The Answer to the Healthcare Crisis

JW: I think first of all, we must stop treating symptoms and focus on identifying the root causes of disease. The disease is causing the symptoms, not the other way around. The drugs that we’re getting prescribed are treating the symptoms typically and it’s almost acting like a band aid. But it’s not really finding the solution and identifying that underlying problem. 

AB: Dr. Wade, I would like to have an open discussion with you about this and how you find yourself identifying the root cause of many chronic diseases. 

JW: Well, Aurelia, as we’ve seen in the dental office, everybody really needs to understand that what we’re dealing with on these chronic inflammatory diseases is inflammation. Inflammation is really the true root cause of most of these chronic diseases that we’re facing today. Things like diabetes, heart disease, periodontal disease, arthritis, cancer, things like that. Therefore, everything the public or a patient can do in order to decrease inflammation in their life is going to help them systematically. 

AB: As a patient, how could someone get these answers? What would be the first step that they would need to take to identify these root causes? 

JW: I think we need to realize that the standard of care is really just not good enough anymore. We all really need to embrace a spirit of more advanced prevention. The best way to attack this is to actually stop accepting that standard of “care blood work is the answer” and to insist that you try to get further testing, more advanced testing, things that are actually going to show you a better picture if you’re healthy or not. This includes genetic testing. Precision medicine is really where it’s all going. 

AB: I’m sure some of our listeners have family members or friends that are suffering from a systemic illness, how can one get the proper testing that they need? Sometimes people are afraid that insurance is not going to cover it, it’s too much out of pocket. 

JW: I think everybody is going to have to realize that in order to go above and beyond standard of care, you are going to have to pay something out of your pocket. That’s just how it’s going to be. But I think with all of the changes in healthcare, people’s deductibles going up, and more payment on a monthly basis, people are starting to understand that it’s going to happen one way or the other. You’re either going to spend it on getting healthier and being more preventive in nature or you’re going to spend it because you’re sick and trying to fight your disease—I know how I want to spend my money. 

AB: Sure, sure, deductibles are outrageous anyhow. 

JW: It is. AB: Do you feel that people are scared of their genetic information? 

JW: I do. I feel like there are patients who don’t want to know, don’t think they want to know, or are afraid that somebody’s going to use it against them like not being able to get health or life insurance. There are rules about it and we do need more from the government to protect us from things like that. But I like to tell my patients that I see genetics as being a gift of knowledge  in order for you to truly understand what and how your body is made up, that blueprint that we were talking about. The genetics is going to really help you find and answer that blueprint. It’s not going to be for everybody but I think if you truly want to get better and go in that preventive manner, you’re going to have to start to understand your genetics much better. 

AB: Sure. Is that one of the reasons why you recommend a concierge type of doctor to represent? 

JW: Yes. The traditional, if you want to say standard of care way, is just not going to cut it for you. It’s great if you get a cold or a flu and you need those kinds of things. But concierge medicine is really going to allow you to have time with your doctors for them to listen and understand you, recommend more advanced type of testing, and to go over it with you. You can actually take that information and do something with it. I anticipate that people are going to have multiple doctors in their life. They’re going to have a concierge doctor maybe or someone who acts as that orchestral leader. Then they’re going to have a specialist—because I still honor all the specialties that we have—but what happens is that specialists tend to be putting their specialty blinders on. They go after the one and only thing that they’re really passionate and focused about and forget at times that the person has a whole rest of their body that is contributing to what they’re dealing with. If you just get these blinders on, you’re really not ever thinking about the whole big picture of the person which is where I think maybe the concierge doctors or more preventive type of doctors are going to come into play. 

AB: Yeah. I understand exactly what you mean when you say specialty blinders. For example, you go to the endocrinologist, you do blood work, get tested for hormones, and the paid work goes back hopefully “to your primary care physician” who’s supposed to go over that with you. You feel that—this is personal experience—the person is just bandaging you up with some medication and off you go. But really, what is the root cause of why are my hormones [inaudible 00:06:31], if that was the case? Everyone should be asking why if you are an advocate for your family, yourself, your friends, your children. I think that’s really important and we do tend to get the specialty blinders on. 

JW: Absolutely. I truly believe that one of the critical steps in the “healthcare crisis answer,” if you want to say, is to empower yourself first and foremost. You need to become a strong member of your own healthcare team and help create your own medical blueprint. How? By educating yourself first, understanding your genetics, and where you stand right now in the present moment. You’re the only one who knows your history fully. You have to know and understand it so well that you’re able to communicate that with the physicians that are trying to help take care of you; or the dentist, the chiropractor, your trainer, or your nutritionist. I mean, the healthcare team, when I talk about it, is multi-faceted. It isn’t limited just to physicians and specialists. 

AB: Our listeners might be wondering why we feel the way we do and why we want to start this healthcare revolution. We are all dental professionals here and I’m a Dental Hygienist in Dr. Wade’s very progressive dental office. What we do is we practice wellness industry. And a lot of  what we see in dentistry is prevention. When we go into seeing our patients, we’re looking at preventative dentistry and preventing disease. We believe that mouth is the window to your health. The science proves more and more everyday the links between the oral cavity and the overall health and well-being. 

JW: It sure does. Everyday I feel like I hear something on TV or the radio or I read something in one of our professional magazines. Something comes out from the American Heart Association everyday. It seems like just proving another kind of oral-systemic link, if you want to say. 

