is kind of weird because nearly every mom I know would, I think, be the same way given the same set of circumstances. I think most parents want to do, give, be anything that their child needs. But over my almost- five years of parenting two kiddos, one of whom is special needs (I'm still a newbie but we've been through a LOT), I have found that some moms just don't take the initiative to have a family that is truly healthy. And I don't think it has ANYTHING to do with love, will, desire, or that they're any less amazing. Like anything else, I think some people just need the tools and information. Some of the items in my toolbox are a natural part of my personality...other things I've learned in our journey with Audrey as we were, in essence, thrown into the deep end of the pool and told to learn to swim.
So, I absolutely am by no means a doctor (my highest level of education is a B.A. in Biblical (ancient) Greek and Hebrew), but, to quote Jenny McCarthy, I definitely feel like I've just about gotten my Ph.D in Google Research.
I had intended to talk about this in a chapter of the book I'm writing about our journey with Audrey, but I think it is important enough I want to share it now. So here is my advice, for what it is worth, on having a healthy family.
1. Preventative care comes first.
"Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food."
God has created your body not as a system of disease, but one that is able to self-heal, provided we nurture it and give it the tools it needs to self-heal. For Christians, Scripture teaches that the body is a temple of the Spirit of God. Treat it that way.
Another part of preventative medicine is exercise. But I believe good food comes first. You can't run a marathon if you're eating nothing but potato chips and diet coke all day every day.
Food is not just nutrition and calories. It directly affects cognition, behavior, mood, energy levels, immunity, etc. This is particularly noticeable in children. Because a child's frontal cortex--the area of impulse control--isn't fully developed until age 25, children are much more affected in their behavior by food than adults are. Artificial colors, flavors, MSG, sugar overload, genetically modified food, and OFTENTIMES gluten (wheat protein) and casein (cow's milk protein) all act as neurotoxins. And the small intestine has more neuroreceptors in it than anywhere else in the body, besides the brain itself.
2. Always ask WHY.
Think like a detective. Western medicine is very good at treating symptoms, but except in cases of acute illness (broken bones, heart attacks, etc) very very bad at providing a CURE. Get back to the root cause of whatever the problem is, if at all possible. There is a commercial on TV that talks about getting at the "cause" of a stuffy nose--inflammation. But that is not (I would do my philosophy professors proud here) the FIRST CAUSE. What is causing the inflammation? Do i feel this way after eating a certain food? After I pet the cat? When I first wake up in the morning? When I get stressed? It may help to keep a food journal or a daily activities journal to see when the symptoms flair up the worst, and go from there. The body does not just stop working effectively for no reason. There is always a reason. Sometimes we may never know the reason, but we should seek it out when we can. Taking a pill should almost always be a short term solution while you try to play detective and find the cause so you can root it out and deal with it. Otherwise we will all find ourselves at younger and younger ages on a cocktail of prescription drugs...and some of those drugs being to deal with the side-effects produced by other drugs. You don't want to go down that rabbit hole. It's very hard to get out of it.
3. Understand what you can treat at home, and what you cannot.
This is a delicate balance at times. The more research you do, the more empowered you become to realize that there is actually a LOT you can cure without a pill...through diet changes, spine alignments at the chiropractor, exercise, stress relieving techniques, or herbal supplements. It really does make you feel good when you realize you cured your child's ear infection in one day with your own breastmilk or with garlic oil and didn't have to go to the doctor, PAY for a doctor visit, and put your child on a round of antibiotics that then leaves them open to more infection, as it kills off not just the bad bacteria, but the good stuff that creates part of our immune system. But sometimes when we begin to learn these things, our priorities shift. My goal used to be to cure everything at home, so I could say I didn't "NEED" some silly doctor. Then I had a special needs daughter, and I would have been stupid to not put her on some really strong prescription drugs that I absolutely hated, and she has a whole TEAM of medical doctors treating her. Pretty much every "ologist" there is. Now, my goal is not to be smarter than the M.D. or to be able to say I'm entirely self sufficient in every way and need no one, but rather, my goal is simply to have a healthy family. A big part of that is taking care of things at home, but I've learned that sometimes, some things are out of my range of abilities and i need help. We are social creatures that need to live in community, and sometimes there's nothing wrong with asking for help...even from a doctor. :-) Which brings me to my next point.
4. VERY carefully choose your family's health care practitioners.
We have seen SO many doctors I honestly could not list them all here, and the list is even longer when you include hospitals, nurses, chiropractors, etc. I have learned that there is no "noble" profession, only noble people or not so noble people. There are doctors who abuse their power and do not listen to their patients. There are too many doctors who think they're God. And there are nurses with absolutely no bedside manner and you wonder why they chose this profession. But there are wonderful nurses who work their butts off and get puked on and continue to smile. They advocate for you to the doctors and people at hospitals who make policy. And there are good doctors. Great doctors. People who want to HELP people. There are certain qualities that a good health care practitioner has, in my opinion.
a. They listen, more than they talk. They can't prescribe a good cure if they don't know the full story. If they aren't willing to sit and listen to you, find a new doctor who is. This also means you need to be more patient in the waiting room, because if the doctor is willing to sit and listen, that means that not all the appointments will fit neatly into the schedule, and he may get behind. Audrey's first neurologist listened intently to everything I said, and also asked how we were doing, after the blow of her diagnosis. But I often waited in the waiting room two hours. Sometimes longer. That is a more extreme example..he really was slow in everything they did, including walking to the bathroom, but i digress...
