Mainstream Primary Care is FAILING us

Too bad this is funny because it’s true! A colon experience many of us have had. Taking a closer look at labs, digging deeper, checking more then the bare minimum…. Now as common. I find that many providers almost have an aversion to preventative, thorough testing… Almost seems at times the approach is “why would I test all that, something will come back positive and then I’ll have to do something about it.”

Most commonly I find the following:

1) Hormone Imbalanaces

2) Thyroid Dysfunction (often “subclinical”)

3) Low vitamin B12 ( when normal is around 200-1200…. People don’t usually feel great at 300, but it’s not red..so…. It gets ignored… usually not even checked actually).

4) love vitamin D (again when 25-85 is “normal,” but 32 is not lit up red…. Does that mean we feel good with our D in the toilet… unlikely! Also rarely checked in what I’ve seen practiced mainstream).

5) fasted insulin - data about if someone will likely develop metabolic syndrome, has metabolic syndrome or will more than likely develop pre-diabetes or diabetes shows up on symptom presentation AND  a fasted insulin level 10 to 20 years before we see an elevated hemoglobin A1c, which is the diagnostic marker for diabetes, diagnosis and management ( talking all DM2 here).

6) Homocysteinemia - elevated homocysteine levels, another one most providers do not check regularly… according to Cleveland Clinic “Homocysteine is an amino acid. Vitamins B12, B6 and folate break down homocysteine to create other chemicals your body needs. High homocysteine levels may mean you have a vitamin deficiency. Without treatment, elevated homocysteine increases your risks for blood clots, heart disease and stroke.” — but really, why would we open up that can of worms… easier just to not check it.

These are just the COMMON things I review on annual labs of my patients EVERY SINGLE DAY, I swear.

These problem is mostly rooted in lack of clear direction and education within medical training. I know that my ADN… BSN… MSN… and MSN to FNP - none of those - 10ish years of school studying in depth pathophysiology left the impression on me that the above were the most common problems I would see. Nurse Practitioner Masters not after masters level training on Assessment… diagnosis… and treatment… put a question of alarm within me when I hear the common American complaints:

1) fatigue

2) insomnia

3) anxiety

4) depression

5) weight gain/overweight/obesity

6) difficulty losing weight

7) low back pain

8 ) joint pain

9) neck pain

10) muscle spasms/restless leg

11) low libido

12) erectiel dysfunction

The list goes on, and this is not consciously organized in the most common to the least common… I am 100% shocked if I go a single day without hearing one, most of, or all of the complaints above from my patients.

Doing the extra labs above that are commonly abnormal that are generally not checked or do not alarm action if they are not lit up, red, is the very basic first step in trying to identify what’s going on upstream that’s causing these downstream discomfort. I start hearing these things in teenagers… Definitely in 20 to 30-year-olds, and in almost all 30 year olds and older. This is common here in America with our western lifestyle, but this is not a normal experience of living in these bodies or age aging.

There are genetic mutations, for instance, with the B12, folate deficiency, the elevated system that can be because of certain vitamin deficiencies… That can cause difficulty or inability to process circles to the form that we can actually use at a biochemical level…But the most powerful treatment to all of the above, and most certainly the most powerful treatment to prevent preventing and managing all of the above … is lifestyle.

Stigmatized, generic, blanket statement… “lifestyle education provided.” “ lifestyle education reinforced.”

These are statements that you will see in most providers assessment and plan in response to the symptoms that you experience. And most likely they did drop a line, “ the best thing for you is diet exercise, if you don’t get this together, now you will end up sicker down the road.” if you’re lucky, you got something even close to reinforcing alarm and redirecting some of the ownership and accountability of your health and wellness to …. But there is a very fine line between providing someone with empowering education and absolutely shaming someone. Our medical system has created this vacuum of inadequacy around, rushed visits, to complete limits, providers burning the candle at both ends seeing 20, 30 or more patients a day…! Even the best, most dedicated and passionate provider cannot do an astounding job, coaching and empowering patients on deep dive lifestyle interventions.

I do not blame them, it is generally not their fault. It is the way the system is built, manipulated by and controlled by insurance and pharmaceutical companies. With all of that said, my main goal is to create a clinic that I can work in, that I can soon hire other people to work in, that can reach people where they are at, and have ample time, not in a rush, not manipulated by the constraints of insurance companies or by the guidelines that have been created often due to research that was completely funded in and often statistically manipulated by pharmaceutical companies who have their own agenda, which is to mark medication’s at 1000+ percent when they actually help or are needed… or even worse when they push medication’s that are marked up 1000+ percent and call them a requirement and fearmonger providers into prescribing them or they may lose their license because of negative outcomes that we’re not even strong in the research without the statistical manipulation…..

You get my point, and I am not trying to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I am just so excited to be finally executing Proactive Wellness, LLC !!!

The desire has been growing within me for over a decade as I have actively educated myself more deeply about functional medicine and integrative medicine. A number of years back I did a 10 month program Andrea Nakayama’s —> Functional Nutrition Lab

— which open my eyes even farther to the breath of ways that I can identify problems and help educate an empower people to become proactive about their whole person Wellness….

So if any of this resonates with you. Leave a comment, or better yet, book an appointment with me !!!