Hello Friends! Our Virginia winter has been predictably unpredictable again this year… t-shirts and shorts one week, snow and furry slippers the next. But for those truly bitter cold days, here’s a favorite soup recipe for all of you cabbage lovers! It’s on tap at our house this weekend.
Upcoming Events for the Locals: Milling grain, baking bread, and creating bone broth at home…tutorials coming in March. Keep watch for more details.
Challenge 1: Ask more and better questions about your health.
The modern healthcare paradigm goes something like this:
Name It. Blame It. Tame It.
For example, imagine telling your doctor, “I’m just so fatigued all the time and I don’t know why.” He might run some labs and diagnose you with anemia (Name It). You learn that your overwhelming exhaustion is due to chronically low iron stores (Blame It). If you ask why your iron is so low, he might say it’s complicated, but not to worry because he can prescribe iron pills. And if those don’t do the job, there are also iron transfusions available (Tame It).
All of this is great to know, of course, but he hasn’t really answered your question,
“Why is this happening to me?”
And you are no healthier and no wiser than when you started.
What a different experience if you were taught that there are 3 main types of anemia:
1) Anemia of production = your body does not have sufficient raw materials to make the hemoglobin in your red blood cells, which carry oxygen (ex: nutrient-poor diet, compromised digestion)
2) Anemia of destruction = your body has the raw materials and is producing just fine, but something internal is destroying the red blood cells once they are made (ex: pathogens, infection, medications, or autoimmunity)
3) Anemia of loss = production is fine, and the cells are healthy, but the body is losing blood faster than more can be made (ex: major blood loss from injury – which would be obvious, or heavy monthly cycles– which might never even enter the conversation, and if it does – will likely only be addressed with more medication or surgical procedures, which still don’t address the real issue.)
You could also have some combination of all three of the above, plus a struggling thyroid, digestive insufficiency, hormonal imbalance, and HPA Axis dysfunction.
Because the body never operates in isolation.
All systems are affected.
Do you see why iron pills and iron infusions don’t solve the problem of anemia? Those superficial interventions have their place, at least at the outset, but if that’s the only solution that is offered, the root cause is never addressed and the condition presumably gets worse.
This isn’t healing. This is drug-dealing.
And it’s the same way modern medicine treats heart disease, allergies, eczema, cancer, acid reflux, ADHD, diabetes, and just about any other modern disease you can think of.
Instead of listening, we silence what ails us.
Just like an onion, we must peel back the layers of complexity with question after sometimes-painful question, asking again and again,
“But why?”
And we must be prepared to do a lot of this work on our own. In the next edition, we will learn how to tackle it.
Until then, keep building your secure foundation on solid ground and live your life by design!
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