natural medicine Archives - Page 2 of 3

The Wait and See Prescription – Avoiding Antibiotics

Earaches bring more unhappy children to emergency rooms and pediatric offices each year than just about any other health disorder. Antibiotics remain the most popular medical treatment for earache, with doctors reportedly writing 15 million prescriptions per year in the United States alone. It is estimated that at least half of the prescriptions are unnecessary and ineffective for helping this problem.

Due to the widespread overuse of antibiotics, drug-resistant germs have been reproducing as fast as frolicking rabbits, constantly evolving new levels of drug resistance. For over a decade our health leaders have been sounding the alarm to doctors to stop writing so many prescriptions for antibiotics because of growing drug resistance as well as serious health risks to the user.

“The risks of antibiotics, including gastrointestinal symptoms, allergic reactions, and accelerated resistance to bacterial pathogens must be weighed against their benefits for an illness that, for the most part, is self-limited,” according to the authors of a study about earache published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in September 2006.

Antibiotics are weapons of mass destruction intended to assassinate select gangs of bad-boy bacteria. Unfortunately, most of the hardworking, honest bacteria in the body get murdered at the same time, wiping out the body’s mighty microbes that normally do important work such as digesting food and making vitamins.

The earache study published in JAMA was a test of something called the “wait-and-see prescription” to help kids with earaches. This method has apparently been tried previously, but never before in an emergency room.

Half of the 283 children in the study diagnosed with acute otitis media (AOM) were sent home with a standard prescription, the other half with the wait-and-see prescription (WASP). The only difference between the two groups was that the parents in the WASP group were told to wait at least 48 hours before filling the antibiotic prescription.

“Everything comes if a man will only wait,” Benjamin Disraeli pointed out more than 150 years ago.

An unbelievable two out of three children avoided antibiotics with this innovative wait and- see strategy. “The WASP approach substantially reduced unnecessary use of antibiotics in children with AOM seen in an emergency department and may be an alternative to routine use of antimicrobials for treatment of such children,” according to the study.

The WASP concept may well be one of the greatest advances in medical science since the discovery of hand washing. The immediate benefit will be in the fight against two very pressing medical problems, microbial drug resistance caused by widespread antibiotic use, and antibiotic-induced chronic disease. But I can imagine applications throughout the medical profession. How about “wait-and-see surgery” for example?

The WASP study is sure to be criticized because it was only an observational study, not a clinical randomized trial (CRT). The CRT is considered the gold standard in medical science, so if the only thing you have is observational and anecdotal evidence to support your clinical practice, you might as well just use the paper to line your birdcage.

Which brings us to children who visit the chiropractor’s office for their earaches… Critics of chiropractic complain that there just isn’t any science to verify the ability of the chiropractic adjustment to enhance natural healing of the ears. The fact is, a significant number of studies have been published that describe the neurology and verify the benefits of chiropractic care for children, but alas, no clinical randomized trials.

And that reminds me of the famous parachute study, published in the British Medical Journal in December of 2003. The authors of this study write, “parachutes are widely used to prevent death and major injury after gravitational challenge,” yet the placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trials have never been done. I’m thinking that at this point it may be difficult to find people willing to jump from an airplane wearing a placebo parachute. It looks and feels like the real thing when you put it on, but when you pull the cord nothing happens.

“The perception that parachutes are a successful intervention is based largely on anecdotal evidence… As with many interventions intended to prevent ill health, the effectiveness of parachutes has not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using randomized controlled trials,” write the authors.

Now I may be wrong, but it seems to me that people seeking good health are mostly interested in getting well as quickly as they can with having to worry about additional health risks. The wait-and-see prescription is not a recommendation to just ignore health problems and hope they go away, it is simply more evidence that the watchword for medical interventions is “less is more.”

Common sense suggests that if you need to jump out of a plane while still up in the air, you might want to strap on a real parachute without waiting for the double blind studies. I agree with the authors of the JAMA study who conclude, “Individuals who insist that all interventions need to be validated by a randomized controlled trial need to come down to earth with a bump.”

