The Spanish Influenza of 1918..the start of a bitter, shameful legacy.

Dr. Eleanor McBean was an on-the-spot observer of the 1918 influenza epidemic and said, "As far as I could find out, the flu hit only the vaccinated. Those who had refused the shots escaped the flu. My family had refused all the vaccinations so we remained well all the time."

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/025759_flu_influenza_Amazon.html#ixzz20ANDRSEl

The above quotation was taken from the link above regarding the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918.  The Spanish Influenza killed 40,000,000 people, more people than all the soldiers killed in WWI.  If what this doctor observed is any indication, the Spanish Influenza was caused and spread by the vaccine itself.  I know, it isn't the popular idea that has been carefully cultivated over the past century.  It is far more acceptable to suggest that the vaccine saved millions instead of saying that the vaccine killed 40,000,000 people. The Black Plague decimated 1/3 of Europe which in 1312 was only a few million people but it was certainly enough to mark the Plague as a significant event in world history.  Am I being irresponsible in sharing this potentially upsetting news with the unsuspecting reader?  Or is is more irresponsible of me to keep telling you that which is more comfortable to hear and which will not cause you to think?  

It's like a hornets nest really. It is easier to leave it alone and let it be than to knock it out of the tree and risk getting stung.  Trouble with a hornets nest is that if you leave it alone long enough you get stung anyway. So no matter what you do, you will have to deal with the reality of what that hornets nest represents, like it or not. 

The doctors observation "the flu hit only the vaccinated" must be taken seriously if we are to avoid a mass vaccination program that is driven by fear, panic and hysteria similar to our recent 'swine flue, avian flu and Sars epidemics which failed to materialize, but were each hyped as the Armageddon of our time.  

Currently 8 of the 10 the worlds vaccine producers are being investigated for bribery and coercing the WHO into declaring a false pandemic and the CDC into falsifying research that they were using to sell billions of dollars worth of untested vaccine to the world governments to vaccinate the masses.  It should be noted also that the contracts signed had a clause that made the governments distributing the vaccines fully responsible for any damage done to the people receiving the vaccine.  Hmmm? Interesting. 

  Thankfully, reason trumped hysteria.  Do you remember how each 'pandemic' was initiated?  First we saw news footage of persons in a far off land like China who were running around in surgical masks, supposedly in a panic about a deadly virus ravaging their city. You should note that in Asia wearing surgical masks is common because of pollution.  Convenient don't you think? Especially when you need footage of a population supposedly fearful of a virus you are selling a vaccine for. 

 (Viruses are microscopic.  How does a surgical mask with gaping holes in the side keep you from breathing them in?)

Below is a title of an article written on the 'Bolen Report' by Tim Bolen an attorney dedicated to health freedom.  Google 'Bolen Report' and check out the many articles of the many court battles ongoing throughout the world regarding the misconduct of the Pharmaceutical industry.  The Spanish flu was a man made epidemic that made someone a lot of money and resulted in the deaths of 40,000,000 people in less that one year.  So as uncomfortable as this may be to read 'you' have to wake up and start making yourself aware of just how evil some of these massively wealthy companies have become simply because they can make more money dispensing death or by keeping you sick. 

Tension Increases - Federal Judge Orders CDC to Produce Secret Documents... The CDC Has Known All Along How Dangerous Vaccines Are - And Has Covered It Up... (Part Six)

 Dr. B

The Stress of Self Worth

In 2008 a German businessman whose estimated personal wealth was in excess of 6 Billion dollars threw himself in front of a train after his business posted a loss of 500 million that year. He could have covered that loss with his own money and not feel any economic pain for six or seven life times.  Sadly a week following his death Germany bailed out his firm...talk about bad timing.

 The idea that a person worth over six billion dollars, cash in the bank, could have felt so destitute that he felt compelled to commit suicide boggles my mind.  To put it into perspective a billion dollars is 1,000,000 (one million dollars) multiplied by 1,000 (one thousand).  If anyone of us were blessed with a million dollar pay out our lives would be changed quite nicely.  I could pay off my student loans, office loan, car loan put enough money away to pay for my kids college, all three of them..and still have enough left over to buy a really nice house in a nice neighborhood with a few hundred grand left over.  Imagine what it would be like if we had a billion dollar pay out.  I actually tried to spend a billion dollars in my head, but I only managed to spend a mere 50,000,000 before I ran out of  'stuff' to spend it on.  Perhaps I am not thinking like a billionare...Oh well.  

