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Sunday, July 21, 2013

Second Opinions and Risk

"Always get a second opinion!"

How many times have we all heard this with regard to our health, and yet how many of us actually do it? A little over five years ago I went under the knife for a very serious surgery called a bowel resection-- in my case, of the small intestine. Did I take the time to get a second opinion? Like many of you, I wager, the answer is No

Here are a few usual reasons, in no particular order, why we don't.

1)  We trust our doctor (particularly, if they've been treating us a long time-- they know best)
2)  There's no time (we are pressured into a quick decision, like our appendix just exploded)
3)  It's the only option (or, the only safe option, or the only reliable option, or the only accepted option)
4)  It's too expensive (every opinion comes with a requisite office visit co-pay, and we just don't have the money)
5)  Fear of making decisions (if the second opinion is different, then I'll have to choose)
6)  Laziness (it's too much trouble, another doctor is just going to tell me the same thing anyway)
7)  Risk of getting worse while we look around for another opinion (sometimes this idea comes from our diagnosis-- like cancer, for instance)
8)  Ignorance (nobody every told us we should get a second opinion)

Sometimes it's a mix of reasons. With me, it was a combination of 3, 4, 6, and 7. The exploratory testing discovered lesions in my small intestine. What were they? Anybody's guess without doing a biopsy, which (it turns out) is major surgery of its own. The only way to find anything in the intestinal tract is to cut you open, pull it out and inspect it inch by inch! And without that biopsy it would be impossible to determine whether or not the lesions were cancerous (reason 3). When I consulted with the surgeon and asked him about waiting until after Christmas... well, the good doctor cautioned me that waiting could be very risky. If it was cancer, it could spread to who knows where by then (reason 7). So, no point in waiting-- as a matter of fact, I could be dead by Christmas. Okay, he didn't actually SAY that, but emotions have a way of exaggerating everything. Reason 4 came into the picture since I was living on a pretty tight budget at the time (and planning for a wedding); and reason 6 came into the picture because, well, I guess I'm just naturally lazy.

There are a couple of real dangers with not getting a second opinion. The main one is that doctors don't know everything--even those things related to their specialty. For example, my cancer surgeon told me there was nothing I could have done or changed in my diet or lifestyle to prevent the sarcomas from developing. It was a well-meaning encouragement-- no doubt intended to remove any sense of guilt I might have had about my eating habits, but totally misguided. Just because he doesn't know of anything I could have done doesn't make it true. As it turns out, researchers are discovering a significant link between sugar and cancer growth...as in, it's the major food supply of cancer cells and they die if they don't get any. And for the record, at the time, my diet was about 75% sugar (give or take).

Not only do doctors not know everything, but very often doctors don't tell you everything. It's very difficult to make an informed decision without information, but unfortunately, sometimes doctors don't explain to us the full consequences of the treatment or surgery they recommend. Recently, a young woman who is a friend of the family was diagnosed with a glandular cancer that had attacked her cervix. Her doctor told her she needed a radical hysterectomy. I suggested to her that before she underwent such a drastic life-changing procedure, she research the ketogenic diet (the one that starves cancer of its sugar-food). Her reply was that she trusted her doctor, his diagnosis and his remedy "completely." Did he explain to her how miserable this procedure would make her? Did he tell her she would be immediately thrust into menopause at age 32? Did he give her a less radical option? Did she ever even seek a second opinion? At this point, I don't have the heart to ask because what's done is done. But, she trusted her doctor completely (reason 1) and likely believed the hysterectomy was the only available solution (reason 3). Her life will never be the same. And there's no guarantee the cancer won't come back somewhere else in her body later on in life.

Sometimes doctors deliberately disregard alternative treatments, to the point of warning us off from them (such as this example regarding the Gerson Therapy, which has a very high success rate in curing cancer in patients who were given up on by their cancer doctors). In our modern medical establishment, doctors have been programmed to reject any treatment that doesn't include a procedure or a drug-- for example, food! Or better put, nutrition. As a rule, they have very little nutrition training. And the training they do get is flawed in that they are indoctrinated by the mythology that low-fat, low-calorie diets are the key to good health when there is absolutely no evidence to support it. Most doctors never bother to research diet any further, though occasionally a brave soul comes along who steps over the line and asks the question... is our food making us sick? ...and then writes a book about it.

