Doctor/Patient Health Partnership
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Why Passivity Wasn't an Option for Frances
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| One Woman's Story of Taking Charge of Her Health | |||||
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“I’ll never forget Frances, who came to my office asking for an ‘orthodox, well trained cardiologist,’ who would team up with her to complement her own self-care, which included use of nutritional supplements with mind-body healing modalities. Let me tell you about this amazing woman who wanted to participate in her own healing, because she represents thousands of people, maybe even you, who are looking for the same thing.
Fran believed intuitively that she had the power to help heal her own heart. Unfortunately, she felt scolded and shamed when she asked to collaborate more actively with her cardiologist. She told me that there was nothing she could do on her own to help herself, other than to continue to with the medication regime which had been prescribed. Fran was advised that she could consider a possible heart transplant should her disease worsen. Obviously, she was discouraged.
Fran left that office visit feeling frustrated. She was desperate and determined to have an active role in her own health care. She was so unnerved by the answers she was getting from her competent, conventional cardiologist that she decided to get another opinion, and she scheduled an appointment with me. I cannot tell you how many patients I see like Fran. They want to integrate approaches like meditation, relaxation, acupuncture, homeopathy, energy work, psychotherapy, nutritional supports, and so forth – and they do so without telling their doctors for fear of criticism, rejection or ridicule.
I was impressed with how well Fran spoke her mind in a clear and efficient manner at our first meeting in 1996. She wanted someone who could coach her along and give her insight into healing therapies that might be equally valuable for her, not just tell her which tests to have and which pills to swallow. The latter approach was too passive to suit her, and I agree, wholeheartedly!
I answered Fran’s questions about which specific, more natural healing therapies she might explore – therapies I had seen work wonders for folks with her kind of heart problem. For example, I encouraged her to try nutritional supplements like coenzyme Q10, magnesium, L-carnitine and multiple antioxidants and minerals to complement her current medications in strengthening the heart’s pumping action. But I also had to caution Fran. Some of the supplements that she wanted to try could have some serious interactions with the medications she was taking…
…After I determined which herbs and supplements Fran could safely take together, I suggested that she also change her diet and incorporate mental imagery into her routine. We even worked on ways in which she could actually visualize her own heart healing. I encouraged Fran to follow the voice of her own heart, and keep using that intuition to guide her to healing therapies that I might not know about.
These suggestions not only helped Fran physically, but emotionally and spiritually as well. The most important aspect of her eventual healing was the reinstallation of hope and reinforcement of faith in her intuitive belief that she could help cure her disease by mobilizing her own internal energies. It is true that getting well requires that the physician and the patient share in the healing process. I believe that we physicians don’t really 'cure' anyone. We merely coach, care for, and support our patients… only nature heals.”
Frances' story has been excerpted from: The Sinatra Solution: Metabolic Cardiology, © 2005, 2008 Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D., F.A.C.C.
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The health of the body begins to deteriorate when its physical, emotional, and mental processes fail to work in harmony. Establishing health and balance within a person requires a multidisciplinary approach which may include elements of proper breathing, exercise, release of painful emotions and past traumas, energy enhancement, nutritional healing, reopening of the heart to love, and the development of a spiritual connection.
-Heartbreak and Heart Disease
