EX Know it All

I'm the oldest of 10 children. My brain came with a built in "know it all" computer chip, and with that some very off-putting social behaviors. I've spent years trying to rewire my brain so I don't come across as having all the answers, and in recent years have been learning that idea of "having all the answers" is an illusion anyway. Yet, I write on a blog (no one reads) with some kind of notion that I know something other people need and someday people are actually going to listen. It is just the creative part of me wanting to put an idea into the world that didn't exist before. I feel I was born to share information with others, what information to what others and when is yet to be discovered. I currently feel like a clam with a pearl inside amidst a billion trillion other clams saying "look at my pearl!" all the while every single clam has their own very nice pearl and they have no need to see another, some clams say "that's nice dear" or "how interesting" and others just look at me with an expression that says "why are you showing me a pearl, I don't need it." Other just completely ignore it. I haven't gotten to the criticism stage yet, which indicates to me that not very many of those billions of clams even know I exist, otherwise they would be telling me to shut up about my pearl.

What does my pearl consist of anyway? What's so important that I know that I feel everyone else should know?  Would it even help anything? When I feel inspired by some knowledge I've gained I just have a strong urge to share that knowledge with others, even when I'm the only person who needed to hear it in the first place. I could tell you the latest and greatest about functional medicine, and the evils of sugar, and how the food industry is wreaking havoc on our microbiomes, and how to parent, and the best way to function in a marriage, and how to manage emotions, I could probably even tell you the best way to read your scriptures! For some it would help, for others it would not help, and all my info could be accessed on the internet probably by other more experienced and qualified professionals in the world who also live in the infinite sea of information. Being a "know it all" in the information age is exceptionally frustrating. I can't possibly know it all, and knowing a lot only helps to a certain extent, to certain people, at a certain time. You also run a risk...if you manage to avoid the temptation of feeling puffed up and intellectual and better than everyone, you still risk feeling trying to help others with the knowledge and actually messing them up instead because it turns out everyone you listened to was wrong.  Knowledge can make you wiser and better at what you do, right? It could also make you hated by others who disagree or are jealous of or competing with you, it could make you appear better than others even if you don't feel so, it could cause you to forever feel frustrated with knowing so much and not being able to do anything with it or worse, doing something with it and creating problems.  When I am dead will people value my ideas? Or will they continue to be too wordy, too irrelevant, too inconvenient, and too buried in a sea of everyone else's ideas?

Lately I've been confused by some information that conflicts with conventional wisdom, and it puts me in mind that there were, and still are, probably many very good people who believed that conventional wisdom and taught it to many other people in the hopes they were helping those people, only instead of helping they were causing more problems. For example, in December I took my daughter to see a family practitioner who I know personally and trusted to give her the proper care. He is a good person with good intentions, a well known member of his community and a bishop of his church congregation, and a knowledgeable doctor. I told him what my daughters symptoms were and asked for a couple of tests to rule out some possible causes.  Her symptoms are similar to mine, stomach hurts often, bloating, diarrhea or constipation, the usual IBS things, but I wanted to know if she had h-pylori or gluten intolerance.  He did an xray of her abdomen and said there was excess stool in her gut, and she has "chronic constipation." I appeared perplexed because she has loose stools often, so he wrote on a paper what is going on in her rectum and the answer is simple, take suppositories to clean out the rectum and then take miralax to keep things moving through until the large intestines and rectum get back to normal. My mind was spinning on why you would give a laxative to a thin child who already has absorption issues, and maybe that doubting attitude came out when I said, "OK, but what is causing the chronic constipation?" He pointed his pen at me and said, "Heather, think simple! This IS the problem, and she will feel much better if you do what I say, do you want me to write it down for you?" No, I'm here to learn and I remember what you said. "If you want to find some reason for it, I'm not your man, but I bet you that h-pylori breath test will come back negative and I bet if you get her tested for gluten intolerance that will come back negative too."  He flatly refused to test her for gluten, and I nearly started to cry, but kept it together and remembered this wasn't just about him, it was from years of feeling frustrated about doctors who focus on eliminating a symptom, not really healing the body. Doctors want to shut your body up, where are you feeling pain so we can hone in on that one aspect of your body and get rid of it. I've always felt that if you shut up the message your body is giving you that something is wrong, you will just cause more problems, which is why I refused to take Zoloft when Dr. Corry told me all my problems were probably related to anxiety. I'm sure anxiety had a lot to do with it, but shutting down the anxiety that is trying to tell me something is off hormonally and cellularly in your body will only help temporarily at best and cause addictions to the meds at worst. This week I heard a lecture from a functional medical doctor, Dr. Geanopolus, which sums how I feel up better than I can, and he made me feel better about myself for wanting to know the cause.

