Food, Brew, Test Scores & Mass Marketers

After spending nearly entire day building a website for my future practice, I am up pondering why the ambition is so incredibly fired up lately. Is it because I am super psyched for life? Maybe. But why? I know, its because I quit drinking the good brew for a week! And I feel awesome!

My test scores have peaked to their highest levels in years and my overall attitude about things is pretty darn positive. I find this incredibly powerful because I eliminated one small dietary aspect from my daily consumptions. Nothing changed besides decreasing my beer intake. My diet has remained consistently good for many years now but I noticed I wasn't able to focus as well on exams and retrieving information has been more taxing then I'd like to admit. Eliminating beer stopped the cognitive issues I have been experiencing. With that said, I have to say my beer intake consisted of 1-3 a day on average - of good Portland quality beer, not cheap watered down shit. To continue reaping the rewards of a clear mind I intend on cutting beer out and only consuming it on special occasions. This way I can keep mentally fresh and decrease the overall stress on my body.

On another note, turning 30 is a bitch. I have been looking back, filtering through my 20's and teens trying to play "connect the dot" as to how I got here. In doing so, I have been able to see a lot of things that tie it all together. As if I am supposed to be here based on my overall path in life. Ending a chapter is hard because you have to let go of things that held you back in the previous chapter. It is like doing a mental inventory of your strengths and weaknesses - a critical appraisal of the mental literature but not a peer review. :)

I find as I get older and older and older, I notice things I used to overlook. For instance, we watched the Thomas Crown Affair tonight and I noticed subtle clues and advertising in the movie. Pepsi and United Airlines were very obvious. After the movie, I started thinking about the products I buy and whether movies like the Thomas Crown Affair have had an effect on my spending habits in my life. If movies have an effect on people's spending habits, does this mean Hollywood defines how we think and behave? We get pleasure from watching movies that are exhilarating which fills a hole in our empty, unhappy lives. We then act out, in our own ways, the happiness the people in the movie portrayed. The mind is quite powerful and very pliable, as we have learned in neurophysiology. Noticing habits, consumer spending trends and even mannerisms may help us and others look to different methods of entertainment.

Getting old isn't too bad after all. Now, if I can keep my IPA intake down to a minimum, I will be able to keep this well-aged mind open and free from the inundation of subtle marketing tactics of blood thirsty mass marketers!

Psycho-Somatic Medicine

Ever since I started reading the book, Mental Health and Chiropractic, I haven't been able to stop thinking about mind-body medicine. This is due to finally finding a reason beyond simply treating aches and pains to use chiropractic care.

In my opinion, the idea of allostatic load is incredibly useful when thinking of our future roles in chiropractic. Allostatic load is a term used to describe a person's cumulative stress. If the stress threshold is surpassed we get sick or disease sets in. The idea of using chiropractic care to treat a person's allostatic load is controversial to some medical providers because it reminds them of the past religious fanatics who developed our profession in the beginning. We mustn't forget what it is we are dealing with when a person is in pain. From what we are learning in neurophysiology, the reason people seek medical care is emotional drive. They will be coming to us to help them when in need, a humble state, for sure.

We will be relieving pain, increasing proper motion in joints, decreasing inflammation and calming the mind. As a society we are overworked and our bodies take the blunt of it. It is easy to get worn down to the point that gravity takes over and our anti-gravity muscles become overdeveloped. Our posture changes push our heads forward and arch our backs excessively. Every movement is inefficient and eventually when the stress of our daily existence exceeds our capacity to cope we begin experiencing pain. The question then is raised, is disease caused by mental health abnormalities? Is it a lack of coping skills that causes us to slump in our chairs or walk with our heads hanging low?

A few years ago I was in a motor development/motor learning graduate course at Boise State University - one semester prior to WSCC and we studied human movement using digital movie cameras. We used a neat program called Dart Fish which allows you to put a person on an X Y grid and analyze the movement second by second. Some of us had underdeveloped throwing movements, underdeveloped hopping or even kicking. It was an amazing class because it correlated motor development and motor learning in childhood to adulthood. The patterns associated with underdeveloped adult motor skills sort of told a story about the person being analyzed. The most important lesson I learned from this course was that we cannot forget the effect childhood has on our adult movement patterns. Too often we refer to our childhood as if it was a different life altogether, a different person perhaps. As if now we define ourselves as adults and our childhood had absolutely no effect on our well being today. As chiropractors we will see all kinds of issues with movement and it would be a disservice to our patients if we choose to neglect that persons movement history (i.e., motor development and motor learning) and experiences which led them into our office.

In my future clinic I will ask about athletic history to gain an understanding of the person's movement patterns and to formulate the individual's movement history, if you will. How many years has this person been walking around as if the world is on their back? Knowing their involvement with sports and activities will tell me a lot about how they view the world. Do they view the world as a threatening place or do they view life as a playing field? Can we use this information to help those who would benefit from lifestyle/perception changes? I think so. We will be portal of entry physicians.

