Whenever I am talking to a patient and they tell me about some particular set of symptoms that suddenly came on, I always ask them “What changed around that time?”.  Such a simple question and it’s amazing how often it can lead us to the cause, or at least a main contributing factor, of their health concerns.

When I ask them, I always make sure to tell them that it could be anything – a change in house, job, relationship, food, school, anything…  and once they start to think back, they realize that around the time their problems began, they had gotten married to someone who likes to cook huge meals, moved into a house that has a mold problem, had a close friend or loved one die, moved to a new town, changed shampoos, or graduated from college (a surprisingly common one).  It could be anything.

Sometimes identifying the change that occurred around the time of onset leads us to identify an emotional contributor to the issue, sometimes a physical one.  Whichever (or both) that it turns out to be, the more information we have about the cause or contributing factors to an illness, the greater our chances of fixing the problem.

So if you are currently dealing with a health problem, ask yourself – “What changed around the time that this problem started?”.  You might be surprised at where that one simple question leads you.