If you look hard enough...

Every now and then, we come across inspirational stories of families who have arduously navigated through obstacles to solve the medical mystery behind a family member's condition. They serve to remind us of the complexity of the world we currently live in, especially in this era of genetics.

"If you look hard enough, there's always a way through it", said Frosty Hesson, in Chasing Mavericks. 

Or perhaps, Patricia McCormick's words in Sold, would resonate more,  

"If you look hard enough, chaos turns into order the way letters turn into words”. 

If you look hard enough, the chaos that accompanied the baffling and cruel medical mystery, turns into order the way the jumbled quartet of DNA letters turn into words to form a foreign name.

The meaning-making process behind the occurrence of illness triggers the process of medicalization, where ailments are labelled and treated accordingly. Medicalization has given a name to what was once considered as demon-possession or supernatural punishment for wrongdoing. Today, seizures are understood to be caused by irregular electrical activity in the brain, and acknowledged to be a treatable medical condition. Medicalization can also potentially absolve responsibility. Parents whose boisterous child runs amok at the mall, or squirms in the classroom, can avoid being accused of poor parenting. A diagnosis of ADHD points the finger to the condition rather than the parent, or the child. Interestingly, not all forms of medicalization were advocated by medical professionals. Alcoholism and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), are attributed to the lobbying efforts of social groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and the Vietnam war veterans, respectively.

In our bid to search for explanations to understand why people are the way they are, have we fallen into the trap of over-medicalization? Broadening the medical boundaries of classification creates a greater inclusion criteria. We now know of grand mal seizures and absence seizures amongst many others; ADHD that was once usually outgrown, has been found to extend into adulthood; PTSD sufferers are no longer isolated to war veterans but extended to anyone who has experienced a traumatic incident.Today, many are at risk of multiple pre-conditions, which predisposes one to an illness that may not necessarily develop. TED talk speaker, Ivan Oransky, gave a tongue-in-cheek term for all the pre-conditions nowadays – preposterous. He also dropped a bombshell of bad news that we all have a universally fatal pre-condition: pre-death. The very fact we are alive, is in itself a risk factor.

If you look hard enough, you will find answers. The internet offers a smorgasbord of information, easily drawing up a buffet of options with a quick search. Dr Google is regularly hired as a personal doctor, at our beck and call, a click of a button away.Patients have been transformed into consumers, and healthcare commoditized. One's genetic encoding of predispositions and pre-conditions can be easily obtained at a relatively affordable sum.We advocate screening for conditions, that they may be detected early, but often the solution for those screened as high-risk, is just more screening.Does this empowerment with information serve to trigger alarm or allay fears?

The line between health and illness has been redrawn so many times that is has been blurred. If you look hard enough, perhaps you would find that restless children are just children to whom books are simply unappealing to, or have merely been on diets laden with sugar.If you look hard enough, perhaps an addiction to shopping is just as serious as an alcohol addiction, as is the need to medicalize.

Are we doing a favour for patients so dearly seeking answers, or are we doing a disservice to the individuals who we have so liberally labelled? Would we find our mislabels, if we looked hard enough?

making up for the anger-triggered ramble, 'ignoramus',

in a more eloquent, subdued piece.