b. They don't talk down to you like you're ignorant. A good doctor can explain something to you without all the "doctor-ese" and medical lingo, without treating you like you're a moron. If you ever feel stupid leaving a doctor's office, or insulted...find a new doctor. I know we all love to watch House, but in real life if i had a doc like that I'd punch him.
c. A good doctor is also a teacher. A good doctor knows that if you don't take responsibility for your own health or your children's health, no amount of pills is really going to do all that much good. When I was learning about Audrey's illness, her doctors took time to go through her MRI's and ultrasounds and point out to me what exactly was going on, explain to me how it happened, and prepare me for what I could expect in the future. You should feel empowered, or at least a little smarter, when you leave the doctor's office...like you learned something. If you didn't...you may want to consider a new doctor.
d. A good doctor is HOPEFUL. I know they see sick people all day long, but a really good doctor can look past that and see a brighter tomorrow. This is especially important when a major disease is diagnosed. No one wants a doctor who tells you, after a cancer diagnosis, that you are definitely going to die in six months. First of all, it is depressing, and secondly, no doctor can know that. They cannot tell the future, only look at statistics and past experiences. But your situation is unique and need not be like anyone else's. When Audrey was first diagnosed at four months old with Tuberous Sclerosis and infantile spasms (a brain damaging hard to control seizure type), several doctors told us she would stop smiling, get autism, and be mentally retarded. She would never walk, never do anything. She is two, and despite uncontrolled epilepsy, she smiles all the time, she is quite the character, she runs, she climbs, she does not have autism, she is social, and she understands. Her only delay is in verbal speech.
5. Be willing to say "No."
If a doctor offers a diagnosis, or prescribes a certain medication to deal with said diagnosis, and you have issues with it for whatever reason, DO NOT be afraid to question the doctor, not give the medicine, get a second opinion, etc. Doctors are not Gods. They are not all knowing, or all seeing, or always correct. If they were, they would not need malpractice insurance. With regard to your children, you know them better than any doctor does. Here I will speak to my friends with kids with epilepsy for a moment--if a doctor has your child on an AED and the side effects are worse than the cure, insist on a different medication or lowering the dose. This was really hard for me to do in the beginning because I was petrified of going "against doctor's orders" and her condition getting worse. But every time i blew off my intuition I regretted it. I will mention that more in my next point. It also reiterated what I mentioned about finding a good doctor who is willing to listen to your concerns and is willing to offer alternatives. There have also been times I've taken Audrey to a doctor because I needed a diagnosis, but then treated it at home with other methods. (see again on knowing what you can treat at home and what you can't.) For example, we found Audrey had chronic ear infections that were causing her to have hearing loss, and they wanted to do tubes in the ears. Instead i first took her to the chiropractor who aligned her neck such that the fluid could drain properly, and now no ear infections, and no surgery required! But first she needed to see an ear/nose/throat doctor to get a diagnosis.
6. Learn about natural treatments, and keep your Dr. Mom bag handy.
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| Check out this book for a starting point. |
In addition to healthy foods and chiropractic care, I would recommend keeping coconut oil, amber, garlic, apple cider vinegar, certain essential oils, probiotics, baking soda, and Vitamin D handy in your mom bag. And do some research on what all these things can cure. You'll be amazed. Also, if you're nursing....breastmilk gets rid of pink eye, sinus infections, diaper rash, and heals cuts. Also consider, next time you're sick, doing a quick google search for natural cures for whatever the illness is. I cured my own case of shingles that was quickly covering my entire body, in three days with B12 and Lysine. In addition to the above, if you have kids I would keep on hand a stethoscope (cheap on Amazon) and more importantly, an otoscope. It is so much easier to be able to see at home if your baby has an ear infection than to wonder until it gets bad, or take your baby to the doctor every month to see if they have one. And if you're pregnant, a fetoscope can tell you not only your baby's heartrate (and hear your baby's heart anytime you want, once you reach 20 weeks), but your baby's position, and where the placenta is located.
7. Above all else, always listen to your gut.
The Holy Spirit, Mama Intuition, your gut...(i think the first two are separate, as I'm not God... but intertwined) LISTEN TO IT. We've been trained in our society (I think largely because society is run by western-minded men) to ignore intuition, to look only at what you can see and have PROOF of. But intuition is not just some new agey idea. It is the right brain, and like any other muscle, you have to practice using it to be able to hear it effectively. Practice using your intuition. Even self-defense coaches say that too many women are mugged, raped, robbed, etc because they get a certain feeling that something isn't right about a situation (hairs stand on the back of your neck, etc), but they brush it off as them just being silly hyper emotional women...only to find out too late that their intuition was trying to tell them something. Will there be times you take your child to the doctor thinking something is really wrong, only to find out there's not? Probably. Will you feel silly and like you overreacted? Maybe. But you'll feel a whole lot worse if you DON'T take your child when something IS really wrong and it could've been corrected if just addressed sooner.
So there ya have it, my best advice on how to take control of your family's health and wellness. Hope it helps someone, for whatever it's worth. :-)
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