“The doctor of the future will give no medication but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in a proper diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.” This quote is attributed to Thomas Edison.
I chose this topic after talking to patients who work at large medical centers and hospitals. They tell me that it is common to see patients on 12, 15, even 20 medications, and not unheard of to see a patient on as many as 30.
And they call us quacks.
One of my most memorable classes from chiropractic school was our toxicology class. And while a class on poisons does not sound very interesting unless you are a Sherlock Holmes fan, it was the teacher who made the class. He was a Ph.D. in chemistry, and he worked developing drugs in the military before starting a career in teaching. His premise for the class was simple: the most common types of poisoning we will see in our patients is not arsenic, or botulism; it is medications. He was absolutely correct in this theory.
And even this very smart teacher could not have foreseen the explosion of medication use in our country. Currently about 60% of the entire U.S. population is on at least one prescription,
and the number swells to 80% when over-the-counter drugs are added in.
Daily prescription use was found in nine out of 10 adults 65 and older, and 40% of seniors are currently on five or more prescription meds.
According to one estimate, drugs are the fifth leading cause of death in the US.
My experience in practice has proven my chemistry teacher right. I have seen so many patients poisoned by their meds. From the patient with severe, sudden onset insomnia (caused by statins, but treated with — surprise, surprise — more drugs) to the patient with intense knee pain (also caused by statins, but treated by painkillers) to the patient with fatigue (caused by one of the five meds she was on, or perhaps because of interactions between them) or the 21-year-old with a blood clot in her leg, to the 30-year-old woman who had a life-threatening stroke (both caused by birth control pills).
Or the patient who was very upset to find the medication he has been taking for years may have been the cause of his memory loss. In one disturbing study, 171 patients who were on statins, and who reported memory loss, were examined. In 75 percent of them, the memory loss was thought to be caused by the drug. When these patients stopped taking the drug, 90 percent noticed improvement in brain function; in some, a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s was reversed.
What are we getting for all these medications? For starters, we are not getting healthier. The patients that I see who are on multiple meds almost universally feel terrible. They lack the energy to exercise or change their lifestyle. Many do not even socialize. Their health is declining, even as the medications work to lower their blood sugars, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.
Wellness-based providers work with patients who are looking to regain their health naturally. We use all-natural means, including diet, herbals, acupuncture and manipulation — the best forms of “care of the human frame.” And if a patient’s goal is to reduce their medication load, we work with the doctor who prescribed the drug in the first place. But most patients are scared to death of doing this, even with medical support; they see their meds as the only thing standing between them and certain death. And while some meds certainly are effective, many of the commonly used ones are not as helpful as we are led to believe. Also, whatever benefits the patient may be gaining from a few meds is often undone when they are taking 12 or 15.
It is difficult to go against a lifetime of indoctrination that drugs are the answer for all our health problems. Trying to be a “doctor of the future” is swimming against a strong current of medical advertising and advice. The patients that are successful in making these changes are typically already halfway there — they have started to question the current “pill for every ill” approach that leads to the huge amounts of medications so commonly given today.
In other words, in order to be effective as the doctor of the future, it helps to be treating the patient of the future.
Dr. Michael Noonan practices chiropractic, chiropractic acupuncture and other wellness therapies in Old Town. He can be reached at noonanchiropractic@gmail.com.