Transcript…

Learn what it means for you to live in a country where disease is for profit. Learn how you can find better medical care for yourself.

This is the Pain Changer Podcast Episode Four – Disease is for profit.Does it feel like your medical bills are never-ending? How is it possible that you pay all that money for co-pays deductibles and all the things and you still wind up with extra bills that trickle in months after unemployment? Tune in this week, Katie is going to talk about what it means for you to live in a country where diseases for profit. Today is inappropriate joke time. I warned you guys. It’s a bit of a heavy topic today. So I wanted to counter that with a head-shaking joke.Here we go. A bear is standing on the bank of a river watching a fish swim just under the water. The bear is thinking that fish jumps up just one foot that I can jump up and give myself something to eat. Behind the bear further up the riverbank, there’s a hunter, the hunter is watching the bear who’s watching the fish. And he’s thinking, if the fish jumps up just one foot, the bear will jump up, then I can jump up, shoot the bear and give myself something to eat. Why the hunter doesn’t shoot the bear right then is beyond me. But I suppose it would ruin the rest of this joke. Behind the hunter further up the bank, there’s a mouse. The mouse is watching the hunter who’s watching the bear who’s watching the fish. The mouse thinks to himself. If the fish jumped up just one foot, then the bear would jump up, the hunter would jump up and the sandwich would fall out of his back pocket and I can get myself something to eat. Behind the mouse further up the bank. There’s a cat. I know. I have no idea what a cat is doing along a riverbank either, but just go with it, folks. The cat is watching the mouse, who’s watching the hunter is watching the bear who’s watching the fish. The cat is thinking that fish jumps up just one foot, then the bear will jump, the hunter will jump. The mouse will dump and I can get myself something to eat. Suddenly, the fish jumps up one foot, the bear jumps up, the hunter jumps up, the mouse jumps up, the cat jumps up misses the mouse and rolls down the bank into the river. Moral of the story. A lot has to happen before posi gets wet. Yeah. I told you it was inappropriate.If you’re listening to this episode in the United States, you live in a country where disease is for profit. If you’re listening from another country, that may or may not be the case. Statistically speaking, the US seems to be the worst about it. A few months ago, I held a masterclass. And one of the attendees was from Canada. She said that pharmaceutical companies aren’t allowed to advertise the way they can hear. That was really interesting to me. What would our world look like without ads quickly listing the side effects like anal leakage, while they distract you with happy smiling people who are happy and smiling because of this miracle medicine. And they don’t seem to care that their butt is now randomly leaking. Let’s take a super quick look at the stat shall we, you can Google this yourself. So I’m not going to spend much time here. Almost 50% of Americans take at least one medication. We spend more per capita on medicine than any other country in the world. Why? Why? Well, first off, those ads are working. They are there to make you keep looking outside of yourself for the solution. Who doesn’t want to look like the happy smiling people in the drug ads. Their world was so dark before the miracle medicine and gosh, that looks how my world feels that darkness. But hey, look, that person on TV took that magic pill and now their world is bright and shiny. I want my world to feel like that. So you try the medicine. Clearly, I’m simplifying greatly here. But that’s the gist of the Big Pharma ads. Then you take the pill and you may or may not find relief. Oftentimes, you start taking another medication to counter the side effects from the first one. There are plenty of people who function much better on medication than off and I totally respect that and I understand it. This is a personal decision you can make for yourself. I just want to give you other options if you want them. Now, before I go any deeper, I am not anti-medication, nor am I anti-doctor. I grew up with a mom who was a physician’s assistant until she retired. I am anti-corruption though, which means I dislike Big Pharma as a whole since it’s completely corrupt.But in general, I do feel medicine is needed, not nearly as often as its prescribed. But I do think it’s necessary in some cases, we are given pills way too quickly though. And the deeper I get into this work, the more clear that becomes. Personally, I have been overprescribed and misdiagnosed a lot. I know I’m not alone in this. Most of the time, medication masks the symptoms so you feel better. They are not healing you though, just to be clear. Now, antibiotics and things like that. Those are actually helping you heal by killing off the bad stuff that’s hurting your body. Those do help you heal. Cannabis also has a lot of healing properties, especially CBD. Of course. Please adhere to any laws for cannabis wherever you may live. CBD is legal everywhere now, but THC is not quite there yet. THC is actually a natural antibiotic among other healing properties. Note the word natural in there. But do you think Advil is helping you heal? What about muscle relaxers Tylenol? Here’s the shocker. They do not help you heal. Although I did see one study that says they may actually help tendons heal. But muscular-skeletal issues? No. Zero healing benefits.In fact, some research suggests that it actually delays your healing. What in the actual fuck? Then why are you encouraged to take them? Let’s take a step back here. Doctors overall are wonderful people they want to help you. They went through a lot of med school, they took a Hippocratic oath, and I truly like to think that they do their absolute best to uphold that oath. As a side note, a doctor who graduated last in their class is still called Doctor just like the one who graduated first. Keep that in mind and do your research when seeking out a doctor. Your regular MD is based in traditional medicine, historically and currently that only looks at the physical body. This is different from a functional medicine doctor who looks at the mind, body and spirit. Most doctors only spend about 