Colorado Springs Functional Medicine

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It’s Not Genetic

I’ve had a number of discussions with clients as well as attendees of recent workshops about whether their illness is genetic.  According to Dr. Russell Jaffe MD, PhD, CCN, FASCP, FACN, FAMLI, FRSM, only 8% of illness is genetic.  I know what YOUR doctor said but I’m going to take Dr. Jaffe’s word for it.  He’s WAY smarter than me and WAY smarter than your doctor.

Could you be one of those minority 8% of people with a truly genetic ailment?  Sure, but 92% of time, you’re not.  You’re not that special.  Neither am I.  Just because your doctor can’t figure out what’s wrong with you or has said, “There’s nothing more we can do” doesn’t mean you are part of the 8% and that you have an incurable ailment.

What it means is that your doctor doesn’t have the right tools, thought patterns, or small enough ego to look outside of a diagnostic manual provided by the pharmaceutical industry.

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The Natural Trap

It’s natural (no pun intended) for people seeking help at my clinic to want a natural solution to their problems.  More often than not, they have started that journey on their own with a trip to the local health food store.  After obtaining their health history form and past medical records, I comb through everything before we even sit down to meet.  Something I see in common is that their supplement list isn’t for the purposes of adding nutrients that they aren’t getting through food but instead a ‘natural’ pharmacy looking to treat their symptoms.

The Natural Trap

Big surprise, it’s not working.  That’s why they are coming to see me.  I will say I’m a fan of supplements but not treating symptoms with supplements.

They are taking red yeast rice to lower cholesterol, calcium to build bone density, 5-HTP and tryptophan to regulate depression, and fish oil for pain and inflammation.

What’s wrong with this picture?

What’s wrong is that the patient and most likely the health food store advisor are basing their decisions on faulty premises.  You are trying to replicate the same mechanism with something natural that mimics what the pharmaceutical intervention does.  You assume the pharmaceutical intervention actually works.

You assume things like high cholesterol is the cause of heart disease and that depression is an imbalance of serotonin.

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Chiropractic Kids

So far my wife and I have 3 boys.  In the picture below, the oldest is 4, the next is 2, and the youngest 8 months.  Being the kids of a chiropractor, they are going to be raised a little different that most American kids.  Face it, chiropractors are weird.  I understand they are going to be outliers and that I’ll face the “so and so is doing this, why can’t I” battles later in life over the health type decisions my wife and I will make.  

Pediatric Chiropractor

One of those parental decisions that make our children outliers is that they get checked and adjusted regularly.  So far, both were checked and adjusted minutes after birth.  Once mom had some initial bonding, she handed the child to me to check him out.  If you think labor and delivery is hard on mom, imagine leaving paradise forcefully (the womb) and havings your head shoved through a much smaller space, to be welcomed into a cold world naked, where everyone makes funny sounds and goofy faces.  This might be where the fear of clowns start for many.

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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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