Sometimes doctors misdiagnose. Even the doctor you trust! More than 100,000 people die every year from adverse drug reactions and more than two million suffer serious injury. My dear mother lost 70% of her kidney function by taking ibuprofen every night for many years, on the advice of her doctor, to ease the pain of arthritis. The doctor never told her it could harm her. In the news just this week, a woman was diagnosed with breast cancer and went through months of chemotherapy and radiation, only to find out she never actually had cancer to start with. This kind of thing happens more often than you might think.

Always get a second opinion!

We must never forget that the medical establishment is neatly tied up in the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies. Research grants are never given to study something that has no potential to fatten the bottom line of some company or other...whether or not it has the bright promise of curing disease. If for no other, this reason (we'll call it "reason 9") should motivate us to seek a second opinion, and perhaps a third, when we are facing major medical issues such as being advised to take a prescription drug or have some surgical procedure done.

Every medical procedure and every drug involves risk. Every drug ever made has side-effects-- many of them worse than the condition they are meant to treat. You should never start taking a drug without first trying to correct the problem naturally.

The same goes for surgeries. Our bodies are complex biological miracles. They were designed as a unit, all parts--however obscure they may seem--serving a valuable purpose. You may be able to live without your appendix or your tonsils or your uterus...but you won't be functioning in optimal condition. The law of unintended consequences reigns supreme in the body. Changing the balance of even one hormone can wreak havoc in a domino effect.

Will we ever understand completely how the body works? Researchers are continually discovering new things about cell function, DNA, and metabolic processes-- often contradicting what we thought we know. In her book, Deep Nutrition, Dr. Catherine Shanahan and her husband discuss the science of epigenetics, or how our genes react to our behavior, particularly with regard to nutrition.
"The body of evidence compiled by thousands of epigenetic researchers working all over the world suggests that the majority of people's medical problems do not come from mutations, as previously thought, but rather from harmful environmental factors that force good genes to behave badly, by switching them on and off at the wrong time. And so, genes that were once healthy can, at any point in our lives, start acting sick."(1)
And the two broad categories that act upon our genes, she explains, are "toxins and nutrient imbalances such as missing vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, or other raw materials required to run our cells." Is it possible that what we eat really is that important?

Unfortunately, scientific studies will never be able to prove conclusively that eating or not eating certain foods will make you healthy and stave off cancer, heart disease, and all the other modern banes of our existence. One reason is that there are just too many variables. But that doesn't mean that strong evidence doesn't exist to support such a concept. Unfortunately for the average Joe, the scientific method is the only "approved" method for "proving" anything in the Scientific World. As long as that inflexible ideology remains entrenched, there will never be a consensus among our trusted medical professionals of what constitutes a healthy diet-- no matter how much evidence there is to support it. Evidence is not proof... to them.  But to you?
"Wisdom crieth in the streets:  'I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence; I possess knowledge and discretion...Counsel and sound judgment are mine; I have insight, I have power.'" (Proverbs 8)
We don't need a scientist to tell us what we can discover through simply looking at the evidence. Call me crazy, but I've always believed God gave me a brain for a reason. Perhaps I didn't go to medical school, but I do have the capacity to educate myself...and I may actually know more about some things than my doctor does. He (or she) is not God and should never be the final word on anything that affects me.

Since my surgery, I've applied my mind to learning the truth about health. I've researched everything from vegan principles to paleo philosophy. And like a pendulum, I've settled back to a kind of center point that concentrates on eating foods that are closest to their natural state. I've eliminated chemicals, which means I read every label on every food product that contains one. This takes effort, but in today's world dominated by manufactured food, it is a necessary activity. As a result, I don't buy very much processed food-- though I do still buy some. I buy only foods labeled organic to protect my body from the unlabeled chemicals such as pesticides and foods genetically modified to create their own poison ("Roundup-ready"). I buy only clean meat and dairy-- pasture-raised and hormone/antibiotic-free. I try to keep my sugar and bread consumption very low. And finally, I avoid soy in any form due to its hormone disrupting nature (one of many negative health effects).

So, if I knew then what I know now, would I have gotten a second opinion? Moreover, would I have risked taking the diet route first to try to cure my possible cancer? I hope so, but it's hard to say what one would have done in other circumstances, and I hesitate to say dogmatically "YES."  I am no longer the person I was then. What I AM, however, is more informed and more aware-- a good combination for making better decisions.

I hope you always get a second opinion...but better yet, tackle your diet, get rid of the poisons and junk in it, and get healthy enough that you never have to visit the doctor in the first place. That's my new goal... wish me luck, and I wish you the same!


(1) Deep Nutrition, page 4

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