AB: When we’re treating our patients, we look at the subtle signs of disease in the oral cavity. We can see the beginning stages of diabetes, autoimmune disorder, acid reflux, airway issues, cancer, hormone imbalances, and adrenal fatigue. These are all things that are shown to us via the gums. We’re able to co-manage patients with our special care providers and educate and empower them to take charge of their lifestyle choices. By pointing out these subtle changes in their mouth, we’re opening up a huge window. It’s amazing. Everyday, I’m amazed. 

JW: Everyday. Do you think it would get old and boring? 

AB: No. 

JW: Wouldn’t you bet? We love it. 

AB: That’s amazing. Surprisingly enough, our patients love it too. I can think of several times before where we’ve had an exam and really gone into some depth about what we’re seeing and feeling that might be an indicating as a root cause of some other issues. I’ll have patients look up at me and go, “Oh, my gosh. I’ve learned more in this 10 minutes with you in this conversation that we’re having than I have in the last 2 or 3 years of dealing with these symptoms or disease that I knew I had.” People are yearning to get this type of information and we’re excited not only to be providing it to our patients but also helping our own professionals learn more about it. A lot of physicians really just don’t fully honor, I guess you would say, what the oral cavity can show. 

JW: Yeah, agreed.

AB: You know, Dr. Wade, you’ve been on this journey for quite a long time. I consider you a pioneer and a mentor in my life. Perhaps you can share with us why you are so passionate about leading the concept of redefining healthcare? 

JW: It did start a while ago, five or six years ago. It really started when my patients who had been with me for 10 years or so—there was a time in their lives where they all had some economic downturn, I guess you would say, and people were really losing some jobs and things just weren’t going so well. I saw a much increase level of stress actually occur on my patient base as a whole. What happened was I actually began to see major changes in their mouth at that time that I had never seen before. These weren’t just new patients. These patients had maybe 10, 12 years in the practice. When you start putting two and two together—and I know them, I know what’s going on, I knew that their husband had lost their job, and times were hard  on them—I started to realize that what I was seeing was literally the changes in their overall body of what distress was doing to them. That’s really where it began. It changed from stress and hormones, then into cardiovascular disease, and oral systemic links with that. Then the passion just kept getting fueled and I love it. I love learning more and I love sharing it with you guys at the office and the team. I love being able to watch that turn into just 5-star patient care. But recently, I’d have to say that if my passion wasn’t already strong enough, just last week, I got another little, I would say, gas thrown on my fire and that was with my dad. My father had been playing golf and told my mom that he felt he had spoken to his friend in kind of a gibberish talk. That concerned him because he didn’t really know why he was doing that. He asked his friend if he had heard him and he said no. But it was concerning. He happen to be going back in about two weeks to have a follow up on an MRI that needed to be done. When I heard he had done the gibberish talk, I asked him to come to Dallas for some more advanced testing because I knew that was a sign of something going awry. He wanted to do the MRI first and then maybe think of having advance testing down the road. He just happen to get in early for the MRI and while they were taking it, they actually literally noticed that he was having a stroke right then and there. So they went to the car, got him, wouldn’t let him leave, and admitted him to the hospital. In all honesty, I feel like he was very, very lucky. He was there when it was happening. They quickly got him in and started the treatment. Thank God he was okay. But of course as soon as he was dismissed, he was back in this area doing advanced testing with our professional lab. He’s got out of the woods yet. But here’s my point I guess to that, if most people don’t realize that when you get dismissed from the hospital like that, that they are putting you on medications that are the normal kind of thing that they put most people on, they’re not considering any advanced testing, and they’re doing very much standard of care testing. They certainly aren’t doing any kind of genetic testing or drug metabolism testing to be sure that—let’s say, not to get into too much detail—the coagulation type of medicine that they’re going to put you on is the right one for you which means you may be taking medicine thinking you’re going to be okay. You got lucky and you’re hoping that you’re not going to have another stroke. But if you’re not on the right medications, that’s not true. It’s a false sense of health. That is what I want to tell people about. Some of these tests that are out there that you think you are taking—my mom and dad both, the lifeline kind of stuff—I’m not saying that they’re bad tests, but I do feel that sometimes, when you get a checkmark that says you’re okay from those types of tests, it’s not necessarily true. It’s the same thing with the stress test, you’ve heard us say how is it that so and so had to stress us down on Thursday and then they had told they were perfectly fine and then on Saturday, they had a heart attack? We happen to know that in order to fail a stress test, it has to be almost more than 70% blockage for you to fail it, that doesn’t mean you’re not vulnerable for an episode. 

AB: Let’s talk a few minutes about our hopes and goals for hosting this podcast. You mentioned a couple key things throughout with genetic testing, drug metabolising testing, also we discussed acid reflux and the subtle signs that we actually see in the mouth. I hope that this  SimplifiHealth podcast that we’re hosting here will lead people to understand all of those things are signs of inflammation. 

JW: Absolutely, because why? Inflammation is the root cause. 

AB: Correct. 

JW: It’s the enemy. I’ll tell you why the podcast. First of all, I just feel like we must start to elevate the conversations. I’m feeling compelled to do that. What we want to try to do with that is first of all to empower everybody out there; patients, you, and the public with knowledge. Because we believe that knowledge is power and eventually that knowledge and that power will help stop the healthcare crisis. We also want to inspire other healthcare professionals to be open-minded and remember that we’re all working with a whole body and not just parts and pieces. We also want to disrupt the discussion of healthcare in general, like I said a few minutes ago, we want to elevate that conversation. 

AB: It needs to be done. 

JW: It does.