What do you think of when a cold lays you low and you’re not getting better? The viewpoint that most people have is that you have a bad infection. Maybe the infection is badder than we think and is a pneumonia or sinusitis.
Perhaps it may be a good idea to treat with antibiotics. Or maybe there’s a specific name to the infection such as Strep or Covid. Or maybe the issue is not the infection but it’s the mind and body in which the infection is occurring.
Interesting thought, huh? Let’s walk through a case.
Handling Treatment-Resistant Infections
The gentleman had been annoyingly sick for several weeks. Work and life had been stressful this year as it was not as busy as he would have liked. His sleep was not as good as it should have been – he woke up unrefreshed in the morning.
He had symptoms of a bacterial infection so was treated with a course of antibiotics. He started coughing and lost his voice – he had chest xrays which showed no lung infection.
He was checked for strep and covid which he didn’t have. He saw me and in getting his story, I realized it was his immune system that was the issue. We discussed how to boost immunity and we shall see how things go.
What was wrong with his immune system? Stress that has been going on for a while weakens the immune system. What were his stressors?
Work is important to people especially men and work stressors can weigh on a person’s mind. Personal relationships require a person to put themselves out there. Not sleeping well is a stressor because sleep is needed to repair the mind and body daily.
If a person doesn’t wake up refreshed, there’s probably a sleep issue of some sort – perhaps sleep apnea or something else.
How to strengthen Immune system? By taking care of the issues listed above – every person has different stressors and they need to be taken care of , to decrease the stress. We boost immunity by reducing the stressors to the person.
So if you have an infection that is not going away – something as simple as a cold or as complex as Lyme or Covid , think of what your stressors are.
And an integrative medical doctor can help you determine what your stressors are and boost immunity to guide you back to health.
To Health!
If you have a question about this blog post or anything medical-related, please email me thru the button below.
To your health!
Dr. Richard Chen
Focused Wellness Author,
A New Way to Health: Wheel of Health
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