15 to 20 minutes with you nowadays before you get punted to a specialist. If a traditional doctor thinks your mental state is playing a role, you get referred to a psychologist or psychiatrist, and they may give you an ID presence. This is if they believe that you actually have pain.In my experience and the experience of many others I’ve talked to the medical community tends to gaslight you at first when you present with something that isn’t clear to them, and takes more than one appointment to figure out. We’ll dive deeper into medical community gaslighting in more depth in another episode. If you present with recurring pain, they will absolutely try to give you antidepressants. Do they tell you why? They might. And it’s something like, Well, we found that pain tends to be lower if you feel better. So you think a pill will help me feel better? That’s the path to happiness, a damn pill, not a coach are a support group. But about therapist or another professional to help me why? Why give me a pill to help my brain deal with pain in my body. When you are only looking at the physical body, you’re leaving two-thirds of the equation on the table. You can’t expect to solve complex issues with a simple solution that isn’t all-encompassing. Simplicity is great. But if you’re only looking at a third of the equation, how can you possibly solve the issue? The way to solve a problem that you only have the equation is to shove a pill at it. And it may or may not solve the issue. It never did for me. So what does your body want? What is your body? Think? And how do you feel about this issue? What about your spirit or your soul? Have you asked your body directly what it wants? Go back to episode two to learn how to muscle test your to ask your body for devote. It takes mind body. And I mean really checking in and learning how to talk to your body, not just take a pill as well as your spirit to be able to resolve chronic issues. Now the other piece of where your traditional doctor may not be all you need circling back to today’s theme of diseases for profit. The doctors and all their staff have to be paid, which means they want you to feel better. They really hope that magic pill will be magical for you. Their education has told them there’s a good chance it will work. But what are they teaching you about wellness that will enable you to him Power yourself, so you need them less. Recently, I saw a video on Instagram that really got me thinking, your doctor doesn’t typically teach you what it can look like if you’re mentally physically and spiritually healthy. Medicine is a business in this country. Heck, what I’m trying to do as a business too. I would like my clients to come back repeatedly so I can help them more and on deeper and deeper levels. I would like my clients to come back repeatedly, so I can help them more and on deeper levels, but not indefinitely. Part of what I encourage my clients is to learn this for themselves, so they don’t need me. I want to show my clients what true health looks like for mind, body and spirit. Continuing along with what it means for you to live in a country where diseases for profit, the cost of medication is absolutely insane. Shit, the cost of everything is insane right now, but medication has been this way for as long as I can remember.Recently, Mark Cuban started his own. Recently, Mark Cuban started his own pharmacy called Cost Plus drugs, which prices, lips. Recently, Mark Cuban started his own pharmacy called Cost Plus drugs, with prices drastically lower than what you would pay even with insurance covering part of it. He clearly states he’s earning a 15% profit. That’s not a ton of profit, but it is still profit. Just to be clear. Going back to the stats, if almost 50% of Americans take at least one medication, and there are 335 million or so of us. And he’s earning 15% profit. He’s potentially earning that 15% profit from almost 170 million people. Are you happy when you get a 15% return on investment? I know I am. The link to his pharmacy will be in the show notes in case you’re interested with his 15% profit. He still offering a discount somewhere between 30 to 80% off or more, depending on what the current markup is for Big Pharma. Sometimes it’s over 1,000% savings. Congress has been talking about the need to lower the cost of medication for years. But Congress is also close to Big Pharma and what Big Pharma says it needs. Keep this in mind. Mark Cuban had Mark Cuban bypassed the BS and opened up his pharmacy. It makes you wonder what the profit is for Big Pharma doesn’t it? If he can reduce prices to the degree he has and still make his profit? How much are they making? I’m not the best at math, I’ll be honest. But Mark Cuban is making a 15% profit. And he’s offering a huge discount over big pharma prices. So I’m going to guess that they are making vastly more than a 15% profit. One of the medications he offers is a generic version of Abilify. He sells it at $6, a tablet, which is a savings of $671 and change. He charges $6 a tablet with profit. So Big Pharma is getting how much profit for an extra $671 per tablet? I can’t even figure out the percent markup there. Right? I know. You are correct. Appalling is the word I use there too. So, so far, disease for profit means we get trained to look to others to solve the problem at a cost you can easily afford while still not taking the mind or spirit into account. And for the most part, you think that’s all there is because that’s what you have access to. And that’s what mainstream medicine will tell you. Just looking at the cost of co-pays and medications that doesn’t even include the cost of insurance, and surgeries or any other procedures we may try in order to help ourselves. The cost of surgery isn’t just the 1000s of dollars for the surgery. How much time will you be out of work? Where else do you have to temporarily stop in order to heal properly? What about the cost of physical therapy and payments, you may want those after surgery. The cost of the medical treatment community. The costs in the medical community are not just financial. There are also opportunity costs with aerospace. The costs in the medical community are not just financial. There are also opportunity costs with irreplaceable things like your valuable time and your valuable energy. Let’s look now at alternative medicine. Motive Most of which is not covered by