Being a dedicated chiropractor I would not retire even if I could afford to.  I would remain in practice until the very end expanding my office to create a spa for my patients so that each and every one felt as though they'd been spoiled rotten. I think the difference is having a sense of purpose rather than a sense of worth. I would spend the money taking care of my family and my patients who are considered family.  Sadly it would appear that this billionare had no personal self worth or life purpose.  His purpose was to make money and when his firm lost so much he lost perspective on what was important.

Wellness includes a sense of well being and knowing what is truly important and what isn't.  Remember that no matter how bad things get or seem to get, it could always be worse. Just remember that each day is a gift which is why the call it a present.

 Live, breath and love thyself.

 Dr. B

Polio an enduring question....

Recently I read a book titled 'Thugs, Drugs and the War on Bugs'. In this book I found some very interesting tidbits regarding the polio epidemic that plagued our nation during the first half of the 20th century.  There seem to be many cases in which many people developed symptoms of polio but never contracted the virus itself.  How can that happen?  What other factors contributed to the Polio epidemic?

 The answer lies possibly with an outbreak in the Phillipines in the late 1940s.  The outbreak was contained on US military bases and did not affect the surrounding villages.  So with Polio being so contagious, supposedly, why then were the locals not afflicted, especially since many locals were frequently on the base facilities as either employees or contractors for the military?  Logic would dictate that if the Polio virus were on the bases as the epidemic would suggest it was, the villagers would also be afflicted.   I'm not aware of any racist viruses but it would appear that if the polio virus were present in the PI in 1948 it is my contention that the locals would be equally afflicted if not more severely.  What happened?

 DDT was a chemical pesticide that was sprayed on the military bases exclusively as a means of controlling the mosquito population on the military bases in the PI.  The locals, being used to the irritating little bugs had other more effective means of dealing with them so had no need to have their villages sprayed with pesticides.  All military bases in the PI had this outbreak each of them isolated from the other bases by miles and miles with villages in between.  If this outbreak were truly a virus, logic would suggest that the villages in and around the American bases would have suffered outbreaks of their own as well. OK, so if the locals were on the bases why didn't they also suffer from the 'exposure' the Americans did?  Quite simply because the DDT was sprayed over the residential areas or base housing where the locals were not allowed and where the outbreaks were most prominent.

 Meanwhile stateside, DDT was being used everywhere on everything from grass to crops.  While the polio virus got blamed for this outbreak DDT slowly found itself banned and off the market and quietly disappeared from use.  Coincidentally where DDT was banned polio miraculously ceased to exist. This correlation may also have been the reason that many if not all of the individuals afflicted with polio did not have the virus present in their system..while they suffered the disease supposedly caused by a virus.

 This is a question that needs to be investigated more deeply.  Why did polio disappear only after DDT was banned? Why did most of not all polio victims lack the presence of the actual virus in spite of suffering from Polio?  Also, why is it that polio is on the rise in non developed countries? Is it possible that DDT has found its way back into the market place in unregulated markets?

 It is a curious question that I'd like you to ponder.

 Dr. B 

Food Allergies and GMO foods.

When I first heard of genetically modified foods I was in college and more concerned with keeping my GPA up than I was of watching the world political landscape change.  I did of course hear about genetically modified foods and also some of the problems that eating these foods might create.  Over time the GMO question ebbed and flowed as many of these topics do when displaced by world changing events like the wars we found ourselves engaged in.

Apparently while our collective attention was focused on issues abroad, GMO food items quietly gained prominence at the American dinner table.  We of course did not notice this change because none of these foods are labeled as GMO..like they are in Europe. So while GMO products gained a foothold in the American market Europe began banning GMO items by creating GMO free zones. What do they know that we have yet to learn?

 The United States are virtually devoid of these zones.  They do exist but they are few and far between.  One would think that here in California, the bread basket of the world, there would be vast expanses of land allocated for GMO free crops. The agriculture industry is the largest industry in California and the vast majority of farm land is corporate owned.  It is the one major industry that cannot afford to leave California. The San Joaquin valley is the richest farm land in the western hemisphere in which everything you can imagine is grown.  Most of it genetically modified to make it pest resistant, weed resistant, drought resistant and possibly nutrient resistant as well.

 Ever notice how many people there are who simply cannot eat certain foods?  Have you noticed how that number seems to have increased in recent years?  I have noticed a huge spike in this number in the past decade alone.  Our national obesity epidemic, how much of this health problem can be attributed to genetically altered foods?  Is it possible that by altering the DNA of these seeds, that we have created a source of nutrition that the body finds toxic or simply can no longer digest and so converts it to fat because it has no place else to go? 

