Question:
Hi! I'm new to the forum and 1 month into yoga. I was wondering if everyone could help me. I will soon be a doctor and while we are learning many pharmacotherapies, we don't really formally learn about complementary therapies like Yoga. I would like to know from you:
1. Why did you begin practicing yoga?
2. What benefits have you seen?
3. Do you feel that yoga is something you should discuss with your doctor? (or is Yoga a personal decision? How would you feel if your doctor suggested/prescribed yoga)
Thanks for any feedback. If anyone wants to help me, please post a reply on the forum, email me, or IM me via yahoo.
Again, thanks!
Answer:
Why did you begin practicing yoga?
What benefits have you seen. (from a physical standpoint.)
I began practicing yoga 6 years ago in preparation for gastric bypass surgery. Because I'd never had surgery or been in the hospital I thought the relaxation techniques would be useful. Yoga introduced me to my physical body and was pivotal in helping me adjust to a radically different physicality (think driving a sports car when you've only driven a Winnebago.) It has been and continues to be instrumental in my understanding of my dependency on certain food-based chemicals and has helped me finally conquer a lifelong addiction to food. It has improved posture and corrected body alignment problems and damage that 2 decades of being almost 300# overweight wrought.
Yoga continues to help me deal with stress on a day to day level, it has improved my sleeping and eating patterns enormously and has afforded me a quality of life that neither years of therapy or chemical mood enhancers was able to accomplish. I am healthier and happier than I have ever been at any other time in my memory.
3. Do you feel that yoga is something you should discuss with your doctor? (or is Yoga a personal decision? How would you feel if your doctor suggested/prescribed yoga)
I inform any medical practitioner than I am a serious yogin. 99% of the time the reaction is something like "how nice for you." occasionally a medical practitioner with some knowledge or interest in yoga will explore it further.
Here is an example: A few months back I went to the emergency room with acute abdominal pain. I explained to no less than 8 different medical professionals not only that I practiced yoga, but that I had had a gastric bypass a number of years ago and that I had a hypothesis for what was happening. Because I had also recently had some dental work done and had been prescribed Vicoden, I believed the medication's effect on peristalsis had caused a blockage around the scare tissue where my bypassed intestine was reattached to my stomach pouch. I was told that that was probably not something I could 'feel' and went through about 7 hours of testing (still in excruciating pain) including a CT that I pointed out was no where near where i knew the blockage to be (bariatric surgery had rearranged where things are in my digestive track, another fact they did not take into consideration -- they were looking for the blockage in the wrong place.) Eventually they ruled out a number of things from appendicitis to perforated ulcers but could not diagnose me. Finally gave me pain medication (not in the vicoden family, per my request) and sent me home. Late that night, after several hours of gentle yoga, several hot showers and a couple bouts of dry heaves, I felt the blockage pass. Once the Vicoden was out of my system and by employing some basic yoga postures I was able to dislodge the block and solve the problem on my own.
I have much better luck with my PCP. Early on I think I impressed her with my ability to detect my own gall stones (well, more like gall sand as having experienced a full on gall bladder attack and the passing of a stone, it is not something I will ever repeat.) I explained about gastric bypass and the increased risk for gall stones and told her that when i start getting an icky kind of buzzing burning it generally means I need to go on Actigal for a couple weeks. She was suspicious but curious. She prescribed the Actigal but still ran tests confirming that there was indeed 'pre-stone debris' in my gall bladder. Since then she has not only been much more amenable to my own theories regarding my own body and has also begun developing her own yoga practice.
Yoga informs my ability to isolate the origin of discomfort and is exceptionally useful in pain management. My PCP knows that if I'm experiencing pain that I am unable to breath through, it is significant discomfort. She also recognizes that if i say 'the pain is here' that's where she looks first even if its far more likely that its originating somewhere else. Though I still occasionally get the feeling she's merely patronizing me, she maintains an open mind and will go with my suggestions/request. That in and of itself often offers enough self-efficacy to make me feel better.
I think the trick for a physician to prescribe yoga to a patient is contingent on two things. First, a least an overview of yoga...even if he or she doesn't practice, knowledge of what he/she is prescribing is important. If it's merely 'have you thought about yoga?' yoga is reduced to a current buzz word or 'in-treatment' which serves neither the practice nor the person in pain.
Also, I think it's imperative to keep the spiritual aspects yoga separate from the physical where at all possible. For me, yoga is not spirituality, it is a method of spirituality. If concentration is placed solely on the approach, the method, the physical and its physical results, I believe it will better serve both doctor an patient. I don't want spiritual advice from my PCP.
How great that physicians are taking an interest!
