 I'm sometimes baffled by certain patients that come in and see me. And as we go through the laundry list of seeing what they're working on and where maybe they have had problems in the past, I ask, are you on any medications? And they inevitably say, no, just take, you know, a baby's annex from time to time. And then that's about it. And then when I ask them about their sleep, they say, oh, no, you know, I take a sleep medication as needed, or how's your digestion? Oh, no, no, it's good. I mean, I use a meprosal. I have, you know, stuff for acid reflux and things like that. And as we go on with the questioning, there are sometimes a half a dozen medications in someone who didn't think that they took any medications on a daily basis. And I thought this would be a great idea for a video to talk about my personal view on medications and also healing. Hey, I'm Dr. Alex Hine, Doctor of Chinese Medicine and author of the health book Master of the Day. Before we jump into this video, there are two very important links right below. The first is if you'd like to become a patient of my locally in Los Angeles or virtually if you tell a medicine, you can reach out to my private practice in the link right below this video. There's also a free guide for daily rituals that can possibly help you out years to your life with Chinese medicine. Let me start with a very blunt statement. Medications in the way that I see them used in America do not result in any healing outside of the acute care. Okay, I'm going to repeat it. Medications usually don't result in healing. That is people getting better over time. The one exception is acute care, right? If you have an acute urinary tract infection or sinus infection, you take antibiotics, the infection is cleared. You're effectively healed for the time being. That's a very low level example, but for very, very few exceptions, whether it's digestive disease like reflux or indigestion, whether it is anxiety and depression or whether it's insomnia, you very, very rarely see people healing over time. And it once led to a patient telling me there is no healing in traditional medicine, conventional medicine rather. Now, I think that's extreme, but I do see that to be very, very, very commonplace because if someone comes in with something mild to moderate, let's say they're getting indigestion and acid reflux, they're put on one of the many kinds of medications that are available today. What I never see is patients get better over time. I never see that they need less of a dosage of a medication. I never see that they need less meds over time. I never see healing. Now, maybe those people exist and they just don't come to see me or they just take themselves off their medications or take them sporadically. But what I very rarely see is actual healing, meaning people get better over time, people need less medication over time, or eventually, people do not need those medications anymore. And that is always my goal in my practice. And it makes me think about something very, very important, which is that your symptoms should always push you on a quest for healing. I tell my patients all the time, when you go through a crisis, whether it's health or relationship or whatever, you either go to sleep or you wake up. A lot of people choose go to sleep because it's easier right now. Going to sleep is when you start noticing some indigestion or some acid reflux and it keeps going on. Going to sleep is taking medication because nothing about the lifestyle that created that illness is getting changed or resolved. All you've done is turned down the volume, the canary in the cold mind that's saying, hey, something's wrong. Hey, something's wrong. Hey, something's wrong. You've just basically gagged the canary through the blanket over it and now it thinks it's nighttime and it's sleeping. When you have problems come up, the point of a symptom is to signal an alarm. Something's wrong. Something's not right. It's not your body just doing this because it's like, well, screw it. Let me just be annoying and make you wake up gagging on your stomach acid. Let me make you depressed or anxious. Let me give you insomnia. It's not the point. It's an evolutionary biological signal that something is wrong and something has to be changed. So I think a big problem that I see with many, many patients is that if you take a medication and I'm not saying don't take your medication, talk to your doctor, your primary care physician if you want to do that, that you want to get off that, but taking medication when symptoms are not life-threatening and they're not to that point yet is basically drowning out the fire alarm but the fire is still raging in the background. So I deeply believe that symptoms are designed to drive you on your quest to figure out what's gone wrong. They are the breadcrumbs. They are the paper trail your body is giving you to figure out, wow, I don't feel well and I don't know why that is but I need to figure this out. But in Chinese medicine, what I see clinically, the difference and why I'm in this field is because I started off as a patient that went through all the conventional care system and the difference is that when my patients come to me, so much of the time, whether it is a digestive problem, anxiety, depression, insomnia, issues with their menstrual cycle, if I see them for a year, the difference is that not only after a year will they be off those medications or not need those medications or not need the same dosage of medication, they won't even need the formulas I give them and that to me is not only has the symptom decreased if they have migraines five days a week, maybe they have one or two a month or one or two every season. That's a huge change. But the biggest difference, the evidence of healing is that if they take nothing, no migraine medications, no Chinese formulas for me, no treatment, they still won't have them at the frequency that they used to. That is the definition of progression and healing and I don't see that very often in conventional medicine. In fact, I very rarely see that ever. What I see is that patients need increased dosages over time, whether it's their thyroid med or their anxiety or depression medication, they need increased dosages and then another medication and then often a trial of many other medications and this just goes on ad infinitum until the person just dies. I very rarely see any healing and I certainly don't see progression even when it is very, very easily possible. And I thought I would shoot this video because specifically if you are questioning how long you've been on something, maybe it's time to talk to your doctor about what that would look like to wean off of it and at the very least to begin exploring other integrative options because in the same vein that I came into this earth with my own GI issues that I've had lifelong, there is no cure for them because it is not a specific illness. It's really a genetic or constitutional tendency that is always gonna be my weak point and my choice to practice Chinese medicine and take Chinese medicine means that day to day my digestion is fine. And as problems crop up, typically I will take a formula that I've written for a month and then I'm good for the season the next three months, right? And then if that crops up again, I will then again treat it for a month tilt myself back towards the center with my gut and then I'm good for another few months. I just see so many people on whether it's for acid reflux, something that's mild to moderate, mostly an annoyance for some people. And then 20 years later, they still have it. And then they have gallbladder sludging gallstones and then they want their gallbladder out and there still is no healing because the same fire alarm has been buzzing the whole time all day, 20 years. And now you miss the signal that you should have caught 20 years ago. So this video I guess is a rant more than any specific advice but don't miss the signals your body's trying to give you because they start as a whisper and they become a yell but the danger, frankly, of medication is that it turns a yell back into a whisper and then it's easy to ignore until you no longer can ignore it any further. That's all I have for you today, guys. Pay attention to the signals your body is trying to give you. It's not trying to make you suffer. It's trying to help you feel well but only if you listen to it, right? Then wake up or go to sleep. That's all I've got for today. Check out these two related videos here and I'll catch you soon.