It has been in the past ten years that these genetically modified foods have gained position in the market place and have begun to displace naturally occurring or conventionally bred crops. It has also been in the past decade that obesity and other health concerns have risen to prominence in America. Is there a correlation or is it just dumb luck that we have become the fattest and most lethargic population on the planet?

We are the only species on earth that has the intellectual capacity to understand DNA manipulation and yet we are too stupid to leave well enough alone.  I is the same with nuclear weapons we know how to blow up our enemies...but we do not think about the consequences until we find ourselves on the brink of absolute destruction before we consider...hey maybe mutually assured destruction isn't such a good idea.  Ya think?!!

What harm are these GMO products doing to us?  How many diseases are we now suffering from as a result of poor nutrition because our bodies cannot digest these new bug, weed and drought resistant foods?  We need to each take a stand and tell these well intended yet short sighted buffoons to leave our food alone.

 Dr. B 

GMOs and Gluten sensitivity and more.....

Just today I was enlightened with a tidbit of information that I found a bit disturbing.  We've all heard of persons who are gluten intolerant. The numbers of these persons seems to be growing as is the market for gluten free products.  Have you ever eaten a gluten free pizza crust?  Ew thuts suh gruss. That is Californian teen speak for 'Ew that is so gross'.  To say it properly you have to make a face like you've just shoved your nose into somebodies sweaty armpit, cock your head to one side and just say it like its spelled.

ANYWAY... I am a huge fan of crusty, chewy breads and especially hand tossed pizza crust. It is the working of the dough that creates the fibrous elastic bonds 'gluten' that makes these classic bread items so desirable.  Who wants a wimpy pizza crust?  What is so bad about gluten?  Nothing except that it is more difficult to digest than other wheat items because of its structure.  So 'is it the gluten itself or is it the source of wheat' that makes gluten such a problem? I'm betting it's the source. 

 Today I was told of a chef whose mother is gluten sensitive who bought flour from a GMO free zone in Italy. He made her a gluten laden feast with heavy, crusty breads and goodies that make eating breads enjoyable to eat but painful for those allergic to gluten.  You'd think that being gluten intolerant she'd have a serious reaction to all that gluten.  Apparently because the flour used to make these items came from a GMO free zone she did not have any reaction what so ever..none, so enjoyed every bite without consequence.

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) are genetically modified seeds that we have been planting and eating for several decades now.  Many seed companies have patents on seeds and even claim patent rights on the seeds from the produce you may have grown in your own garden.  So if you didn't get their permission to plant a garden with the seeds from the produce you grew with the original seeds you purchased, they could, with a court order, take your garden and sue you for patent infringement.  I have not personally heard of this happening but the idea that it could happen strikes me as insane and wrong.

Not only has corporate profit raided your personal garden, these genetically altered seeds have become  potential health hazards by creating DNA based allergies such as the gluten intolerance mentioned above.  What other health issues have become part of our national landscape? What syndromes can be laid at the feet of these genetically altered food items?  So not only do we have to avoid eating processed foods we have to be careful about which fresh fruits and vegetables we eat and where they come from. In California we have several GMO free zones but they are few and far between, even in California where everything is organic including legally cultivated weed.  However, organic does not mean GMO free.   

Locate a GMO free zone near you if you can and buy your produce there and if you are into growing your own...locate a GMO free seed retailer near you and ask for GMO free seeds.  Wellness is your birthright and should not be infringed upon by corporate greed. 

Dr. B

Addendum: Monsanto the seed manufacturer has been suing farmers for using their seeds without permission. Seeds that were taken from the produce they grew from the original seeds they purchased. So it has been happening, which is in my view simply insane and wrong on so many different levels.  I thought this was America not the former Soviet Union. . 

An exercise in thinking

I am going to ask you, the reader, several questions.  I will not answer them in this post.  What I want you to do is answer them for yourself and ponder the answers that you come up with. Think about the answers and why it is you think 'you' answered them in the way that you did.  It should be an interesting exercise in mental processing.

 The purpose in asking these questions is to enforce the idea that if we truly use our brains the truth in our lives becomes obvious.  Dogma has replaced thinking in far too many instances today.  Dogma is merely a statement that someone repeats often enough and loud enough and with such perceived conviction that the weak minded soul believes them without question.  I believe it is called brain washing.  Only brain washing doesn't work very well on a person who is in the habit of thinking for themselves and questions 'why', what and where did that idea come from?  It is called critical thinking and is something we as a society have forgotten to how to do, especially with regard to health care. 

