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What You Should Know about Whiplash

What You Should Know about Whiplash

Nearly 27% of drivers have been involved in a car crash in the last five years. (I was one of them.) In 2008 there were 208 million licensed drivers in the U.S. Based on these numbers we can estimate that over a five year period about 56,160,000 drivers will be involved in a car accident. That comes out to 11,232,000 accidents a year and over 30,000 a day. In other words…there are a lot of motor vehicle accidents in this country every year!

One of the most common injuries associated with motor vehicle accidents is whiplash. Whiplash is an injury to the neck caused by sudden acceleration-deceleration force. This is usually the result of a stationary vehicle being struck from behind. This causes the torso to thrust forward while the head is thrown back into hyperextension and then whipped forward into a hyper-flexed position. This causes stress and strain on the soft tissues of the neck including muscles, tendons, ligaments and joint capsules. Symptoms of whiplash include, but are not limited to pain, stiffness, headaches, dizziness, tinnitus and weakness.

Many factors account for the severity of whiplash and the resulting symptoms. The severity of the impact and position of the head at impact are major factors in the potential severity of the injury. The health of the individual prior to the accident can make a big difference. A young person in good health will fare better than an older individual with preexisting degenerative changes in the neck. However, regardless of the perceived severity of the accident, all whiplash cases need to be taken seriously no matter how minor it may appear.

In many situations only the symptoms of whiplash are treated. Muscle relaxers, pain killers and anti-inflammatory medications are often prescribed along with adequate rest. Unfortunately, this is often the extent of the treatment.

Because of the damage that occurs in a whiplash injury, degenerative changes may be put into place that may not become obvious for many years after the initial injury. I was fortunate when my accident occurred in that I knew to seek chiropractic help right away. Being married to a chiropractor, I knew the risk factors involved. Another bonus was that I have had lots of interaction with the patients in our office that have been in accidents. Time after time, they have expressed a desire that they wish they would have known how much chiropractic treatment would have helped them when they first had their accident. Many have found that chiropractic treatment helped where medications and physical therapy failed. If you have been in a car accident and suffered a whiplash injury, talk to a chiropractor… you’ll be glad you did!

If Health is Feeling Well…Then What About What We Don’t Feel?

If Health is Feeling Well…Then What About What We Don’t Feel?

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I was meeting with a client the other day. She was concerned about the future of her health. This particular client is overweight and has a family history of heart disease that seems to reveal itself in her family members at very young ages.  In my opinion, her concern is justified and she is smart to be making the effort to lose weight and learn healthier lifestyle habits.

But what is health? Is it just the absence of sickness? Personally, I think that defining health as feeling well is absurd. – especially given the fact that we cannot “feel” 80% of what is going on in our bodies. Ever known someone who has been diagnosed with a serious health issue such as cancer that felt fine prior to their diagnosis? I think we all have. Think about it…if we could feel everything happening in our bodies that contribute to eventual ill health such as arterial blockages, cancer, kidney stones, Alzheimer’s, etc. wouldn’t the world we live in look a lot different? Wouldn’t our concerns about developing health issues be a mute point – after all, we would “feel” whatever we needed to feel before it got out of hand.

According to Webster’s Dictionary, health is a state of optimum physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease. In other words, health is not how you feel but rather, if you are physically, mentally and socially functioning at your optimum potential.

I like that definition because it addresses whole health and the fact that we cannot “feel” so much of what is going on with our physical health.  I also like the fact that it embraces health from a more rounded perspective. We are the sum total of our mental, emotional, spiritual and physical well being.  In truth, we cannot ignore any aspect of our health without impacting the rest.

What I Believe Modern Medicine is Missing

What I Believe Modern Medicine is Missing

As many of you know, I have lived in both worlds…the world of using only allopathic medicine (MD’s) where prescriptive and surgical remedies reign and the world which uses alternative medicine where the body is honored for its self-healing capacity and where food and lifestyle modifications are utilized in addition to the treatment modality offered by the doctor (such as spinal manipulation).

 In all honesty, I don’t like calling chiropractic and other treatments rendered by “alternative” practitioners alternative at all. After all, what we call conventional medicine is little more than 100 years old and forms of chiropractic date back over 20 centuries. (Shouldn’t that qualify chiropractic as mainstream medicine?!!)

The actual profession of chiropractic – as a distinct form of health care — dates back to 1895. However, over 2000 years ago Hippocrates advised: “Get knowledge of the spine, for this is the requisite for many diseases.”

Herodotus, a contemporary of Hippocrates, gained fame curing diseases by correcting spinal abnormalities through therapeutic exercises. If the patient was too weak to exercise, Herodotus would manipulate the patient’s spine. The philosopher Aristotle was critical of Herodotus’ tonic-free approach because, “he made old men young and thus prolonged their lives too greatly.”

So now that I’ve inserted my little chiropractic soapbox, here are my feelings on what I believe modern medicine is missing and why that’s important.

Allopathic medicine, as a whole, declines to acknowledge any creative force and bases its belief system on evolution. As such, it only takes into account the physical body and the symptoms and/or illnesses it presents. By only acknowledging the body, allopathic disregards the spirit of the body (the other half of the soul). In so doing, it eliminates critical components of our health: spiritual, mental and emotional health.

Allopathic does a wonderful job of treating trauma and emergencies. However, I believe it dramatically fails in regards to honoring the patients it treats.

Eliminate giving a patient the time and consideration they deserve, ignore their emotional, spiritual, or mental health, discount that a patient needs to be a central contributor to or part of their own healthcare, or operate from a foundation that the doctor always knows best (in the five minute patient time slots that most allopathic doctors are forced to work within) and I believe you see patients and their health short-changed.

I have been treated by too many allopathic doctors who had no interest in my health history – their only interest was in my current symptoms so they could write a quick prescription. I have been treated by doctors who, when they found that no prescription worked, were all too quick to declare that it was “all in my head”. They were right…my headaches were “all in my head” but the causes weren’t. If I were the only one ever to have been told that a health issue was all in my head – this personal experience wouldn’t even be mentioned. Unfortunately, too many patients have been given that diagnosis by doctors who were unwilling to consider anything other than prescriptions and expensive high tech tests. I believe too many MD’s operate from the ego-driven assumption that prescription medicines, expensive tests and surgery are the only competent tools available in treating patients.

So…here is my short list of the components that I believe modern medicine is missing that should be vital to all healthcare:

  • Sufficient time with patient
  • Honoring the contribution of the patient in their own healthcare
  • Embracing the importance and power of nutrition in health
  • Recognizing the influence that a patient’s spiritual, mental, and emotional health has on their physical health
  • Eliminating the ego of the doctor in patient care
  • Respecting the creative force that created the patient and the world we each are a part of

Some allopathic practitioners are catching on…they have seen the difference that nutrition and chiropractic treatment makes and are chaning their mindsets. I look forward to the day when more of them get the big picture!