What Happens When Your Health Problem Isn’t The Real Problem?
Have you ever had a health problem that never seemed to get better? No matter what provider you tried, your condition continued to persist and maybe even developed into something worse?
Most people make their health care decisions based on the idea that the problem they are experiencing (usually a symptom like headaches, hormone imbalances, weight gain, difficulty sleeping) is the problem and they need to find a healthcare provider to fix it.
If you are in pain – maybe you get headaches, or you have low back pain - you will probably seek out someone (Doctor, Physiotherapist, Chiropractor, etc.) who you believe will "fix" your pain.
If you have diabetes (or insert chronic condition here) then you are probably searching for an approach that will "fix" your diabetes problem.
In these cases, if the pain and diabetes were the actual problem, healthcare that attempted to "fix" them would be wonderful and appropriate. It would actually provide a solution to your problem.
Unfortunately, most of the time the attempts to help are directed at the symptoms ONLY and never address any of the underlying problems that exist.
If you had a house with a concrete foundation that supported the entire structure on its top and somehow the base incurred enough damage to cause a shift, do you think other problems would develop secondary to the foundation?
Sure they would!
Over time you would see cracking in the drywall, misaligned door frames and even plumbing or electrical damage could develop inside the walls. What is the real problem in this example? One of these is a PRIMARY PROBLEM and the rest are simply SECONDARY DAMAGE.
The same analogy applies to your body and your health.
Symptoms like pain; poor digestion, low energy, poor sleeping and thousands of other signals are almost always secondary conditions… secondary effects from a handful of primary PROBLEMS that have been left unaddressed for an extended period of time.
This is a generalization, but the typical approach to secondary conditions (like pain, poor sleep or headaches) is to suppress the messages with some sort of medication. Now don’t get us wrong, this can be really useful in some cases, in fact medication is likely helping millions of people survive despite major dysfunction in their body.
But…
The concern is that those alarms signals from the body are NOT the core problem.
Turning them off may provide you with a ‘quick fix’ but the primary problem and the damage occurring from it will only continue to impact your health in negative ways…even if you don’t feel it happening.
This is the process used with the vast majority of disease treatment models…identify the collateral damage (often confused for the primary problem) and attempt to "fix" it.
What are some of the most common Primary Problems?
Well, perhaps a better question would be to ask – what are the core requirements for the body to work optimally? If one of these core requirements is not being met, it will lead to a primary problem... which in turn can lead to a whole host of secondary conditions.
When a deficiency is present in any one of these core requirements, secondary damage (disease and symptoms) will follow. In fact, every single disease process is in some way, large or small, caused by some of these essential needs not being addressed over a period of time.
So what are the core requirements for your body to function optimally?
1. FUEL (Food for energy and cellular building blocks)
2. MOVEMENT (mobility, strength, endurance)
3. SLEEP (quantity, quality)
4. MINDSET (self-esteem, vision, values, goals)
5. STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY (spinal health, joint health)
6. NEUROLOGICAL (nervous system communication, brain health)
Pain, headaches, hormone imbalances, sleep problems, immunity issues, lack of focus, immobility, energy output, inflammatory diseases, weight gain and thousands more labeled diseases are simply secondary damage from primary problems left unaddressed.
Can all Primary Problems By Corrected?
Unfortunately, not all primary problems can be corrected.
If the primary problem has been left unaddressed too long, the severity is too great or it is just not something that is currently correctable like gene mutation (although research is showing us that dealing with other core issues like food and movement can impact genetic expression!) dealing with some of the collateral damage is a very appropriate approach.
The real pitfall is to not confuse symptom suppression with building health.
However, in the vast majority of cases, starting to address one or more primary problems can lead to incredible health recovery and optimization. Even in conditions that have been chronic and difficult to reverse.
Ultimately, you have a choice: stick to the conventional method of reducing the signs of SECONDARY DAMAGE or focus on correcting the PRIMARY PROBLEM.
Please be sure you're getting the one you really want.
-Dr. Chris
Christopher Small
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