Have you ever wondered why we can’t cure cancer? Heck, we can’t even cure the common cold. The reason we can’t is because we are asking the wrong question. It is that simple.
Conventional medicine, whether it is for humans or for animals, is based on this question, “What disease is causing these symptoms?” This approach focuses on determining the identity of the disease with the specific intent of treating the disease. Treating, however has very little to do with curing and absolutely nothing to do with healing.
How many of you have had pets that developed symptoms, took your pet to the vet, had a lot of diagnostic tests done and found out that it had a disease and that this disease would need to be treated the rest of the pet’s life? This might include common diseases such as Cushing’s disease, diabetes, hypothyroidism in dogs, hyperthyroidism in cats, allergies, arthritis and many others. Almost all chronic diseases fall into this category because the approach to diseases has never changed. Even those recurring problems, like ear infections, bladder infections and pancreatitis fail to be cured because of this approach.
So, how do we change this and start on a new pathway for resolution and not treatment? By changing the question. The question we should be asking is, “What caused this?” The name of a disease is nothing more than a concept of a category of symptoms and has nothing to do with the cause of the symptoms. The clinician might tell you that your dog has hypothyroidism due to the lack of ability for the thyroid gland to produce the thyroid hormone. This does not ask why the thyroid is incapable of producing the hormone. Unless we ask this question and find an answer, we will continue down the pathway of treating and not resolution.
Why do pets get diabetes and Cushing’s disease? We don’t know because we don’t ask. If we started asking, we would start looking for the answer and that might lead to a resolution.
Most of us are familiar with the disease commonly found in humans called Alzheimer’s Disease. This is disease that affects older people and causes mental deterioration leading to incapacity for normal body function. For many years, human researchers focused their efforts on finding an effective treatment for Alzheimers following the same old protocols. A senior person would come in with symptoms, tests were done and a diagnosis of Alzheimers disease was made. Then, the focus shifted to a treatment. Unfortunately, there were no effective treatments. None. Over the past 30 years there have been over 25 different treatments created to treat this disease. All of them failed.
One day, some insightful doctor changed the question. He asked, “What is causing this disease?“ From that moment, things changed. By a simple shift in approach and a focus on cause instead of identification and treatment, research showed that there were three different categories of Alzheimer’s patients and each category had a different cause. By focusing on the cause, they started resolving the problem without a specific treatment for Alzheimers disease. Some treatments deal with nutrition while others deal with underlying toxic or infectious causes. Now, Alzheimer’s disease is no longer considered an incurable disease. All it took was a simple shift in perspective.
Why don’t we do this with all chronic diseases? I don’t know. Maybe it is about income generation by selling treatments. Maybe it’s because we clinicians are ok with the status quo. Until we do get motivated to find the cause, nothing will change. It hasn’t changed in the many, many years that I have been in practice.
How can we address this issue in regard to our pet’s health? By moving forward by learning more about these diseases and searching for the cause. It might require going down a different pathway than conventional medicine. Some traditional alternative modalities, like Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, deal with underlying imbalances that are causing the disease, opening the door for possible cures. Maybe, moving towards and energetic approach, knowing that the physical body is just dense energy and that by balancing energy the body will make adjustments toward healing. The point is that we need to look elsewhere if we want to find a cure. Or, we can just stay the course and plan on treating with drugs and accept the consequences.