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Antibiotics and Ear Infections

by Linda Folden Palmer, DC – ICPA.org:

In cases where the immune response lags behind a bacterial infection that is dangerously decimating the body, the 1950s advent of antibiotic medications saved the lives of millions of people who would have otherwise succumbed. However, the overzealous use of these wonder drugs has now created a new realm of powerful diseases we are unable to fight with existing antibiotics.

Once a resistant bacteria has been created in response to antibiotic therapy, it has the power to transfer its resistance to other microbes, developing new resistant strains. This has been an especially significant issue for the young, who have been chief targets for antibiotic misuse because they are more susceptible to infections and infections are more worrisome in them. Powerful, antibiotic-resistant strains spread easily around day care centers.

Tuberculosis and pneumonia were once conquered with antibiotics, but we are now threatened again by TB epidemics and increased pneumonia deaths. The excitement over antibiotics has also led to reduced hygiene in hospitals. Hospital sanitation peaked decades ago, when its importance was first widely recognized. Now 10 percent of the patients in hospitals acquire infections, a large portion of which are resistant to antibiotics due to their expansive use in hospitals. Three percent of these patients die from their infections.

Antibiotics have many possible side effects, including diarrhea, malabsorption, cramping, yeast infections, agitation, rashes and blood disorders. By wiping out much of the normal flora throughout the body, antibiotics leave patients, especially children, far more vulnerable to other infections, such as thrush (oral yeast), and dangerous intestinal microbes that cause diarrheal illness. Infectious diarrhea follows antibiotic use at rates ranging from 5 to 39 percent, depending on the drug. The most common intestinal infection caused by antibiotics is colitis from clostridium infection, which has a 3.5 percent mortality rate.

Significantly, antibiotics are generally inappropriate for treating ear infections. They have no effect on viruses and are certainly inappropriate for colds and flus, where they can lead to secondary infection. Yet the majority of children visiting physicians with these complaints will receive antibiotic prescriptions. This is unfortunate. Most of the time, children are better off left to fight illness with their own immune systems, while their parents and physician provide careful monitoring.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Nutritional Considerations for ADHD

by Pathways Magazine – ICPA.org:

Early Use of ADHD Drug Alters Brain

Ritalin use in preteen children may lead to depression later in life. Ritalin and cocaine have different effects on humans. But their effects on the brain are very similar. When given to preteen rats, both drugs cause long-term changes in behavior.

One of the changes seems good. Early exposure to Ritalin makes rats less responsive to the rewarding effects of cocaine. But that’s not all good. It might mean that the drug short-circuits the brain’s reward system. That would make it difficult to experience pleasure—a “hallmark symptom of depression,” Carlezon and colleagues note.

The other change seems all bad. Early exposure to Ritalin increases rats’ depressive-like responses in a stress test. “These experiments suggest that preadolescent exposure to [Ritalin] in rats causes numerous complex behavioral adaptations, each of which endures into adulthood,” Carlezon and colleagues conclude. “This work highlights the importance of a more thorough understanding of the enduring neurobiological effects of juvenile exposure to psychotropic drugs.”

my.webmd.com/content/article/78/95700.htm?lastselectedguid={5FE84E90 -BC77-4056-A91C-9531713CA348}

Consider Fish Oil Over Ritalin

Children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have problems paying attention, listening to instructions, and completing tasks; they also fidget and squirm, are hyperactive, blurt out answers, and interrupt others.

It is conservatively estimated that 3-5% of the schoolage population has ADHD. Although drugs, such as Ritalin, are frequently used to treat ADHD, they are fraught with complications. Disadvantages include possible side effects, including decreased appetite and growth, insomnia, increased irritability, and rebound hyperactivity when the drug wears off.

One would not expect to find that a single cause or even a handful of factors could explain why ADHD appears to be so rampant in our society. Because it is accepted that both genetic and environmental factors play a role in ADHD, many other factors—both intrinsic and extrinsic— could influence an individual’s fatty acid status.

