Joe-
Your point is well taken about doctors. Unfortunately from my experience, VAST majority of doctors would deal with the problem in the way I described. I'm glad you have a doctor who is more...thoughtful. But let me say in general that most of our doctors are dealing with these types of problems from a theoretical perspective--they're passing on advice not from what they've experienced, but from what they've learned, read, and observed coincidentally in their other patients. None of this is bad.

When people start talking about going to the doctor right off the bat, I think, "why?" Was there some trauma? Sure, makes sense. But much of the time, my take is that people are relatively unconscious about their bodies, and are foolishly turning their welfare over to someone (a doctor) who's not as interested and doesn't have a fraction of the time to investigate a condition as they themselves do. The unconsciousness to me is, "something hurts, I'll go see a doctor to take something to make it go away." Addressing the symptom, not the cause. Is this not the paradigm for the western world? I'd say the pharaceutical industry today is the ultra-monumental tribute to this unconsciousness.

I'm not saying the doctors are bad per se, but that our reflexive (conditioned?) reach for them is bad. My thinking about (western) medicine is that it is 2% God-send, 98% unnecessary and likely harmful. This is coming from someone who was misdiagnosed by 3 physicians and took a strong Rx for 5 years when it was completely unnecessary--harmful? We'll know in about 30 years.

We are creatures that are designed to move around regularly. The fact that the majority of us sit on our butts looking at a screen (of one kind or another) 16 hours a day and perhaps exercise 6 hours a week has some implications for our health. To me, the implication doesn't have anything having to do with a doctor.

</soapbox>

-em

Evan-

I appreciate your end tag. And you may be surprised (or not) that I am mostly in agreement with you. One area of socialization in our country is when our parents take us to the doctor when we're little for every ache and pain. It turns us into dependents. Personally, I seldom take any pain killers for headaches or general aches and mostly don't visit my doctors too often. That being said, I like my doctors and most of them do not advocate taking meds for anything (ten years of trying to lower my cholestorol before being given a med). And while we certainly are conditioned as you say, I wouldn't agree wholly with your ratio.

I am sorry that you had a bad experience with modern medicine. You're not the only friend I know who's been through that. And quite frankly, my rule for going to the hospital is that I need to be: A) unconscious or, B) have a severed artery (I've only had the latter to date and was quite pleased to get the express lane to an OR).

As to the matter of butt/screen time, I can say that you and I and a number of others I know on here manage to balance it well with more than 6 hours/week of running around. But we're the lucky ones, with comparatively uncluttered lives. So I'll shut up and be grateful about how much time I get to spend getting my ya-yas out!

Peace Yo.

sounds like voodoo to me