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Contrary to popular belief, chiropractic isn’t just for
"bad" backs or "bad" necks. In fact, the first chiropractic patient
was a deaf janitor who never had complaints of pain. After the coarse of three spinal
adjustments, Harvey Lillard, the janitor, had his hearing fully restored. This
"miracle" was the result of D.D. Palmer, a tenant at the building of which Mr.
Lillard worked. After successfully removing Mr. Lillard’s nerve interference
(vertebral subluxation), chiropractic was born! This occurring on September 18th,
1895, over 100 years ago.
It’s a shame that many patients only think of chiropractor as pain
relief, a chiropractic aspirin if you will. Granted, this is not necessarily the fault of
the patient or person, it is usually through a lack of adequate understanding of
chiropractic and the mis-representation by the media.
There is no doubt that chiropractic is very successful in relieving pain
of many types, but this is a small idea. What many need to realize is that chiropractic is
also very successful in restoring and maintaining optimum body function by removing nerve
interference in the spinal column; this is the "Big Idea."
A couple of years ago, a study of was performed that compared 200
children and their overall health. What made this interesting was that half of the group
were the children of pediatricians and the other half were that of chiropractors. I think
it is safe to assume that the children of the pediatricians received the state of the art
care, the best medicine had to offer and the chiropractic kids received the best
chiropractic had to offer.
In this study, it was discovered that the children of chiropractors were
healthier on all counts! Chiropractic kids had fewer earaches, sore-throats, colds,
allergies, illnesses and used fewer antibiotics.
Aside from having wonderful health, think about how much money the
chiropractic families saved on their total health care. Drugs were rarely used, medical
treatments were few, absence from school was much less, which meant mom or dad didn’t
have to stay home from work to care for a sick child.
Nearly everyday in practice, I have the benefit of seeing small children
recover from colic, bedwetting, hyperactivity, attention deficit disorder and
irritability. It is a rare occasion that the kids come to our office for pain in their
neck or back!
It’s truly a shame that the rest of the nation isn’t made
better aware of this! Everyday in this country, over 1,000,000 children march up to the
principles office to be handed a cup containing Ritalin. Or they’re given long trials
of antibiotics from their pediatricians for their ear infections (most frequent childhood
infection). This in itself has been shown to increase the likelihood of recurrent, more
severe ear infections!
What a paradox! We are constantly telling our children that drugs are
bad and the TV is instilling their minds with the jingle, "Say nope to dope and ugh
to drugs." Are we sending our children a mixed message? Or are we telling them that
whenever there is a "crisis," cover it up with drugs?
Dorland’s Medical Dictionary defines "health" as,
"a state of optimal physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence
of disease and infirmity." Webster’s Dictionary goes on to define health as
"a condition of wholeness in which all of the tissues, organs and systems of the body
are functioning at 100% all of the time."
Based on the above definitions, we can conclude that, "true
health" is much more than just feeling good or not having any complaints. In order to
truly manifest an optimum state of health, you must, by definition, have 100% function of
your body, organs, tissues and structures. Furthermore, if the integrity of your body has
been disrupted by a tonsillectomy, hysterectomy, appendectomy or any other -ectomy
(removal of body parts), you can not possibly be 100% healthy (see Webster’s
definition).
Chiropractors refer to the body’s inner health-sustaining wisdom as
"Innate Intelligence." This intelligence is housed in every single cell of the
human body and has as its goal, to be 100% healthy all of the time. The body never desires
to be sick or diseased, only to be 100% healthy all of the time!
Misalignment of a spinal vertebra, which chiropractors refer to as
"subluxation," disrupts the 100% health potential of the body by interfering
with the lines of innate communication. For health to manifest in the body, it is
essential that the brain is allowed to communicate with all parts of the body. Failures of
communication in the body are disastrous and disease producing.
This intimate communication was most recently discovered to occur
between blood vessels and individual blood cells. Scientists in the last couple years
discovered small nerves which project into small blood vessels known as capillaries. These
nerves gently caress each blood cell as they travel by and pass on any new messages which
the brain deems as being necessary. For example, if you cut your finger, the brain
realizes this and tells the infection fighting cells (white blood cells) to quickly
migrate to the cut finger. Failure to do so may result in a nasty infection.
Each cell has the responsibility of maintaining its own health and must
also contribute to the goodness of the whole. It is highly premature and irresponsible to
say that the sum of the parts is equal to the whole, as some authorities may lead you to
believe. Claims of useless tonsils, an unnecessary appendix, a worthless uterus and
ovaries are truly unfounded! The removal of healthy organs is a crime in the highest
degree.
Every organ and tissue in the body has a function, otherwise it
wouldn’t be in the body in the first place. Removal of organs and tissues results in
lack-of-function, which by definition is disease. And, by Webster’s definition,
results in a lack of health or departure from 100% function.
If the pressure equivalent to the weight of a dime (40 mmHg) is placed
on spinal nerves, this would result in a 60% decrease in nerve communication (function).
It takes about a 40% decrease in nerve function before symptoms present themselves. This
is why sickness and disease are present long before any symptoms manifest.
Everyone has heard a story of some guy who was said to be "as
healthy as a horse" and then suddenly dropped dead of a heart attack. These people
equated his "equine-like" health to be perfect because he was not in any acute
pain or distress. Obviously however, he was not as healthy as any farm animal and his
disease process had been taking place for probably 15 or more years!
Subluxations, like heart disease are silent killers! They silently rob
your body of its 100% health potential by causing nerve interference which results in a
failure of the brain-body communication. Chiropractors are the only professionals
specially trained to analyze, locate and correct vertebral subluxations.
There should be no question that everybody be checked for the
possibility of spinal subluxation by a skilled and properly trained chiropractor. Imagine
a world free of nerve interference!
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