I strongly believe we can harness the ability to calm the mind by using our adjustive skills with patients. Once we turn off the sympathetic overload and increase relaxation (i.e., decreasing the allostatic load), we can begin building trust with the patient and before we know it, they'll be kicking our butts on our daily runs or mountain bike rides. I think our role is more than just meeting the patient's immediate desire to get out of pain. We must define what health is and understand we have a very unique approach to helping people become the best they can be physically and mentally. If we stray from this role we will not leave as big of a stamp as we could have in this life.

Things sure change. I was about to hit the road and go into a different profession. I am glad I stayed!

Does the Mind Create Disease and Can Chiropractic Help?

In search of the reason why I am heading into Chiropractic I have been reading an interesting older book called, "Mental Health and Chiropractic".  It was written by Herman S. Schwartz DC, the author of "The Art of Relaxation".  Dr. Schwartz has an interesting history of working with mentally ill individuals.  His claim to fame is how he used Chiropractic as a general Tx for mental health conditions in insane asylums.  He would adjust the patient and work on tense muscles while the psychotherapists would take patients through counseling sessions.  Supposedly, Dr. Schwartz had great success using Chiropractic with these individuals, restoring some 70% of all severely mentally ill patients he treated/co-treated.  

I hate to say it but I am digging this idea.  What I have read in regards to neurological changes in the autonomic nervous system through Chiropractic adjustments and muscle work is pretty darn convincing.  If you take the common psychological ailment of anxiety and look at what is going on in this condition, you'd see the person is stuck in the fight-or-flight response.  Fear manifests itself into a readied-state and there is no action being taken through physically moving the body.  The cycle isn't broken and muscle tension is stored up leading to structural misalignment's and chronic inflammation.  The cycle goes on and on and stays hidden when psychological stress is absent and present when stress is heightened.  

The idea is that by giving the individual an adjustment to correct the misalignment or by addressing soft tissue tension, the Chiropractor breaks the cycle and relieves the fight-or-flight response, hence the neurological tenants Chiropractors adhere to.  Now, that doesn't mean there is any evidence of visceral involvement or the whole garden hose analogy, but if one were to think about organ systems, the muscular system is an organ, so if mental health issues effect our muscular system, couldn't other organs be affected too by the same mental issues?  My guess is yes.  Is it that simple?  Probably not.  Does this idea have anything to do with subluxation theory, absolutely not.  We mustn't overlook the power of touching a person with absolute care.  Contacting another person sends a message to the brain saying everything is going to be alright.  This shuts off the sympathetic drive and turns on the parasympathetic.  Resting and digesting versus flight-or-fight.  Cool stuff huh!  And think about the amount of trust you have to have in a person to do an adjustment on you - merely okaying an adjustment speaks loudly particularly for people who don't trust anyone.

We can't forget that we will be treating patients from all walks of life with crazy experiences.  There is a definite need for humans to feel cared for and loved.  The age-old story of orphans being left in foster care who died not from nutritional deficiencies or abuse but the lack of affection and love.  Everyone we come into contact with needs this simple human quality and one advantage we will have as DC's is that we have to touch them to address their problems.  Other HCP's don't have this luxury, they treat their patients like lab rats explaining results and handing them pills.  We can provide what people seek in their life by simply understanding what they want from us.  They want a partner they can trust for their health care decisions and treatments.  They want to know we truly care for their well being.  If this message is sent and understood we will be their doctor for life and they will buy into our methodology for health and wellness more readily.

What would be interesting to find out is if there are any blood tests showing exactly what occurs from an adjustment.  Is it the brain that shuts the system off or is it our therapeutic treatments or both.  Probably a little of both but if I had to guess, I'd say the brain is more powerful than any therapeutic treatment.  I think we have been thinking too simply in how we will be helping people with our new found skills in Chiroland.  I don't think my prior statements in regards to pigeonholing DC's into non-invasive orthopedic specialists is a wise idea.  It might push us into being physical therapists and less holistically oriented.  Although, I do think we need evidence to back up our work.  Linking mental health with physical health is tough to do.  It seems obvious though.  We know there is orthopedic evidence backing our work but if we can show evidence with decreases in anxiety or depression that would be kind of cool.

I know whenever we have a bunch of tests on the horizon my back starts hurting more, my left ilium goes into an anterior/superior position affecting my SI joint and my right knee starts hurting.  Weird stuff.  Do you think we change our biomechanics during times of increased mental stress?  I do.  I think that is why people start hurting chronically.  

Even though I have been looking into other green pastures I still think I belong in Chiropractic.  Naturopathic will probably happen in my future as a second degree so that I can address things from a biochemical perspective (IV therapies, etc.) but I am beginning to form my own style of medicine through this education.  I had to take a step back and dive into some quality reading and find associations with what we are learning.  

If we focus entirely on becoming specialists will we lose our ability to make significant change in our patient population beyond pain relief?  Will we simply alleviate pain for the sake of suffering or will we find the root cause of the individuals manifestations (i.e., mental health).  

