Has this happened to you?
You go to the doctor with a complaint and they give you a medication. A few months, or even years, later, you have a new symptom and your physician, or a different one, prescribes you another medication to help with those. Before you know it, you are on a multitude of different medications and still not feeling well.
Medications work by altering how a biologic process in the body works. For example, a proton-pump inhibitor, which may be over-the-counter or prescribed, such as Zantac® or Nexium® works by blocking the production of stomach acid. Stomach acid is necessary to aid in digesting the breakdown of our food so that we can pull the vitamins, amino acids, and other nutrients from it. Amino acids are necessary to create neurotransmittors, one of which is serotonin. Serotonin helps control our impulses, cravings, moods, and sleep. When the body does not receive raw material to create serotonin, we get depressed and anxious. The doctor then may prescribe a selective serotonin uptake inhibitors such as Lexapro, Paxil, and Zoloft, just to name a few. These drugs actually deplete the serotonin levels because they recirculate the serotonin that is available but, every time that happens, there is less serotonin for the next round.
Now you have heartburn, you are not getting the nutrients that you need, your digestion, sleep, and mood are all affected AND… your liver is struggling because all those medications need to be processed by the body. Now, your lab results may still fall in the “normal” range but be borderline to abnormal, either low or high and you are on the way to having liver problems which, because the lab results are not flagged, the doctor tells you that everything is “normal.”
Also, while there might have been a medical need for that proton-pump inhibitor, such as an ulcer, which started this whole chain of events, if it had been used as intended, for short-term use and the root cause of the original problem had been addressed, this unfortunate person would not be depressed, malnourished, struggling with insomnia, and with a liver that is not doing its job of taking out the trash very well.
Work with someone who knows how to find and address the route cause of why you are not feeling well. A Functional Medicine Health Coach can help you identify and root cause and reverse it using nutrition, supplements, and lifestyle changes.
Even if you find that you are already in a situation of polypharma, working with a Functional Medicine Health Coach can still help you work with your physician to get a good look at what is going on and how those medications can be reduced or even eliminated.
Call Just Breathe at 508-366-8292 to schedule your initial consult and see how we can help you feel great again!
