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Disease Prevention

930 Logan Street #101 & 102
Denver, Co 80203
720.284.1374

Licensed Acupuncturist and Practitioner of Chinese Medicine

John S. Aguilar Jr., L.Ac.

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  Home : Acupuncture For... : Disease Prevention

The idea of prevention of disease is completely separate from that of fighting disease. This fact is often lost, the two commonly being confused, resulting in aggressive, invasive medical practices being mistaken for 'preventive care'. In fact, the two ideas are so disparate (from the perspective of contemporary medicine) that prevention is essentially beyond the scope of practice of modern healthcare providers. They simply are not trained in maintaining and promoting health, but instead in battling illness.

Prevention of disease is rooted in maintaining health, as opposed to actively combating illness. If there is disease present, to be combated against, the concept of prevention is no longer applicable; it is to late. Ideally, daily life would be rooted in practices that support and promote basic health, greatly reducing the incidence of disease, while simultaneously improving one's quality of life. This is prevention.

Prevention, as maintaining health and enjoying life, is a pillar of classical Chinese medical practice. This system of medicine is first and foremost a collection of wisdom, earned through thousands of years of clinical experience, on how to be healthy and happy. That is Chinese medicine. Classically speaking, the treatment of actual, manifest disease was indicative, primarily, of a failure on the part of patient and physician. It was the 'poor' physician that treated disease; the skilled physician kept her patients healthy.

Where we understand disease prevention to be distinct from battling illness, instead actively being healthier and happier, it becomes fundamental to living. And once we understand prevention as being foundational for living, we are ready to receive the full benefit of classical Chinese medicine.

When you visit your practitioner for the first time, they will evaluate you and your life, in total. You are your body; you are your mood; you are your history and your path to the future. In getting to know you, they will come to know what 'diseases', if any, you have, their severity, and their root. Classical treatment begins with treating these illnesses that are actively impeding your physical and emotional well-being. After, and only after, these fires are put out, you are ready to truly pursue health. This pursuit is where prevention comes into play.

Prevention, itself, is the process of treating the body and mind right. That is, it is treating them how they are designed to be treated. They (you) are designed for health. We have an untold number of mechanisms built right in for basic maintenance and correcting imbalances as they arise. Health and prevention of disease is as simple as paying attention to and heeding all internal signals.

Typically, we lose touch with, we lose instinctive connection to, this innate design. (Hence, we develop disease.) Where an individual loses touch, they come to rely on a system of health to offer guidance on how to return to health. It is the ultimate goal of this system to get the person back in touch with their own instinctive drives.

Chinese medicine is just such a system. In fact, one of the main goals of this website is to make available such guidance. Though it is beyond the ability of this site to treat active disease processes that may be occurring in your self right now, it is possible to offer guidance on how to improve health and prevent further illnesses.

For specific advice on prevention, then, see the collection of articles that fall under the title Foundations of Health. These are the roots of health, and thus, prevention of disease.

If you were, instead, thinking of prevention as actively battling a specific condition it is best to seek professional medical care. If there is an active illness, it is best to focus treatment at that problem prior to seeking to strengthen yourself to prevent future illness.

For extensive discussion on what Chinese medicine can treat, please click here.     
 

All contents Copyright
John Aguilar, Jr. 2008