 An example of the questions I will ask:  "What causes pain?"  It is an open ended question with thousands of possible answers depending on what the individual 'ideas' of pain might be.  Is it emotional pain or physical pain or economic pain..ect. What constitutes pain may vary with the emotional state of the individual at the time.  A person with a neutral emotional state may define pain as 'hitting my thumb with a hammer'.  A person who is angry at someone may define pain as 'that bleeping so-in-so who just totaled my car.'  A person who is going through a bitter divorce may define pain as 'my bleeping, bleeping wife' etc.  So the definition of the last word in that sentence may differ depending on your emotional state at the time it is asked. 

 There will be no wrong answers to the questions as they are meant to stimulate 'your' thought process and to give you and idea of how critical your thinking is. Of course as this is a wellness blog...wellness or your definition of wellness is the overall topic, naturally. 

 1. What is health?
 2. How is health created?
 3. What is sickness?
 4. What causes sickness?
 5. What is wellness?
 6. What causes wellness?
 7. What is happiness?
 8. What causes happiness?
 9. What is hate?
10. What causes hate?
11. Are Vaccines safe?
12. What makes a vaccine 'safe' or not safe?
 Please respond to this blog with your answers. 
 

A patients question to me.

So often I'm asked "Doc, why doesn't my Md do anything but give me drugs?"  This question is often followed with "And why does he seem to dislike you so much?"  I have to be careful how I answer these questions because my answers would otherwise be flippant, obnoxious and egotistic if I wasn't. The answer to these questions lies primarily in a series of events that took place between 1850 and 1910-13 respectively. 

 In 1850 the American Medical Association (AMA) formed as a trade association to protect the interests of the medical doctor with a stated intention of creating a monopoly in health care.  In 1850 this was the accepted business model because the population density of the USA was much less than it is today and there were almost zero regulations for the conduct of business and no way to effectively enforce the regulations that did exist at the time.

 Around this period we also have the emergence of pharmaceutical companies who were selling cocaine, opium and morphine out of the backs of wagons in the newly developing populations centers spreading across the land.  As mentioned before there were no regulations for the sale of these items and as they were highly addictive narcotics it was an easy seller once you got the population of a town hooked. Their methods of marketing were very similar to the drug dealer today.  They'd give free samples of the purest form of their product to get the customer hooked and sell the next batch for whatever they wanted and the customer would come up with the money one way or the other. A very profitable sales tactic if not quite ethical.

 Following the Civil war cocaine and opium addiction became a very serious problem for many veterans of the Civil war due to the horrific wounds many of them suffered.  Then came the industrial revolution and with it the influx of hundreds of thousands of immigrants seeking a better life for themselves in America.  Few of these individuals had an education and were of, forgive the terminology, peasant mentality. In which the idea that if and illness didn't kill you it made you stronger, or if a little bit makes you feel better a lot will cure you.

It was the latter thought that lead to the mass overdosing of entire families when they'd come down with an illness due to the close quarters in which they were living, often sharing an apartment with two or three other families to afford the rent.  Legislation to control the sale of Cocaine and Opium was first attempted in 1885 but the pharmaceutical lobby...yes they were there then to...were able to defeat that first and subsequent attempts over the next 30 years.  Then in 1910 when the problem grew to epidemic proportions the Harrison Act was passed in 1910 making Cocaine and opium controlled substances requiring a prescription to obtain. In 1913 it was amended making cocaine and opium in their original forms illegal for sale.

 Before the Harrison Act was passed the pharmaceutical industry was courting the AMA which was reeling from the fact that their profession was suffering severe economic distress in the shadow of Osteopaths, naturopaths and...yes even that new fangled weirdo...the chiropractor.  All three non-medical practices of health care were doing far better than the medical doctor of the era...big time.  In fact the medical  profession between 1900 and 1910 had the highest suicide rate of any profession of the time, including prostitution.  The AMA was eager to ally itself with the deep pockets of the pharmaceutical industry (which had been measuring its profits in the billions in 1900...yes billion with a B) as a result.  Since that first alliance was formed the original competitors of the md have taken massive hits and almost went completely extinct over the course of the next century. 

The Md is extremely jealous of his top dog status, though it was bought and paid for by the pharmaceutical industry rather than earned by their own merits.  The advent of the internet has created a problem for the md by publishing the fact that the American Md has become the leading cause of preventable death in the USA and beats out heart disease and cancer by a significant margin. 

 This is why a competent md has no problem with chiropractors and the less than competent Md views anything outside his or her realm of expertise with fear and disdain.

 Hope this helps.




