Turning on the Power

Sometimes it seems that the main audience for this blog is comprised of marketers looking to solicit me for their services on how to generate a better blog.  I may write an entry at a later date on how this culture is part of the problem of nervous system overwhelm that we see every day in the office.  The other day, one of the marketers pointed out that my last blog entry was created almost 2 years ago. This sounded a little crazy, but.... turned out, it's true!  I wondered how that could be, but then this thought occurred to me. I'm a person who doesn't like to repeat things over and over, and the thing with chiropractic is that the fundamental principle never changes.  I supposed that people need to hear things repeated many times in a number of different ways, so maybe I should just go with it.  But yes, for the record, I want to say that the same thing that was true in 1895 is true today, still: that healing comes from within, and that the power that made the body heals the body, and that chiropractic is all about turning that power back on!  On its face, particularly the to skeptics, this looks a little silly. How can the power be "off" when clearly, the power is "on" ? If we are walking and talking and living, then how can one say that the power needs to be turned on?  Well, it's like your house, which can have full electrical power, but then an individual circuit can blow. This happens more than you think within the human body.  The beauty of the body, though, is that it's got many many "backup" circuits from which to draw from. If the nerve supply is compromised to a particular muscle, there are many compensatory muscles that kick in. Plus, it is rare that the nerve supply to a given muscle will shut off 100%. The far more common scenario is that is diminishes in intensity, like a dimming bulb. (We can measure this in various strength tests.)  The process is often subtle and happens over time, and it's rare that people notice the specific muscle or circuit that is losing power. Instead, over time, people start to notice problems (pain, strain, etc.) in the muscles and areas that have been working overtime to COMPENSATE for the weak circuit.  They may be complaining of pain in the right hip, but when we do an exam, in addition to an inflamed and overworked right hip, we often find a very locked up left hip that hasn't been doing its fair share. The solution is not to adjust the right hip -- but the left.  Twice already this week, we have also seen (and relieved) cases where a seemingly malfunctioning organ, such as a urinary bladder, was able to start functioning smoothly again following adjustments to the lower back.  The people in question were not suffering low back pain, and their medical doctors never mentioned low back nerve irritation or impingement as a possible cause of the problem. Instead, they blamed "old age" or "medication side-effect" but in fact, the symptoms relieved following specific adjustments to the specific nerves that affected the organs in question.  It's not rocket science. On a related note... we're seeing more and more people with symptoms of electromagnetic sensitivity issues. I'm not sure why this seems so crazy or unlikely to the skeptics? After all, we ARE electromagnetic beings in a many ways, and there's a lot of cutting edge medical science involving treating diseases - not just cardiac pacemakers - using electromagnetic principles!  Some of the new technology includes electrical implants in the brain for Parkinsons as well as diabetes (!) and even rheumatoid arthritis.  The brain is incredibly sensitive to electrical impulses. Why wouldn't it be vulnerable to overwhelm in the current environment of ever-increasing wired and wireless technology?! Anyway.... In conclusion, we still do the same thing we always have in this office: study the nervous system through a series of stimulus/response testing, see where the signals are not firing as they should, work to find the cause of the interference, remove it, and let the body do its job.  I will (maybe!) work on being better better about posting a blog entry every so often, but the other thing that every single one of us needs to work on is balance and peace in our lives. Would it kill us to have less, not more, digital noise?  Would it kill us to have less of a web presence?  I guess it depends on your line of work and your life.  But so far, I haven't heard too many complaints from the folks who have made the conscious decision to DOWNshift on the technology wedge in their life. Hm.  And that is all I have to say about that.  Be well! -DK