Ep. 75: Be Your Own Best Health Advocate: How I was Misled By This Phrase

What does it truly mean to “be your own best health advocate”? I thought I knew, but it wasn’t until my health was at rock bottom that I was forced to realize what it really meant. If you’re thinking to yourself that it seems pretty obvious how you should be your own best health advocate, I hope you’ll listen with an open mind because it goes deeper than you might initially think.

Looking back at my own health timeline I can see that I was never really my own best health advocate until around 2017. I say I was forced to start doing so because I was jobless, didn’t have health insurance, and couldn’t even afford food so paying a doctor out of pocket certainly wasn’t an option. This happened while I was in the most pain of my life and my health was the worst it had ever been. I was forced to start figuring things out on my own.

Prior to that, I behaved like so many other people who are taught to blindly trust doctors. Before my epiphany, I thought that being my own best health advocate simply meant that if my doctor told me to do something that sounded ridiculous, I wouldn’t do it. Or I thought that if I was diagnosed with cancer, I’d get a second opinion if my insurance covered it. That’s what it meant to be my own best health advocate, right? Wrong. Oh so wrong.

I’m not saying anyone should place blame on themselves if they haven’t been their own best health advocate but the whole reason for this episode is to hopefully help you see things in a new way. I don’t want you to have to suffer for years unnecessarily as I did.

I always strongly recommend that everyone works with a functional medicine doctor or integrative doctor for anything relating to autoimmune conditions, migraines, chronic pain, chronic illness, or anything that you’ve been struggling with for years and feel like you simply can’t get true help or answers from a general practitioner or even a specialist of any kind. If they keep prescribing drug after drug and nothing really gets fix you’re long overdue to take your power back, see a functional medicine doctor and learn to be your own best health advocate for real.

Also in this episode:

• Examples of ways that are not being your own best health advocate

• Examples of ways that actually are

• Personal downfalls of mine when I was not being my own best health advocate and how I learned to change that

I’m Kelly Wilson, owner of fitfizzstudio.com and I’m a personal trainer, nutrition coach, behavior change specialist, autoimmune disease educator and I’ve worked in the health and fitness industry for over 25 years.

I’m here to help you ditch the gimmicks, finding strength through your struggles, give you the knowledge for making the smartest choices for your own health and to remind you to celebrate victory all along the way.

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The information shared is for educational and informational purposes only. It should not be interpreted as an intent to diagnose, treat, cure, heal or prescribe.

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