Thursday, February 23, 2006

Finger Snaps From My Naturopath

One of my errands yesterday was a trip to the naturopath. It seems that I'm on the right track because my blood pressure is well down and my standard resident sinus infection has cleared up. My naturopath is a really nice guy, and was very complimentary about how much of a change I have made in my health since I started seeing him in the second half of last year.

Two things surprised the shit out of me though. Firstly, I knew I was losing weight because I started doing Weight Watchers a few weeks ago and they weigh you each week. Since I started with them I have lost over 2Kg. My naturopath weighs me each visit as well, and the last time I saw him was before Christmas. Since then I've lost 5.5Kg (about 12 pounds?). Umm, cool. So the walking started the process gradually, and the WW plan has just kicked it up a few notches.

Secondly, we were taking about how great I feel these days and I dropped what I thought was a bombshell. I told him that in hindsight I think I might have been suffering a capital D bout of Depression. His response, "Errr well yes, that was my diagnosis the minute you walked in the door". Oh-kay. Seems that he took one look at the sleeplessness, low energy and stress-related skin condition and put it all together. So part of the treatment has been aimed at snapping me out of that, and he (rightly) decided that it wouldn't have been helpful at the time to label me Depressed.

Anyhoo, the point of this waffle is that things have improved dramatically and he was very complimentary about how much effort I am putting into turning things around. I have a bit more work to do in terms of getting my diastolic BP down, even though at high 80s it's well down from the over the 100 mark that it was. All good news.

3 comments:

Michael Guy said...

ALL good news, Andrew. Ultimately all we have is our health.

It distresses me--this age, waiting for some life-changing medical condition to sprout. It's as if my body can't be trusted anymore. I'm in fairly good shape; have some cholesterol numbers that could be better. I'm much more aware of what I eat and when I eat it. Awareness is half the battle. And a good eye cream. Yep.

The Other Andrew said...

Eye cream, a must. If any straight men read this thing (Hi Mark), take note. Eye cream. You will thank us.

I've used good quality skin care all my life (not always expensive, just good) and I don't do a lot of tanning, and I have less than half the amount of wrinkles of some of my compatriots.

I know what you mean about the waiting. I have a horrible family history, which was why I decided to stop being such a pussy and doing the burying my head in the sand/crossing my fingers approach and actually start getting things checked out.

worldpeace and a speedboat said...

I can't even make MrM-T use a cleanser and moisturiser...

he looks at me sideways when I use the word 'metrosexual'. heh. he's so rugged ;)

I continue to compliment you on the BP my deah! and it will only get better with the great weight work. go you!