insurance, making it look very expensive. And some of it can be. I don’t know about you, but I will pay 150 250 500 bucks or whatever amount any day of the week. If it means I’m saving myself the cost of surgery, surgery isn’t just a financial toll. It’s also a major physical and mental toll as well. And pain often gets worse before it gets better. And that’s when everything goes as planned. What happens when they don’t? My last two surgeries in 2015 and 2018 were considered major. And I had a severe complications with both of them. The first one kept me out for six weeks when I was expected to be out for one week. The next one, I was expected to be out for six weeks, and I was out for five months. Yet when I started to do the work on my own. Within three weeks, I made major progress. Why go through surgery? If you can resolve your pain without it? Sometimes, yes, surgery is the only answer left. But as someone who’s been told I needed neck surgery, and other knee surgery and back surgery, who has had none of those surgeries and experiences such little pain, that surgery couldn’t even be justified anymore. I have a hard time believing that surgery is always the case. It’s simply not. Doctors are people too. Which means they’re going to make mistakes. They’re going to be wrong sometimes. Do they know more than I do? Oh, hell yes, they do. They know way more than I do about the human body. But they do not know my body as well as I do. And they do not know your body as well as you do. Sure, they may know your body clinically better than you do. But they do not know how it feels to be you. They don’t know how it feels to be me. So they can look at an MRI and the one from my lumbar spine will tell them that Neurosurgery is most likely the way to resolve it. But they would be wrong. Because what I feel is not enough to justify surgery. I can easily resolve pain flares, and I’m fully active with very few limits. And some limits. I’m happy to have. Like I was told that running is a bad idea for example. Sure, no problem. I won’t run. I always hated running. So now if you see me running, you should follow me because something super scary is on my acid trying to get me I digress. Even the best doctors can explain why to medical MRIs or even the best doctors can’t explain why two identical MRIs present so differently in symptoms. The emotions mindset and spirit of the person are going to make a massive difference. My doctor mentioned to me one day that she wished more patients had my mindset. My doctor mentioned to me one day that she wished more patients had a mindset like mine because it made all the difference in progress and ability to heal. She was right to if you follow me on social media at all. Recently, I’ve started to post some before and after pictures of videos. When I go back and listen to videos I created when I was at my highest pain levels. I can’t listen to them. I was such a victim of my own body and my energy was so low. It hurts me to hear myself back there again. What can you do to help spare yourself some of the gaslighting of the medical industry, you can know your rights. If someone is suggesting an invasive procedure, get a second opinion. Whenever your doctor suggests something and you aren’t sure about them, ask them. What’s the worst thing that happens if I do nothing? And also, what’s the worst thing that happens if I do this? Also asked for best case to you don’t want to be a negative Nancy. What’s the expected benefit? Or what is the best case scenario? Ask for facts. See you know them to weigh out risk versus reward. You are not obligated to do everything your doctor suggests. Do your research. Researcher doctors, ask them questions? Research the suggested treatment, research other treatments? Yes, some of it will be bullshit and not a valid way to help. You’re smart though. And I think you can trust your instinct for whether something sounds like a legit treatment or not. Spend time looking inward. Still your mind relax your body. Be curious about sensations you feel no matter how unpleasant. Try to hear what message your body may have for you. Sometimes the message will be a cry for Other times, it may be your body calling you a jackass for pushing it too far. My point is to just start to practice. When you can start to learn to look inward for the answer and ask your body for what it truly needs from you, you need less and less outside help, fewer medications, fewer trips to the doctor, more independence. For me, this meant that I used to go to the doctor two to three times a month. Now I go once a year, and my doctor barely remembers me just oh yeah, you’re the person who didn’t need surgery. That’s how she remembers me now, what this means for you, this means that you’re going to have more time for things you enjoy doing, and more money to do those things. Because you aren’t spending it on medications and co-pays. I may not know how far you can go to change your state. Because that’s really up to you. There is so much more that factors into the experience of pain for you and for me, you may have injuries and diagnoses far worse than mine. I would be lying if I tried to say severity won’t make a difference. It absolutely can. But I’ve heard too many miraculous stories of healing from incredibly severe injuries and conditions. To believe that isn’t something you can also overcome and heal. What I do know though, no matter how severe your diagnosis is, and no matter how shitty the progress looks. What I do know though, no matter how severe your diagnosis is, and no matter how shitty the prognosis looks, is that if you try, you will be surprised by what you’re capable of. I hope you’ll try. I’ll see you on the flip side. If you’re already seeing how I can directly help you raise your quality of life by shifting your perception of pain, then I invite you to go to Katie Wrigley comm slash cognitive movement and click Start here to book your sessions with me. Thank you as always for joining me today. And until next week, never forget that chronic doesn’t have to be impermanent. Have you ever felt like your doctor doesn’t believe you about your pain? Has anyone suggested that you may be imagining pain to be worse than it should be? I’m using air quotes around all those. Join me next week when we are discussing the fact that pain is in your head. That doesn’t mean it’s not real. Pain is real. And it’s in your head