Chronic Illness

Body and Soul

We have compiled a guide to dealing with a chronic illness.

Often a chronic illness will present with minor aches, pains or a myriad of signs and symptoms which are unexplained. At sometimes it will take months or years for the illness to become defined and accurately diagnosed.

Body and Soul authored by Gary M. Levin M.D. is a book with an overall approach to understanding a chronic illness such as hypertension, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, heart disease and genetic illness.

It is vital you find a primary care physician to manages your illness(es). If required he should manage referrals to specialists for an expert treatment plan.  Some conditions such as diabetes, hypertension can be managed by a PCP, however it is also useful to obtain a second opinion for new developments in managing your illness.

The book covers a variety of approaches to mental health, spiritual awareness and holistic or alternative medicine approaches.  Many PCPs are not trained in these areas and use allopathic medicines and only FDA approved treatments.   You should inquire of your physician about alternative approaches.

FDA approved treatments are limited to peer review studies, and can be misleading and incomplete because there are many off label treatments physicians use that are beneficial.

Not all treatments such as supplements are not easily studied by a clinical trial.

It is acceptable to use search engines such as Google, WebMD, MayoClinic to obtain information about your illness.  Discuss these sources with your PCP.  A competent physician should be open to discussions with you and can offer advice on the truthfulness of your research.

COVID19 and social media created much 'false information'. This created confusion, even among experts and there is still false information posted on Twitter X,  Substack and other social media sites.  At times TwitterX sensor posts that are filtered by algorithms (which are often incorrect as they use artificial intelligence that searches for keywords such as antivax, mRNA

Chronic Illness also affects your Mental Health creating depression and mood disorders. Consulting with a Behavioral specialist will add another component to use in managing chronic illness.

Chronic illness affects the entire family, spouse and children.  At times your family becomes a caregiver.

Build a Team