The invisible epidemic: Neglected chronic disease management

The invisible epidemic:  Neglected chronic disease management

The current COVID pandemic has shifted the health care focus from chronic disease management to acute infection mitigation.  While this was critical for public health to reduce morbidity and mortality for individuals, the downstream effects to chronic diseases are now becoming apparent.

Many adults currently have chronic diseases which should be monitored either through regular office visits or other means.  These include diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, and more.  Doctors offices are still working to catch up on basic management and many individuals are not up-to-date on their labs or office visits,potentially creating worse health outcomes.  

Stress also plays a role in overall health and chronic diseases, long term stress can have negative impacts on your physical health.  Problems that were previously regulated may have worsened and problems that did not exist may now be present due to the effects of stress on the body.  For example, blood pressure that was managed pre-pandemic may now be elevated and need a different treatment.

Now is a great time for a check up with routine labs and a blood pressure check in addition to other preventative health care services, such as cancer screening. 

Naturopathic physicians have extensive training in chronic disease management utilizing a variety of modalities including lifestyle modifications, stress management techniques, nutritional supplementation, in addition to pharmaceutical medications, when indicated.

If you are one of the many individuals who have not been in for a regular check up since 2019 it is a great time for routine physical health check.   Even if you feel fine, many physical ailments have few symptoms and diagnosing problems early is one way to work on creating a treatment plan to manage chronic diseases and prevent worse outcomes.

For more information, contact us to schedule an appointment.

Author

Sara Love, ND