Owning Your Health

A patient once said to me that it was time, they were going to “own their own health”. When I asked what that might look like, they told me they were doing this by trying to demand that their healthcare providers see them immediately when they needed it - this even included specialists and diagnostic testing offices. Unfortunately, as you may imagine it wasn’t quite going as planned and I couldn’t help but consider the irony in what was going on. Did you notice the strategy was solely about demanding immediate attention from others? They forgot to mention the most important ingredient - themselves! Owing our health is a great thing to do and can be very empowering, but in order to do so effectively, we need to play a much more active role in our health and work as a partner with our providers, not just try to dictate their schedules. 

Advocacy is for sure one important component of owning our health, and unfortunately it does fall to the patient perhaps more than it should. But, advocacy and demanding are done a little bit differently. I would suggest that the former is usually more effective in helping you get what you need. And as you begin to take an active role in your health, you’ll find advocacy gets easier too.

Effective advocacy includes going to your appointments prepared and clearly communicating your symptoms and your needs the best you can. It is often very helpful if you know the answers to some basic questions like what are your symptoms? When did they start? Can you identify something that may have caused them, or not? What makes them better, what makes them worse? Did anything else seem to happen at the same time? Have you ever had this before? Sometimes it even helps to bring a list if you think you might forget. Advocacy also includes asking the questions you want answers to and questioning explanations you’ve been given if they don’t feel right to you. Following up to ensure your referrals went through, that you have an idea of wait times, and that you are on cancellation lists if they exist, are ways you can ensure that you don’t get “lost” in the system. If you are waiting for an appointment, communicating to your doctors’ staff what the severity of your symptoms are and ensuring that they know if there has been a sudden or significant change in your health status such as a recent accident or hospitalization is also appreciated. Once you see your providers, if they have referred you for a procedure or specialist but the wait time is significant, don’t be afraid to ask if there are other options or avenues to access care, or if there is something that either you or they can do to help you while you wait? Finally, advocacy for yourself can also mean that you consult other professionals for opinions if you don’t feel your needs are being investigated, or you feel you are not being heard.

At the end of the day, “owning your health” is all about making your health a priority - for you! Consider if you are trying to do this or have you maybe been more focused on trying to make it someone else’s priority and responsibility? There is a big difference. Many healthcare providers will do their very best to modify schedules and help a patient with an acute need (even if we saw it coming but our warning was not heeded) - and we’re happy to do it when we can! We are also ready and willing to provide advice on home care strategies and recommendations to help manage and improve your health, but consider if you’re open to hearing them and willing to try them. Unfortunately all too often, people aren’t, so sometimes we are left to wonder if our patients’ health is a greater priority for us than it is for them? Let’s be clear, when we signed up to take care of you we signed up to do it without judgement, we don’t operate from some ranking system based on whether or not you do your homework, if you hurt yourself doing rehab exercises or did it when you made a drunken decision that seemed smart at the time. It doesn’t matter if we told you to come back sooner and you didn’t, if you smoke or not or, if your health is good or poor. It is our privilege to help you as much as we can. But we need your help to partner with us and take your health in your hands too - that’s part of what owning your health means. 

You have much more power over your health than it feels like sometimes. I tell my patients often that they are with me for 15 minutes every so often, and while we can get a lot done and hopefully provide some relief, they are with themselves 24 hrs a day 7 days a week - that’s a lot of time to be either moving towards better health or moving away from it. Consider if you are following the advice of your providers regarding your home care and activity modifications (be that increased or decreased). What are your stress levels like, do you need to make some changes that you’ve been delaying? What is your sleep like? Perhaps track your diet and compare that to your symptoms. When you have a flare-up is it because of something you did or didn’t do or did it seem to come on unprovoked? All of these factors play a role, and examining them yourself and communicating them to your providers will help you realize some areas that you could control and will also help us better identify effective strategies for you. Maybe along your journey of owning your health you find some gaps: perhaps you realize that you don’t know enough about your condition or your lifestyle habits and need some guidance - that’s all really good information to know, and those are the things that you can discover when you start taking a more active role in your health and healthcare. 

So the next time you find yourself getting frustrated waiting for your healthcare providers to try to get you in urgently, try to redirect it as a motivation to start thinking about how you can begin to own your own health effectively. Focus on trying the tools that you’ve been given in the past, the things that you can control, and how you might advocate for yourself for the things you can’t. I promise, it’s a much better strategy than just being angry at us for not working on the day that you wanted to get in.