Health — the #1 topic of conversation when two or more baby boomers get together. This undoubtedly is true because we all have something going on, whether it’s an ingrown toenail or a-fib or any number of ailments in between. And I’m right in there with the best of them, talking up a storm; we’re Geriatric MD. There’s nothing we can’t handle. And if I don’t have an opinion about this new ailment you’ve just described, the minute you leave, I’ll be online, searching your symptoms so I will be qualified to offer my educated opinion next time we talk. Usually that runs to “You should go see a doctor about that” because, yikes, it might be nothing, but it might be chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy. You just don’t know.
With no particular ailment of my own to discuss here today, I’ll tell you my favorite doctor story instead. The added bonus is it’s a very short story.
When I landed in Washington four years ago, I went for my annual wellness visit with my new doctor, to say howdy and for her to tell me I needed to be on statins based on my having spent the previous six years enjoying the cuisine in New Orleans. Near the end of my doctor visit, I asked her, patting my belly, what I ought to do about the extra poundage I was acquiring around my midsection. Her answer:” It’s part of getting older.” As in, don’t bother doing anything to fix it; just go home and continue growing old with my expanding belly.
That is the best western medicine can offer me? To go home and wait till it gets bad enough that I can get a pill prescribed to deal with the symptoms? And, while I’m at it, I should stop being so ignorant and start taking statins if I know what’s good for me.
So I quit her and took my waistline to a functional medicine doctor. And that’s the end of the story. I lived happily ever after.
There is a huge upside to being seen by a functional doctor, but there is one downside (other than not being covered by Medicare): the tons of reading material online about ways to heal thyself naturally, holistically. I am a sucker for reading, so daily, I belly up to the bar to get correctly functionalized. The advice is as you might expect. Eat organic whole foods, avoid seed oils and processed food, eschew high fructose corn syrup. Walk a lot in the sun. Drink water. Don’t sit down so much. Unglue your smartphone from your ear. And take your vitamins and supplements. They sound like my mother. The real problem is, some of their directives aren’t so easy to follow.
Sure, I can buy organic. But how do I know it’s really organic? Just because the sticker says it’s organic doesn’t mean it is.
And water. Drink lots of water. Only not from the tap, heaven forbid, what with all that fluoride. And certainly not from plastic bottles, because, you know, microplastics, PFAS and all the rest. To be safe, go lie under a waterfall and open your mouth wide.
Eat whole fruit. But wait, not the kind you get at the grocery store that’s been sprayed with pesticides. Grow your own apple trees.
Eat more eggs for the protein. But not the kind you get at the store. Become a chicken farmer and let them eat grass.
Chocolate is good for you. Eat more chocolate. But not the good stuff. No, you must eat dark chocolate, 90% cocoa, the stuff that tastes like chalk dust.
And don’t eat anything that comes wrapped in plastic, don’t eat sugar, don’t eat food from a box. Don’t, don’t, don’t. I figure the only way to get to do, do, do is move to a farm and eat out of the barn. They don’t make it easy to be healthy. Moooo.
Our musical interlude this week features Susan Tedeschi …
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