Treating Only the Pain or Symptom is Killing You
I don't believe any one of you wants to be in pain. I also don't believe any one of you wants a life of disease or dysfunction. But simply focusing on your pain is only going to lead you to destruction. I get it. Pain sucks. But ‘Pain' itself reflects the existence of a major problem in today's health care system. It is absolutely killing us- like it's literally killing you and your family members- to only treat the symptom of pain when the true cause of the problem is not pain at all. Pain serves as an indication of an underlying issue or part of a healing process that provides protection to prevent further damage to an area. Medicine and drug companies instruct people to cover up their pain with strong pain-relieving drugs called opioids. Opioids reduce the intensity of pain signals reaching the brain and affect those areas of the brain that control emotion and diminish the effects of a painful stimulus. Opioids neither address the cause of problems nor improve function, but they do come with significant negative side effects. Medications that fall within this class include hydrocodone (Vicodin), oxycodone (OxyContin, Percocet), morphine, and codeine. Hydrocodone products are the most commonly prescribed pain drugs for a variety of conditions ranging from dental issues to injury-related pain. These highly addictive opioid drugs enslave millions of people every year.
Do you understand what a symptom is?
When you have a symptom, whether it is a headache, depression, foggy thoughts, hormone issues, blood pressure, cholesterol, heart rate issues, respiration issues, digestive issues, numbness, tingling, or any type of pain, what does that mean? A symptom in your body is your body’s gift telling you to please help me. It’s a warning signal. In fact, symptoms are not the beginnings of the disease process; they’re the things that come at the end of the disease process. Some people don’t even feel symptoms, as is the case with heart disease or cancer, until it’s too late and they’re already almost dead. I want us to start thinking of a symptom as a fire alarm going off. If a fire alarm is going off in your building or home, or if your check engine light is blinking in your car, what would you do? When the fire fighters come in do they run in with an ax and chop down the fire alarm? No they don’t. Would you run up on a chair and take the batteries out of the fire alarm? No, because the fire alarm is the effect, but what’s the cause of that fire alarm going off? It’s a fire. So, when you have a symptom that is the effect, but what is the cause? The cause is this disease process going on. We can’t chase the effects and cover them with medication; you have to get to the root cause of the problem. If you don’t put out the fire, the building is going to burn down. If we put tape over the check engine light, what’s going to happen to your car? It’s going to break down. As a society, we never really take care of the effects in anything we do like with the fire alarm or check engine light. However, when it comes to our body and the greatest asset that you say you have, which is your health, and when it comes to issues and health concerns, we do the exact opposite. We simply cover up the problems?
Covering Up Problems is a Major Problem
If your body is on fire and you simply turned on the fire alarm: if you mask that alarm with a drug, medication, or surgery, is your problem still there? Absolutely, 100 percent. If you’ve seen that with yourself or loved ones, one drug always leads to another drug. Have you ever known anybody on several medications? At the same time, is that person full of vitality and living the life they were created to have? No,. Most likely they’re just another person getting sicker and sicker and popping more and more pills. They’re victimized and they spend their entire life in an imprisoned body. If you continue to cover up the symptoms, the fire certainly will get worse. Sure… your blood pressure will drop, your cholesterol levels might improve and your pain may diminish, but does that equate to health? What will happen to the house if you don’t take care of the fire?
It’s going to burn down. In your body, that’s considered what? Death; your body doesn’t last. There is a study called Death by Medicine by PhDs and MDs that has shown that taking medications and masking symptoms and medical care may kill up to 999,936 people a year. You can look it up, there's even a movie on youtube: Death by Medicine. Let me be clear: It’s not your medical doctor that’s doing this, it’s the way we were trained and the philosophy we were taught when it comes to our greatest asset. It’s about how we look and feel, and when we feel bad then we do something about it and it’s already too late; you’re already at the end stages of the disease, at the edge of the waterfall, and there’s no turning back. That’s why we can’t cover it.
Painkillers are the Killers
Most of the 35 million people addicted to opioid drugs live in America. Two groups of people comprise the largest quantity of addicts: infants and those in military service. One of the saddest statistics plaguing society lurks in the number of infants born with an addiction to opioids due to their mother’s drug use. Every 25 minutes a new infant comes into this world with an opioid drug withdrawal. This is what treating “symptoms” gets us. The cost to care for the 20,000 opioid addicted infants amounts to fifty-thousand dollars per child. Opioid drug addiction remains one of the largest healthcare issues plaguing almost every industrialized society.
Over 16,000 people die annually from opioid use and millions suffer significant side effects from this class of drugs. No scientific evidence from clinical trials proves that opioids safely or effectively treat pain in patients without cancer. This means that that majority of prescribed opioids offer neither safe nor effective outcomes to those whom they prescribed. People end up addicted to opioids long before achieving any sort of health improvement.
Health Comes from Above
Your brain controls all function including healing of the body. The brain feeds your organs and your spine is what feeds your brain. By stimulating the sensors along your spinal column, Chiropractic care is able to “turn on” your brain to initiate healing. This is not a belief- but a modern, physiological fact. Chiropractic offers pain-relieving solutions without the use of dangerous drugs or surgery. Though a Chiropractic adjustment is not intended to treat or cure conditions (including pain), a valuable side effect to removing interference in the nervous system with an adjustment often manifests in the form of pain relief. A study published in 2003 showed that Chiropractic was five times more effective than non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Researchers followed up with patients a year later and determined that the only patients reporting effective long term results were the subjects receiving Chiropractic care. Chiropractic care safely provides non-invasive care with highly effective long term results that trump both drugs and acupuncture.
Millions of men, women, and infants suffer from the worldwide epidemic of opioid use and addiction. Pain sufferers deserve an alternative option to pharmaceutical drugs that mask pain without ever addressing the cause. Chiropractic provides access to a non-opioid solution that lasts. Chiropractors commit to not only investing in the science and research that prove the benefits of nervous system care but also providing lifesaving resources and care to every man, woman, and child.
