I went in for a yearly physical a couple of months ago and it was a surprisingly trying experience.

When I got to the doctor’s office, the lady at the front of the desk informed me that while this is a yearly physical exam, if I talk to her about anything “wellness” related, I would incur a separate charge for a “wellness” visit.

“Isn’t a yearly physical about my wellness?” I asked, genuinely puzzled.

“Yes I can understand your confusion, but I’m just letting you know.”

“Letting me know what exactly? I’m still not sure what the difference is between ‘wellness’ and a ‘yearly physical.’”

“The doctor can help you understand the details.”

Infuriated, I waited 20 minutes before the doctor graced me with her presence.

When she finally opened the door and walked in, she peered down at me through her glasses and said “so I hear you have a lot of questions.”

Clearly she had been told that I was a problem child.

The rest of the visit went normally - and by that, I mean that I learned zero new things about my health and none of my health concerns were really addressed.

We’ve all experienced it before:

The doctor spends all of 15 minutes with you, checks your ears, makes sure that your heart is still beating (thank you), and defers all your health questions to “you’ll need to make a separate appointment to discuss that.”

This is roughly about the time that I decided I was done with this doctor/hospital, and started looking for a more holistic approach.

I’m not forsaking all of western/conventional medicine forever just because of this one experience (I’ve had many), but I am looking to educate myself about less traditional forms of medicine, talking to various different providers, and looking for doctors (alternative or not) who care a bit more deeply about their patients.

Also, I don’t think I need to put this disclaimer here but alternative medicine is not synonymous with pseudoscience or a running away from science. In the same breath it’s also important to recognize that science can be wrong.

A lot.

As someone who studied molecular neuroscience in college and worked in many laboratories and read and wrote many scientific papers, it all comes down to experimentation, coming to your own conclusions given the information known, and being curious.

There are good and bad practitioners no matter the discipline, but I find it’s best not to dismiss the things we may not yet understand.

I’m not advocating that we all leave our doctors and hospitals, I’m just starting my own journey and following my curiosity about the various ways to take care of my body. I believe there’s more than one right answer, and I’m willing to experiment.

The default option is already set for us, but I’m curious what the other options are.

Here are 5 interesting visualizations about our medical system.

If you think testing out alternative medicine that doesn’t always have strong peer-reviewed studies is risky, you may be right.

But so is staying in the traditional medical system.

#1. Medical debt is a leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the U.S.

#2. The U.S. spends more on health care as a percentage of GDP than most other developed countries, but it goes to administrative costs rather than long-term healthcare.

#3. The higher spending on health costs is not translating to high life expectancy.

#4. We’re not catching avoidable deaths

All this is to say - I’m seeing that there is no easy answer to a complex problem like “how do I maintain my health and understand the ailments of my particular body.”

For some, conventional medicine works.

For others, it does not.

I need to decide for myself, and to do that, I need to test my assumptions and learn.

So… I’m taking this as an opportunity to rethink my options.

I’ve been interested in alternative medicines for a while now, and I figured this was the perfect opportunity to explore my curiosity and start learning about it.

There are so many different types of medicine - naturpathic, integrative, functional, and Traditional Chinese medicine - and each one has practitioners who have different experiences, areas of expertise, and education.

It’s kind of the wild west frontier, but I’m a firm believer that average effort leads to average results.

In the next newsletter, I’ll go into a deep dive about the different types of medicine and how I’m exploring this frontier.

Gif of the day