#64 Unintended Consequences

3/26/2014

  As I was standing in the line at Rite Aid to buy batteries for our office clock I must admit that my eyes were drawn to the magazine rack next to the check stand, the ones that tell us how to have a sexy butt, how to lose weight without dieting and exercise, and why celebrities love themselves. One of the covers promised to tell me all I need to know about three teen mothers (now grown up I guess) and their failed romances with bad boys and drug dealers. My immediate thought was that it’s so easy to make a bad decision and so hard to make a good one. Good decisions are generally well thought out and therefore take time to make. Bad decisions are quick and dirty and, therefore, are often fraught with unintended consequences. The above referenced article explains it perfectly. These teens made poor decisions on the spur of the moment and ended up as single teen moms. Their children are the unintended consequences, and there will be more consequences as these kids get older. No matter how you package it, it’s a mess.

            So, do I want to go to the gym or go with my buddies to the party? If I go to the gym I get hot and sweaty for a while but build some muscle, tone, and stamina. Then I go home to a hot shower and a boring night. If I go the party I get drunk and have a great time (so called) and then maybe crash and kill another driver because I’m going the wrong way on the freeway entrance. Unintended consequences. Do I want to take a drag on my buddy’s cigarette or not? Do I want a drink or not? Do I take vitamins or not? Do I exercise or not? Do I drink a gallon of water a day or not? Do I graduate or not? Do I take this job or that job? Should I go to college? Is this the right girl for me? What do I want to do for a living? Should I take this job? Should I have a chocolate shake? That was good. Should I have another chocolate shake? Should I lose weight? Should I have that surgery? Why shouldn’t I take Prozac? It’s just pot. How many kids should we have? Moment after moment, day after day, our lives are a series of decisions. We can think it out and make a good one, or we can take the short and easy route and make a bad one, or too often we just don’t bother to make one at all, which all too often is the same as making a bad one. More unintended consequences. You know I’m talking about.

            So, I spent thousands of dollars on that computer program to educate my patients and I spend a great deal of time with each new patient teaching about the spine and its relationship with health. I do this because I fear the law of unintended consequences. When I go to sleep at night I want to know that I have given you all the information and data you need to, firstly, know that there are important decisions that only you can make regarding your spine and nerve system. Secondly, make well thought out good decisions today and in the future. When you are in your eighties I want you to be the person we all point to and say, “Boy, I hope I’m as healthy as he/she is when I’m that age.”

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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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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.