Unfortunately, these day and age, everyone has some knowledge of the problems with Insurance and the “healthcare system” we are immersed in and moving towards. No doubt our “healthcare system” is a tornado that is about to touch down. Our “health care system” is going bankrupt. Everyone has noticed the trend of increasing premiums, increasing deductibles, and decrease in benefits of insurance, which leads to less people being able to afford the “health care” they need.

Let’s just stop for a minute and think about the definition of “health care” which is as follows: The prevention, treatment, and management of illness and the preservation of mental and physical well-being through the services offered by the medical and allied health professions. How many contradictory words and misconceptions are involved in this definition of healthcare? Let me count the ways.

First and foremost, the only part of this definition that is correct is the “treatment, and management of illness”. When people are sick, they go to their Doctor and want a treatment for whatever is ailing them. Most doctors are doctors of medicine (M.D.). They treat all kinds of diseases and injuries. Most commonly, they prescribe a treatment course that involves some medication.

Second, the treatment of disease and illness has NOTHING to do with the prevention and preservation of health. Let me ask you, “Is there any such thing as preventative medicine?” The definition of medicine or prescription is as follows: An agent, such as a drug, used to treat disease or injury, or something that serves as a remedy or correction of disease and injury. Just by the nature of the definition, there can NEVER be a preventative medicine. What a contradiction!!!!

Third, insurance doesn’t pay for health care! Surprised? When was the last time your “healthcare insurance” paid for your gym membership? Bottled water? Healthy fruit and vegetables? Vitamins? When was the last time your doctor or insurance called you to see how healthy you are? By definition, INSURANCE ISN’T FOR HEALTHCARE! Medicine does not CARE about your health or the prevention of disease, only the treatment when you encounter disease or illness. Doctors of Medicine might be more willing to be involved in preventative health care; however, Insurance Companies do not want to pay for something they cannot measure. A dear friend of 30 years that practices Medicine in South Georgia laments over his inability to do more for his patients because of the limitations and demands on his time because of Health Insurance company’s requirements.

Let’s think about how we can bring about a better understanding of “Health care”. The answer is simple. If “Health care” was renamed permanently to “Sick care”, think about how much less confusing “healthcare” might be. People would know exactly what to expect from their “Insurance or Sick care”! They will always insure and care for you when you are sick, but in order to find Healthcare, we must look at the real prevention of disease and sickness.
The one person responsible for your HEALTH is you and you only! If you want to be healthy, you must be responsible for your own prevention and health care. As people, we must strive to eat healthy, drink good water, exercise, get proper rest, have positively healthy relationships, and most important of all take care of your spine, brain and nervous system. Your brain and nervous system are encased in your spine. They control and coordinate all the functions of your organs, systems, cells, tissues and muscles.

Unfortunately due to injuries, stress and wear and tear, our spine can misalign and start pinching on the nerves going to your organs, systems, and muscles. This subluxation or misalignment can cause a decrease in your body’s ability to heal itself or to work efficiently causing it to malfunction. For example, if there is pinching on a nerve going to your stomach and the stomach isn’t being told what to do properly, what might happen? Your stomach might not digest food properly, it might produce too much acid causing ulcers, you can get acid reflux, you might be nauseated, have gas or diarrhea, etc. Do you think this might decrease your quality of health???? Doctors of Chiropractic remove and correct subluxations or misalignments, thus preventing dis-ease or dis-function in the body. This creates a healthier YOU! Look into Chiropractic as another way to naturally prevent disease and illness. REMEMBER, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PREVENTATIVE MEDICINE, ONLY PREVENTATIVE MEASURES!

Please call Chiropractic Wellness Depot, for more information on how to live a healthier lifestyle naturally, and remove the sick care from your life. Please call, (256) 881-1321

The above were the findings of a research project conducted in Australia where 420 patients were studied. On October 5th 2002 at the 9th International Conference on Spinal Manipulation in Toronto, Ray Hayek, Ph.D., head of the investigative team told the assembly that patients afflicted with asthma may benefit from spinal manipulation in terms of symptoms, immunological capacity, and endocrine effects.

The proceedings and report of this study were published in the August 24, 2002 release from the Foundation for Chiropractic Education and Research, (FCER). In that release Dr. Hayek reported that of the 420 patients in the study only those patients in the group which received spinal manipulation showed significant improvement in asthma symptoms, depression and anxiety.