 

Symptoms, Drugs and Side effects

For nearly a century now health care in the United States has focused on symptoms and removing symptoms. This has been an easy sell for the pharmaceutical industry since we make 99.9% of our health care decisions on how we feel.  If we have a headache we take one of the many pain relievers available OTC (over the counter). It might interest you to know that your sensory perception is provided by only 10% of your nervous system.  So how you feel is only a small part of how your body is functioning. 

 You simply have to mention a symptom and there is a medication out there to treat it;  fevers, cramps, erectile dysfunction, personality disorders, ADHD, heart burn, constipation, diarrhea, there is even a drug that will give you better orgasms!!! I'm curious to know what the side effects of that drug are.

 It seems that whenever we turn on the television there is a commercial telling us of yet another 'new' drug to treat another new malady that nobody has ever heard of before. Then after the butterfly's land and the soft, sweet, in harmony with nature music is finished there is a blurb that goes something like this "If you experience difficulty breathing or have difficulty urinating or your blood pressure spikes or if you encounter dizzy spells or feinting stop taking this medication and call your doctor immediately because you could be having a 'RARE' but serious side effect that may be fatal." 

 My favorite side effect was for a contraceptive that has since been removed from the market.  "Instant death" was set in the middle of the closing blurb as they named the 'many' side effects of this drug the FDA had approved for sale in the United States.  Do you think GM could sell you a car that might kill you if you drove it?  "Purchase of this new and improved automobile may be hazardous to your health.  If your new GM Motorcar begins to smoke or make a sickening whistling noise, pull over, get out of the car and run because your car is about to explode which might be hazardous to your health".  I do not believe that GM would have survived much less thrived in the past century if 'any' of their products had that as a 'warning' on any of their truck or car ads. 

Listen carefully to the next pharmaceutical ads on television, what you hear may cause you to think twice before taking any medication..and could just save your life.

 Dr. B

 

But its diet soda!!!

Several years ago I had a patient with a severe weight problem and I mean severe.  Above the belt line she appeared to be the normal average build of a young woman in her mid 20s. Below the belt line was a very different story. Of the 250lbs she carried 180 of it was below the waist.  She waddled into my office and had to force herself through the door sideways, mind we were wheel chair capable and she didn't fit through the door without a squeeze...sideways.   

 Her initial complaint was low back pain caused by carrying such a heavy load.  After several visits I began to address her weight.  I asked her to make out a diet diary.  I was amazed to see that she ate rather light given her weight though I took issue with her use of 'diet' soda which she stated as drinking only 'one' bottle per day.  So I assumed it was a regular 16oz bottle of zero calorie diet pepsi. She corrected my assumption when she told me that she was drinking an entire 2 liter bottle of diet pepsi..per day.  I do not recommend that anyone drink diet soda...EVER!!!!!! My reason for this is that the sweetener in diet soda when digested becomes formaldehyde.  That's right, the stuff used to embalm a dead body and is most definitely NOT recommended as a dietary supplement.

 When I suggested that she lay off the diet soda, I was met with a rather harsh response. "But its diet soda!!! It has zero calories. How can it be making me fat?"  Upon explaining the process to her she shook her head "No, doctor they wouldn't allow it on the market if it were that bad"  She then stormed out of the office, squeezed back through the door again and never returned.  We later learned that she began suffering from kidney failure caused by her excessive consumption of diet soda.

So...if you are among the dedicated diet soda drinkers and you happen to read this...remember that when you ingest that artificial sweetener...you are ingesting a poison that when consumed is as deadly as any poison known to mankind...consider that as you swallow that sweet, zero calorie toxic sludge known as diet soda!!!

 Be responsible...drink water...it has Zero calories...and isn't toxic. 

  Dr. B

Obesity in the USA

Looking back a few decades, say 30 years back, there weren't that many heavily obese people in the world.  There were a few but it certainly wasn't an epidemic.  What happened in the past 30 years to make our society so excessively obese? 

 Sadly there isn't any 'one' thing that can be laid at the feet of obesity in the USA.  It is a combination of several different influences that have caused this problem. The lack of physical activity, fast food and the fact that the United States is the single most medicated society on the planet. We, the USA, consume 60% of all pharmaceuticals produced on the planet. We are the 'only' nation suffering with a national obesity epidemic, and we are one of only two countries that allow prescription medications to be advertised directly to the public. New Zealand is currently working to end this practice.

 How does being medicated cause obesity?  Adipose tissue or fat as we call it, has several functions. One function is storing energy. Another function is insulation from toxins. Medication, if it is anything, is toxic. The side effects alone should tell you this.  Many anti-depressants cause obesity by destroying the individuals metabolism...shutting it down completely.  When a person gains 50lbs in a month and they eat like a bird there is a serious problem. 

