"Advice is like mushrooms. The wrong kind can prove fatal." ~Charles E. McKenzie
When you're trying to take control of your health, you can go down some pretty weird rabbit holes if you're not careful.
There's an abundance of advice, and not all of it is helpful for your particular situation.
In fact, it can be downright harmful -- especially if it's given as a blanket suggestion, and not taking your individual situation, with all its nuances, into account.
Navigating a chronic, complex health condition is a big undertaking that's best done strategically.
You see, here's the thing: you need to understand the underlying mechanisms of the ailment in order to understand how to handle it.
As those of us in the natural health world know, two different people can have the same diagnosis, yet have it manifest very differently, with different root causes.
That's one reason why I'm very wary of blanket protocols based on diagnostic labels.
I've also learned this the hard way with my own health journey.
Back in 2016, I was diagnosed with gallbladder polyps via ultrasound.
It sent me into a panic spiral.
I'm a little embarrassed to share this... and of course, I know better now... but I'm sharing this in hopes that it may help someone who reads this.
Someone had given me a book recommendation, written by someone who claimed to have uncovered the root causes of various conditions and offered dietary, herbal, and supplemental protocols for healing them.
Even back then, I was suspicious of the recommendations. But I didn't trust my gut. I was too ungrounded, scared, and desperate for solutions.
I tried an herb from one of the protocols he recommended.
Within three days, I was in the ER, with heart attack symptoms: left-sided chest pain that radiated down my left arm and up into my left jaw, my heart racing out of control.
Fortunately, I wasn't having a heart attack.
I continued to follow up with a cardiologist for the next year, and was given the all-clear for my heart.
But to this day, the effects of that herb that I took for just three days, six years ago, still cause me symptoms. I don't want to use the phrase "permanent damage," but it certainly seems that this herb altered something in my physiology that it is taking a while to fully recover from.
This episode was the single greatest misstep in my healing journey.
And it could have been avoided by not taking health advice from a book.
Takeaways:
1. Don't try to self-treat your complex, chronic condition.
2. Don't take a fragmented approach -- work with someone who can see your big picture.
3. Don't act unless you understand the underlying mechanisms of your particular condition.
4. Trust your intuition when something feels off to you.
5. Above all, don't take advice that's meant for the masses. Your condition is unique and complex.