Traditional Medicine May Not Make You Well. Here’s How to Achieve Optimal Health.
The following is adapted from Live Long, Live Well by Laurie Blanscet.
There I was, just a few years into my private practice. I was working the typical long hours of a doctor, rushing through each day with little thought for myself, when I found out I had multiple fibroids (benign tumors) in my uterus. Soon, the pain and irregular bleeding affected everything I did. Rather than listen to my body, I decided a hysterectomy would solve the issue. After all, that was what traditional medicine had taught me. Diagnose the problem, then fix the problem without delving into the cause of the problem.
At that point, I was still in a “rush” mindset. Everything was rushed. I needed to rush to get a hysterectomy. I needed to rush to be back to work in two weeks. All I could think of was fixing the issue as quickly as possible. I thought the fast way was the best way.
Boy, was I wrong.
During the surgery, the doctors discovered I had lived through a ruptured appendix. By some miracle, my body had healed itself from the appendicitis and walled off the area to protect my body from the infection. This miracle saved my life but also left behind a diseased, scarred area in my abdomen. Clearly, I had somehow learned to live with extreme inflammation and discomfort, and even thought of it as “normal.”
It took me many more years to recognize a simple truth: constant discomfort is not normal.
During the hysterectomy, the doctors attempted to fix the old, diseased area of my intestines and accidentally nicked (cut a small hole in) my bowels. From that point forward, my medical journey began. I was in the hospital three different times, for a total of forty days, and could not work for almost five months. I ended up losing almost thirty pounds and became severely anemic, with a hemoglobin of about eight (should be above twelve). My muscles atrophied as my body “ate” my own muscle to stay alive. At one point, I had pneumonia. At another, I had an allergic reaction to an anesthetic that nearly killed me. The list goes on: an abscess in my abdomen, a blood clot in my left arm, an IV feeding tube for over three months.
I was weak, frail, fatigued, and closer to death than I care to admit.
On the outside, before this happened, I was a seemingly healthy thirty-eight-year-old woman, and yet I almost didn’t come out alive. The entire experience was humbling, to say the least.
As horrible as the experience was, I am eternally thankful for having had it. That may sound strange to say, but getting close to death finally woke me up.
My Journey in the Health Care World
Today, I am an integrative medicine physician with a thriving practice in Murrieta, California. As an integrative physician, I evaluate the whole person and focus on prevention and getting to the root cause of the medical issues a patient is having. Integrative medicine is a proactive arm of medical care. I did not always practice this type of medicine.
In fact, I was not trained at all for this type of medicine in medical school. Instead, I spent hours upon hours learning how to diagnose diseases and how to administer pharmaceutical medications. There was minimal, if any, training on getting to the cause of diseases and preventing illness by utilizing nutrition, exercise, hormone balancing, supplements, toxin avoidance, detoxification, restful sleep, and the mind-body connection.
I graduated medical school in 1996 and finished my family medicine residency in 1999, becoming board-certified in family medicine. I knew I didn’t want to work for someone else, so I took the appropriate steps to open a private family medicine office. I moved from Orange County, California, to Murrieta, California, and started a practice in an area that was growing in population and was more affordable for starting a medical practice.
I always had good intentions. I genuinely wanted to help patients achieve better health, and my practice quickly grew. I hired a physician assistant to help with the workload and saw all types of patients — from children to adults to geriatrics. My patients came to me for everything from a routine physical to a bacterial or viral infection to diabetes and even cancer. I enjoyed getting to know each patient on a personal level.
Over time, it became clear that the way I was trained to practice medicine wouldn’t be enough for my patients. I began to question the validity of the medical system more seriously. Should I do what other doctors were advocating? Should I prescribe cholesterol medication without also recommending lifestyle changes? Sure, medication can sometimes help, but it is rarely the long-term answer. Moreover, these medications came with serious side effects.
Putting band-aids on issues by prescribing medication could only go so far. I wanted to be proactive and help my patients prevent problems in the first place, so I spent time counseling each one on preventive care and even helping some get off medications.
I quickly found that insurances do not value this kind of time spent with patients. In fact, health insurance companies only pay based on the number and severity of diagnoses a patient has. They do not pay based on time or diseases prevented. I like to call it “disease” insurance because it is a disease-based system, not a true health-based system. I have also heard it called “sick” insurance because it pays for people to go to the doctor when they are sick, not to prevent sickness.
