PREVENTATIVE HEALTH....important part of SS?

[Beekissed]

Do any of you seriously plan for, and practice, preventative health to avoid medical care costs?

Do you do it with diet, exercise, herbal remedies, old homey common sense or do you find it easier for your lifestyle to just deal with symptoms if they come along?

Do you rather do as your physician recommends or do you question some things?

If you do, does your family do it too~kids, hubbies, wives?

Do you do this with your animals as well? Or do you only use vet prescribed measures?

Medical care is a trillion dollar business out there. How much of our money do we gladly hand over in this area, or do we try to save money in this area as well?

Feedback?

 

[PamsPride]

I am not into going to the doctors especially for well care visits for the kids. If I want to know how much they have grown I will weigh and measure them myself. Why take them to the doctor to be around sick kids!!
We use herbs. Try to avoid doctors as much as possible.

 

[MorelCabin]

Unless it's stitches or bad injuries, most things I have learned to treat myself over the years. Sometimes I have to bring one of the kids in to the docs for a dx, but even then I often will say oh, I can treat that...

My medicine cabinet consists of
#1 Oregano Oil...use for any sign of a viral infection and often bacterial as well
#2 tea tree oil
#3 Aloe Vera plant...great for burns, cuts, skin conditions
#4 Garlic injest for colds and flus and general health
#5 Onions...I use them mostly for ear infections...and if you cut one in half and put it in dishes around the house when someone is ill is stops the spread of the virus. Kills it in the air so it won't spread
#6 Acidophulus (sp?) yeast infections, stomach upsets

And believe it or not if you drink a cup of laxitive tea when you feel dragged down and know you are about to get sick with something...it shoots the illness right into the septic tank where it belongs:>)

Turnips are wonderful to treat respatory infections
\And there's alot more I just can't think of them right now...

I took my daughter into the doctor when she was about 12 and he said "Who's this? I can't remember ever meeting her before"...and she was the child in the family that caught everything:>)

 

[PamsPride]

Took 9 yo to the ER for his chainsaw laceration and $584 later all they did was super glue it. So, when DD got a pretty bad cut on her toe I just super glued it.
I talked to the billing dept about the bill being so big for a bottle of super glue and her response "We charge such high prices to detour people from coming to the emergency room unless it is a real emergency".
Ummm...a chainsaw laceration is not a REAL emergency????
It just ticks me off because we have insurance so you can not get a discount on your bill....so all it really does is keep people with insurance and no insurance from going to the ER but people with medical cards will go to the ER for a stomach bug or ear ache!

 

[Beekissed]

We mainly concentrate on what we put in the machine....put junk in, get junk out!

We drink mostly just water~never town water~as we have a real good well. If we drink anything else(rarely) it is 100 % fruit juice with no added sugar. We barter with a guy with a cider press and trade apples for cider, so its pretty good stuff.

We try to eat plenty of green, leafy vegetables (at least twice a day) and fresh fruit, our own eggs, homemade wheat bread only from my own grind. The only red meat we eat is deer and only on occasion. We don't eat dairy or processed meats or boxed foods. If we sweeten anything, we use dark brown sugar if we don't have raw honey available. We don't usually eat a whole lot of foods that require sweetening, though.

We don't eat out much....maybe once a month but usually not.

We try to exercise regularly, but in the winter, we find that wanting! Carrying in firewood and taking care of animals is about the most of it, which isn't much. That is my goal for this year, to become more physically conditioned. In the spring and summer we get lots of outside time and activity.

We don't really have a doctor, as none of us have needed to see one for about 10 years now. We don't get intestinal bugs or colds and rarely ever get allergies~unless I've been cleaning out the cellar or chicken coop of dusty cobwebs!

We don't use many herbal meds...the occasional olive leaf extract for my youngest, who is prone to yeast symptoms in his throat and sinuses. That doesn't happen much anymore.

All this saves us scads of money! My folks are vegans and are diligent about daily weight bearing exercise and they haven't needed meds for around 15 years now~before that they were in and out of the hospitals all the time!

