The Coronavirus pandemic has brought up a lot of general health questions as well as being a tragedy for so many people.
Questions that seem to arise from this crisis are:
- Is the current crisis linked to: the increased global movement of people and goods and/or intensive food production and especially meat?
- Which of the competing epidemiological advice models will turn out to work. For example will the Swedish model of changing as little as possible fair well against a more stringent containment model?
- Which state health systems will cope best and will state health systems that are underfunded be shown up?
On a less global trajectory and closer to the heart of my clinic I have been thinking about advice that I can give to individual patients. As I have written on my front page I am not treating at the moment and can’t treat as both of my clinic spaces have been shut. I have also written that I am happy to offer advice over the phone and have already completed a few telephone consultations. From this experience I can say that it is entirely possible to offer advice and some diagnostics as well with the help of the patient at the other end.
However I keep wondering if there is more general advice that I can give. I think a useful meta-system to use here is the Naturopathic triangle which talks about: the Physical, the Biochemical and the Mental. Over the next few day I will approach each of these in turn. But before I do, ask yourself: what are these things for you? What is the physical for you? What is the Mental for you? And what is the Biochemical for you?
Back soon.
Ben