Connected

Good lord bodies are complicated!  And so terribly, terrifically connected.

I am a strong believer in a more holistic approach to health... something along the lines of "you can't treat a part without treating the whole" or, you know, something like that but fancier!

This isn't just the "leg bone's connected to the ankle bone" kind of thing, it's also the "endocrine systems's connected to the frigging every other system" kind of thing.  And so on and so forth.  There is also increasing evidence of the importance of mental and emotional health, and more and more research being done around the link of health and stress.  (I'm oversimplifying, but the point stands.)  When you look into how to have good heart health, they all talk about reducing this food or that food, and increasing exercise but they also all talk about reducing stress.  Oh, and quitting smoking.  So, at least I'm good there, right?!

This connection of things makes it difficult to figure out just how to go forward with treatment though.  I even found it with my shoulder. You find that other places in your body are hurting and it turns out it's because of how you're holding yourself do adjust for the shoulder pain or lack of mobility and then everything just kind of Jenga falls apart.  So is your elevated cholesterol from your diet?  Genetics?  Lifestyle?  Stress?  Why, yes, yes it is!  Or... isn't. 

And man oh man the constant mixed messages from the world right now about what to eat.  How to eat what you eat.  How not to eat.  I mean the heart and stroke people have pretty consistent guidelines but they aren't the same guidelines as health experts X and Y suggest and OMG can you all just calm the frig down for a minute and let me catch my breath here?

And boy do I feel for my brother.  Who has been watching his food, and exercising as well as being on the medication that was supposed to... help.  He was shocked, I think, that things happened despite all this and yeah, that's a wakeup call too.  Especially for me.  I've been just kind of coasting on "I'm pretty healthy" for a long while now.  I think a number of us do.

And can I just say this ageing stuff still sucks?

Sigh.

I know, a disjointed, unconnected blog babble.  Sorry.  I just, it's hard to write when you're also trying to keep stuff to yourself, you know?  I'm like some sort of top secret document where things are blacked out and [redacted] and you're trying to piece together what on earth is going on from the seven words that are left to be read.