How do we learn how to take care of ourselves? We learn from our parents when we are little, and then sometimes from friends, doctors, and the media when we are older. Many of the messages we learn are based on fear instead of education. It’s easier to tell a small child that if we go into the street without looking we are going to get hit by a car, whether there’s a car in sight or not! We are also bombarded with the choices of a less than healthy food industry, along with the drug ads for everything from Alzheimers to ED. Drug therapy, although necessary at times, brings with it risk factors (including death if you listen to the ads on TV!) “If you or someone you know has died as a result of this prescription, contact XYZ law firm.” Its pretty scary, and we are the victims of this experimental and fear based sick care system. I understand we walk a fine line when teaching our children about the importance of safety issues. However, when it comes to our healthcare, I personally believe that we should change tactics to be more education based instead of fear based. There’s a lot left to the imagination in a fear based system of education. We need to begin to take responsibility for our health rather than waiting to be dysfunctioning in some manner. And that means starting to take care of our bodies and our health at an earlier age.
Education is the key to assuming responsibility; when we purchase a new car we are told when to change the oil, when to change the filters, what kind of gas to put in it, if only we were given some basic instruction manual when we arrive on this Earth! We don’t have a manual, but fortunately our body is a self-healing entity, continually looking to repair and adapt to its environment. Unfortunately part of Western Medicine’s fear tactics is that they only want us to know about the body’s vulnerabilities, instead of its strengths.
If we believe that the body possesses an innate intelligence, one that it is born with, that creates a human being from 2 small cells in 40 short weeks, it is a very easy jump to the belief that the body can heal a cut, that it will cause you to sweat if you are too warm, and that if you are hungry it signals your brain to let you know. Can you imagine if you had to think about breathing, making your heart beat, or the process of digestion? Total chaos would ensue in most cases!! So if the body is capable of all these amazing activities, my question to you is, why when it gets sick is it suddenly incapable of taking care of itself? If the bodies natural response is to get a fever when there are too many bacteria or a virus present, why would we immediately lower that fever with an over the counter or prescription medication? What does a fever do? An increase in body temperature can kill or neutralize pathogens. And what if by lowering that fever you allow the pathogens an opportunity to get a stronger foothold and spread? By interfering with the body’s natural response we are pretending that we know better than the intelligence that made the body. Fevers can also be scary because we feel achy and it hurts. The reason for this is that calcium is mobilized to the sight of the infection and this directs the white blood cells where to go. If there is already a lower than normal level of calcium in the body the end result is aches and pains. The fear tactics come in at an early age, new parents are told that at the first sign of a fever they should contact the pediatrician, that brain damage could occur, that meningitis may be present. That is enough to scare anyone, let alone a new parent, caring for a small human for the first time. In times past, we looked for more natural ways to allow the body to heal and recover from illness. Utilizing natural remedies allows the innate intelligence to work, does not result in side effects or subsequent infections, and very likely does not end in a new infection (yeast or bladder) which often occurs with the use of prescription medications such as an antibiotics. What if instead we educated people about the intelligence of the body, that more than 80% of individuals at a recent research hospital who came in with an infection were tested to be low in serum calcium. What if we allowed them to weather the storm, have their fever (within safe limits of course), and provide them with the proper nutrients needed to fight an infection without side effects and without fear. Confidence in the body’s ability to heal itself is empowering, it is positive, it lacks the fear tactics of the allopathic model of health that we tend to practice today. We have a personal responsibility to educate ourselves about our options. These options could be food related, homeopathy, whole food supplements, or herbs.
What keep us from taking responsibility, or becoming educated about self care? We have many external factors that influence our decisions. One is that our modern values tend to devalue the more traditional solutions that have worked in the past, even though they work without adverse side effects. Recently these “old world” truths have begun to be proven effective now that we have the ability and interest to do research on traditional remedies. Another reason is society’s emphasis on disposable products and quick turnover. We need a new phone every 2 years, we need a new or better car, we need, we need, we need. But, do we really? What would happen if our perfectly functional phone lasted 4 or 5 years? Maybe if we take care of our things, they work longer and better.
“If you were going to purchase this house, what would your approach be? Some might say, “I would just go in and gut it!” We aren’t really talking about a house though, this is your body we are talking about and there are no replacement parts!”
Let’s use the example of a home built in the 70s. Today it would be about 40 years old. That’s not too old for a house, but lets assume for a minute that there are no replacement parts for this house. Now this house has been lived in, and maybe it hasn’t been taken care of in the most meticulous way. If you were going to purchase this house, what would your approach be? Some might say, “I would just go in and gut it!” Others might say, “Well you could just go in and replace the broken parts,” but remember there are no parts, new or used! We aren’t really talking about a house, this is your body we are talking about! It’s however many years old you are, it has been used and used, and not taken very good care of, or perhaps you did the best you could and things beyond your control happened. The first thing we need to do is clean it, take out the trash, stop putting trash in it! And once the parts that can be cleaned are cleaned, then we can begin to reassess the capacity to heal and repair. Now what would happen if we were told from an early age that we needed to take care of our house, and that it would take care of us for a very long time. If we cleaned it often, and made repairs as needed instead of waiting until something was broken that it would be less prone to dysfunction. This is a very different paradigm than the one that says, your body is designed to break down, there is nothing you can do about it, and the only help is drugs and surgery. Lifestyle needs to be included in our healthcare model. Not fear based, but empowerment based.
Empowerment and education are the keys to changing our failing healthcare system. Fear is an outdated and ineffective way to motivate people to assume responsibility for themselves and their families. This process can begin at home at a very early age. Teach young people about food; where it comes from, how to make it from scratch when possible, help them to understand the effect of food on the body. It is probably too late for the oldest generation in our society, but for the first time in the history of man, the life expectancy has gone down in comparison to the previous generation. We should be very concerned. Not fearful, but motivated to make a change. If you aren’t sure where to start, I’m happy to show you how to become empowered to make a difference in your family’s health; first through food and lifestyle changes, and then possibly utilizing whole food supplements, herbs and homeopathy. Become one of the empowered and informed. The first step is to ask, and I look forward to being a part of your journey!
CONTACT:
Dr. Virginia S. Irby D.C.,DABCO, ACN
Cascade Chiropractic
2371 Iron Point Rd. Ste. 130
Folsom, CA 95630
916-844-2800
