I recently have had a number of people express concern over the cost of their homeopathic or other healthcare.  I firmly believe in equal access to the healthcare you want, and for that reason, have a pay-what-you-can system in place.

But when someone says they “can’t afford” _______ healthcare (e.g. I can’t afford your fees, or I can’t afford that supplement, or whatever), rarely do they actually mean “I don’t have $50 in my bank account right now”.  This is not to shame them – not at all!  What bothers me about this equation is that in my experience, the person who says this has recently spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on some kind of healthcare. 

What’s going on?  Two things, in general.

Fear exhaustion: The person has recently been told that their genes are “defective” in some way (looking at you functional medicine people!), their hormones are out of balance, their bones are weak… etc etc.  They have been told they are broken and only this expensive treatment will save them. 

This drives me crazy.  Not only are you NOT BROKEN – I don’t care what your condition is!  Your heart beats at least, and your brain fires at least, and countless other miraculous things. Don’t let someone convince you that you need their supplement or you are destined to a sub-par life. But also, usually this tactic is a way to sell something expensive that you will supposedly need for the rest of your life. Ridiculous!  If you need it for the rest of your life than obviously it’s not doing a great job at helping you heal.  It’s just keeping you at the status quo.

Secondly,

Financial exhaustion: If someone (and trust me, I have been that “someone” many times) buys into the above, the fees can skyrocket pretty quickly.  I have seen people who spends thousands of dollars on supplements every month or thousands of dollars on testing, which tells them they need thousands of dollars worth of supplements and then they tell me they can’t afford homeopathic treatment, which, even if you saw me every week, would never come close to getting into the thousands of dollars.

In this case, the person has become so overwhelmed financially by the amount of stuff they are told they need to function, that they just can’t fathom paying for yet another treatment, which may or may not work and will cost them time and mental energy.

I found myself very much in this rigamarole when I was pregnant.  Every where I turned there was some new horrible potential outcome, and I had to take this supplement or see this practitioner in order to prevent it.  I took more supplements than I have ever taken in my life (and daily would pop pills and tell my husband it was time to “make me some expensive urine” because I was sure half of them did nothing), saw multiple practitioners every single friggin week (because everyone kept saying “in pregnancy, you should really come back every week to prevent problems”), tried to meditate every day, and exercise (but only the right kinds of exercise, of course), eat well, drink enough and the right kinds of fluids, and still encountered the message daily of “it all might go to pot, even if you do all the right things”.  By the time baby arrived, I was so tired of going to see practitioners that I ghosted half of them (also, taking a newborn in the car for 10 appointments a week was definitely not appealing), kept one or two that really helped, and couldn’t bear to meditate, track my food or water, and didn’t take any supplements at all, despite the constant warnings that “you are breastfeeding, you need nutrition”.  And you know what? My son didn’t die of malnutrition (nor did I).   

In essence what happened, was that I entirely bought into the myth that pregnant women are breakable and need a lot of support.  Growing a human is certainly demanding, and so some care is helpful, but there is such a thing as unnecessary and fear-mongering based care.  I was so financially and emotionally drained that by the time the baby arrived, I couldn’t take care of myself or him as well as I maybe could have if I had been more moderate during the pregnancy.

So, the cost of any healthcare you are looking at is not just financial – although those horrible (sorry, did I show my homeopathic bias there?) thousand-dollar genetic tests better have thousands of dollars of worth, not just be a great sales pitch for thousands of dollars of supplements…. Anyway, the cost of healthcare is also about your mental health.  Ask, will this drain me?  Or will this fill my cup?  There is no one-size-fits all answer, and you need to do what sits well with you in your gut.  Take a step back next time someone says you “need” some intervention or another, and ask yourself how you feel about taking on someone or something new in your healthcare regime. Afterall, you are the expert.