wholistic conclusions.

Now that the pain is almost gone, just a few tingles left, I have again realized things that I have known, but have been under a great deal of pressure ignore.

That is that treating symptoms, which is what modern medicine is geared to do, even including psychotherapy, is more often than not, a circular waste of time.

My pain was terrible, although I know others suffer much worse, as plain old Aleve was somewhat effective. My first priority was to get rid of the pain. Nothing can be achieved when the pain is so distracting.

But, if I want the pain to stay away I have to make many changes. What happened to my back took twenty years, and if I don't want it to return, I will have to make life-style changes.

My pain was the result of a knee injury, that was treated only as a knee injury. It was made worse by how I continued to play, work, work-out, sit, drive, sit, walk and sleep.

Yes, I can take steroids, pain-killers or get surgery, and treat the symptoms, but if I do that the symptoms will reoccur sometime after the treatments are over. That's because the problem of my out of line muscles and ligaments won't really be fixed.

If I stretch, walk, work-out differently, don't sit nine ours in a row with only five or ten minute breaks, don't slump over a computer when I'm not sitting in therapy, I can change my body and make it healthy.

As a therapist I know this is true too. The symptoms I see, such as anxiety, depression, panic, lack of energy, lack enthusiasm, drug abuse, impulsiveness, temper tantrums, and alike are all symptoms of problems that usually, not always, but almost always, require life-style changes.

That takes a lot of work; a lot of consistent, sustained work.

Insurance companies don't like that. They want us to pick a symptom, treat the symptom, and go on to the next case. That is cheaper in the short run, but it only means that people will soon be back with new symptoms and the same situation which has become worse.

This is true of many, many conditions: obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, irritable bowel syndrome,colitis, even many forms of heart disease and some cancers.

But medicine doesn't work that way. We are expert at treating symptoms. The problems often remain, the symptoms reappear. The treatments continue. Many drugs are designed to be taken for the rest of the patient's life. That way the symptoms are gone and some people make a lot of money.

We are even worse at prevention.