* as in Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, by Douglas Adams
I’m glad I went to the doctor about my backache. I feel much better now. I learned a great truth which I can’t wait to share with you. It wasn’t the doctor who revealed it, quite the reverse. But he was the catalyst—the midwife!—to my realisation. You don’t want to hear about my aches and pains, naturally, and I don’t want to tell you. Suffice to say he’s referred me elsewhere for a test and consultation on some future date to be notified. In the meantime my condition has got better by itself. One of the glories of the National Health Service is its waiting lists. They offer a respite during which you are free from intervention (drugs or surgery), and also from your own anxieties, which at worst can sap your will to live. For you have placed your wellbeing in the hands of others. And that is the essence of Placebo, the most successful remedy in history.
In Jamaica they have the Obeah man. Nobody speaks well of these quacks. But if you are fearful, desperate, poor or ignorant, in any combination, you’ll scrape a few dollars to see him, and get some herbs, incantations and smeared chicken-blood for your pains. You’ll be grateful if you get better, even if it takes a while. If you get worse and die, it won’t be due to the treatment. You don’t blame the man. He did his best. Your destiny remains your own.
The National Health Service is a step up from the obeah man. I’d be the first person to say that. I nearly was the first person. When it was newly-founded in 1948, it saved my leg with a new-fangled drug called penicillin. So my leg says “thank you”. But when I went to the doctor the other day and he’d finished arranging me an appointment elsewhere, he checked his computer screen to remind himself of my last visit, a year ago. He’d prescribed me three types of medication which I was to continue taking daily for the rest of my life. Would I like to say why I hadn’t requested any repeat prescription? I wanted to say “Because I got better”, but it wouldn’t go down well with him. These pills, he told me, cannot cure your condition. They can only control it. The conditions in question are quite invisible to the patient. Only the medical profession—only Science—can tell that you have these conditions. But—here’s the catch—it is determined statistically that they shorten your life. Warming to his theme, he put my details into a computer program, which told him that my life would be at least ten years shorter if I didn’t take the pills. So I said, “OK, you have convinced me.” He handed me a prescription. I’ve put it in my sock drawer.
What I actually told him in answer to his “Why?” question—why I stopped taking the medication a year ago—was that I prefer an holistic approach to health. If something is wrong in my body there must be a reason. I’d prefer to eliminate the cause rather than hit the malfunctioning part with a powerful drug. “Ah, but you see,” said the doctor, who is as charming as he is clever, “sometimes there is no cause. What I mean to say is that you must have an essential or idiopathic condition.” I checked Wikipedia later. If my essential condition turns out to not be cured by drugs, they’d call it resistant. And no doubt increase the dose.
So I went back home, discovered I have in my sock drawer the unused medications from a year ago, still within their expiry date. I really didn’t want my body to deteriorate in the manner he had warned. So I followed the instructions for nearly a week, by which time the various trivial symptoms which had been plaguing me for weeks, mental and physical, intensified. To the point where I didn’t care about the next ten years. Life was burden enough now. I checked the leaflets which tell you about “possible side effects”. Yes, one of them described everything I was going through. But it was the other one which really bothered me. Each of the various diseases it can cause is worse than anything I’ve had in my life, or expect to have. I’ll merely quote this:
Contact your doctor immediately if you experience muscle aches and pains, tenderness, weakness or cramps. This is because on rare occasions, muscle damage can be serious.
So, I have been prescribed something which can cause the very problem I came about in the first place. Not just that but insomnia, nightmares, memory loss, sexual difficulties, depression, breathing difficulties, fever, liver disease, hair loss, dizziness, bone disorders and loss of sensation in the arms and legs. Give me the Obeah man!
Needless to say, I stopped taking the medications. After a few days, the symptoms have subsided, as well as symptoms I never noticed I had, till they stopped. I started feeling better than I have for a long time. But here’s the thing. All my symptoms work together. I promised at the beginning that I would share a great truth with you. I shall but here is a warning. It may not be true for you. I cannot say it is The Truth, because I don’t believe in The Truth, just your truth and mine. For me, if one thing is wrong with my body, other things generally are too. My consciousness goes sick as well. Things are interconnected, but the doctor wants to treat me as if I’d brought my car to the workshop 
and he were a mechanic. If the tyres are worn, it doesn’t mean I should change the light bulbs too. The brakes work independently of the oil pressure—or at least I think so. But if I saw the doctor for depression he’d give me something to lighten my mood, as if replacing a fuse. He should know that a blown fuse may indicate another problem. He does, actually, but the National Health Service cannot offer everyone psychotherapy. So he cures the blown fuse with a stronger fuse.