Inefficient Conversion of ALA (Flax Oil) To EPA And DHA

A possible cause for the low fish oil status of the ADHD children may be impaired conversion of the fatty acid precursors LA and ALA to their longer and more highly unsaturated products, such as EPA and DHA (fish oil fats).

It appears that children with ADHD just are not able to chemically convert the plant omega-3, ALA to fish oil very well. The problem is further worsened when omega-6 fats are consumed and the ideal omega-6:3 ratio of 1:1, progresses to the typical standard American ratio of 15:1. Many of these children have ratios which are even worse and can be as high as 50:1.

This study provides the research evidence supporting the use of the omega-3 fats found in fish oils to effectively address the underlying deficiency that is present in most of these children and appears to be contributing to the ADHD.

Two books worth having for your lending libraries:

Smart Fats: How Dietary Fats and Oils Affect Mental, Physical and Emotional Intelligence
by Michael A. Schmidt

Omega 3 Connection
by Dr. Stoll

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

ADHD and Non-Medical Care

by Pathways Magazine – ICPA.org:

Parents seeking treatment for their child with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) often pursue alternative treatments to those offered by conventional medicine. A study conducted in Australia investigated how many parents with ADHD children did seek some form of alternative to stimulant medication. This study published in the January 2005 issue of the Journal of Paediatric Child Health revealed that over two-thirds of families with an ADHD child sought alternative care. Families of 50 children out of 75 respondents attending the Royal Children’s Hospital in Victoria reported using at least one form of alternative treatment for ADHD.

Diet modification was the most common form of alternative treatment pursued by these parents (66 percent of those who tried alternatives). Other treatments that parents had tried included vitamins and minerals (32 percent), aromatherapy (24 percent), dietary supplements (24 percent), chiropractic (20 percent), naturopathic therapy (16 percent), herbal therapy (14 percent), and neurofeedback and behavioral optometry (10 percent each).

Parents were also asked their goals in seeking alternative treatment, and 89 percent wanted to minimize their child’s symptoms. Avoiding side effects of prescribed medications was rated as important by 67 percent of families.

Most importantly, nearly 60 percent of families rated at least one type of alternative treatment helpful for their child.

This study shows the frustration and general dissatisfaction among parents with the pharmaceutical approach to children’s attention problems. Parents are seeking a holistic approach to these children’s problems, and this study shows the perceived benefit that parents experience from these holistic methods of treatment.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

The Myth of Attention Deficit Disorder

by Thomas Armstrong, PHD – ICPA.org:

Over the past thirty years, attention deficit disorder (ADD), or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), has emerged from the relative obscurity of cognitive psychologists’ research laboratories to become the “disease du jour” of America’s schoolchildren. Accompanying this popularity has been a virtually complete acceptance of the validity of this “disorder” by scientists, physicians, psychologists, educators, parents, and others. On closer critical scrutiny, however, there is much to be troubled about concerning ADD/ADHD as a real medical diagnosis.

There is no definitive objective set of criteria to determine who has ADD/ADHD and who does not. Rather, there are a loose set of behaviors (hyperactivity, distractibility, and impulsivity) that combine in different ways to give rise to the “disorder.” These behaviors are highly context-dependent. A child may be hyperactive while seated at a desk doing a boring worksheet, but not necessarily while singing in a school musical. These behaviors are also very general in nature and give no clue as to their real origins. A child can be hyperactive because he’s bored, depressed, anxious, allergic to milk, creative, a hands-on learner, or has a difficult temperament, is stressed out, is driven by a media-mad culture, or any number of other possible causes.

The tests that have been used to determine if someone has ADD/ADHD are either artificially objective and remote from the lives of real children (in one test, a child is asked to press a button every time he sees a 1 followed by a 9 on a computer screen), or hopelessly subjective (many rating scales ask parents and teachers to score a child’s behavior on a scale from 1 to 5: these scores depend upon the subjective attitudes more than the actual behaviors of the children involved).