Good stuff.  Very good stuff.  

Good night

Naturopathic Medicine

I am up and it is late.  I slept the entire afternoon away and now my brain is active.  The rhythm is all messed up now.  Maybe if I get what is on my mind down for others to absorb I will be able to sleep!

Here we go.  It is week 7 next week and the quarter is starting to wind down.  This is about when I start looking around for other professions to enter in order to end my suffering here in chiroland.  I pick everything apart that I can find that needs picking and I make plans to transition to another profession.  The problem is I am running out of professions to leave and go to.  Go figure!

I have been looking at Naturopathic Medicine lately to fulfill that curious bug.  It looks kind of cool with all the natural remedies for health care issues and their basic tenants in prevention.  It turns out that a "source" at WSCC told me that the local school of natural medicine is, "unorganized, disjointed and chaotic."  Wow!  Worse than our school?  No way!  

I suppose when you are in the midst of getting your ass kicked by school it is easy to try and fight back by picking it to pieces.  I do have a habit of imploding about half way through each quarter and I think we've hit climax.  

My concern is that our education will be heavily weighted in musculoskeletal disease/Tx and not much in the major killer chronic ailments.  For those who want to manage metabolic issues rather than refer them out, this program doesn't hit the marks.  I know that I will have to get more education beyond the doctorate to get the skills I want in practice.  This is concerning.

To end, I will say this, I don't intend on quitting school.  I may go on to get the ND degree at some point after the DC program, however.  I am tired and in need of a long relaxing break.  As many of you are too.  You are not alone!!!

Pharmaceuticals Finally Being Used in Our Profession

The State of New Mexico recently okayed the use of certain injectable and oral pharmaceuticals for Chiropractors who have obtained post-graduate medical training.  How exciting!

In my personal opinion, I think these kinds of steps are what the profession needs to grow.  To be "doctors" we need training in modern medicine.  We cannot help our patients fully unless we have a greater arsenal of tools to pick from.  I am not saying we should throw a pill at every patient that walks through the door or even contemplate using pills as a first line treatment.  I am saying we could be more respected if we were given more training in such therapies.  And, if we think about the time that is lost between shuffling patients here and there to GP's and specialists, we could potentially help a ton more patients and retain them for future services.  

It is kind of weird writing blogs on these things while being in 4th quarter.  I still have 8 more quarters left of school before I can have an "official" voice as to how things should be.  I will use this blog later on when I am in practice for patients to read if they want to learn about chiropractic or the education we obtain.  

Continuing on, I honestly think the profession is messed up.  We want to be PCP's and argue about what a DC actually is.  Why not define a DC as the person who will prevent disease and the person who prevents unneeded orthopedic surgery.  As we have learned, preventing disease to some DC's is as simple as keeping the spine straight.  Hence, the name "straight chiropractor".  

There was a movement back in the 90's of a group of DC's, DPT's, and DO's who wanted to define their skills in manual therapy to public.  They knew the public had been misinformed by a number of DC's who made false claims in regards to health in order to make a ton of money.  These fraudulent DC's painted the entire manual therapy profession in a negative way which raised concern with a group of manual medicine doctors who kept running into professional discrimination in the public.  Even though they came from different medical schools of thought they all had and still have one thing in common.  They practice manual medicine.  In this context, they bonded together and formed a multidisciplinary society and defined manual medicine as Orthopractic.  Their goal was to be recognized publicly as a safe, medically based alternative to chiropractic.  Being that chiropractic, as a whole, had caused numerous accounts of fraud and skepticism due to unscientific practices, this new approach defined the manual medicine doctor's profession and increased public acceptance as a specialty within medicine.

In Canada, Orthopractic still exists.  I cannot find a good source for a US based orthopractic society or foundation of any sort.  The idea is awesome though.  It is one that I am going to try really hard to emulate as I believe the public still views our profession with skepticism.  Our profession is misunderstood and given a lot of negative hype due to the stupidity of a few straight DC's.  

With that, I commend the straight DC's for their goal of keeping folks from using medicine.  I think their efforts to keep people off of mainstream pharmaceuticals is commendable.  I don't agree with how they define health though.  Their definition is misleading and takes the blame off of the patient's back for their ailment.  

It seems to me that if we want to be doctors who retain respect in the community we must do something to create public acceptance.  And not just locally so WSCC can reap the rewards.  I am talking nationally, even internationally.  We have the power to make change happen.  

We will never be a cohesive bunch.  We have fought for over 100 years as to whether to follow a medical model or a pseudoscience model.  Something has to be done because, I am investing a shit load of money into this and a ton of time, as are many other students.  I have contemplated jumping ship to Osteopathic medicine only for their public acceptance and unity as a profession.  If we want to be the example of what good evidence-based manual medicine should be, then we should be making ourselves known by not allowing any sort of straight-talk to occur.  By straight-talk, I mean pseudoscientific bullshit.  Tie the school into medicine somehow, stand for something rather than accept any mindset.

Enough already.