Guidelines to Good Health, Survival, & Longevity-VII
Welcome to our health & self help blog.
In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.
Today's post: Monday, 8-28-2006
Guidelines to Good Health, Survival, & Longevity-part VII
Following these guidelines helps you to have a good quality of life mostly unhampered by getting sick or disabled or spending a lot on drugs, doctors & hospitals.
And, it means you’ll have that quality of life for many years longer than many of the people who don’t follow these guidelines will live. (Your quality of life may be good into your nineties or beyond while people who follow none of these guidelines often die before age 80 – & many even earlier.)
In addition, as you get older, you’ll gradually find you look years younger than other people your age.
For the previous guidelines in this series, see the posts for Thursday, 8-17-2006; Friday, 8-18-2006; Monday, 8-21-2006; Tuesday, 8-22-2006; Wednesday, 8-23-2006; & Thursday, 8-24-2006.
5. Follow these good health generating & health protecting guidelines.:
l) Get good medical care if at all possible:
Have a good deal of money for health care AND have health insurance;
get good medical care when needed for injury & illness;
have & use a book like Take Care of Yourself or Kaiser’s Healthwise Handbook that can tell you if you should see a doctor & how fast for many conditions &/or have a service like Kaiser’s “advice nurse” hotline to use for extra help;
& make an effort to see a “personal physician” at least once a year or so who has a background in Integrated or Preventive medicine; &/ or who is personally keeping up with the news on supplements & lifestyle upgrades in eating & exercise as a way to prevent & treat illnesses; &, who will work with you to get diagnostic tests like key blood tests to help you manage your health.
Many doctors today are much too busy to do this well. But if you can pay more, that may work to find such a doctor.
And, even within HMOs like Kaiser & in other insurance plans, there are some doctors who will at least partly fit the bill & make some extra effort when you ask.
For that, you may have to try more than one.
But the trend seems to be towards doctors at least being familiar with such subjects & to be at least somewhat knowledgeable, particularly about healthy eating & exercise.
At their best, doctors can save you from making a serious mistake in your care & really help you find out exactly what is causing your symptoms & to resolve the conditions or “germs” that are causing them. Or, at the very least, they can get you out of dangerous situations quickly & reliably in many cases.
Within what they have studied & had experience with doctors are incredibly knowledgeable.
The bad news is that their knowledge is often very narrow in scope -- although the best doctors are aware of what they tend to know best & what they don’t know.
This can lead them to miss or misdiagnose what you have if it’s rare or unexpected or has multiple causes. And, it can lead them to recommend against things that will actually benefit you that they don’t yet know well.
And, they can & often do prescribe drugs that do work but have unacceptable side effects in your particular case.
So, it will pay you to get the best doctor you can & learn to communicate well with him or her.
And, if what he or she prescribes or recommends doesn’t work or is unmanageable for you to do, you may well need to think for yourself; get other information on the subject; & make a second effort with your doctor.
And, in some cases, you may need a doctor you can work with better or one more specialized in what you need.
All this can be a bit challenging to do. But it can be well worth it. It can even save your life or the life of someone you care about to do it well.
You have my very best wishes that it works well for you.
**********
We’ll finish this series of guidelines in the next posts.
In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.
Today's post: Monday, 8-28-2006
Guidelines to Good Health, Survival, & Longevity-part VII
Following these guidelines helps you to have a good quality of life mostly unhampered by getting sick or disabled or spending a lot on drugs, doctors & hospitals.
And, it means you’ll have that quality of life for many years longer than many of the people who don’t follow these guidelines will live. (Your quality of life may be good into your nineties or beyond while people who follow none of these guidelines often die before age 80 – & many even earlier.)
In addition, as you get older, you’ll gradually find you look years younger than other people your age.
For the previous guidelines in this series, see the posts for Thursday, 8-17-2006; Friday, 8-18-2006; Monday, 8-21-2006; Tuesday, 8-22-2006; Wednesday, 8-23-2006; & Thursday, 8-24-2006.
5. Follow these good health generating & health protecting guidelines.:
l) Get good medical care if at all possible:
Have a good deal of money for health care AND have health insurance;
get good medical care when needed for injury & illness;
have & use a book like Take Care of Yourself or Kaiser’s Healthwise Handbook that can tell you if you should see a doctor & how fast for many conditions &/or have a service like Kaiser’s “advice nurse” hotline to use for extra help;
& make an effort to see a “personal physician” at least once a year or so who has a background in Integrated or Preventive medicine; &/ or who is personally keeping up with the news on supplements & lifestyle upgrades in eating & exercise as a way to prevent & treat illnesses; &, who will work with you to get diagnostic tests like key blood tests to help you manage your health.
Many doctors today are much too busy to do this well. But if you can pay more, that may work to find such a doctor.
And, even within HMOs like Kaiser & in other insurance plans, there are some doctors who will at least partly fit the bill & make some extra effort when you ask.
For that, you may have to try more than one.
But the trend seems to be towards doctors at least being familiar with such subjects & to be at least somewhat knowledgeable, particularly about healthy eating & exercise.
At their best, doctors can save you from making a serious mistake in your care & really help you find out exactly what is causing your symptoms & to resolve the conditions or “germs” that are causing them. Or, at the very least, they can get you out of dangerous situations quickly & reliably in many cases.
Within what they have studied & had experience with doctors are incredibly knowledgeable.
The bad news is that their knowledge is often very narrow in scope -- although the best doctors are aware of what they tend to know best & what they don’t know.
This can lead them to miss or misdiagnose what you have if it’s rare or unexpected or has multiple causes. And, it can lead them to recommend against things that will actually benefit you that they don’t yet know well.
And, they can & often do prescribe drugs that do work but have unacceptable side effects in your particular case.
So, it will pay you to get the best doctor you can & learn to communicate well with him or her.
And, if what he or she prescribes or recommends doesn’t work or is unmanageable for you to do, you may well need to think for yourself; get other information on the subject; & make a second effort with your doctor.
And, in some cases, you may need a doctor you can work with better or one more specialized in what you need.
All this can be a bit challenging to do. But it can be well worth it. It can even save your life or the life of someone you care about to do it well.
You have my very best wishes that it works well for you.
**********
We’ll finish this series of guidelines in the next posts.
posted by David at 4:32 PM
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