In the Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine: one of the oldest medical books in history, it states:
“A wise person cures a disease before it occurs and deals with a disorder before it happens”.
So the ancient sages knew that prevention is much more important than treatment. There are many modern diseases that can easily be prevented, but can be very difficult to treat once they develop. The key to prevention involves first identifying your risk factors and then, of course, addressing them.
Identifying Risk Factors
No one is the same. We are all born with individual, physical strengths and weaknesses. In order to capitalize on your strengths and offset your weaknesses, you need to first know yourself. Who you are and the diseases that you are prone to, are the result of a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Some people for example, are born with “good” genetics: Meaning, their genetics are “suited” for the environment they are in right now. These people can sometimes completely abuse their bodies without adverse effects. However, these habits can backfire if their environment changes and suddenly their genetics can no longer compensate for their lifestyle. This usually happens sooner or later since your environment is constantly changing.
For example, you may not be aware when certain medications, such as vaccines are altered to contain mercury, aluminum or formaldehyde. You may not know or understand the implications of adding very toxic substances like fluoride to our water supply or bromide to our baked goods. Or you may never be notified that poorly tested genetic modifications have been used in your normal food items such as cereals, and so forth. There are so many reckless decisions that are made for us regarding our food and environment due to special interest lobbies, lies and deception that, unfortunately, we can no longer just blindly trust that our interests are being protected.
While we can never fully protect ourselves from all potential environmental insults, we can, however, make ourselves stronger and better able to cope with these environmental insults through preventative maintenance such as proper diet and nutrition, exercise, healthy lifestyle choices and receiving health and wellness support via Chinese Medicine (Acupuncture, Chinese Herbal Medicine), Diet and Nutritional Support.
Prevention Program
Our prevention program has two parts. The first part is to help identify individual strengths, weaknesses, deficiencies, and excesses occuring within the body via taking and assessing thorough health histories, patient intakes and physical examinations. The second, is to examine the ability of the body to adapt to the current environment and lifestyle.
To assess and identify individual strengths, weaknesses, deficiencies, and excesses occuring within the body, we first look at one’s constitution or genetic predispositions. The ancient Chinese had some very interesting, yet effective techniques for assessing one’s constitutional tendencies which Chinese Doctors are still utilizing today in modern practice. These ancient techniques are the following:
- Questioning, Observation
(ie: Asking questions about bodily functions, observing facial complexion, body type, voice tone; Looking at the tongue presentation, etc.) - Palpation
(palpating the radial or carotid pulse; palpating the abdomen, palpating acupuncture points and channels).
An individual’s constitution or genetic predispositions (aka – genetic strengths and weaknesses) are evaluated using the above methods of diagnosis. In other words, various aspects of one’s physical characteristics can give us a lot of information about their genetic predispositions or inherited constitution and current physical state and hence, helps the Chinese Medical doctor arrive at the correct Chinese Medical Diagnosis and thus, treatment protocol.
Once the strengths, weaknesses and environmental and lifestyle stressors have been addressed, and have become in balance, we recommend quarterly checkups to monitor progress and to help with early identification and elimination of new stressors or imbalances.
Keeping Informed
Finally, we should all try to keep informed about changes that can affect our health. At Healing Traditions, we are constantly involved in receiving continuing education within the Oriental and Western Medical Field, as well as, constantly reviewing the latest research within both Oriental and Western Medicine. We aim to keep our patients informed on important new findings. We do this through our email newsletters, email announcements and our blog.
Of course not all diseases are identifiable or preventable, but we all have many tools at our disposal to help us preserve our health and vitality.
And always remember, “An ounce of prevention is truly worth a pound of cure”.
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For more information, please contact Healing Traditions Integrated Wellness at 303-997-9414 or email at info@healing-traditions.com.