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SICKO Part Five: Fixing the System

First, let me explain why doctors might be so impotent when it comes to doing anything about a health care system many of them clearly see is wrong. I read a research paper some years ago by a psychologist trying to analyze why physicians allowed themselves to be manipulated into situations that were patently against everyone’s best interests, including their own.

SiCKO Part Three: More on Michael Moore’s Important Documentary

When I was in China this summer, I began a conversation with our group and our Chinese guide. We compared health care in China with that of the US. Most of my fellow travelers were Canadians, Brits, and Australians, with a few Scandinavians tossed in for good measure.

SICKO Part Two

This continues my urging for you to see (and act upon) Michael Moore’s movie SiCKO, his devastating critique of our health care crisis.

Our current health care mess really began in 1971 when President Nixon signed a law that ended further debate about government-funded universal health care. Until that point, doctors had been making good money in the now historical fee-for-service system (the only remaining fee-for-service physicians today are cosmetic surgeons). Doctors were fearful to the point of paranoia about so-called socialized medicine, and very worried about what was being created up in Canada.

SICKO Part One

Three movies in my entire life have moved me to tears, and Michael Moore’s SiCKO was one of them.

(The other two? Walt Disney’s Snow White–I was four, the witch–and at 25, Star Wars, utter boredom).

Last month I saw–twice, in fact–this devastating critique of the American health insurance industry and its collusion with the federal government. Health insurance is a very sensitive issue for me. Every hour of every day the endless confrontation of doctors and their patients with the health insurance industry increases everyone’s stress and interferes with decent medical care.

Solving Adrenal Imbalance

They’re about the size of walnuts, your two adrenal glands. Picture them there, resting comfortably, one on top of each kidney. If you reach around your back with your hands open, your thumbs will be about where your adrenal glands are perched.

Q&A: Herbs Control PMS Palpitations

Q: In a health tip on hormones, you wrote that virtually any cyclical symptom is probably caused by hormone fluctuations. You described a patient who got such severe heart palpitations that her cardiologist considered heart surgery before one herb managed to get her hormones under control. Could you tell me which herb was used and how it worked?

Measuring Hormone Levels

First let’s discuss a strategy to get your health insurance to pay for as much of this testing as your policy allows. Good hormone testing is pricey.

(Those $30 kits that test all your hormones are only moderately accurate, especially when it comes to estrogen and progesterone. If you’re having periods, levels of these hormones change virtually every day, and trying to get an accurate picture with a single day’s result is a waste of your money.)

“My hormones are out of whack!”

That’s the single most common sentence I hear from my patients.

It can come from a 25-year-old with irregular periods and industrial-strength PMS whose energy has gone down the tubes. Or from a 45-year-old (on the threshold of pre-menopause) who continues to gain weight even though she’s eating less and exercising more, and who adds that her brain feels like mush and her sex drive is a distant memory.

Prescribing Happiness

Many good studies have proved that an optimistic outlook has significant long-term health benefits. According to an article in Family Medicine, a journal for primary care doctors, some holistically oriented family physicians are recommending daily exercises in optimism to reduce the risk of developing all sorts of illnesses, both physical and emotional.

Pre-Menopause Anxiety

One of the most common symptoms my patients tell me about during their pre-menopause years is a pervasive sense of mild depression and anxiety. No particular reason for it, they report, just a sense that things aren’t going right, wanting to cry for no reason over little things that never bothered them.

Another Idea Sixpack

Posted 07/23/2007 Here are six more ways to reduce stress and improve your overall well-being: 1. Feeling upset? Change the channel on your immediate surroundings (“I’ve gotta get out of here for awhile!”). Take a break and walk as you breathe deeply and look around. It’s a quick perspective fix…and a calmative. Pushups work too. […]