The treatments used for this supposed “disorder” are also problematic. Ritalin use is up 500% over the past six years. Yet, Ritalin does not cure the problem; it only masks symptoms. In addition, there are several disadvantages to Ritalin: children don’t like taking it, children use it as an “excuse” for their behavior (“I hit Ed because I forgot to take my pill.”), and there are some indications it may be related to later substance abuse of drugs like cocaine. Behavior modification programs used for kids labeled ADD/ADHD work, but they don’t help kids become better learners. In fact, they may interfere with the development of a child’s intrinsic love of learning (kids behave simply to get more rewards), they may frustrate some kids (when they don’t get expected rewards), and they can also impair creativity and stifle cooperation.

ADD/ADHD is a popular diagnosis because it serves as a tidy way to explain away the complexities of turn-of-the-millennium life in America. Over the past few decades, our families have broken up, respect for authority has eroded, mass media has created a “short-attention-span culture,” and stress levels have skyrocketed. When our children start to act out under the strain, it’s convenient to create a scientific-sounding term to label them with, an effective drug to stifle their “symptoms,” and a whole program of ADD/ADHD workbooks, videos, and instructional materials to use to fit them in a box that relieves parents and teachers of any worry that it might be due to their own failure (or the failure of the broader culture) to nurture or teach effectively. Mainly, the ADD/ADHD label is a tragic decoy that takes the focus off of where it’s needed most: the real life of each unique child. Instead of seeing each child for who he or she is (strengths, limitations, interests, temperaments, learning styles etc.) and addressing his or her specific needs, the child is reduced to an “ADD child,” where the potential to see the best in him or her is severely eroded (since ADD/ADHD puts all the emphasis on the deficits, not the strengths), and where the number of potential solutions to help them is highly limited to a few child-controlling interventions.

Instead of this deficit-based ADD/ADH paradigm, I’d like to suggest a wellness-based holistic paradigm that sees each child in terms of his or her ultimate worth, and addresses each child’s unique needs. To do this, we need to provide a wide range of options for parents or teachers.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

To Empower! Not Control! A Holistic Approach to ADHD

by Thomas Armstrong, PHD – ICPA.org:

Thousands of studies tell us what children with ADHD can’t do, but few tell us what they can do. This article presents holistic strategies for helping children with ADHD succeed at home and in school by building on their interests, learning styles, and many talents.

Eight-year-old Billy, in the front row, will have nothing to do with my demonstration on new techniques for teaching spelling. During my visit to his elementary school classroom in upstate New York, Billy is out of his seat during most of the lesson. When I ask the children to visualize their spelling words, however, I am amazed to see Billy return to his seat and remain perfectly still. Covering his eyes, Billy “looks” intently at his imaginary words—fascinated with the images in his mind!

Later on, I realize that something more important than a spelling lesson went on that afternoon: Billy was able to transform his external physical hyperactivity into internal mental motion and, by internalizing his outer activity level, was able to gain control over it. This incident occurred some time ago but remains memorable to me. Why? Because it suggests that internal empowerment, rather than external control, is often the best way to help kids diagnosed with ADHD.

A Decidedly Unholistic Approach

Much of the current work in the field of ADHD looks at the issue from an external control perspective. The two interventions touted in almost all books and programs about ADHD are medication and behavior modification. While these approaches are often dramatically effective in young people with ADHD, both have troubling features that often receive scant attention. Some researchers suggest that when children receive medication, they may attribute their improved behaviors to the pills rather than to their own inner resources (Whalen & Henker, 1990). Others may expect the medication to do all the work and thus neglect underlying issues that may be the true causes of a child’s attention and/or behavior difficulties.

Behavior modification programs, which abound, seek to control children’s behaviors through some combination of rewards, punishments, or response costs (the taking away of rewards). Some programs rely on token economy systems, while others use behavior charts, stickers, and even machines. For example, the Attention Training System sits on a child’s desk and automatically awards a point every 60 seconds for on-task behavior. The teacher can also deduct points for bad behavior using a remote control. Students trade points for prizes and privileges. Although behavior modification programs may influence children to change their behavior, they do it for the wrong reason: to get rewards. Such programs can discourage risk-taking, blunt creativity, decrease levels of intrinsic motivation, and even impair academic performance (Kohn, 1993).

