Right this moment I am taking in a piece of Scharffenberger 'Bean to Bar' limited-edition San Juan De Cheni 78% dark chocolate with source origin cacao beans from Peru. It is 78%--love my dark--and 'Rainforest Certified'. You have to order it online, or know someone that sells it to get a bar. Like I said yesterday, when I experience a 'speed bump' with Love Is The Solution For Everything, I reach for Dr. Chocolate! Those little endorphins get pumping and I can 'make it through' another day.
Yesterday was an exercise in forgiveness for me. All day long. The slate is clean between me, and my 'speed bump', on Spirit Side. But on Earth Side, as a Doctor, I might look like I am 'taking away the only thing that makes him him'. This is not the case. The way I see it, I am protecting him and everyone like him from legal liability from practicing medicine without a license.
'I have a headache' I remarked to a friend while eating dinner. I knew what it was. I hadn't had my coffee all day. It was past five o'clock. I needed caffeine. I simply asked which choice of tea on the menu had the highest content of caffeine.
Instead I got the expert with not one but two bottles of pills. I was encouraged to take one gi-normous white pill of L-carnitine, and SIX of something that looked like brown powder. He looked like he knew what he was doing. I knew he had done this before. I was like, 'Do I have to take all of them?' and he was like, 'Take it!' So I did. She offered me the bottles to look at the labels. I didn't want to look. It was too late. I had taken the pills already. I would accept what came from it. I didn't feel like being 'doctor' with that headache. I was also hungry and I wanted to eat.
And it worked! Headache went away.
Let us flash back one week. My friend, who is a natural health advocate and is married to a doctor, an anesthesia colleague of mine--that is why I love her so!--complained about her 'red eyes'. I knew from her age and from my own personal experience and from the appearance of the eye that dry eye might be the problem. And that one of the most effective treatments for this is the application of a thin line of vaseline-type lubricant made for this purpose to be put inside the lower eyelid right before sleep. I brought her some just like the kind I use on my patients at work to protect their eyes during long surgery. (Normally we just tape them closed). I also think it is ironic because her husband owns a surgery center where they do lots of optholmology procedures every day, and yet she suffers with her own eyes...
See? I am guilty of the same thing. Curbside consult medicine! We have been this way, all of us, women in particular, when headaches or cramps occur. We tell our friends, and boom! Out comes the bottle of ibuprofen. We love each other, we care, and we share what has helped us.
Well, what is the difference between this behavior and that of a clinician such as a Naturopath, an Acupuncturist, a Homeopath, and either a DO or an MD?
(This is what I do with my kids after a question that is a learning point---I hum the song from Jeopardy and wait for them to giggle. Humming that tune now....bing, it's done!)
It is SOAP.
Subjective
Objective
Assessment
Plan
Subjective: 'I have a headache'. This is treatment person's turn to ask patient, 'what makes it better? what makes it worse? where is it? how long have you had it? has this happened to you before? is it your time of the month? is it the worst headache of your life?' It is that last one in bold print that would mean 'Go Directly to ER' because there might be an intracranial bleed in there--and ibuprofen or god knows what would only make the bleeding worse and delay definitive care.
Objective: Things you can see that confirm the 'Differential Diagnosis', the 'list of what could be causing the headache in this patient'. For example, papilledema--cupping and 'nicking'-- is observed by looking in the eye, and the optic nerve area is all swollen--is a sign of dangerously high blood pressure. When one sees that, treat the blood pressure and do not give ibuprofen.
Assessment: This is the overall picture of the disease process in each patient. What is the cause behind the lab values, physical examination signs, and the symptoms described by the patient. What is the likelihood of each? So we list them, in order of likelihood and/or severity, with the life-threatening ones at the top of the list, just like in ER triage--chest pain gets you to the head of the line, so to speak...
Plan: This is the treatment you plan to do about it. And the follow-up. How you are going to check and make sure that the treatment is working and the patient is feeling better.
In Chinese Medicine, Homeopathy, and Naturopathic Medicine, the Subjective is super long and super thorough. In Allopathic medicine we go heavy on the tests. My sister frequents a vitamin shop where someone that used to be a doctor in another country sells the 'supplements' and advises what to take next--without ANY of the SOAP that is described above.
Pills are pills. The ones that started off from nature and were extracted from that ARE allopathic medicine. The little frog--isn't he cute?--is to show how curare was taken from the frog to make poison darts to stun prey hit by arrows that have been dipped in it. Curare is 'natural', and will kill you. I use succinylcholine, which is similar to Curare, daily in my work. I have years of training to help someone breathe who is paralyzed. It kind of goes together. Why would I paralyze someone in surgery? So they can't move. Either the muscles in the abdomen or chest need to be relaxed so the surgeon can work, or any movement would be disastrous like in neurological surgery. I reverse it at the end, the paralysis.
With a running i.v. or Sevoflurane by mask, I can render anyone unconscious in less than thirty seconds.
Do I think about that much? Not really. I have been doing this for years and is what was taught to me.
The one who should think about the pills before you pop them, is you. If you are expert like the one that gave them to me for my headache, try to find out what serious 'danger questions' to ask before you treat. Is this the worst headache in your life? Let me call 911. If you are the one who is taking the pills--look, even if your doctor or person you go to seek relief from your complaints is more psychic than me--look for a little SOAP from them. And also follow the money.
We are all friends. We are OHANA. We are healers in this together. We have many, many lifetimes as Kahuna and Shaman and even M.D. We KNOW what we are doing, on some level, and that is why 'it works'.
On an energetic level, when my seven pills were handed to me, non-verbally, with my aura interacting with his, I KNEW that I was going to be 'okay'. In my heart of hearts, this guy is a Kahuna. He has that energy. I should know, I am Kahuna and I have this energy too. How am I Kahuna? Spirit trained me. Madame Pele. The Menehune. The fish. Kamehameha. My past life. And my school of medicine, my training, my patients, and disease that I have worked with professionally itself. It takes one to know one. That being said, Kahunas ask a lot of questions in the old country. They also ask for Spirit to help.
Can you agree to be more like Kahuna in your work? Ask the questions. Screen for basic serious medical problems before you treat. Ask for Spirit to guide you--look at Edgar Cayce and his magnificent work!
As long as we are doing pills, let's do them right. All of us together, hand in hand, heart in heart, Ohana taking care of one another. We stay out of trouble, and not anyone is going to suffer unnecessarily from lack of SOAP.
Namaste,
Reiki Doc
P.S. This is my latest 'discovery'--puremedy bio-ceuticals. 'Ancient remedies for modern people'. They are salves built by a first-nations elder to heal the gangrene on his foot. The original healing salve has been clinically tested to kill: MRSA, Staphylococcus, Candida albicans, Streptococcus, Klesbiella Pneumonia, E. Coli, Salmonella typhinimurium, Enterobacter Cloacea, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Burkholderia cepacia, Vegitative Aspirigillus Niger (fungus). (Yes, I do know what all of these bugs are, and some of them I can diagnose by smelling them in a wound--I know them because I have seen them that much). So here is the link. And wash your hands often! That is healthy practice too!
www.puremedy.com They are about fourteen bottles a jar, and available at fine health food stores like Mother's Market near you.