Take Back Your Healthcare in Sioux Falls SD

According to a top Chiropractor in Sioux Falls SD, over-utilization of drugs can cause many side effects.

Overutilization of Drugs in Sioux Falls SD

I think most people would be surprised to know that somewhere between 120,000 (Harvard estimate) to 225,000 (Wikipedia estimate) people die each year from iatrogenesis (doctor-induced death) and somewhere around 1 million are injured by medical errors (Wikipedia). The primary cause of this is overutilization of drugs. In fact according to Wikipedia, 106,000 people die each year from non-error, negative effects of drugs.

I have friends who are Medical Doctors (or at least I did before this rant). In their defense I'd like to point out that the numbers are skewed, because in certain cases patients are given drugs that are their only option aside from death. They take them and die, because the drug is a nasty one that had to be taken to give them a fighting chance. However, they are still marked down as iatrogenic deaths and MD's get a bad rep. I get that. The thing I don't get is why so many people get to that situation in the first place. I would argue it is because of the ingrained idea that has perverted our society's image of health. This is the idea that I can eat whatever I want, lay around as much as I want, be as overweight as I want and still be as healthy as I want. After all, there's a pill for that!

It's just not true. What is true is that you can live this way and with the help of drugs maybe mask the symptoms for quite some time. What is untrue is that you are healthy. All the while, your body begins to have problems that at some point not even the symptom alleviating (and unfortunately often side-effect causing) effects of drugs can deal with.

For this reason, drugs should be used when diet, exercise and other simple healthy choices are attempted and have failed. There will always be extreme situations where the use of medicine and surgery are necessary, but why would you jump right to the most dangerous and least reversible alternative? It's only sensible to start with the least dangerous and cheaper alternatives before moving on to the more extreme choices.

Did I mention drugs are not cheap?! We spend the most in healthcare by far, but in 2000 we were ranked by the World Health Organization as 38th out of 190 countries. The rankings were so heavily criticized because they didn't adjust for high homicide, accidents, lack of exercise and poor eating habits that the WHO has not done another ranking since. The big question is why should we adjust for lack of exercise and poor eating habits?

After all, eating right and staying active are two of the most essential building blocks towards health! Doctor comes from the Latin word Docere, which means, to teach. If our doctors are not teaching healthy habits, but are complacently handing out drugs to mask symptoms after the fact, it is no wonder we have such poor "health" outcomes. We have taken "health care" and made it into "sick care".

As doctors, we need to teach patients that health is made up nearly entirely of choices that they make, not luck or genetics. Surely luck and genetics have a part to play, but it is time to stop blaming everything on genetics. (I'd encourage people who strongly believe in genetic predispositions in relation to disease to begin reading up on epigenetics, which is a new field of study that seeks to determine what causes your DNA to change the way it expresses itself.) It stands to reason that if people take a preventative approach to health and wellness, money and lives will be saved and quality of life will be vastly improved.

The first step towards being healthy is to realize that you hold the power. The actions you take or do not take will be determined by you and only you. If you decide that medication is the route, then by all means start taking it. If you decide that you want to eat right and exercise, then do that! It doesn't have to be black and white either, but the point is: You are ultimately responsible for your own healthcare.

The key is to understand why you are doing these things and to think for yourself. Doctors know a lot, but even amongst professionals you will find a lot of disagreement on the rationale and at the end of the day, doctors are just people too. My dad had a saying that, "When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail." (Incidentally, he is a Carpenter, which only reinforces the idea). This means that your worldview is shaped by the unique perspective that you look at it from.

MD's see a body that can't take care of itself without intervention and they want to add something to it (drugs) or take something away from it (surgery) so that it will be able to survive. This is sometimes called an "outside in" approach, because the help comes from outside of the body.

Chiropractors see a body that has a natural ability to heal. When you start experiencing abnormal symptoms, it is because the body is working in a limited capacity. For this reason, they want to restore that capacity. This is typically done through eating right and working out, avoiding offending activities or decreasing the interference between brain and body (adjustments). This is called an "inside out" approach, because you are strengthening the innate capacity inside the body to heal itself.

The truth of the matter often lies somewhere in the middle.

When you look at your health, what do you see? Do you see a body that is always sick, because you were in the wrong places at the wrong times? because you have faulty genetics? because your body was too weak to fight off a strain that was just too strong? Do you see a body that didn't get enough sleep? wasn't eating properly? wasn't practicing good hygiene during a time of peak influenza virus spread?

We may never agree on the true value of healthy habits, but I don't think many people would argue when I say that they can only help. I personally believe that the body is an amazing and complex machine with finely tuned parts that can adapt to nearly any situation if encouraged properly. Whatever you choose to believe, I hope that you will take the time to realize the gravity of the situation:

You are in charge of your own health, so make informed decisions. I'm sure you have heard that it is more important to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. Well as a doctor, or teacher, I hope you will take the underlined statement to heart. If I can convince you that your health is important and show you how to determine for yourself what will make you the healthiest, then I will be a good doctor and get a gold star.  (I want that star!)

Please, for your own sake, consult doctors and health experts and weigh the value of their recommendations against what you know to be true.  Find out what the pros and cons are when dealing with each health topic you come upon and make sure to view that topic from every perspective. Try to determine the logic behind decisions and ask yourself how it addresses the cause and if there may be any side-effects. When in doubt, choose using the safest method first

End Rant… For now.

For more about how you can empower yourself to take your health into your own hands, call or Make an Appointment at Bridges Chiropractic.

*This does not mean that you should stop taking drugs that you have been prescribed. Please, Please, make sure you talk with your MD before you discontinue any medication.

Author's note: This webpage is not meant to vilify the Medical Profession. In fact, I regularly recommend patients go see Medical Doctors for a variety of reasons. The main goal of this page is to open your eyes and empower you to make rational decisions about your healthcare. I think many people are oblivious to the fact that we are constantly being bombarded with "propaganda" from pharmaceutical companies that tell us we need to take drugs for every symptom. This is just not true.* In this page, I will be emphasizing the abuse and overuse of pharmaceuticals, which today has reached epidemic proportions. Doctors of Chiropractic follow a rational philosophy that is not anti-drug or anti-surgery, but "appropriate drugs and carefully selected patients for surgery". In this rant, (which is already longer and drier than I had hoped) I will not be able to answer every question, explore every nook and cranny, or articulate fully and clearly all that I have to say. All the same, I hope you will find some use in it.