marcelleWe have all been there before. At your health practitioner’s office, you are asked to fill out that lengthy health questionnaire. We often wonder why they are asking certain questions. And we also wonder whether the practitioner even reviews the answers to the questions that we took our time to complete.
Detective Work begins with the Health Questionnaire
Dr. Marcelle’s clients always begin with a health questionnaire. And every question on her questionnaire is important to understanding the client’s health history and helping to resolve the issue, challenge, or concern that prompted them to see her. She takes each question seriously and examines the answers. The health questionnaire is a significant part of the investigation into gaining a clearer understanding of the client and their needs. The client and Dr. Marcelle become detectives in putting the story of the client’s life together.
One of the questions on Dr. Marcelle’s health questionnaire asks about how the client was brought into the world. So why is the way you came into the world, your mom’s physical and mental health status, her diet, her traumas, along with your father’s and ancestors and their environment, all critically important? Well, the answers to these questions will most likely influence what comes next for the rest of your life. Once we know the answers, we can help the body make changes for the better. We can support what is going on inside of you and tweak it if necessary. But, if you don’t take the time to learn answers to these questions and apply them to the big picture, anything that is recommended only places a temporary patch on the problem.
Common Health Issues
The client most likely scheduled an appointment because of some kind of health issue that already existed or they want to do as much as they can to prevent future health issues. Dr. Marcelle sees many health issues that are a result of your environment and development while in the womb, and that can influence your development, your foundation, and your future. Some of the more common health issues include:
- Digestive issues, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)
- Painful periods, irregular periods, polycystic ovarian disease, endometriosis, fibroids, perimenopause, menopause etc.
- Problem losing weight, problem eating properly
- Metabolic issues
- Headaches, migraines
- Cardiovascular issues
- Joint issues
- Overstressed, depression, anxiety
- Abnormal cell growth
The trauma and stress that your mom went through during her younger years and while pregnant with you, along with her nutrition and environment, can be part of the problem now. Knowing about it will help you to get better faster.
How is your microbiota influenced by the type of birth you had?
One of the things which is greatly influenced by the type of birth that you had is your microbiota. If you were born vaginally, you picked up a large portion of your microbiota going through the birth canal from your mom. This gives you a very diversified microbiota, a sign of better health. If you were born from a C-section, you will have acquired your microbiota mainly from your environment. This makes it less diversified and therefore not as strong to help fight infections. If you were breastfed, it helps you acquire a better microbiota compared to bottle fed infants.
What is Microbiota or Microbiome?
Your microbiome is a term which defines the existence of trillions of little microorganisms throughout your body including :
- Your entire digestive tract (mouth to anus)
- Your nose
- Your vagina
- Human male genital tract (under study)
- Sinuses
- Skin
- Brain (under study)
- Lungs (under study)
These little microorganisms can be greatly beneficial for our health including:
- Our immune health, helping us fight bad bacteria/viruses.
- Our hormonal health by producing chemicals which will in turn help us produce proper hormones which help our cells to communicate with one another.
- Our brain health, by helping us produce neuromodulators to make our brain work efficiently.
- And our overall gut health.
The impact of a good, diversified microbiota
When you have a good diversified microbiota right from birth it will help you develop and maintain a good working body. If your microbiota is imbalanced, it has the possibility of aggravating some of your weaknesses and causing health issues. And with time, it will result in more significant health issues that we find in adults.
We also need to know the circumstances of your mom & dad around your conception. Were your mom or dad surrounded by toxins, working in a toxic environment or living in a toxic town? Were they living in a toxic house? Did your mom have antibiotics while pregnant with you and/or any other medications? All of these will affect your development in the womb, affecting your foundation and the way your cells see the world.
Once we know that, we can extrapolate how deep your issues most likely are and what needs to be supported for you to express your potential. And we can develop a much more efficient treatment plan.
A Client Example
A client comes in with their child who is nervous, fearful, and experiences repeated ear infections and rashes. They also tell me that they had a C section, did not breastfeed their child , and they were working with toxic chemicals while pregnant. From this, Dr, Marcelle knows she needs to dig deeper to find out what is going on with the child’s detoxification pathways, stress pathways, immune issues, microbiota and sleep patterns. She most likely could have given something to remove most of his/her symptoms but that is not looking after the client’s health; it is looking after symptoms. If we take the time to understand what is going on and help a child restore a good balance, we will not only improve his/her health potential, we will also improve their potential in all aspects of their life.
Same thing applies to the adult. If you come in suffering from headaches, migraines, hormonal issues, and/or digestive issues, we will need to explore where this came from. We will explore where, within your years of living, did you start showing a tipping point? Was it from birth, from childhood circumstances, as a teenager or as a young adult? This is what is called personalized care where we identify what is your particular solution. Our goal is to increase your health and living potential.
Personalized Care
If you know your history or some of your history then that is a bonus for you. But don’t worry, if you don’t know anything about your history, we can still help you. By focusing on what you know now, it will help us extrapolate what happened in your younger years.
Next time you are faced with a lengthy health questionnaire, complete it thoroughly, and don’t be afraid to inquire about the meaning of some of the questions and help with the detective work of figuring out what’s going on with your body.
Resources
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8509400/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4751043/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10139050/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34104888/
