I'm about to change the name of this newsletter to Monthly Well-Being since I seem to be writing so infrequently these days, but I shall make it a goal for the month of May to get back on track. What you may find is shorter newsletters, but something tells me that won't disappoint many of you. I have a multitude of short topics to cover today, so let's get to it...

Clarification

A few weeks ago, I sent out an article that spelled out some of the concerns of the recently passed health care reform. The article did paint a pretty harsh picture and some have argued that it was propaganda. Fair enough. Yet, hidden behind the obvious attack on the government in said article was a very clear message of the utmost importance: the health care reform stands to strengthen a fundamentally flawed system. We don't have health care in our country...we have crisis care being referred to as health care. Medications are the primary means to combat these crisis situations, along with emergency surgeries. The fact that we associate those means of crisis intervention with health or wellness is not a good thing. I did a search on google images the other day for the above italicized words and you know what it came back with? Page after page after page of pictures of pills! Pill bottles, pill piles and pill pushers. That's not health, yet the reform will lead to easier access and the strengthening of the currently flawed system...
 

Compliance

People are, by their very nature, renegades in some way. Historic text suggests that man has been going against the grain since the beginning of his existence. The forbidden fruit is a classic example of how men and women just don't necessarily dig authority. Here in the States, we are a society of know-it-alls. We have access to just about all the information we could ever hope to read, 24-hour news networks cluing us in on the happenings around the country/world, and thousands of colleges for higher learning. We're also a society that doesn't like to take personal accountability. It's in our nature to be defensive...and, boy, are we ever. Name the last time that someone called you out that you didn't immediately start thinking about excuses or deflecting the blame. It happens daily...at the very least weekly. Well, in this society of ours, even a doctor's recommendations are often met with an attitude that reflects the rogue nature of people. I have patients that will tell me that XYZ doctor told them to do ABC and they flat out tell me they didn't follow the doctor's orders. Once they began feeling better, they just quit doing what they were told was necessary. Again, that also goes back to the backward way that our health system is set up since it's solely based on symptomatic relief rather than healing the underlying issue that leads to symptomatic states. Compliance is everything when it comes to upper cervical care because it's not based on how you feel...it's based on balance and function and both the short and long-term nature of the healing process. So, I bring this up as a reminder for us all - since we're, by our very nature, guilty of it - in an effort to help us set a goal to not only trust ourselves, but also the people that are trying to help us. We don't know everything...and we can learn, believe it or not, learn from other people...

Boosting the Immune System

I have noticed a recent trend since the onset of "allergy" season that I never really took notice of in the past...and I had a thought. For those of you that suffer from allergies, recall the first time you were aware of being allergic to something. Most of you ended up taking an allergy medication or even getting an allergy shot to help with your symptoms, but was it ever explained to you how allergies work? My guess would be "no." Allergies occur when your immune system responds to an allergen, which is something that your body doesn't like and subsequently reacts to. Contrary to popular belief, your body will adapt to said allergens and become less reactive to them, such is why not everyone has seasonal allergies. What happens, then, when you begin taking allergy meds or shots to suppress the symptoms is that you'll aid in preventing your body from its natural adaptation process, you'll never get used to the allergens, and thus won't be able to become less reactive. Dependence upon said meds/shots become your norm. Well, do you think those kids who grow up with a healthy, fully functioning body are as likely to end up where many of you with allergies are at this point in your lives? The answer is "no." Your immune system is pretty smart, but it's dependent upon the right information getting to it from the brain, via signals routed by the brainstem. Disruption in that normal life process weakens immune response and adaptability. Think outside the box...
 

Until next week...


Thinking good things for you, as always,

Dr. Chad