The Patient's Role in Healing

Prerequisite: showing up

Even without the funding of Big Pharma and the lack of a good control group, acupuncture shows great results for hundreds of conditions in research trials. Unlike the drug trials, patients leave with only positive side effects. Here's the thing: the patients getting treated in clinical trials get regular ongoing treatment for the course of the trial, usually lasting several weeks. They monitor one thing, say neck pain, and follow through with the entire treatment course before noting results. If say, the patient dropped out after two sessions because life got hectic or if she only got treatment when the pain became unbearable - she would be removed from the study.. you see my point. Following through with your plan and showing up for treatment is critical to achieving your goal(s). Treatment outcome also varies based on the following: your issue, it's intensity and chronicity, your lifestyle, genetics and external factors. And finally, .. it depends on your goal. Do you want short term relief or a long term ongoing strategy? Some patients want to calm anxiety and others aim to foster peace and live to their highest potential in body and mind. We all start at different places when it comes to achieving better health. But, to state the obvious, you have to start by showing up for yourself! Nobody else will. This is a contrast from conventional care, which typically has you play a very passive, short lived role.

Patient role: get involved

Hippocrates said if best, ' Before you heal someone, ask him if he's willing to give up the things that make him sick. ' Most commonly, overwork and poor lifestyle tax the system, driving up inflammation until you reach a tipping point, and then your intrinsic predispositions to disease start to unfold. Chinese Medicine, which includes most famously, the use of Acupuncture and Herbs, addresses the root of your health issue(s) and imbalances. But your lifestyle does play a role in how your health destiny. Even the most highly skilled acupuncturist wouldn’t be able to naturally resolve someone’s insomnia if they had a strong addiction to work and caffeine they wouldn’t address. For true healing, each patient has to investigate where there are weeds to be untangled and where there is life to be nourished and not let barriers (excuses?) get in the way. The prevailing notion is that people shouldn't suffer at all in life and if they do, medicine should then immediately fix it. In reality, that's not how it works. That mentality, among other systemic problems, led to the opiod epidemic and is exacerbating the way this virus is eating through our inflamed population, many of whom are suffering from preventable diseases. Encountering challenges is an appropriate and unavoidable aspect of life. It's how we address them that's key. Instead of fighting symptoms, consider that there is a pathway that is more gentle, slower and deeply corrective vs suppressive. And it's often much safer and more fulfilling than the conventional route.

You get to decide

It’s quite revealing what people prioritize. Sometimes, I see that patients are seeking to affirm their beliefs that nothing helps, that they're too busy, that it's all hopeless. So correcting those thought patterns has to be a part of their healing. With everything going on right now, people want changes outside of them and don't necessarily want to look inside and do the work to invest in themselves. We each need to go within, reflect, and in whatever ways we can, find trust and a solid gameplan to navigate ourselves through these times. The growth that comes with that self investment over time is priceless. Now is the time to show up for yourself, clean up your act and do what you can for your health (alongside voting, of course). I know I'm being called to show up differently for myself and in the world in the midst of this crisis. Here at Little Dragon Wellness, we do our best to relieve suffering and guide you on your journey to self discovery and wellness. Yet we don't do that alone, we facilitate in partnership with you. You get out of it what you put in to it.