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Picture this. You’re reaching into a medicine cabinet or your purse. You are
looking to suppress the symptoms of your headache, sinus infection, or ache in
your body. 4-6 hours of relief are upon you until the drug wears off. You then
decide it’s time to see a doctor because this irritation is interrupting your busy
life, you need something stronger, maybe a prescription. This problem needs to be
solved once and for all. You go to the pharmacy wishing that prescriptions were
cheaper. You take half the bottle of pills and realize that you feel better now so you
shove the bottle into a cabinet filled with other half empty bottles that you picked
up for other random mysterious illnesses. You feel like you get aches and pains
so randomly. “Why me? Maybe I’m just getting older,” you think. “Well, thankfully
modern medicine has a cure for the next set of symptoms that will mysteriously grab
me from my busy life.”
With health on your mind, you decide to do some of your own research and look into
longevity on the internet. I mean who doesn’t want to live longer right? You come across
life expectancy comparisons at www.cia.gov. Scrolling down the page quite a ways the
countries are listed from best to worst. You realize after scrolling for quite a while you still
don’t see the U.S. Finally, at number 45 on the list, you see that we are not highly ranked.
One would think the United States, the country with the best medical schools and greatest
healthcare, could do better. It’s surprising that Israel has a higher life expectancy than
America. And wow, now you notice that the US spends significantly more money than any
other country in the world for prescription drugs. How is this not helping us have a higher
life expectancy?
So what is this healthcare conundrum all about? If prescriptions were cheaper and
Americans had more access to drugs and surgeries would we be healthier—or is it
a possibility that if all the prescription drugs and surgeries were free we could be a
healthier nation?
Let’s consider an example of this young lady I met as a cashier and Ingles. We got
to talking in the check out line and I found out that she had been a cheerleader.
But, unfortunately she had a fall in practice and “pulled her back.” Now she can
no longer perform in sports. “When was that?” I asked her. “ Two years ago.” she
replied. Well, if she was anything like me, then she was probably offered OTC
drugs to alleviate that pain. Or, anything like my patients who “pull their back”
she was offered muscle relaxers. However, what do meds like these do for the
underlying condition? Do they advance the healing process?
Let’s compare to another situation; take another young cheerleader and dancer
who has had a fall or injury and complained for 2 years about pain. Her family
decides to take her to a chiropractor and her problem is greatly alleviated in
a short time. What these situations have in common is that they depend on a
CONDITION to do something. How they differ is that in one scenario they act as
is if one person is inherently flawed and unable to overcome her back condition.
In the second scenario the person is viewed as inherently gifted with healing once
she received the proper care.
The true difference between the two health challenges boil down to a simple belief. A
person’s belief in their body is going to determine actions taken for health; and beliefs
are dependent on understanding. If you understand that you are innately born with
By Doctors Michael and Tara Hogan
/www.cia.gov