Colorado Springs Functional Medicine

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I’ve Tried Everything

When speaking in public, I often have a few people hang around after the talk to ask about their specific health ailments.  One phrase I hear in common is, “I’ve tried everything.”  I often defer to, “have you tried chiropractic?”  Their response is either, “I used to go after a car accident,” or “you think that would help?”

Yes, I do think it would help.  That’s not just because I’m a chiropractor.  On September 11, 2001, the day I started chiropractic college, I had never been adjusted.  Like these people at my workshops, I too never associated chiropractic with anything other a treatment for neck and back pain.  The more I researched, I chose to go to chiropractic college because as a profession, the principles and philosophy were the closest match to how I wanted to help change people’s lives.  It had the scope that allowed me to gear my clinic towards lifestyle interventions.

What left the biggest impact on my life was how my own personal health changed as a result of being a chiropractic patient.  I struggled with eczema through college so bad that if I opened my hand, it would crack and often times bleed.  Even with cleaning up my diet, the more stressed I got, the more the eczema would flare.

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Auto-Immune Roller Coaster

At a workshop I gave over the weekend I had a woman come up to me afterwards to ask about her auto-immune disorder.  She ate amazingly clean but was still having many ups and downs with her progress and symptoms.  I could tell in the first minute of this conversation that she was someone that always had to be in control of her life.  

So I asked about her home life and marriage.  “They’re great but my husband and son won’t do what I tell them to improve their health.”  

Would you say you are often frustrated and irritated by their lack of drive to seek health like you do?  She said, “yes, they just don’t get it.”

rollercoasterI said, that’s why your symptoms go on roller coasters.  You like control and the easiest thing to control is what you put in your mouth.  You can’t control other’s motivations, especially grown men and children.

Your immune system has 2 basic branches.  TH1 and TH2.  Simplistically, the TH1 side is more responsible for the symptom side of sickness like coughing, runny nose, fever, vomiting, diarrhea, etc.  The TH2 side is more for antibody formation.

In times of stress (physical, chemical, emotional, social, and spiritual), your body, via Cortisol, will suppress the TH1 side.  It’s not going to be efficient to your survival if you have to stop and throw up or stop to fill your pants if there is a lion chasing you down.  Short term, no problem.

Long term, you suppress your first line of defense (TH1) enough to the point that the antibody side (TH2) gets over enhanced and makes your auto-immune progress up and down.  I know this first hand.

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Failure…The Story Behind More Health, Less Healthcare

Every company, every success, and every movement has a story.  This is the story of More Health, Less Healthcare.  It may be long and boring to you so here is the take home message.  Instead of asking, ‘what could I accomplish if I knew I couldn’t fail?’  Ask the question  ‘what is WORTH doing even if I do fail?‘  Failure is an option.  

Sometimes you need a reminder of the journey so this post is more for my benefit of getting it down on paper to see and recount the obstacles that have happened.   You may not care about it but maybe you’ll glean some hope out of it to keep fighting for that thing you want badly but hesitate because you fear failure.

Childhood

I remember being sick.  I remember almost every February in grade school, a friend delivering all my Valentine’s day cards because I was absent from school.  It wasn’t just that day, it was multiple days and sometimes a week at a time…or so I remember.

I remember ear infections, bronchitis, strep throat, laying on a rubber heating pad that looked like a whoopee cushion, and I remember lots of antibiotics.  I also remember when they finally figured out I was allergic to Penicillin.  I remember not being sick for so long after they realized that.

I remember writing a report for school on what I do after school and the report listed all the TV shows I watched from the moment I got home until dinner time.  I remember also listing the bowls of potato chips and cookies I ate.  Then I remember my parents getting called in for a parent-teacher conference.

I remember moving and going to a new school.  I was not only the new kid, I was the ‘husky’ new kid.  I remember my mom and I school shopping for husky jeans.  I remember thinking husky was a brand name, like Bugle Boy, instead of a code for ‘fat kid’ jeans.  I also remember bragging to my friends that I wore husky jeans like they were the latest pair of Jordan’s.  I also remember sucking in my gut for school pictures because I was embarrassed of my weight.  I remember I was only in 5th grade at the time.

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