Last week one of our practice members, handed me a recent newsletter from MetroHealth. There was an interesting article in there written by Catherine Fallick, MD about blood pressure, medications, and life extension. She states that high blood pressure (HBP) affects more than 60 million Americans. It is the silent killer because there are no symptoms of HBP, but in the long run having it can lead to heart disease, kidney damage, and stroke. This is all true of course. However, what she says about medication got under my holistic skin!
She states: "People don't understand that every day with high blood pressure is a day that they are aging faster than necessary. Treating your blood pressure with medication and diet allows you to feel good when you are 70 and 80. The rate of developing HPB sometime over your lifetime is near 90%. Part of that is because of the aging population. Only 10% of the population will never develop HPB. We need to get used to the fact that we all are eventually going to have to take medications for BP. If you are against taking medication, you may not have the life expectancy that we have come to expect in the United States. (Italics are mine)."
Oh really? I looked up a common medication for BP, Lopressor, to see what it does. It can cause: congestive heart failure (do I need to go on?), heart block, cardiogenic shock, severe slow heart beat, Raynaud's phenomenon, gangrene, hepatitis, hypersensitivity reactions, photosensitivity, Systemic Lupus, and a loss of your white bood cells ( you know, the ones that fight infections!)
There are many contraindications listed for its use, and one of them is to be cautious with elderly people!
So I would like the good doctor to explain to me how taking this drug when I am in my 70's and beyond, which is a high risk group, is going to make me "feel good" if I run the risk of congestive heart failure, liver disease, dead limbs, and possible autoimmune disease? I would rather take my chances with just HBP!
Dr Fallick says that taking medication is what is necessary for a long, healthy life. Is she aware that prescription medication is the leading cause of hospital admissions and death in the US today? Is she also aware of an article that appeared in the AARP magazine not too long ago that referred to a study that said that people who DO NOT take medications have a higher life expectancy and quality of life that those who do? Apparently not.
To her credit, she does refer to lifestyle changes. Losing weight, diet changes, and exercise have all been shown to help people drop their BP. There are also chiropractic studies ( I don't have the references handy at the moment) that show chiropractic care also lowers BP. None of these activities have adverse affects on one's health as the medications do.
There is no substitute for a healthy lifestyle. There is no substitute for regular chiropractic care. There is no reason to believe that medications make people healthier!
Monday, June 27, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Do you "hold" your adjustments?
The other day, someone asked me if anyone ever "holds" their adjustments. This is based upon the old chiropractic notion that a vertebra "out of place" is pinching a nerve and creating illness. By "resetting" the vertebra with a thrust the pressure is taken off the nerve and healing occurs. Therefore, the adjustment should "hold" or always stay in its proper place along the spine. Unfortunately, this just doesn't happen.
The notion that one can hold an adjustment is believe that the body is a machine - it is a collection of parts that work together like a watch or an automobile. Your car will hold its front end alignment. When the wheels go out of alignment, you have that adjusted and it should stay that way until you hit a curb. The medical people work from the premise that the body is a machine. They feel that when something breaks down they can replace it with another part, human or artificial. This is all based on the old Newtonian/ Descartes view that the Universe is just a collection of parts whirling around each other just like an old watch that you have to wind up.
This just isn't true. The body is not a machine. It is a living expression of consciousness. It is the expression of intelligence in matter. It is energy flowing. Your body is constantly taking in information from it's environment, beyond your immediate comprehension, and adapting to the constant flux of energy so as to stay alive. And, the environment goes beyond what you see around you, it is also your thoughts and feelings.
Your body is programmed to do only one thing - keep you alive! Everything it does is to meet that end. So by monitoring it's environment, the body will make changes and reposition itself to stay alive. In other words, it is in a constant changing dynamic with the world within, and without. When it senses danger, i.e. stress, it will go into a survival mode. It will curl up, so to speak, or tense up to protect itself. Stress is a learned response, so the body will respond to events not necessarily based upon immediate danger, but rather on what it learned as danger. So you may not be stressed at the moment, but your body may be reacting to something that on a subconscious level it understands to be stress. It will also react to all your thoughts and emotions.
