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Not only have I been busy with this website for the past eleven years, but I have also been busy with studying for a career in pharmacy. I decided to go back to school in 2006 with the intent of pursuing my Masters in Business. Instead, at the last minute, I went with my gut instinct to enter the healthcare profession as a Pharmacist. My mother was a nurse and I think I always had the desire to help people and the idea of being one of the “most trusted professions” greatly appealed to me after dealing with a “business is business is business” mentality for so many years. So I graduate with my Doctor of Pharmacy degree in 2013.
I wanted to morph what I have learned recently and what I already know into an area of the website dedicated to wellness- or The Art of Living Well. Doesn't that sound good? Our healthcare system today is structured to put out fires- so to speak. Once someone is diagnosed with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes, for example, they are put on medication and counseled on its use so they can maintain goal lab results and this is meant to continue usually for the rest of that person’s life. It makes me angry when I see a patient who is 30 pounds overweight and she has high cholesterol and thinks a pill will fix her problem. I am not angry at her. I am angry at the system that allows people to believe that being overweight will not have a serious adverse affect on their health and that they can take a drug to fix it. Drugs are wonderful tools of the trade but they are not always the answer. What if we focused on disease prevention and wellness? This would be getting to the root of the problem- taking care of the problem before it even exists. That is exactly what is starting to happen to our society. When a system is broken that is usually the only time people look for another answer and the good news is they often find something more amazing than they could have imagined. Living well is sometimes hard to do. We know we should exercise and eat right but in the age of fast food and CSI 24 hour marathons, sometimes it is just easier to not be healthy. [couch potato] It is also expensive to eat healthy! Have you ever tried to buy a grocery cart full of organic food? It is NOT fun when you go to checkout and you get your total…Not after being conditioned that a $4.99 meal deal is what you really need. I think living well is like an addictive drug. Once you get a little bit you want more and then you want more and more. Just as there are guidelines for disease management and treatment, there are guidelines for living well. I think the first thing I am going to say is that any exercise is better than none. As student pharmacists, we understand that it is hard for people to change. We are trained in ways to counsel patients so that we can help them get from one step to the next. So when a person is doing nothing- any type of exercise that is started- even if its for 10 minutes- is better than none. Getting enough vitamins and minerals in the diet is another important building block in the structure that is Living Well. Make sure to eat a wide variety and incorporate a lot of fruits and veggies. Fiber. Supplements if necessary. Stop eating fried food. Cut down on your salt- especially if you have high blood pressure or are in the preliminary stages of hypertension. Sugar is an addictive drug and is more dangerous than people would like to believe. It also tastes really good and is great in moderation. To be continued...
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