I have a few questions for you:
- What does Wellness mean to you?
- How would you rate your level of health & wellness (Excellent, Good but want it better, Fair, Poor)? Your reasons?
- What wellness goals do you have for yourself?
- What specific health condition(s) and barriers impact your ability to seek, reach, and achieve your wellness goals?
Your answer to these questions opens up a whole world of wellness quandaries and possibilities. Since this coming month’s July lifeskill is Wellness, let’s do some review on our evolving 21st century healthcare world.
We all know how COVID-19 personally impacted our lives in the past year and beyond. For many families throughout the nation, a new determination seems to be birthing. Whether it will be sustainable, only time will tell. This new determination has accelerated after seeing family members and friends with chronic health conditions experience severe COVID complications, even death.
In addition, many who recovered from COVID infection continue with long-term side effects or lingering debilitating symptoms. Healthcare providers have defined their patients with these long-term side effects as “Long Haulers.” However, according to Dr. Aaron Hartman, MD, Long Haulers: New Disease or Novel Expression of an Old Concept? Post-COVID Inflammatory Syndrome and how we are coming to understand it (August 19, 2020), this term may just be a novel way to define an old concept. Dr. Hartman basically identifies these lingering aggregate symptoms as Post-COVID Inflammatory Syndrome (PCIS). He clarifies that “. . . After the virus is gone, their innate immune system now activated stays in alert phase, so inflammation continues.”
This Post-COVID inflammation syndrome can surface in different ways, such as with combining chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia syndrome. About 30% of those hospitalized will continue to have heart or lung issues. Others may have continued body aches, body burning, sleep disturbances, unusual mood swings. About 25% will have Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) with repeated allergic symptoms such as hives, swelling, and low blood pressure.
Integrative/functional medical providers have known over many decades that various combinations of post-viral syndromes have been routinely seen in patients with other viruses as well. In fact, diagnostic evidence goes well back to the 1950s. The list goes on. What is new about COVID-19 is that it is a new virus and exposure has been worldwide in a very short span of time. However, the good news is Hartman and other physicians throughout the nation have been able to use old treatment paradigms to provide relief and reversal of these post-viral syndromes.
These physicians have also been able to encourage and support patients to go the distance to achieve a higher potential of prevention and wellness. They utilize all three worlds of wellness—Conventional/traditional, Complementary/alternative (CAM), and Integrative medical practices.
They are also paving the way for traditional or conventional medicine to develop Post-Covid clinics. Dr. Hartman is just one among thousands of physicians providing post-covid treatment modalities, including repurposing medications for COVID and post-covid syndrome treatment
These physicians have also been able to encourage and support patients to go the distance to achieve a higher potential of prevention and wellness. They utilize all three worlds of wellness—conventional/traditional, complementary/alternative (CAM), and integrative medical practices. They are also paving the way for traditional or conventional medicine to develop Post-Covid clinics. Dr. Hartman is just one among thousands of physicians providing post-covid treatment modalities, including repurposing medications for COVID and post-covid syndrome treatment.
What is important to understand here is any of us with a chronic health condition can become more susceptible to not just a viral infection but also “long hauler” syndromes. Even those who have won over a chronic condition, may have symptoms resurface with a post-viral infection. For this reason, the importance with maintaining a high level of immunity and wellness is even more essential today than ever before, particularly with any other unwanted surprises possibly coming our way in the future. You can hear more from Dr. Hartman on this important topic at his Facebook page-Richmond Integrative and Functional Medicine, Why Medicine May Lag Behind (Long COVID), and particularly Long COVID Success Stores Series.
So, your question may be, “Where do I begin?” Beginning with the basics is always the best starting point. Here are the core wellness basics to assess in your own life. Courtesy of John W. Travis, MD, Wellness Workbook author, the following wellness definition will help you get started seeking, reaching, and achieving your essential wellness and life goals.
WHAT IS WELLNESS . . . LOOKING AT THE WHOLE PERSON
- Wellness is a choice . . . a decision you make to move toward optimal health.
- Wellness is a way of life . . .a lifestyle you design to achieve your highest potential for wellbeing.
- Wellness is a process . . .a developing awareness that there is no end point, but that health and happiness are possible in each moment, here and how.
- Wellness is a balanced channeling of energy . . . energy received from the environment, transformed within you, and returned to affect the world around you.
- Wellness is the integration of the body, mind, and spirit . . . the appreciation that everything you do, and think, and feel, and believe has an impact on your state of health.
- Wellness is the loving acceptance of yourself.
- Wellness is Relationships!
Illness starts with “I”
Wellness starts with “WE”
From this whole-person perspective and starting point, the next part 2 article will offer possible ways physicians suggest applying these principles into practice. In the meantime, think about those practical COVID health protection routines you started. Are they still part of your daily routine?