I Am Not Going to Tell My Doctor...

Has this happened to you? Share your experience in the comments below!

Most people have had the experience of needing to reach out for information or support regarding health or wellness for themselves or a loved one. Let’s look at Paul's journey with long-standing, chronic shoulder pain due to a sports injury that no longer responds to over-the-counter pain medication. He scours the internet for countless hours to find other options. He finds people who have helped their own shoulder pain and who have best-selling books detailing exactly how they did this. He’s not sure if this is the same kind of shoulder pain that he is experiencing but it worked for this other person so he figures it couldn’t hurt to try one of the supplements or methods that is recommended. Who knows, maybe it could work for him, too.

The next day he goes to his local health food store where supplements are sold. He has a conversation with the associate about which supplement, which brands, and what dose would be the best for his shoulder pain and purchases the recommended brand. He then stops by his yoga studio for a class on his way home and asks his yoga instructor what he could do to help his shoulder pain. The yoga instructor immediately tells him to change his diet and proceeds to give specific recommendations about what worked for her.

Still looking for answers, he seeks help from his allopathic physician where he is told that he needs a prescription pain reliever to help his discomfort or that he can consider a local steroid injection to reduce the inflammation. Paul is then informed that, if this does not work, surgery should be considered. He mentions some of the complementary options that he read about on the internet to see what his physician would recommend about these, including the supplement recommendations. The response from the doctor was belittling at best and he is told that he should not believe all the things he reads on the internet.

"It just seems that no one understands."

However, Paul is not yet ready to move forward with his physician’s recommendations. He knows that he may have to go in that direction but he decides he wants to see what other complementary options exist that have lower risk to try first. He considers going to an energy medicine provider because he heard it could help but he has no idea who to go to or where to even find the right kind since there are so many types of energy medicine. At this point, he feels alone and feels he is not sure who he can trust about helping to navigate through this. He decides to do more research.

He is overwhelmed by all the different types of information that he is finding. Some websites say to try one thing while others say that is the worst thing he should do. There is so much information that is conflicting and he knows he cannot ask his physician about this. Meanwhile, he continues his research on the internet and is still experiencing significant pain. He is hearing different things from different people and he is tired of having to research all of this on his own with no one to help him and no one who really understands. He feels alone and unsupported.

Desperate and exhausted by the whole situation, he just picks something to try essentially at random and hopes for the best. Unfortunately after a few weeks of not having any relief, he enters a seemingly endless loop of frustration where he has to start the process all over again researching modalities and strategies and then experimenting on himself, again hoping for the best but with no methodical or truly educated basis for the selection. Not only has his quality of life suffered due to his shoulder pain, but he is now chronically frustrated, hopeless, stressed and stuck in this cycle without support.

There Are Other Options!

The Wellness Journey Club is here to help you navigate through your questions about complementary and alternative options. We have created a new wellness model integrating the best parts of many modalities. Our goal is to make alternative options and complementary options accessible to everyone in an educated, fun way.

Ask us your questions today!

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