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#187 SYMPTOM OR CAUSE

11/1/2018

1 Comment

 
             Every kid at some point touches something hot and gets burned.  It might be the stove or a hot pan.  For my young son long ago it was his mother’s curling iron just before he was to walk down the aisle as the ring bearer in a wedding.  It was touch and go, but he pulled it off.  In cases like this pain is actually a good and necessary thing.  It tells us we have done something bad or stupid, prevents worse damage, and teaches us to not do this thing again.  But all too often pain is just there all the time, day after day, serving no educational purpose, interfering with life, mobility, and happiness.
 
            Most of my patients come to me for help with chronic pain.  Sometimes I’m the first doctor they have seen, but more often they have been to their medical doctor for help, and sometimes I’m their last hope.  When you are in the thick of it pain makes it is hard to think clearly, to objectively analyze the situation.  You just want to be rid of it.  You don’t care about philosophical questions such as, “do I treat the symptom or the cause?”  I argue it is better to ask the question and make a thoughtful decision as this decision may determine much of your future. 
 
            The symptom is pain.  Simple right?...Wrong.  Pain is so incredibly complex that books are written about it, conferences held, degrees awarded, and specialists devote careers to the study of it.  But the treatment of the symptoms of pain generally comes down to chemistry; anti-inflammatories, pain killers, opioids, injections.  Maybe these help.  Maybe they don’t.  If they do reduce symptom might they mask the underlying cause and make it worse in the long run?  Something to think about.  And what is this underlying cause I speak of?
 
            Essentially, it’s scar tissue.  It works like this.  Trauma and gravity cause stress on the joints of the spine.  Stress causes inflammation of the joints.  Inflammation causes scar tissue.  Scar tissue causes loss of joint mobility which causes more inflammation (infinite cycle).  Inflammation and scar tissue cause nerve stress, pain, and cartilage degeneration, thereby making it a permanent condition (arthritis/disc degeneration/disc herniation).  And it goes on from there to other articles for me to write.  But, essentially, the cause is scar tissue. 
 
            Remember that inflammation/scar tissue is a major player in many chronic diseases:  Arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries which causes heart attacks and strokes), endometriosis (pelvic inflammatory disease), cirrhosis (liver disease), COPD (emphysema), are just a few examples of diseases of inflammation/scar tissue.  And so is vertebral subluxation of the spine.
 
            So if you have spine-related pain then the cause is most likely scar tissue.  From there it’s just a matter of logic.  Treat the cause with adjustments to the specific affected joints until they are maximally corrected or otherwise proven too damaged to correct.  Then go from there.  
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    Dr. Rick

    After writing an article per week for a year, I just kept going.  These are most of my collection.  They are written with my existing patients in mind, so some stuff may seem odd or unusual, but would make perfect sense to those who know chiropractic and who know me.  Enjoy and share!  For my personal blog visit: 

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What Our Patients Have To Say

Yolanda wrote:
     
     I used to suffer severe headaches and migraines on a daily basis, usually all day.  I managed to work in an office because I had to.  When I went home at the end of the day I would often close the shades and go to bed.  I could not plan weekend events because I simply never knew how I was going to feel tomorrow.  If there were a special event such as a birthday or wedding, I would begin to medicate myself two weeks in advance to give myself the best chance of making the event.
     Friends and fellow church-goers had been trying to get me to see Dr. Rick for some time before I finally gave in.  Looking back, I don’t know why I waited.  Within a month, I was headache free.  I couldn’t remember what it was like to not feel pain.  I could do whatever I wanted and not live in fear of the headache.  This was a miracle for me, but the story does not end here.
     An opportunity came up for us to adopt a newborn baby girl not long after I began chiropractic care.  This baby was particularly important to me and my husband because her mother is a relative.  Tragically, her mother was also a drug user and did drugs during her pregnancy.  If we could not adopt the baby she would have been put into the foster system since the biological mother was incapable of raising her.
     To keep a long story short, we did adopt her and she is doing fantastically.  There is no sign of any effect of the drugs on her as of yet, and with God’s help, there never will be.  We think that is because of the vast amounts of love and attention she gets from us, her real mommy and daddy.
     What does this have to do with chiropractic?  The reality is that without chiropractic, I would still be nearly an invalid with headaches.  I COULD NOT HAVE TAKEN CARE OF AN INFANT OR RAISED A YOUNG CHILD.  THEREFORE, SHE WOULD NOT HAVE ANY OF THE OPPORTUNITIES IN LIFE THAT MY HUSBAND AND I WILL BE ABLE TO PROVIDE FOR HER.  MY DAUGHTER’S LIFE IS POSSIBLE BECAUSE SOMEBODY MADE ME GO TO A CHIROPRACTOR. 
     You need to tell everyone you know what you know about chiropractic.  Who knows who’s life you will change too.
Andrew's mother, Barbara, wrote:

     Hello, My name is Andrew and I am a happy, healthy one year old.  But I wasn’t so happy or healthy when I first met Dr. Rick a few months ago.  I had been having problems with my ears for four months, I couldn’t sleep at night and I was miserable.  We’d been to the doctor lots of times but nothing was helping.  In fact, all the medicines the doctor had tried seemed to make me worse instead of better!  Both the regular doctor and the Ear-Nose and Throat doctor said that if the antibiotics didn’t work, then they’d just have to put tubes in.  Now my Mom and dad weren’t about to let them do surgery on me, especially since they had been reading and learned that tubes can cause more problems than they solve.  My mom and dad did a lot of praying.  Then my mom heard that sometimes babies who have a traumatic birth like mine have ear trouble.  You see when I was born they used a vacuum extractor and forceps to pull me out.  I guess all that yanking on my head, hurt my neck.  She also heard that chiropractic care can be the answer.  Now she was skeptical because she couldn’t imagine a chiropractor helping ear infections!?!  But at that point she was willing to try anything!!  Happily, a few weeks of adjustments and my ears were all cleared up.  In addition, I no longer had a stiff neck or shoulders and my whole personality was happier.  I have to tell all babies who have ear troubles, don’t let them give you tubes until you at least try chiropractic care first.  After all, it can’t hurt and if you’re like me, you could be perfectly well with no drugs and no surgery.  In my family, we thank God for Dr. Rick, because I feel better, my mom and dad are happier and sometimes, I even sleep through the night.