A while back, I received a call from my local health clinic. The nurse calling inquired if my husband and I were new to the area, and I told her we’ve been here a few years. She was surprised since neither of us have recent blood work or doctor visits on record, so she invited us both in to have our medical details noted.

I politely declined, letting her know we were in good health and had no concerns, but she was very persistent and insistent that I needed to have my markers checked. I politely declined several more times before we ended the call.

I’ve been learning about health and nutrition for decades now, and it’s something I think about regularly. I took a big break from sharing health related topics from 2020 and on since people like myself who had alternative suggestions about how to improve immunity and lessen the likelihood of disease were vilified and treated as anti-science conspiracy theorists. At this time I feel able to share more about my personal health perspectives and decisions and to clarify the paradigm that underpins all of my decisions in that arena.

To some people, getting your blood pressure, weight, and blood work checked regularly is critically important. The thinking is, if something is wrong with any of these markers, you can them meet with a doctor and get guidance on how to address the issue. Generally the recommendation will be a pharmaceutical. That’s fine if that’s what you want to do.

I don’t believe that health comes via a prescription pad and it’s not a doctor who can keep me healthy. It’s my job to keep myself healthy, and I recognize it’s no one’s responsibility but mine. Medication can suppress symptoms but when the core issue that led to the symptom remains unaddressed, over time other symptoms will appear and create seemingly new health problems. Those will then need to be medicated; in addition there are now side effects of the medication that may also need to be medicated, and so the cycle continues. Symptom suppression is not the same as healing.

Doctors are very well-trained in identifying symptoms and medicating them, and that’s a much needed and important skillset. When I have a health issue that I want feedback about, I occasionally go to a doctor to get their educated opinion (for example, after my car accident when I was diagnosed with post concussive syndrome). A diagnosis as well as their suggestions are helpful and from there, I can choose to continue my research to learn about why a symptom appeared and what to do to resolve it at the root level, or not.

About twenty years ago I had a swelling in my throat area – a friend with a medical background noticed it and insisted I get to a specialist immediately to have it checked out. As soon as the specialist looked at my neck, he was visibly alarmed and immediately performed a biopsy.

Thankfully, the biopsy was clean though he said the swelling on my thyroid was so large that it’s possible they missed the cancerous cells. He suggested I do a follow-up biopsy to be sure. I asked him what caused my thyroid to swell, and he said, “Sometimes thyroids do that.” I was fairly certain that if I continued doing biopsies that they would eventually find something and I wasn’t interested in chasing an undesired diagnosis, so I left that day, grateful I was healthy but no wiser as to why I had this symptom.

I don’t remember how much later it was that I adopted a very clean diet with no sweetener of any sort – I feel like it was at least two years later. And I don’t remember how much after that, when I passed a three way mirror in the hotel I was in and noticed I had no swelling; my neck area was completely normal. I stopped and looked at my neck at different angles again and again, in disbelief that there was no sign of anything. I was obviously thrilled it had disappeared but wondered how it happened.

It took a few years before I found the answer but guess what? Despite what the specialist told me, thyroids don’t just randomly swell as mine did. There was something that caused it. Candida feeds on sugar and can overgrow in the body, which resulted in the swelling in the area of my thyroid gland. When I took out the sweeteners, the growth disappeared.

That’s another foundational understanding of mine – that there’s a reason for everything the body does. Many health issues that we attribute to as happenstance simply aren’t; when we remove the cause of the problem, the body can heal.

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For the most part most of what I’ve experienced has been in the range of normal seasonal viruses. But occasionally I encounter things that are unusual for me.

This fall I had some soreness in my upper arm that made it hard for me to reach my arm behind my back, and I couldn’t put weight on it. I waited for it to go away but time passed and the soreness wasn’t passing. It was bearable but annoying, leading me to wonder if it was age related muscle weakness. I mentioned it when I went to the osteopath, who found that the lymph nodes in that area were blocked. He worked on that area to release the blockage; it was extremely sore for the following week, but after that my arm has been pain- free and strong again.

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I don’t think I have the answers for everything, all the time. However, I do live in my body all the time. I know what’s normal for me and what’s not. I know what kind of help I can expect from what avenues and I use all of that selectively as is appropriate to the situation.

I also believe in asking people who have the results you want to see for advice. If my doctor is brimming with health and energy, then I want to hear his suggestions about how to upgrade my health. I can’t say that my external perception of most of the medical professionals that I’ve encountered is of models of health. If I have to have a surgical procedure, they’re the ones I’m going to ask about it. But if I want to be healthy, I need to ask people who know about health and wellness, not sickness, and I’m not going to participate in scans and tests that I don’t see as valuable at this time, just to to meet someone else’s idea of what I’m supposed to do.

Avivah