The report also noted that there were positive biochemical and physiological changes that were not necessarily expected from spinal manipulation. The report suggested, “These biochemical changes not only suggest that the effects of spinal manipulation are more far-reaching than commonly believed, but that they may be more long-term as well.

Although the study was not specific to chiropractic care, chiropractic adjustments are the most specific form of spinal manipulation. The findings of the above study reinforce other studies previously performed that show the benefit of chiropractic care for those suffering with asthma. In a study conducted in 1996 by the Michigan Chiropractic Association (MCA), a panel of doctors performed an outcomes assessment study to test the qualitative and quantitative effectiveness of chiropractic care on children with asthma. The results of this study showed that after 30 days of chiropractic health care, patients averaged only one asthma attack, whereas prior to this study they were experiencing more than four attacks. Additionally, in the Michigan study it was noted that medications, which can be costly, were decreased by nearly 70 percent in the patients who participated.

Dr. Rachel’s Take

How and why are these results possible from spinal manipulations? The grounds for someone to get a spinal manipulation or adjustment (as I prefer to call it), is because there is a bone in the spine that is misaligned. When the spine misaligns, it can put pressure on the delicate network of nerves coming out of the spine, not allowing the nerve to get its signals to where it needs to go. When the nerve system is not able to be in touch completely with its organs and systems, the result is the organs begin to malfunction or partially work properly. This misalignment and pressure on the nerves are called vertebral subluxations.

Each organ, let’s use the lungs for example, has a nerve that comes out of the spine to tell it what to do. The nerves that go to the lungs come out in the upper back, called the thoracic. In addition to the nerves that come out of the spine in the thoracics, there is also a backup nerve for the lungs that comes out at the first cervical vertebra, right under your skull. This nerve is called the “vagus or wandering nerve”. This vagus nerve is your back up for all organs and systems. This is where Christopher Reeves injured his neck when he fell off the horse. He didn’t injure his lungs, bladder, bowels, arms or legs; he injured the nerve system that went to those organs. For him, it was lights on – lights off. For everyday people, these vertebral subluxations become like a dimmer switch, slowly and gradually causing dysfunction in the organs. Chiropractors remove these subluxations so the organs and systems can function properly. This is the basis for the results this study has shown. Make sure you are keeping your spine and nerve system clear so that your body can function at 100% of its human genetic potential.

The World Health Organization has carried out the first ever analysis of the world’s health systems. Using five performance indicators to measure health systems in 191 member states, it finds that France provides the best overall health care followed among major countries by Italy, Spain, Oman, Austria and Japan.
The findings are published today, 21 June, in The World Health Report 2000 – Health systems: Improving performance.

The U. S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds. The United Kingdom, which spends just six percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on health services, ranks 18th . Several small countries – San Marino, Andorra, Malta and Singapore are rated close behind second- placed Italy.

WHO Director-General Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland says: “The main message from this report is that the health and well-being of people around the world depend critically on the performance of the health systems that serve them. Yet there is wide variation in performance, even among countries with similar levels of income and health expenditure. It is essential for decision- makers to understand the underlying reasons so that system performance, and hence the health of populations, can be improved.”

The May 3, 2005 Medical News Today reported on a study that showed that Acetaminophen, more commonly known as Tylenol, if used daily was associated with a greater prevalence of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), as well as directly related to decreased lung function. The original study was published in the May 1st 2005 issue of the American Thoracic Society’s peer-reviewed American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
Researchers from Britain looked at data from a US survey involving 13,492 participants who were part of the Third National Health and Nutrition Survey which took place from 1988 to 1994. Participants in the survey were asked whether they had taken aspirin, acetaminophen, and ibuprofen during the previous month. The replies to the survey were then divided into “never users;” “occasional users” (1 to 5 times in the past month); “regular users” (6 to 29 times during the past month); and “daily users” (more than 29 times during the last month). This information was then compared to see if there was a correlation.

The researchers found that those who reported daily use of acetaminophen were nearly twice as likely as non-users to have asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. They noted that the results also showed that neither the use of aspirin nor the use of ibuprofen was associated with the prevalence of either asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Researchers also noted that there was a direct relationship between an increase in asthma and a decrease in lung function, with an increased usage of acetaminophen.