"When we start giving people labels we tend to forget there are other things going on. Diabetes? You Just happened to cross the threshold of something majorly going wrong with your blood sugar, but there have been multiple other systems functioning poorly for years. Medical professionals try to control a few markers with medicine, and it's no way to restore your health. Medicine is just controlling symptoms, elevated blood sugar is a symptom, not a cause. We want to treat and heal not just control.  The case with chronic disease is symptom management instead of restoring health.

"For example, are we taking into account the nervous system? It ties all these different systems together, the brain is the head and controls all other systems of the body, if you damage the brain that will impact all hormonal systems, sensory systems, everything. We want to address all the issues, and realize it will take quite some time to heal. Brain needs to be in an environment where it can heal, diet affects blood chemistry, so you must understand the role nutrition plays in brain function. Alheimers disease and Parkinson, these are a neurodegeneration classified as a type III diabetes because of the relationship of the management of blood sugar particularly in our brain.  We have the tools to help people with neurodegenerative diseases, but we can't wait until the traditional symptoms appear.  Hemoglobin A1C, triglycerides, if they don't begin to elevate you don't have a discussion with your doctor, but they start to creep up and you start trying to manage with medication, you've already had years of abnormal blood sugar control. Doctors waiting til you are prediabetic to have the conversation with you.  You can know before it gets too far!  Sugar elevates triglycerides, not fat!  

"You're genes will just determine what label you get first. But the dysfunction doesn't have to occur. If you are going to change neuorological pathways it takes frequency, repetition, consistency, dedication. Patients need to work for it, the days of going to the doctor and doing what their told are over. You need to understand your body and get involved in your own treatment. Either you have hope or you don't. I will, I can. Cut out eating all the crappy food, give your brain the nutrition that its craving.

Healing the brain: Rehabilitation exercises, chemical environment healthy, targeted supplements, remove interference. Affirmations, positive reinforcements. Pain is preventing people from enjoying life, pain is a symptom, what is the symptom caused by? Chronic pain tends to have many components. Stress hormone dysregulated, blood sugar dysregulated, changing chemistry with sensitized nerves and pain, depression, inflammation, after a few years of living like this many disorders can occur. Have to be looked at as a whole person, not a label. To be given the label like "chronic back pain" all it does is force doctors to say "aha" I'm going to look at this part of your body and nothing else. Doctors look at this one part of your body and not at anything else and they try to treat it, and you end up very disgruntled.

"Pain killers may work, and that may be the worst possible thing that can happen.  Telling your body to shut up now there is no reason to pursue the cause.  If the medication relieves the symptom, now there's no reason to pursue the cause.  We have been mismanaged. Starts with xrays mri's catscans ultra sounds looking to see if there are abnormalities, if your old enough and had enough stress yes you will have abnormalities, but to hang your hat on that is a crime. Pictures told the doctors this is where the pain is coming from, people obsess over structural problems, take prescription painkillers, tell the body to shut up. Trying to hit different parts of the nervous system impacted by pain, never a good thing, leads to other problems. Disability, lack of function, lack of productivity, depression, etc.

When we help people in a comprehensive way that gives them back their life and families and enjoyment of life, and stop spending money on doctors, its joyful. Our health insurance system is not going to pay for someone to restore their health, just to manage your disease, got to get out of the health care system. Its your responsibility to get healthy. Functional medicine a partnership between you and the doctor, something the general public just starting to embrace.  New paradigm in the wellness world. Get to the cause: gmo's and diet, environmental insults, chemical interference, nonsense about eating low fat. Medical doctors have a hard time communicating with themselves and others about the next step in this paradigm of addressing things wholistically."

Dr. Geanopulos   Your Diagnosis: why labels can be dangerous and prevent you from seeing what else is happening

After hearing this, what do you think you should do with the information you've been given your whole life by the people who are helping people in the medical world? Am I going to be that next person? Someone who wants to help by sharing information but who had it wrong despite all my schooling and research and I end up hurting instead of helping? I relinquish my status as a "know it all." I now realize I and everyone here is really quite stupid compared to our all knowing omniscient omnipowerful Heavenly Father, we are doing our best, and must never give up, but be careful because we know practically nothing...yet.