I can tell you what has made me feel so well—not in detail, only the vaguest terms. Something was hanging over my head, something I was dreading: not for itself but for the way it stirred up old wounds, as it were: things from my past. I didn’t want to face them—kept them hidden. One immediate result was a specific form of writer’s block, one which prevented me publishing anything here. (Normally this block strikes on only six days of the week. I can live with that.) The remedy, so I read it in hindsight, is (1) to take time out, face the past and wallow in self-pity for a bit. Then complete the session with (2) the good old tried and tested “pull yourself together, man!” The magic bullet is (1) followed when you’re good and ready by (2).
This became much clearer for me when I watched all seven hours of The Singing Detective—the original 1986 BBC series with Michael Gambon, not the 2003 version with Robert Downey Jr. The hero, like his author Dennis Potter, suffers from arthritic psoriasis and lies immobile in his hospital bed. His imagination takes him back to childhood traumas, to a pulp detective novel he once wrote—and a feverish amalgam of hospital, childhood and detective story, in which the borders of reality are confusingly blurred. We learn, as he learns, that the eruptions on his skin and the fusing of bones in his hand are the outer manifestation of repressed mental pain and guilt from a distant past. We observe in his face (the actor’s expression as well as the progressive improvement of the disturbing make-up) that he’s gradually getting better. He starts to forgive himself and others. There’s more than a touch of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in the plot scheme. The ghosts of past and parallel present play their dramas before his very eyes, through which we too are privileged to gaze. The inner and outer man are both transformed.
This then is my truth. Evidence-based science parades its nostrums before me, but I know that when I’m sick I have to fix the whole, and never mind propping up the parts. (Life has already enough side-effects.)
It may be different for you. Your destiny remains your own.
Well, I agree that a lot of these medications have side effects which often seem worse than the ailment they're meant to treat. (My favorite is when they say the side effects “may include death.” Only in the world of legal disclaimers can death be called a “side effect.” I don't know about you, but I consider death to be the main course, not something on the side.)
However, I'm not sure about this holistic medicine business either, mind over matter, spirit over spleen. But then I guess I shouldn't knock it, if I haven't tried it.
On the other hand, as far as psychological problems (which you briefly mentioned), I would definitely tend to advocate therapy over medication. I agree that they throw too many pills at people's emotional problems, instead of finding out what blew the “fuse”, as you put it. I've been saying pretty much the same thing for years (In my own way, of course 😉 )
Incidentally, there is an excerpt from the Singing Detective available on YouTube here
Hello friend. Thank you for such a good mornings laugh. I do love your communicating skills. Thank you for the personal reflections, as well. My dear, our soap boxes moved a little closer to each other today. I am so grateful to hear your voice returning, as it were. Writer's block is real but side effects are serious and too common in the business world of health and well-being. Thank you for sharing this enlightenment and cheers to your very good health. Always.
And I glance up into the ridiculous pharmacy I keep in my desk and wonder why I am having so many problems these days. Writers block being the least of them.
Rev, are you implying causal connections here, or merely synchronicity?
Never mind, when you are Sergeant (do you get stripes on the arm?) you will be better equipped to cause problems, not merely have them.
Yes Nancy, I too sense that our soap-boxes have moved nearer. Did I ever tell you how I discovered you in the first place? I was searching for other bloggers on Blogger with Mutant Message Down Under listed as a favourite book. The Aboriginal activists in Australia condemn the book, asserting that the “Real People” it describes don't exist. Well, the book is fiction. But it's fair to talk of Real People and Mutants all the same.
What put this in my mind is when you wished me “very good health. Always.” I thought about it. There surely must be a holistic way to be in good health always, even to the moment of death. Amongst the Mutants there are only two ways to die: from ill-health or violence, both of which the Mutants strive to abolish. So then there would not be any way to die!
In Marlo Morgan's book there is healing, but no talk of death, if I remember right. The only writer I can think of who's especially concerned with a good death is Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. She lived for 9 years after she had an incapacitating stroke. I have a quote for you on this, but I'll append it to your post about the angry men at the post office!
It could be causality or just happenstance. But more than once I've suspected I'm being medicated to death.
Firstly, I'd like to say I'm sorry to hear you are having difficulties with both your physical and mental health.
I'm grateful, however for such an amusing and enjoyable post! Thank you!
Regarding medication vs. more holistic methods of treatment. I am in favor of both. Mental health problems, specifically, are not always the result of environment. My own life-long depression has taught me that. I am biologically depressed. There are chemicals in my brain in need of adjustment. It was only when the came to some sort of equilibrium that I was able to benefit from therapy and self-awareness.
