over 2 years ago, katy starting having severe pains in her abdomen. after several trips to specialists, emergency room visits and countless x-rays and sonograms, the doctors determined it was her gall bladder causing all the pain and instructed her to have it removed. so, katy had her gall bladder removed, and with that, the pain was removed too, right?
wrong! now, don’t get me wrong, she was in pain and her gall bladder was damaged…but by removing it, the doctors only removed a symptom, not the problem itself. had the doctors sat down long enough to ask katy more about her previous health history, they might have realized that her pains ran deeper than a single organ. katy has scoliosis, and thanks to that incorrect curvature of her spine, it causes her nerves to send ‘incorrect’ signals to other places in her body. so, the solution of her gall bladder was through her back. only once her back is healed will her pains in other parts of her body recede.
i’ve seen this sort of treatment in my own life too. i have high blood pressure and high cholesterol, so what does my doctor tell me to do? why, take blood pressure and cholesterol medications, of course! again, they address the symptom of the problem and not the root itself. what are the causes of this problem? unhealthy eating, lack of exercise, family history?
and this is not to pick solely on doctors…so many of us are guilty of this. we seem to fixate on an issue, only to discover that once we’ve solved the riddle, the issue is still there, staring us in the face (or doubling us over in pain).
how often do we focus on symptoms of a problem rather than the problem itself?
2 comments:
Hello
I really enjoyed reading your Blog. Recently I have been diagnosed with scoliosis, so I spend most of my free time researching and trying to find information on the internet. In Fact in my search I found http://www.scoliosisspecialists.com and they have introduced me to the world of SpineCor.. a flexible soft scoliosis brace.. I was so relief that I did not have to wear the hard rigid braces. I wear SpineCor under my clothes and no one even knows I have it on.. anyways, I look forward to all the updates. Thanks again,
Jessica
Genetic Pre-disposition + Environmental Influences = Idiopathic Scoliosis
Metaphorically, it could be described in terms of toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube.(Pictured below) The genetic pre-disposition would be the equivalent of how tightly the cap is screwed on; The environmental influence is how hard the hand is squeezing the tube; and the amount of toothpaste being ejected out of the tube is the resulting combination of both the cap tightness and the pressure from the squeezing hand.
Armed with this basic understanding of scoliosis of spine, it is readily apparent that one must alter either the patients genetic pre-disposition and/or eliminate the environmental influences prior the curvature becoming progressive and bio-mechanically driven.
Find out more about environmental risk factors at http://www.treatingscoliosis.com
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