Antipsychotics, antidepressants, anxiolytics, antibiotics, antihypertensives . . . the list of prescriptions medications are often a list of symptoms with an “anti” attached to the front. But what are symptoms? Are the symptoms the cause of our illnesses, the warning signals of an underlying health problem, or the result of an underlying root cause? And how far back do we need to go to find the root cause?
These are difficult questions, but well worth pondering if we want to charge ahead with treatment don’t you think?
These questions hardly stirred my mind during my naive years of medical training. During those years, my world revolved around the use of prescription medications. I was taught how they worked and what doses to give. It was assumed that medications were the ultimate in healing mental illness. Once, not so many years ago, I believed that they were ALL that stood between my patients and mental illness. I used them to wrest my patients’ lives from the horrors of depression and psychosis. And they worked. I routinely saved lives through the use of prescription medications, and I continue to use them today when needed.
If prescription medications were so wonderful, why am I so enamored with nutritional supplements and (of all things!) energy medicine. The answer is simple. For me, these tools have worked even better. As a doctor, I go where the healing is best for my patients. And to tell the truth, there is no real good reason for such a stubborn rejection of orthomolecular medicine by the establishment. The choice of treatment should always be based on what is best for our patients. We made oaths at graduation to never do harm, and this commitment should still be echoing in our hearts today.
Nowadays, I can heal faster and with less fear of side effects when I use orthomolecular and energy medicine. I like the fact that patients get well, and they can go on their way to do whatever they had planned on doing before they fell ill. And ultimately, I must prefer having a constant turnover of patients on their way to health more than having a steady group of chronically ill patients, because that is what I have now.
As I continue to learn and grow in my knowledge and expertise with nutritional supplements, I become less and less dependent on prescription medications. Nutritional supplementation and energy medicine can heal patients from psychosis, depression, OCD, Tourette’s Disorder, severe fatigue, Panic Disorder, Bulemia, and phobias. It’s time that patients and doctors know that this is possible. Dealing with medication withdrawals on top of healing the underlying causes does make my work harder, but not impossible.
So when am I using prescription medications now?
When I need a very strong club to knock out a full blown crisis that’s when.
When a bull is charging full blast at you, a good strong bop on the head to knock it out does the job well. It’s not a good time to work on taming the beast.
I also use prescription medications when the person is so depleted nutritionally or biochemically imbalanced that using both prescription medication and nutritional supplements would keep the patient from prolonged suffering. Why wait for months of recovery when the addition of a prescription medication can shorten the recovery time to a few weeks.
I also continue prescription medications while the patient is using orthomolecular treatment, and I lower these medications only when the patient is able to tolerate the withdrawal signs and symptoms, which are often the OPPOSITE of what the medication creates when present. Imagine the ramifications of lowering prescription medications too quickly. . . .
Now that I have more tools in my tool box for helping patients heal from their mental illnesses, I choose based on my clinical expertise and knowledge. Prescription medications are part of my arsenal of tools. They will be as long as I need to use them. My goal is not to wage war against prescription medications, but the illnesses that threaten to cripple my patients’ lives. Always, the decision of what is best for the patient is based on an open minded, unbiased assessment of the capabilities of each tool–its strengths and weaknesses–without prejudice with respect to social mores, financial gain, or emotional alliances.