Karen Joy’s response (apprentice to Susun Weed):
Yay for you recognizing your inherent wisdom and taking charge of your health care!

Many consider checkups to be preventative care. It can be a part of it, but the damage these checkups cost us must be considered—this is to be assessed by the person individually. To my mind, preventative care must be nourishing never damaging.

Consider Susun’s Seven Medicines. If we start with a concern, say reproductive health, then we use these medicines in order, only as far as is needed. Damage should never be done, as can happen in “Herbal Medicine” and beyond, until the first four medicines have been explored.

So before I would consider going for a pap smear, which I personally consider invasive, I would be sure to be actively involved in working with this with Serenity Medicine, Story Medicine, Energy Medicine and Lifestyle Medicine. I consider the pap smear a diagnostic test. I see no reason for it unless I think there is something to find. This likely comes too from hearing from so many upset about an “abnormal pap” and all the suggested responses, then finding the great majority of those become “normal” on their own in short time.

Susun has been working this winter on her book about Down There which will have wonderful information about these tests, their value or not, and the many concerns people have about this area of our bodies.

Regarding teeth, it is true there is little written by Susun on this. I have had the opportunity to listen to a tape of her speaking on the topic. These tapes however are only available to those enrolled in correspondence course with her. I remember her words much as mine above on reproductive care. We need to focus on what we can to proactively at home, day to day, rather than simply leave it to someone yearly to find if we have “problems”, then leave it to that person to “fix” them. Again dental visits are a great diagnostic tool to be drawn from freely as deemed necessary, but are not preventative medicine in my eyes.

For what can be preventative dental care, we have a great thread going on this at our online forum—many of us are students of Susun Weed.