It's only been in the last decade that I can differentiate between “having the blues” and being clinically depressed. The two feel very different, from my experience. Even if “the blues” last weeks and weeks, as they sometimes do, it a very different sort of feeling than to have those bossy chemicals in my brain dictating how I am feeling. The latter causing inertia, deep sadness, tears, anger and irritability.
Traditional remedies can be wonderful for some things, such acupuncture (if you're not averse to needles) or Chinese herbs for a variety of ailments. I'd rather try those things first for physical pain. But for mental pain, there is a lot of work we must do ourselves. A lot of self-reflection, rest, therapy, in addition to medication.
My daughter, who was diagnosed with bipolar illness in her teens has been off meds for a couple of years now. She has to work three times harder to stay in balance. It is her choice.
Thanks again for a wonderful, insightful read. I hope things turn around for you, health-wise.
@Gina: I definitely agree that there are times when psychiatric medicine is needed. Absolutely! I just think they go too far with it sometimes, and they think they can fix everyone's problem with a pill.
Couldn't agree with you more about one's individual destiny and one's individual truth.
C'est la vie.
I hate the term Idiopathic. There is ALWAYS a cause, using this term just means myself or my colleagues have stopped looking for it.
I also currently have a patient list with thirty-five names on it. These are the patients I have to review each week in the hospital. Thirty of these patients decided to be non-complient or self terminate their medications. Diabetic teenagers who are about to lose a foot….and their eyesight will soon follow. Hypertensive fifty year olds who have now developed LV dysfunction so their heart cant shift all the fluid from the third spaces so their legs, hands and lungs are filling with water. Asthmatics who 'couldnt fit their inhalers in their bags' but did manage to fit a packet of ciggarettes in there.
As a patient I would never take no answer as an answer. However these medication have very real, life improving effects.
When I worked A&E a few years ago we had a four year old child come in with a high fever, I took some blood and we found out the patient had a small skin infection a few weeks ago and it had developed into full sepsis because the mother didnt want to use “commerical medicine”, she applied honey(not even sterile honey) to the wound and the child did not get better. He died.
Alternative medicines are medicines that are either not proven to work or proven not to work. Theres a word for alternative medicines that proven to work 'medicine'. Also item of note go to a herbal drug shop and you can pick up eight willowbark extract tablets for £10.50….or you can buy a pack of asprin from boots for 70p. Exactly the same drug, and in some cases they are made in exactly the same lab just for different companies.
Sorry for the rant, didnt quite realise how stressed my current patient list was making me.
Ah, ageing. All i can say is that the body is the body. Much depends. how old is a tree? how many resources should be devoted to saving an ancient oak?
The only reason that i mention this is, perhaps, obtuse and difficult to explain in few words. Can only do a “once upon a time” fable.
Apparently some ancient builders planned for a long term future. Yes, they felled the oak, carved it, adzed it; used it for ribs and beams.
But for each oak felled, they planted three .. on the assumption that the oak beams would probably last for 80-100 years, at which time the planted oaks would be ready – dare i say 'mature' – enough to harvest.
I also plant seeds, my 'sweet corn' has just begun to sprout, the 'snow peas' are looking for something to climb upon; but they are all “this year”.
Have we all really forgotten how long it takes – for nature to take its course. Have we really forgotten where food comes from?
Have a hen sitting on eggs; been there for several weeks. When the chicks arrive, it WILL be several more weeks before .. before what?
Harvest? Let some survive, some for pot?
Too easy to subsume to supercilious, see-eeo- supermarket supremacy instant gratification … heh.
(heh, ya wanna talk about teeth? Oy, have three remaining -BUT THEY'RE ALL MINE .. heh.
I suspected statins from your description. Some people are perfectly okay on them, others have the side-affects you describe. I known people who have not pursued their use for similar reasons to yours, including one relatively young person, a medical professional, where there is a family history. That one watches the type of food intake and swims regularly.
Bryan, ZACL, all: yes, to be human is to be delicate, different from the next person, almost unfathomable.
Davoh, right. I consider myself lucky to be alive with my own teeth and I guess you do too. From an evolutionary point of view, survival is the great thing, because as Darwin showed, that is how evolution works. The quality of consciousness is another thing. That's up to us.
I read in a magazine I picked up today something like this:
“I'm a 91-year old man, in good health. But I worry that I may be knocked down in an accident and given medical treatment whilst unconscious. How can I make sure that my message gets across and is respected? I want to say 'Do not resuscitate! Do not put on life-support machine!'”
