Colorado Springs Functional Medicine

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Hepatitis B

Vaccine choice is under constant attack.  As of this writing, if you live in Colorado, you have a choice.  You can choose to get every single one, at the exact recommended interval.  You can choose to get a few here and a few there at any time you desire.  You can choose to not get any at all.

Just don’t make the decision blindly.  I don’t write this with intent to give you medical advice.  I write this with the intent of giving you parental choice.  Since I have small children and want the best for them, this is how my wife and I decide if we should vaccinate or not.

The Truth About Vaccines

Hepatitis B Vaccine:

If you have a traditional hospital birth, you have to decide within minutes of your baby being born if you want your little bundle to have the hep B vaccine.  It’s the very first shot your child is recommended to receive.  The child is also expected to get this shot at 1-2 months and 6-18 months for a total of 3 shots.

Is your child at risk for Hepatitis B?  It shouldn’t be the shot that shapes your opinion.  The risk of Hepatitis B should be what shapes your opinion.

According to the CDC’s Hepatitis B Vaccine Information Sheet, you be the judge.

Who is at risk for Hepatitis B?

• A baby whose mother is infected can be infected at birth;

• Children, adolescents, and adults can become infected by:

– contact with blood and body fluids through breaks in the skin such as bites, cuts, or sores;

– contact with objects that have blood or body fluids on them such as toothbrushes, razors, or monitoring and treatment devices for diabetes;

– having unprotected sex with an infected person;

– sharing needles when injecting drugs;

– being stuck with a used needle. (Does anyone else see the irony here?)

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Enterovirus 68 – Don’t freak out

I was in a seminar all weekend and honestly, don’t pay much attention to news but a few people have alerted me to the ‘mystery Enterovirus 68’ that’s going around.  Before you freak out, take a deep breath.  

The term outbreak and epidemic is being thrown around which are scary terms.  For something to be considered an epidemic, only 4 people have to be infected.   Current estimates are that 1,000 kids are sick with this virus.  If there’s an estimated 72,000,000 kids in the US, 1,000 is pretty small and your child has a 0.0013% chance of getting the virus.

Media outlets will also show you pictures of kids hooked up to ventilators, bed-ridden, and feeble looking.  Here in Colorado, Children’s Hospital of Denver has admitted 86 kids out of more than 900 that have symptoms.

Enterovirus 68

Who are the most susceptible?  It’s the kids that are already sick.  The kids that are having the hardest time with this virus are the ones that have asthma.  Dr. Kurt, how can you call a kid with asthma already sick?  Imagine a person that you think is the pinnacle of health, do they have asthma?  No.

Asthma is an underlying immune dysfunction that is more than just a lung illness.  The affected breathing is most likely gut dysfunction, over production of antibodies, chronic inflammation, and autonomic imbalance, which stem from deficiencies and toxicities that could have started in the womb, prior to the child even being born.  Most of these kids are on steroids to control exacerbations of asthma.  What’s one of the biggest effects of steroids?  A decreased immune system.  Asthma is listed under the morbidity stats of the CDC.  If you’re on the morbidity list, you’re not healthy.

According to the CDC, 6.8 million kids have asthma, which is roughly 9.3% of our kids.  What’s the bigger issue, that close to 10% of our kids have a chronic condition in asthma or that the news is littered with hysteria that your kid has a 0.0013% of contracting Enterovirus 68?  The problem and reason that asthma continues to get worse is that we now associate being sick as being ‘normal.’  If you want real news, what about the 1,800,000 visits to the ER with the primary diagnosis of asthma?  1.8 million ER trips for ‘normal’ sickness vs. 900 ER trips for news hysteria.

If you’re worried about the Enterovirus 68, then do as the CDC recommends and wash your hands, cover your cough or sneeze, and don’t hang out with other sick people.  If you want to a create amazing health for your child, dig deeper, and team up with a professional that understands the mission behind creating More Health, Less Healthcare.