I'm not sure where this is going but I am writing it in part because of some health issues I have been wrestling with. According to the doctors I have: sleep apnea, type 2 diabetes, GRD and Cough Presenting Asthma. For a while I was told I had polycythemia (too many red blood cells) but now I a being told I have anemia (smaller red blood cells and low iron count).
What aggravates me most about all of this is how quickly the doctors decide I have something and start shoving drugs at me. For a while I have been taking inhaled steroids, then I was put on Metformin for high blood sugar and later Janumet. I am taking iron tablets for the anemia, but they have yet to find the source of my loss of iron or red blood cells. They also put my on statins so that they could keep my cholesterol count down. They put me on lisinopril for one high blood pressure reading at the office.
I don't know who to blame. Is it the insurance companies that push for a quick diagnosis without many tests. I must say that at least with my oncologist that he was very thorough about checking for the possible causes of my polycythemia.
But when my doctor didn't see an immediate decrease on my blood pressure he jumped my dosage to 40 mg. I'll get to my blood sugar issues in another post. I was surprised how little the doctors work without trying to find a non-pharmaceutical solution. It's more like, "Oh, your such and such is high or low so take these drugs. Personally I think it is a lazy man's way to dispense drugs without looking for an underlying cause that could be fixed with either a lifestyle change (which admittedly can be very challenging for people) or some sort of surgical intervention. Clearly, I do not have a medical degree. My undergraduate degree is in computer science and my graduate degree is in ministry. But I have a pretty good head on my shoulders and I can asked some pretty good questions to get at the root of things.
Unfortunately I feel like my doctors, for the most part, have not been engaging me in a dialog about my health and what "WE" could do to find solutions to some of my problems. To that end I have become frustrated and taken control of things on my own, monitoring my body to see what is happening.
I think the biggest benefit I have gotten out of medical diagnosis has been being diagnosed at having sleep apnea. For the longest time I had been experiencing exhaustion and feeling like I couldn't think straight. So when I thought I was having a heart attack (which may have been more likely caused by my problem with acid reflux) and they kept me overnight, it was discovered that my oxygen saturation would drop under 90 % while I was sleeping and they suggested that I might have sleep apnea and I was scheduled for a sleep study. That answered a lot of problems for me.
Apparently sleep apnea can cause increased in blood sugar, blood pressure as well as causing exhaustion and polycythemia. So I am very glad that they found this problem and I am grateful for my CPAP machine that helps me breath while sleeping. I like the CPAP in that it is a non-pharmaceutical and noninvasive way to address the problem.
Now I am not about to throw all pharmaceuticals out with the bathwater. There is a place for people who lack critical enzymes or their bodies are unable to produce necessary hormones. But to throw medecine at every little variation in human metabolism can be dangerous. One thing I learned about systems is that when people try to make changes in them without full knowledge of how all the processes work, they can create havoc and make things worse rather than improving,, fixing or correcting them, like they had hoped.
So I have decided to take my health in hand and am doing to be monitoring what is going on with my blood sugar, blood pressure and my animea. I am praying for God's guidance as I make adjustments based upon some things that came to light through a recent fast prior to a medical procedure. The following article will deal with my attempt to bring things back in control, without lots of meds.
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