Looking at the Whole Child

Most ADHD researchers and practitioners see children labeled with ADHD in terms of their deficits. Thousands of studies tell us what these kids can’t do, but few tell us what they can do and who they really are. Two exceptions are Crammond (1994) and Hartmann (1993). Where are the studies that tell us what these kids are interested in, what kinds of positive teaming styles or combinations of intelligences they use successfully in the classroom? What sorts of artistic, mechanical, scientific, dramatic, or personal contributions can they make to their schools and communities?

A new vision of educational interventions is needed to reflect a deeper appreciation for the whole child based on a wellness paradigm, rather than a deficit perspective rooted in a medical or disease-based model. We need to initiate a new field of study to help children with behavior and attention difficulties—one based on discovering their strengths rather than fixing their faults. Parents and teachers tell me about cases of ADHD-labeled kids who are talented dancers, musicians, sculptors, and dramatists. The ADHD community needs to conduct research on the positive qualities of these children and what their abilities could mean in contributing to their success in the classroom and in life.

Such research could develop assessment strategies geared toward identifying their inner capabilities. Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences (1983) is one possible framework for developing appropriate assessment instruments to help identify such abilities—a refreshing change from the behavior rating scales and artificial performance tests currently used to assess ADHD in children. We must develop individualized educational plans (IEP) that give more than lip service to a child’s strengths and have goals and objectives that solidly reflect a desire to help children achieve success, rather than to “overcome their problems.”

While the ADHD worldview tacitly approves of a teacher centered, worksheet- and textbook-driven model of education (almost all of its educational suggestions are based on this kind of classroom), current research suggests that all students benefit from project-based environments in which they actively construct new meanings based on their existing knowledge of a subject. Some research suggests that students with ADHD do better in environments that are active, self-paced, and hands-on (McGuinness, 1985). Video games and computers are powerful teaming tools for many of these children. In fact, their high-speed behavior and thinking lend themselves quite well to such cutting-edge technologies as hypertext and multimedia (Armstrong, 1995).

Finally, interventions need to go beyond strategies such as smiley faces, points, and medications, and reflect a full sense of the child’s true nature.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Tend Your Mind’s Garden

by Madisyn Taylor – ICPA.org:

The mind is a curious thing, because it is so powerful yet sometimes so difficult to control. We find ourselves thinking a certain way, knowing that this thought may be creating trouble for us, yet we find it difficult to stop. For example, many people have the experience of getting sick at the same time every year, or every time they go on a plane. They may even be aware that their beliefs impact their experiences, so continue to think they will get sick. And then they do.

Sometimes we need to get sick in order to process something, or move something through our bodies. But often we get sick, or feel exhausted, because we don’t make the effort to galvanize the power of our minds in the service of our physical health, which is one of its most important functions. We really can use it to communicate to our bodies, yet we often regard the two as separate entities that have little to do with one another.

Knowing this, we have the power to create physical health and mental health simply by paying attention to the tapes running in our minds. Once we hear ourselves, we have the option to either let that tape keep running or to make a new recording. We harness the power of the mind in our defense when we choose supportive, healing words that foster good health and high spirits. All we need to do is remember to tend the field of our mind with the attentive and loving hand of a master gardener tending her flower beds, culling the weeds so that blossoms may come to fruition.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

The Real Drug Problem

by Susan M. Brown, D.C. – ICPA.org:

