The dead end alley of conventional medicine
Today, I would like to share with you a few thoughts on a topic that is serious and not many of my colleagues dare to talk about. It is also very close to my heart because, whether I like it or not, I am a doctor too.
For many years, one of my main goals in practice has been to reduce the use of pharmaceutical drugs and replace them with healing techniques that natural and less toxic. I embarked on this path more than 15 years ago and I can see more clearly what exactly is happening in veterinary and human medicine. What I write here as just an opinion. My intention is to provoke a discussion about how we handle the gift of health and what we can do better.
There is nothing in nature that doesn’t have a purpose or that is not a closed cycle. We come from the land and we go back in the land and so do animals, plants, trees and all that is living. We have a general sense of understanding that “natural” is good and artificial or synthetic is not optimal. However, the human civilization has never been further away from nature as it is today. The majority of our population lives in cities surrounded with artificial structures and materials that are toxic us and the environment.
In veterinary or human medicine, we have reached a point where we are starting to question how anyone can become healthier by taking prescription drugs – complex artificial substances that interact with each other on a level that nobody, even doctors, understand.
How anyone can become healthier by taking prescription drugs – complex artificial substances that interact with each other on a level that nobody, even doctors, understand?
Yes, some drugs are necessary for an immediate survival in an immediate emergency or when, the body loses the ability to produce some hormones and life essential substances such as insulin. However, I would like to pay attention to the other side of the spectrum where many patients are gradually poisoned due to side effects of drugs that often could be replaced by less harmful, yet effective natural alternatives.
It is not unusual to see a senior person or a dog taking anywhere between 5 to 10 different prescription drugs. Dogs are commonly put on drugs for arthritis and mobility that cause liver disease or kidney failure and I am convinced that most dogs could live a better and live longer without these drugs and using holistic and natural approaches instead.
I do not question that most doctors spend years at school because they want to help and make a difference and it is not my intention today to blame MD’s and DVM’s. I am just asking honestly why is it that doctors are the 3rd cause of death.
You may now expect that I am going to blame drug companies that we know care primarily about their bottom line and shareholders. The truth is that if our society didn’t use their drug based medicine, they would cease to exist. The reality is that you and I can change the landscape of our medical system, you and I can put irresponsible drug companies out of business and you and I can make sure that our medical research focuses on what is good for our health and not what is the most profitable treatment.
Until we change our mindset about medicine, start taking health and functional healthcare system as “the most important and valuable asset of our society” and make our governments listen, our overburdened and well meaning doctors will continue unintentionally cause harm and sometimes death. Western drug based approach to medicine is the only way they have been taught and that is what they are expected to do. If they don’t, they can easily loose their license.
Until we change our mindset about medicine, start taking health and functional healthcare system as “the most important and valuable asset of our society” and make our governments listen, our overburdened and well meaning doctors will continue unintentionally cause harm and sometimes death.
For more than 20 years now, I have rarely needed any care from my conventional family doctor. I use my chiropractor, homeopath, physiotherapist, osteopath, naturopath and massage therapist, coach and yoga to keep myself healthy. I pay for all this myself while the Canadian public medical insurance system would happily pay for me being sick. “Unfortunately,” I am healthy and so I have to pay for disease prevention from my own pocket.
I do believe that many doctors know what is happening but they are not equipped with knowledge of natural treatments. They usually do not confess about this but many of them are afraid not to do what the books say. This is a very hard topic for me to talk about because in the course of the last 7 years, I lost my brother and my brother in law to a brain tumor. When their lives were coming to an end, I saw their medicine cabinets exploding prescription drugs that made them suffer from countless side effects which possibly caused more suffering than the disease itself.
These effects are often impossible to distinguish for the disease symptoms and so it happens that doctors prescribe one drug on top of another in a sincere effort to help and things get worse.
So what is the solution? I encourage you to learn as much about disease prevention as possible. and perhaps attend one of our free educational online seminars – webinars. If your dog ends up in a critical and emergency situation, ask what medication is the doctor planning to use, do your own research about drug side effects, always ask, if the treatment, procedure or drug is truly needed and what the alternatives are. I also suggest you to have the opportunity ans make a connection with a holistically minded vet who is not afraid to think outside of the box.
Currently, we are in the process of creating a network of holistic vets and holistic animal health care practitioners. If you are one or if you know one, please follow this link to give us your information, so we can let our community know. And don’t forget that voting the right politicians who will understand that investing into government funded unbiased research, disease prevention and holistic health care is the best they can do to improve our health, save our healthcare and our economy. THE FUTURE IS IN OUR HANDS.
© Dr. Peter Dobias, DVM