 

[keljonma]

Took 9 yo to the ER for his chainsaw laceration and $584 later all they did was super glue it. So, when DD got a pretty bad cut on her toe I just super glued it.
I talked to the billing dept about the bill being so big for a bottle of super glue and her response "We charge such high prices to detour people from coming to the emergency room unless it is a real emergency".
Ummm...a chainsaw laceration is not a REAL emergency????
It just ticks me off because we have insurance so you can not get a discount on your bill....so all it really does is keep people with insurance and no insurance from going to the ER but people with medical cards will go to the ER for a stomach bug or ear ache!

I know of several people who have offered to pay cash at point of service and were given discounts at ER and doctors office. You may want to try that if you have the option to pay cash. One fella I know got $300 off his out-patient surgery for paying cash after the visit.

 

[PamsPride]

We drink mostly just water~never town water~as we have a real good well. If we drink anything else(rarely) it is 100 % fruit juice with no added sugar. We barter with a guy with a cider press and trade apples for cider, so its pretty good stuff.



*******Have you thought about just making your own cider? We have two juicers...one my MIL gave me one a lady from my old church gave me....and we put the apples through it then we just use a cheese cloth to filter out the pulp so there isn't any in the cider and then put it in empty juice containers about 2/3 full in the freezer. The juice and pop bottles hold up to freezing better than milk jugs. I have seen juicers for $2 and $4 at garage sales before....picked them up for friends at church. My mom once got a $250 Champion juicer at a rummage sale brand new in the box for $15!!

 

[PamsPride]

Took 9 yo to the ER for his chainsaw laceration and $584 later all they did was super glue it. So, when DD got a pretty bad cut on her toe I just super glued it.
I talked to the billing dept about the bill being so big for a bottle of super glue and her response "We charge such high prices to detour people from coming to the emergency room unless it is a real emergency".
Ummm...a chainsaw laceration is not a REAL emergency????
It just ticks me off because we have insurance so you can not get a discount on your bill....so all it really does is keep people with insurance and no insurance from going to the ER but people with medical cards will go to the ER for a stomach bug or ear ache!

I know of several people who have offered to pay cash at point of service and were given discounts at ER and doctors office. You may want to try that if you have the option to pay cash. One fella I know got $300 off his out-patient surgery for paying cash after the visit.

Several of the hospitals are on the verge of going under around here and will not give a discount at all! They used to give a 20% discount but both hospitals in my area said they have not given any kind of a discount for 3 or 4 years. I used to get a discount.

 

[Beekissed]

My youngest got his chin split open at the swimming pool once. I just cleaned it, tightened up the gap with a well-placed bandaid and let it heal~you can barely see a scar. My sister's boy got a gash in approx. the same place a few months later and got 2 stitches put in~around $165 at the local urgent care.

Same with animals: if its too serious, like broken bones, I'll vet. I've done simple wound care, disimpactions, worming and vaccines here at home. Bag Balm is a wonder medicine as far as I'm concerned! It even healed my mom's apple sapling.

 

[Wifezilla]

Do any of you seriously plan for, and practice, preventative health to avoid medical care costs? Yes

Do you do it with diet, exercise, herbal remedies, old homey common sense or do you find it easier for your lifestyle to just deal with symptoms if they come along? Diet mainly. By avoiding carbs we avoid depleting our bodies of vitamins B, C & D and lowering our immune system's ability to fight disease and infection. I avoided having to take high blood pressure meds and contracting full blown type 2 diabetes in the process.

Do you rather do as your physician recommends or do you question some things?
My "physician" is actually my chiropractor. She was dx'd with type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome. She also uses a low carb diet to combat her illness.

If you do, does your family do it too~kids, hubbies, wives? Yup

Do you do this with your animals as well? Or do you only use vet prescribed measures?
My cats are now also on a low carb diet. One of our cats went from 22 lbs down to 11 by eliminating corn and wheat from her diet. If I had taken her to the vet, she would have ended up on calorie restricted crappy prescription food and would have been a neurotic, unhealthy mess.

Medical care is a trillion dollar business out there. How much of our money do we gladly hand over in this area, or do we try to save money in this area as well? I don't hand over a dime I don't have to. Insurance is a pyramid scheme.