Treatment is only half the battle
After practicing for some time, I realize that for every given problem, every patient is unique. While over time you develop a more streamlined treatment protocol for different conditions, you realize that not everyone benefits equally. The same can be said for drugs and medications. None of them helps 100% of the people. Certain populations actually fare worse on it. Most people coming to see me falls in this category. In my line of work, I try my best to help patients with what I have under my belt. But some benefit from treatment, while others not so much. There are many reasons for why medical issues improve or deteriorate over time. The medical professional's treatment ability is in my opinion only a part of the benefit or lack thereof. The other part is extraneous factors that fall outside of the medical practitioner's control. These include lifestyle choices/patterns such as diet, mental state, emotional state, spiritual state, sleep/wake cycle and work/rest cycle. In most cases if the patient only relies on the practitioner without doing any changes on their own, the 'mileage' may be discounted. The cliche, 'taking 2 steps forward and 1 step back' may even end up as 'taking 2 steps back and 3 steps backwards'. For example, in today's society, there are a few social patterns. Work stress---you cannot control who your coworkers are. Family stress---economic constraints are forcing people to live together when they otherwise wouldn't, leading to relationship friction. Financial stress---a bad economy leaves people uncertain of the future. Health stress---worrying, either warranted or unwarrated, about their health, or being frustrated with the long wait times, or lack of good treatment options despite attempts. Career stress---hitting the glass ceiling and cannot advance further, feeling 'stuck'. Birth stress---worries about not being able to have children. And much more. Most of these issues are not easy to change unfortunately. But most patients should at least aim for a clean and simple diet, regular sleep/wake schedules and simplification of their life as much as they can. This can add extra points to your treatment. However if one is working 24/7 without rest and eating junk throughout the day with irregular schedules all the time, unfortunately, not much can be realistically expected from treatment, other than at best maybe temporary relief.