Your brain can recognize and remember over 50,000 different scents. There are over 100,000 miles of blood vessels in the adult human body. Our DNA, if uncoiled, would stretch 10 billion miles. There are approximately 100 billion neurons in the human brain.
These are some staggering facts about the complexity of the human body. When you take them into consideration, it’s easy to see how many things could potentially go wrong. A lot of people take for granted how many processes have to work perfectly throughout their life and inside of each cell in order to be “health
y.”
If 100 patients walk into a clinic or hospital with similar symptoms or ailments, they will likely walk away with very similar prescriptions or protocols. For example, if the patients are all diagnosed with hypothyroidism, they will all likely get a similar medication for thyroid hormones. There is one big problem with this mindset: each patient is unique and different from the next.
Many factors should be considered when looking into a patient’s symptoms or condition. For instance, if we see a patient with fatigue, we look at all the possible mechanisms that can cause fatigue – we want to find out why this particular patient is suffering. This is why collecting a thorough medical history is EXTREMELY important in treatment.
When we look at fatigue, there are a few possible mechanisms we check for: dysglycemia (blood sugar regulation issues), anemia (poor oxygen delivery to tissues), adrenal dysfunction, inflammation, hormone imbalance, autoimmunity, thyroid, subclinical infection or pattern, intestinal permeability/leaky gut and food sensitivities. Most people want to jump to thyroid or adrenal fatigue, however, doctors are really missing the big clinical picture and thought process when they approach each case with tunnel vision.
As clinicians, we have to be able to answer the question why: Why is the patient fatigued? Why do they have high blood pressure? Why can’t they stay asleep? If we can answer these questions, then we have a true understanding of the mechanism of the patient’s symptoms.
Have you ever heard of someone who felt terrible when taking a medication or supplement when you’ve taken the same medication at the same dose and felt completely fine? How about a certain diet or exercise routine? Everyone is different and everyone will react in their own unique way. This is why it’s so important to evaluate each patient on an individual basis and not give the same recommended protocol to everyone that h
as the same symptoms. The human body isn’t that easy to figure out.
Another concept we don’t often consider is metabolic capacity. In short, metabolic capacity is the maximum amount of activation/stimulation the cell can take without pushing it too hard and making the cell die. In other words, how much can we push a cell or pathway with exercise, an adjustment, a supplement, or a medication without giving the patient too much and making them worse? We want to find that “threshold” where we know we can be safe, but yet, effective – not too much, but not too little.
So, what is the best solution?
We believe that each individual patient deserves a complete workup. In today’s conventional healthcare model, we get a very partial, incomplete workup that leaves a lot of unanswered questions.
Our complete work-up includes a thorough history, comprehensive physical and functional neurological examination and a comprehensive blood panel. Depending on the individual patient’s needs, we will then dive into additional testing if necessary.
Once the test results are in, we invite the patient back in for a Report of Findings visit. In this visit, we combine the pertinent information from the history and findings from our examination and test results with the patient’s goals.
From there, we map out our plan of diet, supplements, exercise and chiropractic care. We also will schedule dates to retest any positive findings – there’s only one way to find out if we are making progress and that’s to retest. Without retesting, if something we are doing isn’t working, we could potentially be wasting a lot of time and money. One of our mentors, Dr. Robert Rakowski often says, “The most expensive strategy is the one that doesn’t work.”
break bad habits, build good habits – motivational reminder
In summary, we believe that every patient deserves a complete and thorough workup. You deserve more than 5-10
minutes of a doctor’s time. It’s impossible to do a thorough history and examination in that amount of time. At Restorative Health Solutions, we spend two hours on our new patient visits to make sure we have time to evaluate the history in-depth, do a thorough examination and to answer any questions or concerns the patient may have. Another reason why the first visit is two hours in length is because we want to save you time by getting it right from the start.
What can Restorative Health Solutions do for you?
If you’ve been to doctor after doctor and still don’t have the answers you are looking for, find a good practitioner that will spend the time to get to know your history, do a comprehensive examination and will do necessary testing. At Restorative Health Solutions, we utilize chiropractic neurology and functional medicine to help our patients achieve better health. If you are interested in a more thorough, individualized approach to your health, contact us online or give us a call for a free 15-minute consultation at 952-479-7801.