Since your environment is constantly changing, your body's response to it is constantly changing. The nerve system, which reads and interprets the environment, will constantly change and react. The body is an expression of the nerve system. So if the nerve system constantly changes, the expression in the physical body will also. And that means the body is in constant flux.
To assume that an adjustment is "holding" is to assume that the body never changes. It is to assume that the body is a machine just standing still and never moving. This is impossible. It is impossible to assume that by "resetting" a vertebra, it will stay that way forever.
People need to be adjusted regularly because the effects of stress are cumulative. And only spinal adjustment can change that and keep a person in a more relaxed state. Instead of living in survival mode, the body can be relaxed and live in "living"mode. This in itself will keep the body healthier! And it doesn't matter if you have to adjust the same vertebra over and over and over.
The notion that one can hold an adjustment is believe that the body is a machine - it is a collection of parts that work together like a watch or an automobile. Your car will hold its front end alignment. When the wheels go out of alignment, you have that adjusted and it should stay that way until you hit a curb. The medical people work from the premise that the body is a machine. They feel that when something breaks down they can replace it with another part, human or artificial. This is all based on the old Newtonian/ Descartes view that the Universe is just a collection of parts whirling around each other just like an old watch that you have to wind up.
This just isn't true. The body is not a machine. It is a living expression of consciousness. It is the expression of intelligence in matter. It is energy flowing. Your body is constantly taking in information from it's environment, beyond your immediate comprehension, and adapting to the constant flux of energy so as to stay alive. And, the environment goes beyond what you see around you, it is also your thoughts and feelings.
Your body is programmed to do only one thing - keep you alive! Everything it does is to meet that end. So by monitoring it's environment, the body will make changes and reposition itself to stay alive. In other words, it is in a constant changing dynamic with the world within, and without. When it senses danger, i.e. stress, it will go into a survival mode. It will curl up, so to speak, or tense up to protect itself. Stress is a learned response, so the body will respond to events not necessarily based upon immediate danger, but rather on what it learned as danger. So you may not be stressed at the moment, but your body may be reacting to something that on a subconscious level it understands to be stress. It will also react to all your thoughts and emotions.
Since your environment is constantly changing, your body's response to it is constantly changing. The nerve system, which reads and interprets the environment, will constantly change and react. The body is an expression of the nerve system. So if the nerve system constantly changes, the expression in the physical body will also. And that means the body is in constant flux.
To assume that an adjustment is "holding" is to assume that the body never changes. It is to assume that the body is a machine just standing still and never moving. This is impossible. It is impossible to assume that by "resetting" a vertebra, it will stay that way forever.
People need to be adjusted regularly because the effects of stress are cumulative. And only spinal adjustment can change that and keep a person in a more relaxed state. Instead of living in survival mode, the body can be relaxed and live in "living"mode. This in itself will keep the body healthier! And it doesn't matter if you have to adjust the same vertebra over and over and over.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Can Chiropractic Create World Peace?
Wow! That's a heavy statement, don't you think? Quite presumptuous, too. But, is it really far fetched?
The other day one of my practice members, Mary, sat up after being cleared and said how wonderfully at peace she felt. Then she asked, "What it would be like if everyone were under chiropractic care?" I said, "There probably would be world peace!"
Stress is the number one cause of loss of health. We can't escape stress, it's part of living in a physical body in today's society. There are only three forms of stress: emotional, chemical, and physical. I list them in this order on purpose because about 95% of the stress I help people through is emotional. We have to deal with all elements of society: the economy, family issues, taxes, politics, the ever present war, traffic, our jobs, and so on. Stress puts our bodies into survival mode also known as 'fight or flight'. We either have to fight for our lives or run like hell, but the bottom line is that we constantly live on the edge. We are never at peace. If we, as individuals, are never at peace within ourselves, we are never at peace with each other, and nations will never be at peace. Society, as a whole, is in fight or flight. Then nations are in fight or flight, albeit mostly fight.
The chiropractic adjustment takes a person out of survival mode. It changes the tone and tension of the nerve system to "living" mode so that we can be at peace within ourselves. When we are at peace, we are centered, able to deal with life constructively. If more people lived this way, society would be centered, in "living" mode. Then nations would be centered and at peace. If everyone in the world could be cleared of living in survival mode, it is safe to say that there would be peace!
