Self-Care or Should You See a Doctor?
There are many issues where you can do self-care, but other issues you should see a doctor for. There is a fine line between what self-help tactics you can take and when you should call your doctor for help.
With the Internet, it has gotten too easy to do a search on symptoms and find dire conclusions, or false hope when there should not be. Not everyone has the same symptoms, and not all of symptoms point to only one possible diagnosis.
Eastern medicine, Ayurveda, music, yoga, acupuncture, chiropractors, etc. can help to a certain point for self-care. All are great for preventive treatments, but not all can heal once there are bigger health issues. If there is cancer, then certain of the above cannot help.
Self-help possibilities are below – things you can do to prevent and solve issues.
Music is great for the brain – so try listening or playing music – classical is wonderful for the brain as it is quite mathematical. Music can soothe the soul – it’s good in many ways.
Even Western medicine can be wrong – too many medications prescribed for a “quick fix” for symptoms without figuring a root cause. Some medications should be revisited after a while of taking them – buildup in the body or brain may be detrimental.
For antacids – your stomach begins to depend on doing its work getting pH under control and has side effects from continued use. Lithium and thyroid levels need to be checked if you are taking those medicines, so call your doctor periodically to see if you need to adjust or go off medications. Make sure to ask if any medications are in conflict or incompatible with any others you are taking – including supplements and foods.
Foods can be your medicine for great self-care. There are certain foods better for the brain, others for immune systems, others for gut health, etc. If you eat healthy you can keep many issues from forming and maybe not need to see a doctor as often.
For simple issues, like one day of barfing, or a day of diarrhea, or a day of a sore throat, or a low-grade fever, you can nurse yourself back to health by resting and drinking water or tea, eating a BRAT (bananas, rice, apples/applesauce, toast) diet, taking a Tylenol, drinking electrolytes, etc. By the way, if you are ingesting aloe juice or kombucha or magnesium or raisins, try getting off of them if you have diarrhea as they may be causing it or making it worse.
For several days of any of that, call your doctor and tell all symptoms including when it started. You may need to be tested for strep or flu or something else.
If you can’t smell or taste, call your doctor as you might have COVID. Ask what you should do for it – how to treat it at home with self-care, unless it gets bad, and if you’ve been vaccinated or not.
If you have pain, you can often get relief for a muscular issue by taking an anti-inflammatory medication and doing stretches, plus using ice or heat therapy. If it’s a sharp pain, you might call your doctor.
If blood comes out of your body from various areas, call your doctor – you should not be coughing blood, or peeing blood. If in your stool, it might be hemorrhoids but if lots of bleeding call your doctor. If you cannot stop a nosebleed, call your doctor.
Use common sense – if something is very, very uncomfortable or painful, see a doctor. Sometimes a phone consultation is all that is needed with advice on what you can do for self-care and when to call back for any appointment.
Be careful of what you search and find on the Internet – symptoms and medications could be way off. Trust a doctor or nurse practitioner who can look more deeply into the issues, including what medications and supplements you take, what you eat, how much activity you get, your blood pressure, weight, temperature, and all. The doctor can get a total and big picture of all that can be going on or even get you to a specialist.
I had a bad pain in my heel, and the doctor took an x-ray which showed a bone spur. She sent me to a specialist who took another x-ray and figured out the bone spur was not the issue but an inflamed muscle (plantar fasciitis) – the treatment is much different between the two diagnoses. The treatment worked as the specialist recommended. Had I researched it online, or the doctor didn’t send me to a specialist, I might not have had the complete healing for the right issue.
So – decide if something is bothering you enough to go to a doctor. Or if you want to self-treat it first. Be wary of what you see on the Internet – a stomachache doesn’t mean you have cancer and will die. Too many wrong assumptions can lead you to awful results.
PR