In the published report researchers concluded; “This study provides further evidence that use of acetaminophen is associated with an increased risk of asthma and COPD, and with decreased lung function.” They noted that acetaminophen use can cause an increase in asthma risk with potential effects on the onset, progression, and severity of the disease.

Dr. Rachel’s Take

This is a great study to show that the side effects of drugs aren’t always in the list of side effects, and that just because you are not suffering from the symptoms of the side effects of a drug, doesn’t mean that the physiological changes are not occurring in the body. Every drug or chemical you put into your body causes a physiological change in the body that may not been seen for years.

The Chiropractic philosophy teaches that the body heals itself as long as there is no interference to the body’s natural healing mechanism, which is the brain and nervous system. When there is a misalignment in the spine from an old injury, called vertebral subluxations, the nerve flow can be interrupted and not give the body a complete healing signal. Chiropractors remove these subluxations to allow a full healing signal to get to whatever needs to be healed. In turn, there is less need for drugs and surgery, thus leading to a healthy drug free life, with the only side effect being living a healthy active life to 100 years and beyond.

A series of stories appearing on May 28, 2004 through PRNewswire and other news outlets reported on a study released the day before by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). The study reveals that 36 percent of Americans are incorporating non medical types of care, what the study refers to as, “complementary and alternative medicines (CAM)”, into their health care regimen.

The government’s survey, the most comprehensive look yet at the use of alternative medicine in the US, found more than a third of American adults used some form of non-medical care in 2002. The study pointed out that those who went to chiropractors seem to have even less confidence in traditional medical care than others who had sought other forms of non-medical care.

Richard Nahin of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health, explained that more people are using natural products such as herbs or enzymes to treat chronic or recurring pain. He stated, “Many conditions are not easily treated with conventional medicine. It may be the public is turning to complementary and alternative medicine because it’s not getting relief from conventional medicine.”

The survey also showed that 19.9 percent of American adults reported having chiropractic care at some point in their lives; this represented approximately 40 million Americans in total. On a yearly basis the study showed that about 8 percent, representing about 15 million people, sought help from chiropractors during the previous 12 months.

Dr. Rachel’s Take

More than 1/3 of all Americans are seeking out complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)! This is an awesome opportunity for more Americans to learn to be healthy without drugs and surgeries. The study also shows that people whom sought out Chiropractic care had even less confidence in modern medicine. There is a good reason for this! They also found that people were seeking alternatives because the conventional medicine wasn’t helping or providing any relief. There is a good reason for this also.

Our creator made our body with everything it needs inside of us to heal and take care of itself, as long as there is no interference in the communication center or lifeline (nervous system). Chiropractors remove the interference from the nerves coming out of the spine by correcting the vertebral subluxations (or CAUSE of the problem). Conventional medicine only treats the symptoms you are having not the cause of the problem. What is causing the organ or system to malfunction has to be removed. That is why Chiropractic patients have less tolerance and confidence in the medical field. They realize their body can heal itself if their nerve system is working properly, and removing the cause of the problem verse treating the symptoms, allows for this healing to take place.

The problem according to the article is that aspirin is not effective on everyone and it can cause other health problems. Those include prolonged bleeding, ulcers, high blood pressure and allergic reaction. It should also be noted that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not allow claims about heart disease prevention to be made on aspirin bottles. In the settlement with the FTC Bayer will be forced to run ads in four magazines, distribute a free brochure with a similar message, and set up a toll-free number for consumers. The total that the aspirin giant will spend on this campaign is one million dollars, a relatively small portion of the company advertising budget.

Dr. Rachel’s Take

WOW! This says it all! Unfortunately, the public only gets to hear the supposed pros to taking a medication! In addition to this enforcing of the truth be told, it is proven that taking an aspirin a day can actually increase your chance of strokes.

Chiropractic adjustments allow for the brain and nerve system to function at 100% healing and health in the body. The nerve system controls and coordinates all the functions of the organs, systems, cells, tissues, and muscles. Unfortunately, an injury to the spine can interfere with the body’s ability to get a full signal from the nerve system. When the spine is injured, the vertebra can become misaligned causing a “pinched nerve” affect in the body. When this happens, it is
called vertebral subluxations. These “pinched nerves” or subluxations can lead to symptoms such as pain, tingling, numbness, paralysis, or organic dysfunction in the heart, lungs, liver, spleen, stomach, etc. Ensure your body has 100% of the nerve supply it needs to function properly and to stay active and healthy. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

For years parents have worried about their children getting fevers. And for years many authorities, including most chiropractors have said that fevers were a normal response of the body to certain situations. Now several health publications such as Mothering Magazine, WebMD and Reuters Health have reported in several 2001 issues about how fevers are a normal part of a child’s defense system. However, according to a study in the June 2001 issue of the journal Pediatrics, parents fears and views about fevers have not changed significantly in 20 years.

