You’re probably familiar with a pharmaceutical commercial showing a husband and wife sitting side by side at sunset, holding hands and feeling amorous. You may also have seen one in which a woman is collapsed on the couch underneath the weight of an elephant sitting on her chest. The messages are clear in both: in the first, life is more relaxing and pleasant when a couple, through medication, becomes capable of intimacy; in the second, the woman feels suffocated until she takes a drug that lessens the very real weight of depression. The promise of both is that, with medication, not only will these very personal issues completely disappear but the people suffering them will also be happier and lead more productive lives.

The reality, though, is not so simple: There is no single medication that will completely restore one to happiness and health. I believe that if we can take this single lesson to heart, it will help us avoid wasting precious effort, time and resources on miracle cures and wonder drugs. In general, we all are prone to quick fixes and are susceptible to fad concepts. Single-product marketing plays right into that search for an effortless solution. Instead, what I have learned is that health and true healing are hard work.

I’ve developed a short set of rules that I bring to my patients’ attention every time we consult. These help to get beyond the diagnosis conundrum and focus on the root instead.

Rule 1: Ignore the Lab Marker

Not all diagnoses begin with a blood test, but many of them do. The reason is because the marker is what a doctor uses to monitor and prescribe medications, such as those for cholesterol. What happens is that the patient and doctor get caught up trying to correct a particular marker on a blood test and fail to see the big picture. What are you feeling? In the case of high or low cholesterol, probably nothing.

In contrast, what I see all the time with thyroid sufferers is that they fixate on the thyroid markers and forget about the root causes for their symptoms that include fatigue and constipation. They puzzle out all the various thyroid conversion pathways and ignore the fact that for most of them, fixing the marker doesn’t change the immune system problem caused by poor gut health, mercury buildup, or other factors. A perfect dosage of cholesterol-lowering medication or thyroid hormone replacement will never change that.

Rule 2: Recognize Your Own Telltale Signs

Symptoms don’t lie. Someone with a thyroid issue has a list of complaints that start with hair loss and end with cold feet, and yet the resolution for these cannot be measured by the result of a laboratory test. Instead what the patient needs to become aware of are the simple triggers and preliminary warning signs. For Bob, it was burning the candle at both ends and continuing the same habits as before. He would work on his lawn till sundown in the dead of heat and become completely dehydrated and weak. He’d trigger a viral flare-up that would land him in the emergency room. For Phoebe, it is partly the pressure of doing well in school and not having her family close enough to lean on when needed. They live a three-hour plane ride away, and most times she is so too busy with homework to pay attention to what her body needs. For both of them, seemingly esoteric factors such as mood and posture change ahead of time as they trudge on. People around them notice it and chalk it up to an impending deadline. These are the things they and we need to pay attention to.

Rule 3: Follow the Results

I have a motto in my office for patients: Follow the results. When something is working, keep doing it. If following a particular protocol for 30 days allows you to feel the best you have felt for days, then don’t stop. I don’t care if it makes you feel better for even ten minutes — stay with it! Patients will tell me that they followed an anti-inflammatory diet for 30 days and they have the most energy they’ve felt in years, but they really miss eating bread or another carb. Or a patient has a weak heart that is blocked from healing because of poor lymphatic circulation, so I ask him to start with three minutes of marching in place and he feels terrific. He wants to know when he can stop. Well, he can’t.

A patient and I spend fifteen minutes working on a tapping solution and the patient is able to divulge with clarity something that she’d been feeling deep inside and had forgotten about. For the first time in memory, she wakes up the following morning with a clear mind and is fifteen minutes into her day before any type of usual worry fills her mind. She gushes in amazement and then saddens herself with the notion that she didn’t fix it. I tell her to repeat it.

There are no miracle cures, but there are simple steps we can take every day to improve how we feel. We just have to keep taking them.

Dr. Douglas J. Pucci, D.C., FAAIM, offers the latest science and clinical data on neurotoxic illness, hormone disruptions, and chronic disease at his seminars. He provides nutrition, comprehensive testing for health biomarkers, brain and body care, and more to improve the lives and well-being of his patients. For more information, call 201-261-5430 or visit GetWell-Now.com.