Interstingly a spoke to a long time patient yesterday and we had not spoken for a bit. In the time between our talks she had had a really bad case of pneumonia that she decided to treat with antibiotics. They gave her steroids as well. She happened to have an accident about a month after this and went to the ER. They took her bloods and did scans etc… to make sure she was OK. Low and behold her liver enzymes were through the roof. Then they did a liver scan and her liver had lesions that were unfamiliar and worrisome. She had to go to a liver specialist. The liver specialist did his work and asked lots of questions only to find out that she had been taking supplements for her health all of these years. She was then told that it was our supplements that caused this problem. As she was telling me this story, she was reitterating to me that she did not agree with this thinking-that I was one of the only doctors that she trusted and that I saved her life. She said that if not for this treatment she would have had no life all of these years. But, of course, she was questioning in the back of her mind if this could possibly be true. So, I listened and paused and listened more. I asked her when the last time was that her bloods were checked before this time where they were so abnormal. She said not in ages because she does not use Western medicine. Then I thought, well, but they had to have checked when you went in for the pneumonia. See if you can find those results.

She emailed ma an hour later after calling the hospital to get the results of those bloods. They were NORMAL. So, this completely reversed any possibility of supplements she had been given as the cause of her elevation in liver enzymes as she was completely normal prior to her two rounds of strong antibiotics and steroids. It is so interesting how quickly Western medicine is to point to alternative forms of medicine being problematic and minimizing the efficasy of what we do. Thank god that test was taken. I posted this not to suggest Western medicine is bad, I dont think that. Just that there is aplace for all medicines. And, there is also a place for respect in both of those worlds as well, is there?

Dr.M