The author of the study, Dr. Michael Crocetti of John’s Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland, described parents misconceptions by stating, “In some parents’ minds, childhood fevers are linked to the risk of brain damage, seizures, and even death. And this fever fear may result in parents over-medicating their children. These types of fears are most likely passed down from generation to generation, and if you look back over the centuries, fever was thought to be the worst thing that could happen to you.”

In the current study, Crocetti and his colleagues questioned 340 health care providers–including parents, grandparents and guardians–on their thoughts about childhood fevers and what to do about them. The researchers then compared their new findings with those from a similar study conducted 20 years ago. They found that 56% of participants in the current study were “very worried” about the potential harm of fever in their children, and 44% mistakenly believed that a temperature of 102 degrees Fahrenheit was a “high” fever.

Paula Elbirt, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at Mount Sinai Medical Center and School of Medicine, in New York says, “Fever is not a disease, it’s a signal that the body is working to battle an invasion from bacteria or a virus. Far from a sign that something has gone horribly wrong, a fever can actually be an indication that the body is actively fighting illness.” Dr Elbert elaborated by stating, “Fever signals the immune system to produce antibodies and, in fact, taking away a fever may even hamper the induction of the immune system to do its job. It’s not necessarily a direct horror show if you take the fever down, but the fever can have a positive function.” Elbirt concluded “Parents have to learn about the true meaning of fever and how to respond to it,” “Fever is not 99° — it’s not even 100°. It’s over 100.4° in a newborn or over 101° in an older child.”

The study also indicated that because of the fear of fever, parents and other caregivers are over-medicating children just because they are running a temperature. The research team found that 14% of parents gave acetaminophen and 44% gave ibuprofen at rates that were too frequent. “This practice increases the potential for toxicity from the medications,” Crocetti added. He concluded, “It is going to take a real concerted effort on behalf of pediatricians and other healthcare providers to help parents understand what fever is and how to handle it.”

Dr. Rachel’s Take
The article says it all! The body knows what it needs to do to take care of itself and keep you alive as long as possible, as long as there is no interference to the body’s ability to take care of itself. Leave it alone, our creator knew what he was doing. If your body is doing something, it’s doing it for a reason!!!!!

September 17, 2007
by Sierra Koester

We visit doctors when we are physically ill. We often expect compassion, warmth, and knowledge from the medical professionals we choose to see for our ailments. We also expect to be listened to and empathized with. Yet medical schools do not typically focus on training physicians in compassion, empathy, or communication skills. A new study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine shows that participating in acting classes helps medical school residents communicate more effectively with patients.

Dr. Alan Dow, associate director of residency training at Virginia Commonwealth University, along with Aaron Anderson, a professor in the theatrics department at the same university developed a program to focus on the doctor-patient relationship in 2004.

Twenty medical school residents participated in this study. Fourteen medical students attended four 90-minute sessions taught by four theatrics professors at Virginia Commonwealth University focusing on the need to develop patient trust. The classes focused on the significance body language, voice inflection, overall expressions, and breathing patterns can have on patients. In addition to listening to lectures in acting classes, medical school residents took part in role-plays where the professor acted as the patient, which allowed the students to practice the skills they learned. Six medical school residents acted as the control group and did not participate in acting classes.

All 14 students who participated in the acting classes underwent at least one evaluation of a primary care clinic visit before the class and at least one evaluation after the class. The six students in the control group had similar evaluations of primary care clinic visits.
The researchers discovered that nearly all the medical residents who participated in the theatrics classes communicated better with their patients after the classes, scoring significantly higher on observations of empathy than students in the control group.

Dr. Dow asserts the findings of this study are significant because it is already known that understanding patient’ viewpoints and emotions are key to obtaining better information from the patient, getting patients to listen to doctors, and to developing better
relationships between doctors and patients.