 Pharmaceutical consumption exploded in the United States with the rise of managed care. Since the Pharmaceutical industry owns the lions share of this market it would stand to reason that they would have a vested interest in directing insurance coverage toward their own specialty.  It has also been in the past 30 years that profits in this industry have skyrocketed to unprecedented heights.  Not only have their profits soared the rate of disease has risen on par with the increase in pharmaceutical consumption.  Diabetes, heart disease, cancer, crones disease and a host of other maladies can be laid squarely at the feet of the Pharmaceutical industry.

 When was the last time you went to your MD and he/she didn't try to sell you on a new drug?  How many people do you know that are 'not' on medication?  Of those people who are medicated how many of them are thin? How many of them are what you would define as healthy?  These are questions you must ponder if you wish to enter into the wellness life style. 

Health and wellness are for those willing to take responsibility for themselves. 

Dr. B

The Chip on Docs Shoulder

 As a chiropractor I see the world through a prism.  That prism happens to be a crystal shard from the rather large chip on my shoulder. Historically chiropractic has always been a wellness driven profession with prevention of illness the primary rationale for repeated visits and for seeing patients are well in order to keep them that way.  This prevention idea was in direct contrast with the newly emerging pharmaceutical based model of medicine which was forming at roughly the same time as chiropractic.

 You see the pharmaceutical model was meant to treat symptoms of disease and relieve the symptom 'only', thereby perpetuating the market for newer and better drugs that emerged over the years.  It was a business model that required the people buying the drugs to remain in need of their drugs.  If patients didn't get sick they couldn't make any money. So chiropractic from the very beginning was in direct competition with medicine.

 So where is this 'prism' you speak of doc?  The Wellness Prism sees health care as a preventative paradigm in which life style changes are needed to accommodate longer and more enjoyable lives.  This requires of the patient active and conscious participation in their own life choices.  Which is very likely why the vast majority of chiropractic patients are college educated, self motivated persons seeking a better life for themselves on their own terms. In other words highly disciplined people who know what they want and demand the best for themselves.

 The sick care prism is generally one in which the patient is expected to show up only when symptoms present so that they can be prescribed a medication to coat, sooth and relieve their symptoms until they have another flair up. This is so much easier on the patient emotionally because they don't have to really think or take responsibility for their own health care.  They just wait until its bad enough then go to their doctor to get a prescription.  Then if they don't have a bad reaction to the medication they will 'feel' better for the moment and eventually get another prescription when they feel bad again.  Then there are the side effects or reactions to the medication that may require that you see another doctor to address with perhaps another medication and another and another until you die.  In essence this is the lazy mans way of dealing with health care.

 Are you a take charge wellness patient or are you a let someone else decide my fate patient?

 It is your choice.

 

Wellness at home, listen to your children...and children will listen back.

I am the father of three intelligent children. They each have a unique and engaging personality with their own individual need for self expression.  Sometimes that self expression goes a little overboard and my parenting skills are put to the test.  Parenting is an OJT occupation.  There is no training possible that will make you ready for the rigors of being a parent except the experience and a good bit of prayer an example being, "Oh Lord, Please give me the strength to not strangle this child, Amen."

My kids know more about computers than I do and can navigate through a computer menu without even thinking about it.  I need a sledge hammer and a stick of dynamite so that if the computer doesn't do what I want it to I can kill it.  Yes, expensive but it is satisfying to stand over that smoldering, demon possessed  machine and know you've bested Satan himself, until your son or daughter says "Dad...The reset button is right here." Thankfully I've taken to listening to my kids 'sorta'. I still have my dad moments, I did say parenting is an OJT occupation didn't I?

At 17 I knew everything, my parents were idiots and girls loved me.  I had all the answers and had plans for the world to lay itself at my feet.  Grand and magnificent plans they were to...Yachts, private islands...and bombshells throwing themselves at me in every conceivable way. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that I wasn't all that great and girls weren't throwing themselves at me.  Then my dad got smart all of a sudden...CRAP!!!  It was at this awakening that I began listening to him that I started to learn that I was not the all knowing guru of all earthly things. 

I may have learned this sooner had I listened. But as I knew everything I didn't have to right?  On the other hand had my parents listened to my 17 year old babble and engaged in conversation (note I said conversation, not yelling) of why my ideas were 'incomplete' and explained to me (like I was an adult with a functioning mind) I may have spared myself the humiliation of being an obnoxious twit in my early adulthood.

