The #1 cause of death in the United States is heart disease. The #2 cause is cancer. You wouldn’t believe the #3 cause, but that is for another article. The #4 cause is probably diabetes. But the #1 cause of disability is none of the above. The #1 cause of treatment money spent is none of the above. The cold fact is that more people are disabled by their spine and more money is spent on the treatment of back pain. And let me tell you that the vast amount of money spent is not at the chiropractor, but in the orthopedists’ offices for injections and surgery. In fact, studies clearly demonstrate that for every dollar spent on chiropractic, much more money is saved that is not spent at the medical doctor’s office and hospital. In a very direct way, chiropractors do not cost, they save. I know that may be hard to believe when you write a check to me, but statistically this is very true. I am saving you gobs of money later. You’re welcome. But the money spent is not the important thing, it’s the disability.
Disability is the inability to do the things that you want to do. Permanent disability is this inability for the rest of your life. Look around you and every day you will see people who are in various levels of disability due to their spine. This can happen to infants, children, and young adults, even though we mostly associate it with the elderly. Why does this happen to the elderly? It’s very simple, cartilage. Nearly every joint in your body is made of two bones separated by a very hard tissue called cartilage. Your cartilage has no blood supply and even if it did, the cells that originally built your cartilage have been essentially shut down in adulthood. You don’t make cartilage anymore! But you do continually wear it down every day. When you hear or read the terms herniated disc, bulging disc, degenerated disc, osteoarthritis, arthritis, bone on bone, bone spur, wear and tear, you are reading about cartilage that is wearing out and will not ever be replaced. It will never grow again. And if someone tells you that you can take a supplement or change your diet and grow cartilage, you cannot. There is no evidence of that. Your cells simply just don’t do the work anymore, no matter how much good stuff you feed them.
You have to keep what you have, because once it’s gone it’s gone for good. And it can happen at literally any age. So how do we keep what we have? How do we avoid disability? Or in other words, how do we maintain our mobility? It is in the word mobility that we find the key. Mobility, “the ability to move or be moved freely and easily.” For your body to have mobility for a lifetime, each joint has to have mobility for a lifetime. And since it is your spine that is the set of joints that is most likely to result in your immobility, logic dictates that the way to keep your body mobile throughout your lifetime is to keep your spinal joints mobile throughout your lifetime. It is so simple, isn’t it? And how do we accomplish this? Adjustments, disc pump exercises, and a regular aerobic workout, exactly the tools that I spoke with you about on day one, the tools that I use daily and weekly, and the tools that I hope you will use from now for the rest of your life.
And of course the tools that I will hope you will tell others about!!
Disability is the inability to do the things that you want to do. Permanent disability is this inability for the rest of your life. Look around you and every day you will see people who are in various levels of disability due to their spine. This can happen to infants, children, and young adults, even though we mostly associate it with the elderly. Why does this happen to the elderly? It’s very simple, cartilage. Nearly every joint in your body is made of two bones separated by a very hard tissue called cartilage. Your cartilage has no blood supply and even if it did, the cells that originally built your cartilage have been essentially shut down in adulthood. You don’t make cartilage anymore! But you do continually wear it down every day. When you hear or read the terms herniated disc, bulging disc, degenerated disc, osteoarthritis, arthritis, bone on bone, bone spur, wear and tear, you are reading about cartilage that is wearing out and will not ever be replaced. It will never grow again. And if someone tells you that you can take a supplement or change your diet and grow cartilage, you cannot. There is no evidence of that. Your cells simply just don’t do the work anymore, no matter how much good stuff you feed them.
You have to keep what you have, because once it’s gone it’s gone for good. And it can happen at literally any age. So how do we keep what we have? How do we avoid disability? Or in other words, how do we maintain our mobility? It is in the word mobility that we find the key. Mobility, “the ability to move or be moved freely and easily.” For your body to have mobility for a lifetime, each joint has to have mobility for a lifetime. And since it is your spine that is the set of joints that is most likely to result in your immobility, logic dictates that the way to keep your body mobile throughout your lifetime is to keep your spinal joints mobile throughout your lifetime. It is so simple, isn’t it? And how do we accomplish this? Adjustments, disc pump exercises, and a regular aerobic workout, exactly the tools that I spoke with you about on day one, the tools that I use daily and weekly, and the tools that I hope you will use from now for the rest of your life.
And of course the tools that I will hope you will tell others about!!