Several weeks ago, I was in an appointment with a patient. After going through some of the problems he was having, I asked him if he had a history of headaches. His answer surprised me—he said, “Yeah, I have normal headaches.”

Wait a minute… normal headaches? Headaches are a sign that something is wrong. But this gentleman just assumed that since they are so common in our culture, that they’re just a “part of life.”

This really got me thinking. A lot of the symptoms that bring people into our office are incredibly common—many Americans experience them on a regular basis—but they aren’t, by any means, normal. Because they’re so common, people mistake them as being normal.

Three of these very common symptoms that people talk with us about are back pain, headaches, and fatigue. You may even be thinking right now, “Well, everyone has headaches and back pain here and there,” or, “Everyone struggles with being tired.” But is that really normal? Should it be that way?

The answer is simply no.

If we assume that a well-functioning body is full of energy and is not burdened  by a lot of pain, then we can’t say that having pain or a lack of energy is an optimal state of living. The sad reality is that those three things—headaches, back pain, and fatigue—are very common, but are in no way a sign of healthy vitality.

So, what do we do? Because these problems are so common, it makes sense to look for a common cause. And the source that we often find associated with these symptoms is a lack of a balanced lifestyle.

What would a balanced lifestyle look like? A balanced lifestyle should include a diet that is rich in foods that nourish us. It should also include appropriate amounts of exercise to energize us. And it should be one that has mechanisms in place to manage stress.

In our practice, it’s our routine to listen thoroughly to the symptoms, and then start to ask questions about other important factors, like sleep patterns, nutrition, and amounts of exercise. All of those lifestyle imbalances can be very key in not only understanding why the symptom is persistent, but they also lead us to a solution.

And the solution can go something like this: if your broken lifestyle habits are producing warning signals (symptoms), then to really get at the root cause of the problem, you need to spruce up your lifestyle habits.

An actual solution, like fixing your lifestyle habits, is actually very uncommon in the society we live in. Instead, most think that the way to treat these symptoms is to medicate them. But, that is only a temporary solution.

I’ll put it like this: let’s just say that there’s a problem with your car, and the warning light on the dashboard turns on to do it’s job—to warn you. What if, instead of fixing the problem, you opened the dashboard, found the wire, and cut it so you wouldn’t see the warning light anymore? Most of us chuckle realizing how ridiculous this sounds. It wouldn’t make the problem go away—it would just be masking it! As silly as this seems, that’s what we are told to do every time we watch the evening news. We are constantly being sold a pill for every imaginable symptom we might have. If we have a problem (symptom), we’re advised to ask our doctor about the next pill we can take—but that’s really just masking the problem.

In our practice, getting to the source of the problem matters. We don’t want you to cut the warning light wire—we want to help you fix the problem.

Are you having any of these common-but-not-normal symptoms? If so, contact us today and schedule an appointment. We’ll help you find the solution.