The other day one of my practice members, Mary, sat up after being cleared and said how wonderfully at peace she felt. Then she asked, "What it would be like if everyone were under chiropractic care?" I said, "There probably would be world peace!"
Stress is the number one cause of loss of health. We can't escape stress, it's part of living in a physical body in today's society. There are only three forms of stress: emotional, chemical, and physical. I list them in this order on purpose because about 95% of the stress I help people through is emotional. We have to deal with all elements of society: the economy, family issues, taxes, politics, the ever present war, traffic, our jobs, and so on. Stress puts our bodies into survival mode also known as 'fight or flight'. We either have to fight for our lives or run like hell, but the bottom line is that we constantly live on the edge. We are never at peace. If we, as individuals, are never at peace within ourselves, we are never at peace with each other, and nations will never be at peace. Society, as a whole, is in fight or flight. Then nations are in fight or flight, albeit mostly fight.
The chiropractic adjustment takes a person out of survival mode. It changes the tone and tension of the nerve system to "living" mode so that we can be at peace within ourselves. When we are at peace, we are centered, able to deal with life constructively. If more people lived this way, society would be centered, in "living" mode. Then nations would be centered and at peace. If everyone in the world could be cleared of living in survival mode, it is safe to say that there would be peace!
Thursday, June 2, 2011
More thoughts on Vaccines
I went with my daughter and granddaughter to visit her pediatrician for my granddaughter's first birthday check-up today. The pediatrician is very nice, very laid back, and very supportive of our decisions regarding natural health approaches. We told her way back before Maddi was born that we are choosing not to have her vaccinated. She has supported this decision, but has asked with the two visits I have attended in the past year if we still do not wish to have vaccinations, or were we waiting for Maddi to be a little older. Lindsay again told her that there will be no vaccinations, and the doctor noted this in Maddi's chart.
What makes me wonder is how can learned people who claim to be health care providers can still promote the use of vaccines on children. I just read three articles dealing with vaccines that describe how they don't work and even cause disease. One article talked about the dangers of the Hepatitis B vaccine in children. It is linked to the onset of Multiple Sclerosis, Systemic Lupus, sudden infant death, and auto-immune diseases. Hepatitis B isn't even a childhood disease - it is a disease of drug users and specific sexual habits!
Another article discussed how immunized children in Pakistan are developing polio. 70% of of the polio cases being seen in Pakistan are in children that were vaccinated. And yet another article talks about how the CDC admits that the flu vaccine doesn't work, it wears off, and that's one of the reasons you have to have a new one every year. Well the flu vaccine has aluminum and mercury compounds in them, detergents, dead diseased chicken cells, viruses, MSG ( I guess so it will at least taste good), and other toxic substances.
And that is just in the past week. Everyday articles appear, not in the main stream media of course, that discuss the dangers of vaccines. Hopefully one day enough people will wake up and vaccinations of our children will go the way of blood letting to cure disease.
What makes me wonder is how can learned people who claim to be health care providers can still promote the use of vaccines on children. I just read three articles dealing with vaccines that describe how they don't work and even cause disease. One article talked about the dangers of the Hepatitis B vaccine in children. It is linked to the onset of Multiple Sclerosis, Systemic Lupus, sudden infant death, and auto-immune diseases. Hepatitis B isn't even a childhood disease - it is a disease of drug users and specific sexual habits!
Another article discussed how immunized children in Pakistan are developing polio. 70% of of the polio cases being seen in Pakistan are in children that were vaccinated. And yet another article talks about how the CDC admits that the flu vaccine doesn't work, it wears off, and that's one of the reasons you have to have a new one every year. Well the flu vaccine has aluminum and mercury compounds in them, detergents, dead diseased chicken cells, viruses, MSG ( I guess so it will at least taste good), and other toxic substances.
And that is just in the past week. Everyday articles appear, not in the main stream media of course, that discuss the dangers of vaccines. Hopefully one day enough people will wake up and vaccinations of our children will go the way of blood letting to cure disease.
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