I happened to be watching television the other day and, instead of my usual flipping channels during commercials, I left it on the channel and saw a few interesting commercials. The first commercial showed a parent heading off a potential drug problem with their child. It had a slogan: “Parents – the anti-drug”. It was a nice public service kind of commercial and hopefully one that people will take to heart. Interestingly, the next commercial showed a parent with their child too but in this commercial instead of the parent trying to keep their child off drugs, they were giving them a drug. The child had a cold with a sore throat and couldn’t sleep. So this angelic figure of a mom was saving them from misery by giving them an over counter medicine, which if you look at the ingredients, amounts to sugar and alcohol with a little dye and artificial flavoring in it (none of which help the child to heal whatever is going on). Within the next hour I saw about a dozen more commercials for one drug after another. There were drugs for depression, headaches, low libido, indigestion, and a whole slew of other ailments. There were even commercials that never said what the drug was for but had lively music and showed scenes of very happy people and simply said to contact your physician to see if it was right for you. The extensive list of side effects for all these drugs, many of which were worse than the ailment the drug was being taken for, was of course, tagged at the end spoken very quickly and very quietly…

I have to wonder, where is the real drug problem? How do we expect our kids to “just say no” to drugs with the media portraying drugs as being the great panacea and when many adults are on several prescriptions as well as giving their kids drugs to avoid any type of discomfort? There seems to be such an incredible double standard. You can take these drugs because the “authorities” say they are OK but not these drugs they say are not. The “good drugs” may be just as addictive and have as many or more side effects as the “bad drugs” but that’s OK because with a prescription they then have the magic stamp of approval. It’s OK for this person who is depressed to take Prozac to give them a boost and make them feel artificially OK whenever the world gets to be too much but the drug addict who is most likely experiencing more emotional/mental pain than the average person could imagine is wrong for doing essentially the same thing. Kids grow up having their parents or doctors give them various drugs for the slightest discomfort, drugs that are not intended to strengthen their bodies and help them to heal, but to cover up the symptom, which ultimately weakens the body. Then we wonder why as the kids get older and feel whatever angst they experience in their lives and need a little “pick me up” they go to drugs or alcohol. Maybe it’s because that is what they learned you do when you feel uncomfortable. You “take something” to make the pain go away so you can supposedly feel better. They didn’t learn to see the discomfort as a message from the body asking to make a change or telling you that it was working hard to heal something so please do healthy things. They didn’t learn that discomfort is uncomfortable but not life threatening and that the body given time will heal most things and become stronger in the process. They didn’t learn that the peaks and valleys are part of life and can make it fuller if you learn to flow with it and approach it like a roller coaster ride, sometimes scary and sometimes a blast. They learned that if you are uncomfortable, take a drug to make it better. My body is not capable of healing so I need a drug to do it for me.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not completely against medicine nor do I think that people should never take drugs. I just think that we tend to live in a pill popping society where many seem to think that drugs will make it all better. And bottom line, drugs don’t make it all better. Most of them simply allow one to function in spite of whatever is really going on. I’m reminded of a person I saw when I was first in practice, we’ll call him Max. When Max first came in I saw from his history that he was on several medications. I asked him why so many? He gave me a very typical story that he started on one and then started having other symptoms (actually side effects from the first drug) and so was given an additional drug and then started having more symptoms (more side effects) and was given another drug and so on and so on. Ultimately he was on about 10 different medications, about a third of them for the depression and the rest for various side effects including insomnia, indigestion, pain, constipation, and anxiety. Now keep in mind that the researchers test the effect of one drug on the body and there has been some research that has tested the effects of two drugs in combination on the body, but they have no idea what the overall effect of 10 drugs in combination on the body will be. I’d like to say that Max is an exception, but that wouldn’t be true. Many people are on multiple medications and it is standard care in medicine. The other noteworthy thing on Max’s history was his reason for being in my office. He said he came in because he was uncomfortable all the time and was told I might be able to help. I asked him in what way was he uncomfortable. Instead of what I expected, which was the common “chiropractic complaints” of my back hurts or my neck hurts, he began to tell me about his life. He hated his job as a social worker in which he saw an endless line of people who he described as having the most heart wrenching lives in the world many of whom he could not really help within the system. He was unhappy in his marriage and had been for many years. His wife belittled him constantly and his children had started doing the same, but this was no different than his childhood in which his parents had done it too. He had no hobbies that brought him joy. Any friends that he had were long gone and the only socializing he did was with his wife’s family who made no bones about expressing their belief that his wife had married a loser. I asked if all this had started before he started taking the medication and he said yes that it had been going on for years before. Then I simply said, “Max no wonder you’re depressed. If I had your life I would be depressed too.” He looked at me first with confusion and then with recognition as if a light had gone on for the first time and he started to laugh. The next words out of his mouth were, “You’re right my life sucks.” To make a very long story short, Max started getting adjusted and making changes in his life. He asked his doctor to begin to wean him off all medication, got a new job and was much less depressed. He found a hobby and had little glimpses of enjoying life. I’d like to say that his path to healing was effortless but it wasn’t, it was hard work and required that he begin to looked at himself and his life honestly. He had times when he felt he needed to take an antidepressant but it was to support him through a time of great change while he was on the road to healing his life. It was a short term choice for support and not a long term choice for denial. He realized that the depression he was experiencing wasn’t something that was wrong with him but something that was very right with him. It was a cry from the core of his being saying “I deserve something more in life. I deserve to be happy and to be loved and to enjoy life. I can’t tolerate a life that does not nourish me.”

