Why Treating One Symptom Isn’t Enough: Part 2 of 3
I was in my second year of physical therapy school the very first time I learned JUST how connected the body is and how the actual issue may not be at all what it seems. And it still sticks with me all these years later and was actually what encouraged me to specialize in women’s health.
A woman in her 50’s came into the clinic that I was working at during one of my clinical internship rotations with debilitating low back pain. She had worked with several different providers, been to multiple doctors and nothing worked.
That was when my instructor started asking questions about the pelvic floor. Fast forward and she was painfree and living her life to its fullest potential but only because her treatment was focused on addressing pelvic floor issues rather than her back.
Over the years, I have seen this scenario play out countless times. Women seeing multiple providers for an issue and working with numerous different specialties in order to fully address all of their symptoms. But it extends beyond different muscles or body parts. It happens between all the main systems in the body, creating seemingly unrelated problems.
For women, these main body systems are nervous system, gut health, sleep, nutrition, hormones and strength and stability. All of the systems are connected and they all influence each other as well, making a solution more complex and difficult to find because it requires figuring out which system is at the core acting as the primary driver to all the problems.
Find Your Driver: Take The Core 6 Assessment →
In order to figure this out, women’s symptoms cannot be treated in isolation because the symptoms often overlap between the different body systems. For example, fatigue, brain fog, pain, and muscle weakness could be caused by issues with your hormones, gut health, sleep, nutrition, or nervous system. So which of these systems are at the core of the issues?
If you choose the wrong one, it likely will not move the needle very much.
This is why each solution may help a little bit but never fully resolve the issues. Or why you might spend months doing something that doesn’t make much difference at all. It isn’t always about having the right solutions. It is also about putting them in the right order so you address the core problem first.
For most women, they seek out different providers to address each symptom they have. A personal trainer for their core weakness. A nutritionist for their bloating and inflammation. A hormone specialist for their fatigue and mood changes. And a massage therapist for the constant muscle tension in their neck and back.
Our healthcare model treats every symptom in isolation which has led to women finding a solution for each individual issue. Not only does this demand so much more time, energy and money for them but it also tends to not provide complete solutions.
Did You Miss Part 1? Read It Here →
Our body doesn’t work in isolation so our healthcare model shouldn’t either. We need a different model of care for women’s health that can figure out what is at the core driving the symptoms and then put the right solutions in the right order in order to help women fully live their life feeling strong, confident, and at their highest potential.