As I tried to work within this system, I found that truly making a bigger difference in my patients’ lives came at a cost. It added hours to my day, and I needed to see more patients to cover my overhead. It also meant I didn’t have time to pay attention to my health. I grabbed food that was convenient and fast. I canceled 95 percent of the vacations I planned because I simply could not get away from the practice. Over 50 percent of the time I spent out of the office was taken up by administrative or patient care duties. There was no quiet time to rest and relax.
I was on the merry-go-round of life and forgot that I wouldn’t be able to care for others if I didn’t care for myself. I lived with daily inflammation that had become so commonplace to me that I could ignore it, just like most people do. I was headed toward a personal medical catastrophe but “felt fine,” or that was what I would tell myself. I was “healthy,” or so I thought. I was like the majority of people in the world, thinking I was fine when I really was not.
As a result of the months and years of not following a regular self-care program, I ended up on the horrible medical journey I described. I was only seven years into my medical practice, and I almost died.
This couldn’t be the best way.
A New Way to an Optimal You
My experience as a doctor and a patient gave me the spirit to fight the brainwashing found in traditional medicine. I realized I would need to stand up for what is right, not what is commonly taught. So, I began seeking out wellness-minded doctors and organizations that I could learn from and collaborate with. I wanted to completely change my medical practice to one that truly helped people from the inside out, to a practice that I would love and feel proud of. At the same time, I wanted to be truly healthy myself.
The journey did not happen overnight. It took over a year to simply regain my basic “health,” which was not optimal health. It took me several more years to obtain optimal health, and I am still learning and improving my approach to health every day.
During this journey to optimal health, I realized that the medical system, as it exists today, is toxic for both patients and doctors. The system either “kills” the patient by “forcing” the doctor to offer substandard care, or it “kills” the doctor by having the doctor spend hours providing the quality of care that is necessary but not rewarded by the insurance system. After my experience, I wondered: how many caring doctors have been pushed to the “brink of death” to provide proper care for their patients? As long as medical education is focused on pharmaceutical drugs, and insurance payments are based on diagnosis codes and value reactive medical treatment, the medical field at large will remain a no-win system.
This system should not be designed to simply put out “fires” and control diseases. It should be designed to determine the root cause of the problem and fix it if possible. The doctor and the patient should be allowed to collaborate and work as a team, along with other wellness providers that are needed for that patient to achieve optimal health. Physicians need to be fully invested in the health of their patients, and patients need to understand that true answers may take time and will require taking real, proactive action. We must move beyond the “quick fix” paradigm.
Though I knew I could not change a whole system, I could change my medical practice. I took the time to become properly educated on integrative medicine and treating patients for optimal health. I was ecstatic to find that I was not alone; there was a growing number of physicians who were fighting for the patient and providing quality medical care outside of the insurance system. I was obsessed with getting the information I needed to transform my own health and my health care practice.
In 2012, thirteen years after I started my original practice, I transitioned into an integrative medical practice that I call An Optimal You. I believe all of us can achieve optimal health. My practice incorporates concierge medicine, private pay bio-identical hormone balancing, wellness IVs, detoxification protocols, and more. I have also aligned myself with a group of wellness practitioners that offer added support to my patients. I work closely with a life coach, intuitive consultant, hypnotherapist, aromatherapist, personal trainer, and other highly effective wellness practitioners. My own self-care routine includes a healthy diet, regular exercise, bio-identical hormone replacement, quality supplements, daily gratitude journaling, meditation, breathing exercises, going to a float tank every two weeks, taking regular time off work, and using a variety of local wellness services.
I can now provide the appropriate medical care that my patients need without worrying what insurances say I can do, and I can do that without killing myself. In fact, I can do that while maintaining optimal health. I love how I feel and look. I love being in my fifties and feeling better than I ever did when I was in my twenties and thirties. When I come across someone who hasn’t seen me for some time, they tell me I have reverse aged. I’m proud to be this kind of example for my patients as I guide them on their path to a wellness mindset and optimal health.
I have gone through this process myself and seen miraculous changes in my mind and body. Many of my patients have also embraced the process and achieved optimal wellness for themselves. You can do the same. All it takes is a willingness to change and to take one step at a time.
To learn more about how to reach optimal health, Live Long, Live Well is available on Amazon.
Dr. Laurie Blanscet is board certified in family medicine and integrative medicine and has a PhD in hypnotherapy and a MSHPE in health education. She has practiced medicine in Southern California since 1999 and offers training for other medical practitioners who want to transition their office to an integrative practice.
