How to Work With Your Doctor to Get What You Need

Hey everybody, it's Dr. Mark Hyman. Welcome to my weekly house call. Your chance to ask me your questions. And today we're going to talk about how to work with your doctor to get what you need, which is really important because I know there's so many of you out there who are not working with a functional medicine doctor yet, but you still have the power to work with your doctor to get the tests you need and the treatment you need. Now, I got this question from Instagram. Let's take a look. The person who sent the Instagram message was Crewalla, which is K, R, E, W, L, A L, A, I don't know how to pronounce that. And she or he said, how does one go about finding answers or root causes if your regular doc won't or can't, but you can't afford to see a functional medicine doctor? Well, we're changing that. We want to get change reimbursement. We want actually to use insurance to be able to pay for, for healthcare using functional medicine. We do that at Cleveland Clinic. Now that's a great question. Now, in general, there's a lot you can do to be an empowered patient to treat all sorts of chronic illnesses. But in this blog, I want to talk to you about how to work with a doctor around what I call diabesity, which is the spectrum of prediabetes all the way to type 2 diabetes. Even if you have a little bit of belly fat, you might not know it because 90% of people with prediabetes are not diagnosed. That's why you need help in guiding you. Now you can learn to work with your doctor and the doctor can help you get a comprehensive approach to dealing with diabesity. Because if you don't, you're going to have trouble down the road or even now. So it starts all with having a good relationship with your primary care doctor and undergoing the regular tests which are critical in moderating your treatment. However, there's one problem with this approach. The vast majority of practicing physicians today are not familiar with the functional medicine approach to chronic disease or even diabesity. Some may not take a truly comprehensive approach to diagnosis and treatment or diabetes, or really be aware or even know what the tests are that'll help you get better. Now, some may not take a comprehensive approach that's based on the principles of functional medicine, which is looking at the causes for diabesity, or they might not even be aware of the right test to order. Others might not test you at all unless you already have a problem or are way down the path of disease. And most doctors often interpret the tests we do quite differently than I do or we do in functional medicine, taking a wait and see approach which can actually be quite dangerous. I had a patient come in, for example, who had a blood sugar about 115, which is in the prediabetes range. And I said, did you see your doctor about this? He said, yeah. I said, what do you say? He said, we're going to watch it and when you get to over 126, which is diabetes, then I'll treat you. That is the absolute wrong strategy in this situation. I encourage you to be proactive about your health. I want you to make all of the necessary lifestyle and dietary changes that you can make on your own because you are far more powerful and and your choices to change your disease than any prescription will be. Remember, food is the most powerful medicine that we have available to treat, prevent and reverse disease. And anyone can change their diet to eat more whole foods starting right now. Now, if you cannot get your primary care doctor to cooperate with your treatment, you may want to find another doctor. However, it's my hope that with the tools in this guide, you can work with your doctor to get the assistance you need. Good health care is a team effort between patient and doctor and I hope you can find someone you can work with, treat whatever illness or issues you are dealing with and can be your partner and guide you in this process. Now, I put out tons and tons of material about the importance of getting the right tests. In fact, I've created a companion guide to go along with the blood sugar solution called how to work with your doctor to get what you need. For anyone who's concerned about insulin resistance, prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome and much, much more, I call this diabesity and it's way more common than you think. Like I said, 90% of people have it, don't know it and affects about one in two Americans. And what comes to identifying if you have diabetes or not, then you must get the right tests. Most doctors focus just on your fasting blood sugar. Actually it's a super poor indicator of diabesity. The best test to identify is the condition is called an insulin response test where insulin levels are measured, fasting and then one in two hours after taking a sugar or glucose drink. Demand this test from your doctor. It's so important because your insulin is the first thing to go up. Your blood sugar is the last thing to go up. There are many, many other things in my e book addresses such as cholesterol and what the right tests are, how to check your liver function and lots more, how it affects your hormones and and inflammation and much, much more. I'm going to link this ebook below and you can take it to your doctor and actually review the kinds of tests that I recommend. Another common question I get, and this is for many readers, is about thyroid health. And unfortunately many doctors don't provide the right test when it comes to our thyroid. Like the newer guidelines from the American College of Endocrinology. Consider anybody with a TSH that's a thyroid stimulating hormone over 3 as hypothyroid. But most doctors think that it's only if you're over five or ten that it's really worth treating. That's just not true and this leaves millions of people suffering a lot unnecessarily. Now besides tsh, functional medicine practitioners perform other essential tests including free T, free, sorry, free T3, free T4 and thyroid antibodies. We also look for associated problems like gluten intolerance, food allergies, sensitivities, heavy metals like mercury, deficiencies of vitamins like D and selenium and A and zinc and omega 3 fats. All these affect thyroid function. I include lots more information about thyroid tests and and the treatment below in the guide. Now there's another test I recommend getting so you can measure levels of inflammation in your body. Besides obesity and type 2 diabetes, inflammation contributes to almost every modern disease, including heart disease, cancer, dementia, as well as arthritis, autoimmune diseases, allergies and digestive problems. So you want to know if you have chronic inflammation and to address it immediately. Now the best way to treat it is lifestyle for the most part, and changing your diet and your gut. But the next time you visit your doctor for blood work, make sure that along with your regular lipid profile, you ask for a CRP or C reactive protein. This CRP test measures the degree of hidden inflammation in your body and these are just a few examples of how you can work with your doctor to get what you need and get the right tests. I'm going to post a few more of my tips below, but I truly believe that a combination of doing your own research and working with your practitioner can be very powerful and leading you on the road to health. Remember, your doctor works for you. Your doctor is supposed to help you and if you have a doctor refuse to order the right test or does not want to work with you to get what you need, I highly encourage you to find another practitioner. Now there are plenty of doctors out there who are open to different kinds of treatment methods to functional medicine. I encourage you to find them. All right, so if you like this video, I encourage you to share with your friends and family on Facebook and Twitter. And if you want to ask me a question that might be on the next week's House Call, send your questions via Twitter to House Call with Dr. Hyman. Thank you so much for joining us, and we'll see you next time.