Vincent,
Your condition must be different from mine, but I'm so connected with what you wrote here. I rather use holistic approach, too, and not depend on medicines. This is probably a common sense, but what I found lately is that doctors can be so different, and about a month ago, I found a doctor near my apartment whom I could relate to. It was by accident because the other clinic was closed. After two visits I told her about my concern and the reason I've been trying not to take the medicine she prescribed. It's hard for me to judge if I should take those medicines exactly as prescribed every day or some maybe I should only take when I feel I needed. Anyway, the doctor I went to see twice in last three years or so for the same condition, each time, I never made a follow-up visit. But this time, I could relate to what the doctor was saying. She took time asking and listening to my concern and situation and was quick to point out my needless stress. Right now I'm having a similar experience as yours. My over all health is getting better. I don't need to go to my nose, throat specialist or dermatologist anymore. Those doctors probably are wondering why they don't see me anymore.
One of my precious few closest friends died suddenly a few weeks ago. Ten years ago after suffering an 'out of the blue' stroke she was diagnosed with a PFO and prescribed warfarin. I didn't know about anything other than the TIA until after the fact but I can think of at least ten reasons offhand not to want to take that stuff and she apparently didn't do so. I wish she'd known about angioplasty and maybe she did but I'm guessing too she didn't have a good medical insurance plan. The US isn't kind that way and there are far worse things than the NHS. Meanwhile, what she did do was live her life fully in just the way she wanted.
I can definitely relate to your feelings about the matter of drugs in your circumstances. I didn't do well with statins either and I also passed on the bone mass enhancing drugs I was offered. I guess one day I'll fall down and won't be able to get up but I'm hoping I can go out as fast and clean as my friend did if only to beat a family history of eventual senile dementia. Every day is precious but we each make our choice about how to live the days we're given.
I didn't think you were complaining about the NHS, rather I made a dig at the unfair nature of the US system. Much of the last 15 years I worked in American healthcare was spent trying to convince insurance companies to cover necessary treatment for sick patients. You probably know that close to 50 million Americans don't have any health insurance and a good percentage of those don't have adequate coverage. Many of them have very high annual deductibles and then the coverage is limited to a particular dollar amount. A number of surgeons I knew were open to cancelling their fees if someone needed essential treatment but the exorbitant hospital charges rarely were and often went to collection agencies. It's an uglier situation than most people are aware of but it's certainly true many families have been bankrupted by a single medical emergency.
I could go on but won't risk an overly long comment. Overall, I agree with you completely. By the way, the version of “The Singing Detective' you refer to is one of our all time favorite videos – so much so we actually own a copy. Michael Gambon was marvelous in the part.
though there are innumerable ailments whose causes are beyond our control, i think perhaps modern humanity has become unhealthily dependent on modern medicine. there's an attitude that whatever ails us can be fixed with a pill. the smoker who ends up in the cancer clinic comes to mind. he/she knows they're engaging in risky behavior, but does it anyway because, though the personal consequences are huge, the financial consequences are not so huge.
fortunately, here in Canada (so far, but keep your eye on the conservatives) no one is refused health care, regardless of economic circumstances…. they may, however, wait longer than their life expectancy for it, if the illness finishes them before their name comes to the top of the list.
but so many of us just don't take responsibility for our own health. we eat junk, treat our bodies as if they're made of disposable parts, and ignore the physicality of our existence, the physical need they have to BE physical to remain healthy. we're so hyped about 'labour saving devices' that labour is almost a dirty word. anyone who chooses to do things 'the hard way' just can't be very smart.
it's as if our health has become a consumer commodity, along with the labour saving gadgets we're lining up to buy. we can DO the labour ourselves but we feel more affluent buying something or someone to do it instead. we can exercise more, eat less, and USE these physical bodies for the things they're designed to do, but those things aren't 'cool' enough for us unless someone is selling them to us.
when the truth is that a large percentage of our problems is caused by our consumer hyped lifestyle in the first place. in many ways, and for many of our 'popular' ailments, we've bought and paid for our sicknesses; we think we can just buy a cure.
of course, doesn't apply to ALL sickness; illness and death are nothing new, and we'll not be free of them any time soon. we do, however, seem really disconnected from them now. at a time when we should have better understanding of how our bodies work than ever before, we're distancing ourselves from causes of illness and their cures, by treating both health and medical care as commodities.
“Death is Nature’s triumph, not medical science’s failure. ” yes….. dying is part of living. Respecting and accepting that fact lends respect to those engaged in the activity – enables them to do it with dignity.