Do you Think Staying Healthy is Expensive ? What are Alternatives

Reading a post on Facebook today took me back a few years in time. The comment made was ?Why do they have to make everything so expensive. With a growing family we can?t afford it?. What was this person talking about?

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She was talking about alternatives to disease care. Her focus is where I used to be too. As the daughter of a mill worker who was raised having medical insurance I understand right where she is. When I got married to a mill worker our family used the many benefits of health insurance, too. It would be years before I learned some interesting facts surrounding the reality of the security fa?ade we call insurance.

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In today?s world we are being lead to the slaughter and I mean that literally as well as figuratively. Governments are fueled by power and money. A very wealthy and powerful entity is insurance companies.

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Likewise we are lead by government officials and programs promising to take care of its citizens. Programs provide for the underprivileged, the poor and the unfortunate misplaced workers and their families thus encouraging the massive numbers to cast their vote and so the cycle continues.

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This is not a political statement. I am not taking of sides. What I am about to share is the wake up call I received some 15 years ago. Let me share with you part of my story, how I learned that not all is as it may appear.

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How I got to where I was?

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As a working woman, wife, and mom?juggling a couple of businesses with a growing family is not rocket science. Stress seems to come prepackaged and readily accepted as the norm. No worries, it can be managed, right?

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My work ethic started developing when I was young and continues to this day. Not sure if it?s my personality or if it?s in my genes. All I do know is that I love to work not leaving my hands idle for too long.

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Work was not a four letter word, it was something I enjoyed.

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My professional background revolved around serving others. As I climbed the corporate ladder, got married and had children my focus remained on work. Now don?t go getting all willy-nilly on me?I know that wasn?t right, it just was where I was at that time in my life.

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I soon found I was not really the stay at home kind of girl, so continuing the corporate climb seemed the right thing to do. However, that ladder was soon to be pulled from under me and the financial crash was imminent. The only option at the time seemed to add another job to my existing one to make ends meet.

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The juggling act began and I did well with it for awhile. However, all good things come to an end, and end they did when my health came crashing down around my head. The world as I knew it was coming to an end and I was not quite sure how to deal with it.

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Now the lesson to learn was how to deal with all of the stress piled upon me.

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Managing the household, the kid?s schedules (both of them) taking care of my husband and my work schedule too was proving to be a monumental job. As the stress mounted I dealt with it the best I could. What I did not realize was that stress was silently creeping in like the fog in a marsh.

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Then one day it hit with a vengeance. My body shut down, migraine headaches were a common occurrence. My immune system crashed, chronic illness was as common as the daily mail.

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The doctors warned me that I needed to slow down. But I refused to give in knowing that my family depended on me. Then it happened. The body gave way and I found myself in the hospital facing surgery.

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The stress had won the battle!

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One day while lying in the bed, recuperating from surgery, I had nothing but time?time to think and rethink how my life had turned out and where it was headed.

I was suffering from a lot of issues affecting my health, such as, allergies, asthma, migraines, no energy, bad back/neck issues, and being overweight, not to mention female issues (PMS and menopause). I had hit the proverbial rock bottom in my health.

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Did I mention that I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue and the dentist found gum disease, too??I was also stressed out of my mind due to my husband losing his job. I had tried for 5 years working with my doctors and it seemed that I only got worse instead of better.? All medications that I tried failed. I even decided to try vitamins and herbal supplements, my grandma?s suggestion, but didn?t get the lasting results I was looking for either.

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Looking back on the system we thought had helped

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Over the years of our marriage I often took insurance for granted. After all it was a benefit enjoyed by most mill worker?s families. With ever increasing co-payments, deductibles and share of cost premiums we started to look at our personal usage and the benefits the insurance company was paying for us.

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I?ll admit there were times when we were thankful for those benefits; like the time I had emergency gall bladder surgery, or my herniated disc surgery. Those were very costly surgeries and there were no savings to pay for them.

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However, when we looked at the last ten years of our marriage, our renewed health and lifestyle we found we were not receiving benefits worthy of the hefty share of cost and deductibles we were paying. Hubby only had one prescription for high blood pressure and that share of cost was $40 per month. Add in the premium we paid semi-monthly of $65 it was pretty costly medicine.

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It wasn?t until he lost his job and insurance coverage that we found the truth. These astonishing facts still boggle my mind to this day. The pharmacy we purchase the blood pressure medication from had a program for uninsured customers. That same medication now cost us a whopping $4 per month?yes, you read that right.

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So, my question for pondering today is this?for 40 plus years we paid $65 per pay period (twice per month), plus a co-pay of $40 per prescription for the medication we now paid $4 per month with no co-pay or premium?WHERE DID ALL THAT MONEY GO?

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As for the person who posted on Facebook ?Why do they have to make everything so expensive. With a growing family we can?t afford it?. I don?t know; maybe ask the drug companies or the pharmacies.

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What I do know, what makes sense to me and what I am truly grateful for is to be off the roller coaster ride of craziness created by high doctor and prescription costs combined with enormous insurance rates and discovered that for $40 per month I can protect my genes every single minute of every single day. It?s been years since I?ve visited a doctor. We are healthy, live vibrant lives full of deep sleep, youthful skin and endurance. Seems to me it?s very inexpensive compared to the alternative.

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If you know someone who needs to read this please share. Knowledge is power and action beats inaction every time. See you on the inside.

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Carla Gardiner is known as "THE Fiery Grandma" because she found new energy, endurance and youth. Her passion and purpose lies with baby boomer trends, the people she works with daily; aging men, women, moms, dads, grandmas and grandpas who want to feel better, have more energy and have fun like they did when they were twenty-something. Join her for more energy, fun and profits.

Source: http://www.carlajgardiner.com/staying-healthy-expensive-alternatives/

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