 There are lots of issues with American healthcare. I don't think anyone will disagree with that. The price of it, the fact that most people just have medications thrown at them versus real solutions and really just how burnt out a lot of healthcare workers actually are including the physicians treating the sick people themselves. But in my mind, there is one massive issue with American healthcare that is very very relevant if you are a person dealing with chronic disease that I want to talk about here today. Hey guys, I'm Dr. Alex Hein, author of the health book Master of the Day and Doctor of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine. So before we jump in here to this video, there are two very important links right below the video. The first is for a free guide for daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with Traditional Chinese Medicine. And the second is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine, there are links right below this video to reach out to me and my team. Now I still remember when I first got sick and what was really the inflection point that sealed my fate and really told me internally that I was not destined to become an MD, a traditional physician. And that was purely based on my own disheartening experience in the American healthcare system. And what's interesting and very telling about people in alternative medicine or let's just say non-traditional medical care is that most of the time I've seen the greatest correlation is purely that they've been sick chronically themselves. And so they got to see from the patient's experience what it's like going through American healthcare and how disheartening it can be. You know I think back to when I first developed these really chronic GI issues in my early 20s. First I googled lots of things right I was researching all kinds of home cures nothing was really working that much. And I went to a nutritionist, a dietitian that was actually in the hospital referral setting. So I was referred I can't remember maybe from my PCP who I saw first he said you know could be this could be that referred me to the dietitian. She gave me some brand she said you know well you're very thin and maybe you're not eating enough or maybe you just need more fiber right. So I dutifully put extra brand fiber into my oatmeal in the morning and I can remember that night after putting brand in three different meals to try to increase the amount of refrigerant fiber. I was so bloated that I was up all night with severe abdominal pain from the bloating. So needless to say after more fiber which eventually became my nemesis didn't help me get better I went to the next specialist. So the dietitian said hey I'm gonna send you to the GI they're gonna do some labs and exams and maybe a colonoscopy to see what's up. So I go to the GI specialist and this guy palpates my abdomen for maybe three seconds feels my abdomen says you know kind of sounds like IBS even though it really wasn't IBS what he meant was IBS means I don't know but it's abnormal bowel function for someone that eats a healthy diet lives a healthy life doesn't really have much stress. So he recommends a colonoscopy I booked it and a day later I canceled it and it was around that time when I started seeing lots of other specialists others recommended antidepressants for my gut some just said whatever take a laxative forever doesn't really matter. I mean the advice I got that ran the gamut was shocking but the thing that bothered me being the sick person was that all of it was just how to treat the symptoms no one could tell me why I was experiencing it as a healthy person I ate a healthy diet every day I exercised four days a week I didn't have abnormal stress all of those things didn't add up and again what frustrated me the most as a patient was purely the fact that I was going to try to find these solutions and none of these supposed experts and specialists could tell me why right what could I do besides take a pharmaceutical a medication keep adding fiber to all of my diet for the rest of my life why was this happening and like a lot of patients that's why I stopped going to the conventional medical system because number one no one was helping me beyond symptomatic care and two no one could fix the root of it they just said it was how it was and thankfully my gut told me that that was not true now you may be in similar shoes you may be in a similar situation where you have something chronic and something within you is saying this does not add up it doesn't add up why I have the symptom it doesn't add up why my gynecologist said I have to take birth control for my irregular period or my painful menses it doesn't add up but that's the only way it just doesn't feel right you just have a gut hunch there may be not that massive tomb of data behind your hunch but something in you and inkling is telling you to trust that feeling when you go for upper GI issues acid reflux the only thing conventional medicine has take this PPI take from out to Dean take this medication for the rest of your life as long as you have it right if you have let's say chronic anxiety you're having an arrhythmia palpitations insomnia anxiety take this at the depressant for as long as you have symptoms people are on that for decades you have chronic insomnia oh here you go you could take an SSRI you could take Trasadone you could take sleeping pills sleeping medication just take these forever and people often do take them forever you have chronic menstrual issues headaches migraines whatever it is the solution is always take this medication forever and there is no healing it feels like after the years I've been in my private practice I increasingly come to the conclusion that outside of the acute care and outside of a few chronic diseases like certain kinds of diabetes type 1 diabetes and even type 2 diabetes where people don't want to change anything about their life there's almost no healing in conventional medicine it is all symptom management and so while you may feel better while you may have palliated those symptoms you've choked the canary in the coal mine saying that something has gone wrong and as a result you never get better over time but I can say in my private practice the exact opposite is true of my patients so what gives why is there no long-term healing why are there no long-term solutions why is everything just symptom management that is something you should think about very very carefully whenever you take something for a prolonged period of time because in my practice the ultimate metric of success is that patients don't need to see me ever again they don't need to come get formulas for me forever they don't need to take their pre-existing medications anymore that is success it can only be the metric of success not for everything but for many of the chronic diseases that people have today and so I want to leave you think about why is there no healing in conventional health care why is modern medicine there's it's all symptomatic management think about that and I want you to leave a comment below why you're not really seeing much progression while there's a pill for every ill but where is the healing that's supposed to be inherent in medicine think about that and comment and tell me below alright guys I'm curious to hear your thoughts