Listening to my kids, when I remember my own advice, I am often surprised at their depth of thought and reasoning.  You may be surprised at how well your kids think.  It is important to let them have their ideas and to 'discuss' with them your differences of opinion while letting them be their own person.  Do not think for a moment that because they are 'your' kids that they are miniature versions of you. They are dynamic and surprisingly insightful...if you let them be so.  It is not easy to do...trust me...but when I do I find myself proud that I have three incredible kids who actually do think.

 Cool.

Washing hands = basic wellness practice

We know today that washing hands is good practice.  They even have a proscribed method of how to properly scrub up before a procedure. Sadly this wasn't always the case. In the early days of 'modern' medicine pelvic inflammatory disease was at near epidemic proportions among women having children in hospitals. It was so severe that the mortality rate was extremely high.  Many mothers lost their lives in child birth due to this man made malady.  Oddly the women who were having kids at home with a midwife were not having this problem.

Midwives were in the practice of washing their hands before assisting their maternal patrons.  Believe it or not the activity was scoffed at as a quaint but useless activity by the medical elite. Yet it was the patients of the 'modern' doctor who were suffering the ravages of pelvic inflammatory disease.

 Around 1900 a doctor by the name of Seimelweisse observed a midwife in action and took note of the habit of washing there hands often during the birthing process.  He also noted that they would take the time to wash their hands with soap and water between each patient if they were dealing with more than one birth at any given moment.  It was then he asked how many of their patients suffer from pelvis inflammation.  When they answered him with a low number of incidents he was astonished.

 Taking this new insight to heart he put it into practice and discovered that his rate of pelvic inflammatory disease decreased by 70%. when he used soap and warm water the number increased to 80%. He wrote a book and had it published.  Instead of being lauded for his insightful wisdom and magnificent achievement he was systematically run out of his social clubs and ridiculed by his peers, for challenging the accepted wisdom of the times.

 Dr. Seimelweiss died broke and insane for daring to challenge the mutton chopped elitists belief that they were perfect in their thinking. 

 Hmmm.. Does this sound familiar?

 How dare those awful uneducated quack chiropractors say we are killing anyone???  But why are out malpractice premiums so high and why do we have to hide the mortality rates of our hospitals from public view? 
Quiet..we aren't concerned with facts...just pretenses.  JAMA.

Hippocrates the father of Wellness pt II

The idea of preventing disease certainly makes sense.  Hippocrates had the right idea and intuitively knew that by maintaining the nervous system function at its highest levels patients would be well more often than they were ill.  That is not to say that illness would be staved off 100% of the time.  It is necessary for our bodies to be stressed in order to keep our bodies agile and ready for the challenges we are put to from time to time.

 Wellness has been an idea that  has come and gone throughout the centuries.  In ancient Rome cleanliness was encouraged while sewage systems kept human waste from accumulating in the streets preventing diseases of filth from ravaging the population. Neither did the Romans dump their sewage into rivers or active water ways because they knew that the health of their waterways was vital to the strength of their empire.
Not only did they divert their waste away from water ways they created evaporation ponds that would both store and disinfect the waste which they would then use as fertilizer on their vineyards.  Recycling? 

Even Garbage collection was scheduled and littering fined.  If you didn't have the money to pay the fine you were flogged.  As a result Rome had very clean streets.  They even had an agency that saw to it that nobody sold tainted food to the people of Rome. So how is it that such contemporary common sense ideas died out? 

The Roman empire did endure for well over a thousand years so they obviously did something right.  But when the empire crumbled social hygiene fell to the wayside as hordes of barbarians overran the cities and left behind them wreckage and ruin.  What rose out of the ashes was a new order where religion dictated policy declaring anything of Roman origin evil and where disease was Gods punishment for sin and knowledge discouraged.  Anyone who dared question authority was accused of witchcraft or devil worship then burned at the stake. Galeleo dared to question the Churches position that the earth was the center of our universe and that the earth rotated around the sun, not the other way around. For this he was threatened with death via burning at the stake.  We know today that he was correct.  Sadly we lost nearly a thousand years of potential geniuses due to this atmosphere of fear and oppression. 

What did rise from this time of ignorance was demonology or the study of demon possession.  It was theorized that illness was caused by the possession by an evil demon and the only way to 'cure' the person of this illness was to bleed them and purify their body.  As the centuries marched on the 'demon' morphed into the germ hence the germ theory we know today. Yet, the treatment for this neo-demon possession didn't change. Blood letting was the staple of the medical field for nearly a thousand years. This was the earliest form if 'sick care' or treating of the body 'after' the damage was done.  Sadly most of the diseases that ravaged Europe could have been prevented had they simply used the roman system of waste disposal and sewage systems.

