The body keeps a ledger

Your doctor assumes you won't change. The six stages of disease assume you will.

You’re led into the exam room where the nurse takes your vitals and asks a few basic questions. Later, the doctor comes in and gives you not-so-great news. No, you’re not dying yet. But the numbers don’t look good, and to avoid a more invasive action (or premature death), she tells you to take this medicine.

The doctor assures you this happens to the best of us, especially as we get older, offers you some basic cliche diet, exercise, and lifestyle advice, you nod, and ten minutes later, you’re on your way to the pharmacy.

Here’s what she never asks:

What changed in your life that produced this?

Why they don’t ask

My daughter struggled with foot fungus for a good decade, first caught in high school diving, not helped by barefoot practice in the circus arts. She “tried everything.” Desperate, she got her liver tested in her late 20s to make sure she could take this 6-month drug protocol that’s so invasive that they first test for liver health before you can take it, and then continue testing for liver health throughout. After just a couple of weeks, she felt horrible enough to stop. They decided to try a topical cream that her doctors honestly didn’t know if it worked (though they didn’t tell her that just yet).

She had to apply it daily. And it worked.

Her doctors were thrilled, they asked permission to take pictures of her feet for evidence. They admitted they didn’t know if it actually worked because no one had followed their instructions to a tee the way she had. (She said she was desperate)

Doctors care a whole lot. And for that, here’s what they assume: most people won’t change their behaviors.

If we can’t apply cream as per instructions, or remember to take a supplement daily, then how can we be expected to stop gulping down our food and chasing it with ice water or stop compromising sleep for “me time”?

This isn’t cynicism, it’s architecture. And this architecture: medical training, insurance incentives, and appointment windows – are all built around intervention, not transformation. Some people may think this is “evil.” Others will argue you have to meet people where they are.

Which means conventional medicine is built around not denying you your desire to indulge in whatever you want. At least until it’s life or death.

Let the drug do the work, not you.

But here’s what you must know: the prescription is the external referral. Someone else reading your body’s data and handing you the answer.
And it comes with a heavy tax.