Fire your Doctor- Fix your Terrain!

PaleoJay podcast #35- Fire your Doctor, Fix your Terrain

Fire your Doctor!  I know- that really sounds, well... really crazy! But trust me, Doctors, when used in a manner to promote health, are terrible advisors as a general rule!

Why?  Because health is not what the modern medical industry is even about- it is about disease- treating the symptoms of disease, rather than actually curing the cause.  That's why modern, Western medicine has become exclusively allopathic in nature, which means treat the symptoms.  For instance; say you have a migraine headache- your allopathic, modern doctor will give you various combinations of drugs to allieve the pain.  There will be little or no attempt to get to the root cause of this unnatural, unhealthy condition, which in a truly healing or wellness doctor would be the approach.  There might be a little about avoiding chocolate, or caffeine, kind of a half-hearted attempt to make a tiny little thing the whole cause- but, by and large, you will get a chemical band-aid to mask your pain, and that's it.

This is like if the indicator light on your car, say the oil pressure light came on, and your mechanic simply put tape over the light on the dash to cover it up!  Getting a migraine headache just like your oil indicator light coming on- your body is telling you that something is seriously wrong- and usually, it is insufficient nutrients, too much stress, not enough sleep, a sedentary life, bad family and friends (tribe!) relations, or a combination of some or all of these factors!

There is even a medical term for cause of death by doctor: latrogenesis.  This is not just malpractice cases- this is death caused by doing exactly as the Doctor ordered!  Drug side effects, medical complications of surgery, anesthetic complications, infections picked up in the hospital- any or all of these combined are the third leading cause of death in the United States.

Kind of makes you want to avoid Doctors and hospitals right there, doesn't it!?

Forget the old, outdated idea of Louis Pasteur and the Germ theory- the idea that we must sterilize everything to abolish disease!  This is not only an impossible task- we now know that we need the "germs", or bacteria to survive ourselves- we are in an intimate partnership with the bacteria in our bodies, especially the many good forms that digest things for us in our gut!

The Terrain Theory, championed by Michael Beauchamp, who was Louis Pasteur's contemporary and rival.  This idea, which is now becoming widely accepted as the correct one, is that the health of the "terrain", i.e. the human body is what is crucial in avoiding disease- if you are really healthy, your body can easily fight off bad bacteria and keep you that way.

It is only when your health has slipped (due to the indicator light causes I spoke of before of not enough nutrients, too little sleep, etc. etc.) that the bad, invading bacteria (germs) can get a good foothold!

So, it may sound simplistic, you really need to GET HEALTHY TO STAY HEALTHY!

And, as a postscript of sorts, I will say if you are BROKEN- in a car wreck, shot with a bullet, some sort of physical extreme trauma- modern western medicine is wonderful for this-they are kind of like a human "body shop" to get you "back on the road"!

But then, it's YOUR job (not your doctor's) to get yourself back to being as healthy as you can be-

Fix your "terrain", your Doctor won't do that- he doesn't even know how!

oh, and did you know- upon his deathbed, Louis Pasteur rose up and said:

"Beauchamp was right- it is all about the terrain!"

J