Historical note: Did you know that the Palace of King Louis and Marie Antoinette did not even have a single toilet?  During the many balls and parties that were held there and the dinner and wine that was consumed holding your bodily functions in check wasn't going to happen. Clearly the garden would have come into some use but  the guests would usually use the stair wells for 'both' duties of bodily function.  Ewwwww!! To quote my daughter.

 Is it any wonder that Europe suffered through so many different epidemics and plagues?  It was only after the first 'Crapper' was in regular use that the diseases that were so prominent in our society began to ease up. "Crapper" was a brand name for a toilet, hence the slang term we use today.  After nearly 2000 years we began to use the same technology that the Romans did to keep their streets clean.

I often wonder how our society would have developed had we incorporated cleanliness into our society rather than forsaken it out of religious dogma.  Would the famines and epidemics that plagued ancient Europe have ever happened?  Would the Black Plague have ever been?  How in the name of sanity and logic did we survive the dark ages?  What did we lose as a result?  We can only speculate the answers to these questions, learn and move forward as we each learn how to obtain wellness and live in the wellness life style and hope we never lose the knowledge we have gained for the sake of dogmatic ideology.  One can only hope because we might not be so lucky as to survive such stupidity again.

Hippocrates the Father of Wellness part 1

 Hippocrates, the father of all doctors, was a 'wellness' advocate. He has been quoted "Look well to the spine for the cause of disease".  Wow, sounds like something one of those crazy queeropractors would say. Yet, here we have the father of modern health care looking to the spine as the root cause of organic disease..interesting. Organic disease? Organic disease means non-pathologic disease or a disease state that is not precipitated by an infection or toxic influence from outside the body. In short it means that your organs are not working as efficiently as they could be.  Examples of organic disease include asthma, idiopathic kidney failure, headaches, migraines, weakened immune system, autoimmune disorders (the body doesn't recognize itself as friend and sends the immune system in to attack it) the list can be virtually endless. In other words organic disease has no pathogen that 'causes' it. 

 We have to remember that Hippocrates, genius though he was, didn't have references to draw from or corporate interests to 'direct' him.  He observed the fact that the brain was connected to the body through a series of fibers which were housed inside the spine.  He reasoned that areas of spinal lesion, what chiropractors call a subluxation, caused interference to the transmission of nerve impulses. A spinal lesion, as described by Hippocrates, was an area where two or more vertebrae were locked or were partially dislocated placing pressure on the nerve disrupting nerve impulse flow thereby causing the organs attached to those nerves to function abnormally, the beginnings of organic disease.

 So 2500 years ago the idea behind chiropractic was studied.  Through observation of his patients reactions to the manipulations, as he termed his realigning of the spine, he theorized that by keeping the spine mobile and aligned nerve function would cause the body to heal itself more efficiently.  In the absence of normal nerve flow disease would follow. The idea was to prevent disease states from occurring by keeping the spine aligned i.e. maintenance care.  It was this very idea of maintenance care that earned chiropractors the scorn and admonition of mainstream health care throughout the 20th century.  But as I mentioned earlier, it was one of the first ideas to be considered by Hippocrates 2500 years ago.  

Victory Gardens.

During both WWI and WWII our nation sent ships, tanks, guns, men and countless tons of material to war. On the home front people were asked to sacrifice creature comforts, buy war bonds and grow victory gardens.

 Every where you looked gardens popped up on street corners, back yards and roof tops to help feed the masses back home.  People were growing their own food and eating what they grew. During both WWI and WWII heart disease decreased significantly. Why?  Victory Gardens.  The American people were eating more vegetables, less meat and fewer breads made with processed white flower.

 Because our boys deserved the best American Industrialization could offer all the food Americans were in the habit of eating and causing heart disease was sent over seas, to war.  Since life expectancy of a front line serviceman was measured in weeks and months the long term effects of eating processed foods wasn't considered.  They were sent meat, flour, canned goods, salt, whiskey, beer, coca-cola, candy bars, chewing tobacco, pipe tobacco, cigarettes and a host of other goods that were no longer readily available on the shelves back home. As a result everyone back home was forced to eat healthier. Of course with the end of each war everything went back to normal and heart disease rose to its pre-war rate as we once again began consuming processed foods and victory gardens faded away.

 Should we begin thinking about growing our own food again? Should we start shopping at a farmers market for our vegetables promoting local agriculture and local economies?  Victory gardens got people outside in the sun, gave them exercise and probably relaxed them a bit to.  The activity of tending their garden likely took their mind off their loved ones who were in harms way creating a peace of mind during a very stressful time.

Perhaps its time we grow our own victory gardens and create our own personal victories in wellness.