From Medications to Mother Nature: Purging Meds and Transitioning to a Paleo Diet
Pills, tablets, sprays… if this describes your daily routine, you’re likely not only dealing with whatever ails you, but you may also feel sick, tired, and tired of feeling sick, among a host of other side effects.
But stopping medications abruptly is hardly the way to go.
For many prescriptions, tapering off slowly under the supervision of your doctor is the only safe means of weaning off.
Sadly, all too many MDs who follow a strict Western Medicine approach, don’t even acknowledge the role healthy eating, such as the Paleo approach, plays in allowing people to heal themselves from even the direst states of illness.
If you’re taking prescription medications and feeling like things aren’t improving or worsening, you may want to consider taking matters into your own hands.
Paleoista’s 5 Steps to Self-Healing with a Paleo Diet
- First things first- speak with your doctor. Ask about all the meds, explain your desire to take a more natural approach in conjunction with modifying your diet and see what kind of feedback you get. If they listen and support your request, awesome; you’re in good hands. If, on the other hand, your suggestion is met with a cold shoulder and a response suggesting what you’re eating isn’t going to have much of an effect, you may want to look into finding a new healthcare provider. FunctionalMedicine.org is a great website to find the right doctor for you.
- Once you’ve found a Functional Medicine Doc to oversee your path to better healing, you can begin to build your team to help you on your journey. From a nutrition specialist to a local cooking school to help you learn how to prepare your Paleo meals, to a private yoga teacher, you can empower yourself to create the perfect Paleo support group to make sure you’ve got all your bases covered.
- Educate yourself. With all the Paleo-ish blogs and websites out there these days, it’s easy to get confused. Make sure you’re sticking with the experts who’ve been in the Paleosphere for a long time and have a sound, scientific background. Your best starting point, of course, is to read up on all of Dr. Cordain’s work, without which we’d all be thinking that Paleo had something to do with dinosaurs (yes, wrong era, but that’s where our minds go!), rather than a way of proper eating.
- Don’t make the mistake of self-diagnosing and self-medicating. I can’t even begin to count the number of clients I’ve worked with over the years who’ve indicted their plans to simply go to the local health food store and stock up on yam cream, black cohosh and evening primrose oil to offset premenopausal symptoms. Yes, those things are natural, but without having a baseline as to where you’re starting and what, if anything is even needed at all, you could be doing yourself a big disservice.
- Finally, be patient. While Western meds may take effect quickly, natural remedies can take a longer adjustment period, but often without and side effects when compared to those suffered from taking so many of the meds doled out today. A long-term solution, like the Paleo lifestyle, that keeps you comfortable while your body has the time it needs to heal is definitely the goal to aim for!