Max made a choice to heal. Often people make a choice not to heal, but to feel better. Now don’t get me wrong, I love feeling great. I love it when it is an expression of my state of being and not an artificial feeling created by artificial means to hide what is really going on. On some level my body knows what is really going on. And it will continue to give me stronger and stronger signals until I pay attention. So, I can either keep taking more and more drugs or I can pay attention to those “uncomfortable” signals and consider what needs to change. We have to ask the question, is it reasonable to expect that our kids will choose to say no to drugs when most of society doesn’t? Is it reasonable to expect that they will have the tools to heal and integrate the many uncomfortable experiences they may have in life if we as parents never gave them those tools? You may be thinking “but I only give them cough medicine and maybe some antibiotics when they are sick” and “I really need that Prozac or those beers to get me through those stressful days”. Where do we draw the line? Most cough medicine has alcohol to make them drowsy and sugar to coat the throat. It is definitely more comfortable for the child and the parent because the child will often sleep, as most people want to do with a little alcohol in their system, but the sugar coating the throat is perfect food for the bacteria their body is trying to battle, the cough suppressant is inhibiting their bodies from getting rid of the debris, mucous, and bacteria in their lungs, the aspirin is decreasing their fever, which the body needs to fight infection and stimulate the immune system, and the antibiotics weaken the immune system. Most diseases are self limiting and most cold/flu ailments last for about a week regardless of the treatment sought. So, in most cases, why not do things to strengthen the body while it is working to heal. Learn the natural ways to strengthen the body and become an informed consumer for your health and the health of those you love. If you are depressed, distressed, and generally stressed why not consider the reasons why. Learn tools that help you to heal and pass that on to your kids instead of “here take this”. In order for parents to “be the antidrug” we have to provide kids with options and role models for what it means to be drug free. We need to give them tools so they don’t feel the need nor the desire for them. If we do this will it guarantee that our child will never take drugs? Unfortunately, no, but if they do we can know that we gave them the best foundation possible and that at least we were consistent in the message we gave. We can know that we were conscious of the choices we made and did all we could to listen, love, and learn and pass that on to our children.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

How Big Pharma Disease Mongering Works

submitted by jwithrow.

To this day, a central disease-mongering tactic is to attach long, clinical-sounding names to what used to be seen as trivial, transient health problems. In most cases, the new, formidable names come complete with acronyms, which add even more gravitas.

How Big Pharma disease-mongering works:

– Occasional heartburn becomes “gastroesophageal reflux disease” or GERD
– Shyness becomes “social anxiety disorder” or SAD
– Restlessness due to boredom becomes “attention deficit hyperactivity disorder” or ADHD
– Fidgeting legs become “restless leg syndrome” or RLS
– Premenstrual tension becomes “premenstrual dysphoric disorder” or PMDD

The most famous example is from the 1920’s when, according to advertising scholar James Twitchell, the maker of Listerine mouthwash began to associate bad breath with the obscure medical term “halitosis”. Of course Listerine was marketed as the sole cure for this dreaded disease and revenues grew from $115,000 to more than $8 million in less than a decade.

