by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
I finished my last post with the provocative claim that non-war on symptoms healthcare approaches were not only unfunded and sabotaged, but actually outlawed. If you suspect I’ve exaggerating, consider the case of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski over the last 30 years. His...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
In my last post I reflected on the short-sighted predilection to remove the gallbladder of patients with chronic gall stone problems. As I pointed, though, this was not the end, but the beginning of a treadmill of new problems. Certainly those symptoms too can be...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
In recent posts I’ve been discussing fallout from the misguided war on symptoms approach to health care and – in the last post – specific problems related to cancer treatment were raised. Let’s look more closely at this situation. Despite all the effort and resources...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
In my last post I raised the broad statistical costs of the war of symptoms. But what about the impact on the individual patient? This “war” is waged against part of the body and has just a partially “functioning body” as its best outcome. That paradigm sees symptoms...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health, Addressing Your Pain
In my last post I left off by raising the question of what doctors can do to change the misguided and harmful obsession with symptom relief in our healthcare system. The first step may well be simply coming to terms with the situation. For most people in the Western...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
In recent posts I explained the limitations of popular current ideas of health as merely the absence of symptoms. Do doctors have a role in expanding the expectations of what is considered health? Can we broaden patients’ views on health or are we merely technicians...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
I left off my last post promising an example that illustrated the difference between achieving good health and merely relieving symptoms. Consider the sale of over-the-counter headache drugs. These may get rid of yours symptoms, but you are still a person with...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health, Addressing Your Pain
I promised over the next several posts to explore some examples of the innate knowledge in the meaning that patients’ read into their illness. The first is a 67-year-old female who fractured her patella bracing herself from a fall. When first interviewed, the patient...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
In an earlier set of posts, I’ve addressed the SOAP formula (Subjective, objective assessment and plan) which is supposed to inform doctor note-taking with new patients. In the next set of posts, I want to explore the subjective-objective aspect of the SOAP formula...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
By this point, anyone who has been following this series of blog posts will realize that an integrative approach to health is necessary, encompassing the patient’s full understanding and commitment to therapy. Treating a “disease” without treating the person who...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
What is the doctor’s role in the disillusion of patients suffering in pain? Does our failure to fully disclose the subtleties of dealing with pain, opting for the easy short term “solution,” play a destructive role? Research in psychoneuroimmunology shows the...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | Addressing Your Pain
In my last post, I discussed how understanding the mind-body connection enables doctor’s to better LISTEN to symptoms. Toward the end, I cited the case of pain as an illustration. Today I want to explore that topic a little more deeply. Consider the experience of...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
The term “prescription” requires exploring the patient-doctor relationship. It should reaffirm the doctor’s purpose, opening up the healing dialogue. My conviction is that the body’s symptoms call upon us to LISTEN: they’re trying to say something. This is true of...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
Having considered the subjective and objective aspect of the SOAP process, today I want to discuss the last two parts of that acronym: the assessment and plan steps. I’ll lean on current research in psychoneuroimmunology and pain to illustrate that the categories used...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
Most doctors and healthcare practitioners enter the field with great expectations and a strong desire to help people. Many have a personal story, often of a family member or relative who suffered. Whether or not they died or were “saved,” a light was turned on because...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | Addressing Your Pain
The problem with pain is that most people who experience it are convinced of its presence and when as a therapist you suggest that there may be a way of changing your relationship to it, they can feel threatened. The first threat is personal; in that, they may fear...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | Addressing Your Pain
In my last post I discussed how understanding the mind-body connection enables doctor’s to better LISTEN to symptoms. Toward the end I cited the case of pain as an illustration. Today I want to explore that topic a little more deeply. Consider the experience of pain:...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
We had the pleasure of interviewing Kelli Benis. We discussed how pain is just an obstacle and that by listening to your body you can reach a life free from pain. Read the full interview below and learn how Kelli took her first step to a healthier life. How do you...
