What is Doctor In The House about?
What happens if you have more than 10 minutes with your doctor? I have thrown diagnosis out the window and I am looking at the person and trying to find out what’s wrong with them by looking at their lifestyle.
How were you approached?
There was a group email that went round where I was working. There were 12,000 applications. I think I got it because I believed in the idea behind the series.
How many days do you spend with one family?
From 10 to 12 full days in their houses and the same again in terms of contact.
Of the eight families in the series, what was the most common problem?
With every family I have had to deal with stress but they all have different diseases… headaches, migraines, heart disease, diabetes and bowel problems. When you strip them back to their core they have a common root cause. A lot is how we live our lives: eat, sleep, relax, and move – the four pillars of health. When you get them right it can help.
Who was your biggest challenge?
I have been a doctor for 16 years now and have seen thousands of patients but one of the hardest cases I have ever seen was Gemma from the first episode. She had headaches for 15 years, regarded as incurable.
They are called suicide headaches because many people with them go to voluntary euthanasia. She has been to hundreds of doctors and been on lots of pills.
She was getting 80 headaches a week.
I tackled three of four different areas. In two months she was down to under five headaches a week.
How did you solve Gemma’s problem?
I looked at her diet and limited some foods. I gave her magnesium, which is a supplement that can help headaches. Her stress levels were very high, so I taught her to meditate.
What is going wrong with our health care system?
We are not trained to look at the root cause of the problem. We are trained to diagnose and give a pill.
Do your patients stick to your advice?
Every intervention I did had to be sustainable. In the first series
I reversed the health of a diabetic lady in four weeks. She contacted me 18 months later saying her blood sugar levels are even better than when I was last there.
Doctor In The House, Monday, 9pm, BBC1
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