We are not fated to live and die with a game plan we don’t control.
We can alter the quality of our lives, and influence the quality of our
children’s lives. In these later chapters about managing our fitness and
health — self-health care — I discuss many topics regarding dysfunc-
tion and disease and how you can take a proactive approach to true
prevention. By effectively managing your own health you may not
only be able to avoid disease, but also limit your exposure to the
health-care system, attain greater quality of life and reach the finish
line of your life journey in good health rather than in dysfunction. The
most powerful tool you have in this quest is real information that
works, and is user-friendly. The only thing left for you to do is embody
this information by applying it to your own self-health care strategy.
Finding a Health-Care Professional
The concept of self-health care is fairly straightforward: You manage
your own health. But sometimes along life’s journey you need advice
or treatment. This is when finding a good health-care professional
may be helpful.
Good health-care professionals are in great demand because there
are too few of them. The first thing to do when seeking a health-care
professional is to ask around. Mention to your friends or relatives that
you’re looking for a certain type of health-care professional. This may
be a nutrition-oriented practitioner, massage therapist, chiropractor,
medical doctor or any number of different professionals with various
expertise. Agood place to start is with what used to be called a “gen-
eral practitioner,” now called a family physician. He or she may be a
medical doctor, osteopath or other professional who is knowledge-
able in treating the whole person. If more specific care is needed, this
person should also have the ability to refer you to a specialist.
Once you have a name you can find out more by talking with cur-
rent patients. Find out what they like and dislike about the profes-
sional they see. The important questions include those about how
much time is spent on typical visits, if questions were adequately
answered, and if the professional took the time to treat the person as
an individual rather than a number. Also seek out information about
philosophical compatibility — you don’t want to work with someone
who is opposed to how you have chosen to live your life.
SELF-HEALTH CARE • 241