Thus, it seems apparent that focusing on developing doctors’ communication, empathy, and compassion skills should become an integral aspect of medical school. Future research may concentrate on the most effective and efficient way to teach these types of skills to medical school students aspiring to become physicians.

Dr. Rachel’s Take
All I can do is laugh at this! Medical Dr. students have to go to acting classes to learn how to act empathetic and compassionate towards their patients. Come on! Where is the old fashion God given compassion and empathy that God has shown us? People shouldn’t act they should be!

Participants attending this secret meeting, convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were repeatedly reminded that there would be no making photocopies of documents, and no taking papers with them when they left. The meeting was called to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children.

Tom Verstraeten, a CDC epidemiologist had analyzed the agency’s massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children. He found that a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines (thimerosal) appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children. He commented, “I was actually stunned by what I saw.” What Verstaeten told the group was that since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given to extremely young infants the estimated number of cases of autism had increased fifteenfold, from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children.

The article notes that the attendees were shocked. One doctor, Dr. Richard Johnston, an immunologist and pediatrician from the University of Colorado whose grandson had been born early on the morning of the meeting’s first day commented, “Forgive this personal comment — I do not want my grandson to get a thimerosal-containing vaccine until we know better what is going on.”

However, as the Robert F. Kennedy article further reported, instead of taking immediate steps to alert the public and rid the vaccine supply of thimerosal, the attendees of this secret meeting spent most of the next two days discussing how to cover up the startling data. Kennedy noted that under the Freedom of Information Act, transcripts showed that many at the meeting were concerned about how the damaging revelations about thimerosal would affect the vaccine industry’s bottom line.

Dr. Robert Brent, a pediatrician at the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Delaware stated, “This will be a resource to our very busy plaintiff attorneys in this country.” He continued, “given the sensitivity of the information, we have been able to keep it out of the hands of, let’s say, less responsible hands.” Dr. John Clements, vaccines adviser at the World Health Organization, took a stronger approach and stated that the study, “should not have been done at all” and warned that the results “will be taken by others and will be used in ways beyond the control of this group. The research results have to be handled.”
Mark Blaxill, vice president of Safe Minds, a nonprofit organization concerned about the role of mercury in medicines was quoted in the article by saying, “The CDC is guilty of incompetence and gross negligence. The damage caused by vaccine exposure is massive. It’s bigger than asbestos, bigger than tobacco, bigger than anything you’ve ever seen.”

In summing up his article Kennedy stated his passion for doing this investigation, “I devoted time to study this issue because I believe that this is a moral crisis that must be addressed. If, as the evidence suggests, our public-health authorities knowingly allowed the pharmaceutical industry to poison an entire generation of American children, their actions arguably constitute one of the biggest scandals in the annals of American medicine.”

In the Science Times section of the October of 1998 New York Times come an article that also discusses the effect placebos have on healing. The article discusses the ability of someone’s belief in healing to cause healing. According to the article scientists are now starting to understand some of the brain functions that may explain some of the results gotten from placebo treatments. Many drugs that are eventually shown to be ineffective can attribute their original success to the placebo effect.

The Times article goes on to talk about a study in Texas where a group of patients with similar knee problems underwent three types of surgical care. One group had their knee joints scraped, one group had the knee joint washed, and one group had incisions made to look like the other procedures but nothing else was done. Amazingly two years later, the group that got nothing (but believed they had surgery) had the same pain relief as did those who actually had surgery.

From a chiropractic standpoint, the placebo effect can be simply explained. Placebos only work because people believe they are getting some form of real care, so they heal themselves. Fundamental to chiropractic is the premise that the body heals itself. Chiropractors depend on this self-healing ability for the results we see. For over 100 years chiropractors have understood that the body heals itself. We believe that what a doctor should do is remove any interference to that healing ability. In chiropractic, we recognize that the most common form of interference to the body’s ability to heal itself is a spinal subluxation.

A subluxation is when one or more of the bones of your spine (vertebrae) move out of position and put pressure on or irritate spinal nerves. Spinal nerves are the nerves that come out from between each of the bones in your spine. This pressure or irritation on the nerves then causes those nerves to malfunction and interfere with the signals traveling over those nerves. The result of a subluxation is a decrease in the body’s ability to function properly and heal itself. By correcting subluxations, chiropractors allow the body’s healing ability to function at a higher level and healing is the natural result.