Pharmaceuticals are designed only to treat the symptoms rather than to cure the underlying problems. Rather than drugs, the best remedies are almost always lifestyle modifications: eat healthier, exercise more, reduce stress, sleep eight hours a night.

True, the U.S. population has become very sickly but there are very logical reasons for this. A corrupted food culture featuring cheap, processed carbs and unnatural fats; sedentary screen-addicted lifestyles; chronic sleep deprivation; and other divergences from our evolutionary past have made diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and other “diseases of civilization” skyrocket.

Choosing a Wellness Mentality

by Kevin Donka, DC – ICPA.org:

One day not so long ago, a practice member named Craig walked into our center with a slight limp. When I asked him what was wrong, he told me that he had been wrestling with his son A.J. and had hurt his knee. When I told him we’d take a look at it he replied, “Oh that’s OK, it will be fine by the end of the week.” Just then, a woman walked in and I heard Amy at the front desk greet her and ask her how she was doing. She replied to Amy, “Oh I’m fine today, but I just know I’m going to be in bad shape by the end of the week with the storm that’s on its way!”

Albert Einstein once said, “The most important question you will ever ask yourself is whether this is or is not a friendly universe.” Dr. Einstein believed that your answer to this question would in fact be the most important decision you would ever make. The reason it would be so important is summed up in another of his famous quotations; “You cannot solve a problem with the same level of thinking that existed when it was created.” You see, Einstein knew that it is our deeply held BELIEFS about something that will determine which actions we will consistently take or avoid regarding that thing, and those actions or inactions will in turn determine the circumstances we will find ourselves in. So, your determination of whether we live in a friendly or hostile world will influence your actions in the world and bring about the circumstances of your life.

In our center for wholeness, we can see your answer to this question demonstrated in your attitude. You see, you either go through life with what we call a WELLNESS mentality, or an ILLNESS mentality. People with an illness mentality expect that mainly unpleasant things will happen to them because they believe that the world is basically hostile, unpredictable and out of their control. On the other hand, those with a wellness mentality expect that mainly good things will happen in their lives because they believe that the world is basically friendly, and that they control and attract to themselves most of what happens to them through each of their thoughts, words and actions. In the story above, Craig was in a state of dis-ease, and yet he had a WELLNESS mentality—a positive expectation that things would be good.

The other woman was actually in a state of ease, and yet had an illness mentality – a certainty that things would go downhill for her.

How do we develop, maintain and even expand a wellness mentality? Three things are necessary.

1. A deliberate focus on moving TOWARD what you want, as opposed to trying to move away from what you don’t want.

2. A healthy lifestyle that allows your body to function properly, heal and continue growing.

3. A clear neurological CONNECTION.

4. Where does chiropractic fit into this equation? Interference in your nerve system (what we call the subluxation process) causes your body to use energy at a much greater than normal rate. This rapid depletion of energy sends your body into SURVIVAL MODE and causes the highest thinking centers of your brain to shut down. With these parts of your brain shut down, do you think it is possible to see the world as friendly, or do you suppose that coming from a state of SURVIVAL that you might interpret many (if not all) things as threatening?

5. The chiropractic adjustment process restores the free flow of energy at a normal and natural rate; a rate that allows for EASE of function in every cell, tissue, organ and organ system—INCLUDING YOUR BRAIN! Your body goes out of survival mode and back into ease, allowing you to once again see the world as friendly.

6. You see, your adjustments don’t just help you feel better, they allow you to FEEL better—that is, they allow you to sense your environment in a totally different way than you would if you were subluxated and in survival mode. This is why we emphasize so strongly that everyone should get checked by a chiropractor regularly.