The Masking of Symptoms

So what are we taught from a very young age that we should do when we feel sick or not well? We are taught to take any measure to get rid of that bad feeling! If you look on TV or the internet, almost every goal of the most common drugs out there is to get rid of the bad feeling.

So lets say your child has a fever.... what do you do? On no, you panic and frantically look for some motrin in the cupboard to reduce the fever because it is so bad. Studies show that over 80% of parents give there kid medicine at the first sign of fever, so we aren't talking about the very high 106, 107 fevers. So the kid takes the medicine, the fever goes down, he feels better and he goes out and plays! Everything is grand, right? Wait a minute, what about whatever caused him to have the fever in the first place? So because he is "feeling" better then everything is great? Do we not care why the body made the fever in the first place? Just so you know it isn't the bug that is causing the fever, it is the body causing the fever to fight the bug. So if the kid received no medicine, sure he wouldn't "feel" good, but the higher fever would be putting the bug in a place where is can't survive as well, and the kid wouldn't be running around which would allow the body to use all its energy on fighting the bug. So by being a "caring" parent and giving your child something to make them "feel" better, you have just made the job a whole lot harder for the "body" to take care of. You took away the body's defense of higher temperature, and then took away the feeling that would have kept the child from running around. But wait a minute, doesn't those tylenol workers put love into every bottle?

Fever is one example. The body has certain symptoms to help fight disease. Understand that almost everything that we label as symptoms of disease, are really symptoms that the body creates to fight disease.

Blood pressure is another example. So you go to the doctor and they decide that you are border line prehypertensive (another word for normal).
The doctor in all his goodness puts you on a sweet little pill that lowers your blood pressure, and every one is happy. Go home, sweet dreams, come back in a couple months to see if it has changed. Oh and if you feel like it, maybe eat better or exercise or something. Now, assuming that someone really did have high blood pressure, does anyone care at all what the underlying cause of the high blood pressure is? See, you can give someone a drug to lower it but someone has to ask why the "body" had the pressure high in the first place. There was a reason the body had it high, it is a defense mechanism.....but against what? Instead of giving a drug to the body and taking away its defense mechanism, why aren't we analyzing the person to find what is making this happen and correcting it. What does this have to do with Chiropractic? Everything. This is chiropractic philosophy. Sure the adjustment is a part of it, but this philosophy, (instead of taking the bodies natural defenses away from it, letting the body do its job while we help it) is the absolute basis of the profession.

If you agree with this you must realize that this is not the current medical model. The current medical model chases symptoms instead of finding causes. They look for smoke when there is a fire right in front of them. The doctor of the future doesn't treat symptoms, the doctor of the future interest his patients in the cause and prevention of disease. The CAUSE of disease, not the symptoms of disease. The mechanic of the future doesn't tell you to get an oil change only after your car has symptoms, the mechanic of the future tells you to have regular oil changes so that you never have the symptoms of not getting regular oil changes. The doctor of the future doesn't treat you after you get all the symptoms, the doctor of the future treats you by educating you about things so you can prevent such things. This is not what the current health care system pays for, it is backwards.

Preventative health care is the basis of chiropractic philosophy, it has been for the 100 years of its existence. It has been the cause of much ridicule from the medical profession through the years. But do you see whats happening? Study after study is showing that a preventative health care/ insurance system would actually be a whole lot cheaper then the current symptom one. Politicians, health care professionals, and even the medical profession itself is starting to use the buzz word preventative. When the country eventually goes to this type of healthcare system, do you think Chiropractors will be recognized as those that gave it to us? Probably not, but I can assure you who will be best suited to deliver such a system....we will, us chiropractors...the doctors of the future.

The Nike salesman

So lets say I work at a running shoe store where I sell running shoes to any one interested. Unbeknown to the customers, I secretly met with nike before hand, and they told me that for every pair of their shoes that I sell, they will give me half the profit they make from it. So you are the first customer coming in for the day and you tell me that you need some running shoes, which ones do you think I am going to sell you? Do you think I will care what shoe you really need? Do you think I will care if the Nike ones are inferior quality and more expensive? Seems like a conflict of interest.

I have 2 analogies I wish to compare to this. The first is obvious. If I am a Medical Doctor that gets a kick back from pharmaceutical companies if I prescribe their product, do you think I will be more inclined to do just that? What if the patient doesn't really need them?

The second is this. Medicare is usually by far the worst paying insurance company out there, and every health care provider knows it. The problem is that so many are on it so everyone needs to accept it. Now if a Doctor has a medicare patient coming in, and a cash paying customer coming in, who do you think is going to get better care? Who do you think the Doctor is going to spend more time with. Now if the government were to go to a mandated health insurance where everyone was required to be insured, their idea would be that they are increasing the quality of healthcare. Well all the really good Doctors are just going to go to cash only practices and the rich will then have way better healthcare then the poor who can't afford to pay cash.

But My Insurance doesn't cover it

Ever heard this? Well as a future chiropractor talking to people about chiropractic..... trust me, I have heard it many times. Now some of these analogies that I use I have gotten from others.... I do not profess to have come up with them on my own.

Lets pretend you own a car.... and you buy car insurance because the law says you should. Now no matter how great of car insurance you have, if you decided to never take care of your car except for things that the insurance covers.. how long would your car last? So you never get new tires, you never get an oil change, you never replace the windshield wipers, because your "insurance" doesn't cover it. In fact your insurance only covers disasters, like car wrecks.

Don't like the car analogy... what about home owners insurance? or life insurance? or insurance on an expensive purchase? These things take care of the tragedies, but does that mean you don't spend a dime taking care of the things when all is normal?

I find it amusing that people will let what some insurance compnay decided determine what kind of real health care they recieve. People we are talking about our bodies here. A car is a pile of metal that will be gone in 10 years, yet we spend hundreds of dollars a year trying to keep it running at its absolute fullest ability, and then our bodies go to pot because "my insurance doesn't cover it". That seems very odd to me.

Health insurance is not health insurance.... it is sick insurance. When you are sick it helps you... but not until your sick. If you have even the slightest desire to do anything preventative...... your on your own. That seems very odd to me

My Beliefs

Well I have created this blog as a place where I can express my beliefs on healthcare, and maybe in the process help someone that is concerned about such things.

I believe the quote given here by Thomas Edison to be my basis. Obviously there will always be need for surgery, and drugs, and other similar remedies, but imagine a world, or even a lifestyle, where such things were not the normal, or the first action taken, but were used in emergency situations. Imagine a lifestyle where instead of taking a drug to lower your blood pressure or an antidepressant to make you happy, you decided to exercise, which has the same physiological responses with out the negative side effects.

I love Chiropractic, but chiropractic isn't what you think it is. Sure there is the part where they look for an area on your back that needs fixing and then they fix it, but the true philosophy of chiropractic....the true foundation of it, is not the adjustment or manipulation....or even the subluxation that they are trying to fix. It is their philosophy of healthcare that I truly love.

This blog I will use as a place to share different thoughts about healthcare and what it is and what it could be. The best part about it is that everyone has a choice. You can choose right now to have a different health care model then everyone else.....you don't need to wait for government, or even the greater public to catch on, you can choose today to take control of YOUR health.