Preventative Medicine

The name seems to imply that through it’s utilization people will not get sick, or fewer will at least.  The current health care debate emphasized preventative care as a money saver.  This has been found to be false by many groups at least in it’s current form.

The problem is that it’s not real prevention.  There are ideally 2 parts to preventative medicine, prevention and early detection.  Though vaccines are great and nearly eradicated some horrible diseases, many vaccines are not worth the effort and some have caused more problems than they prevented.  Other than vaccination most of preventative medicine focuses on early detection with things such as mammograms and cholesterol screening.

We just had our 4th child and put our oldest 2 in a new school so, recently were faced with the less than attractive side of preventative care.  We were bullied at the birth of our daughter to get get many standard procedures.  One that sticks out is getting antibiotics in our daughters eyes “to prevent blindness.”  I know the risks (yes chiropractors have that training too).  Neither my wife nor I have any STD and are monogamous.  Still the hospital staff attempted to make me doubt my wife by saying “you never know…”  followed by, do you really want to risk your child’s eyesight.  It was the same for all 4 of our children at 3 separate hospitals.  There are always risks to using any medication and there was no benefit to my child and certainly none to my marriage.

Many schools now require the chickenpox vaccination.  This is a mild disease, and has an extremely low mortality rate, less than the common flu.  Because so many are immunized now there is less exposure to the disease which may cause people to loose immunity and lead to more cases of shingles if exposed later in life.  The vaccine can also cause seizures in children.  I don’t think the risk here outweighs the benefit, but it’s now being mandated in order to attend public school.  Often preventative treatments expose many thousands to unnecessary risks in order to prevent one case.  In every procedure a patient should be told the risk and benefits, but if the risks don’t outweigh the benefit then the treatment shouldn’t even be presented.  The scary theme I see here is the coercion being used to advance these treatments.

Then there is the early detection.  Many studies have found that early detection projects have actually caused more harm financially, emotionally, or even physically.  Recently another study came out showing that mammograms in your 40s don’t reduce deaths by a significant amount, and cause unnecessary biopsies, surgeries, and psychological trauma by finding false positives in almost half of patients.  Those extra procedures cost more, for no benefit what so ever, to the patient.  Despite these studies very few agencies or doctors will change their recommendations on mammograms.

If insurance companies and doctors were serious about preventative care then your health plan might cover your annual gym membership monthly massages and improved beds.  Doctors would meet with you every few months in order to recommend actions that would keep you performing at your best and improve your immune system.  That kind of prevention would save money, and save lives.

Back Online

I hope to be getting some good posts up again soon.  I have been offline and moving from Utah to Florida for the past 2 weeks and a bit before that life was crazy, but I am now able to get online again and have some time.  I’m still playing catch up, but I’ll get a good post going soon.

Chiropractic Month in Utah

It is official, yesterday a group of doctors from the Utah Chiropractic Physician’s Association (UCPA) including myself met with the Governor Gary Herbert as he signed a declaration declaring October 2009 as Chiropractic Month.  He spoke with us of his support of chiropractic and mentioned his gratitude for the work that chiropractic has done for himself, his family, and for Utah.

Here is the text of the declaration:

Whereas, nine out of ten Americans suffer from headaches which can result in loss of time and money for employers and employees alike;

Whereas, chiropractic care is an effective treatment for many types of headaches;

Whereas, chiropractic care offers nearly immediate relief from headache symptoms and ofttimes has fewer side effects and provides longer-lasting relief than many commonly prescribed medications;

Whereas, Doctors of Chiropractic may counsel their patients on life changes, headache triggers, and sleep patterns, as well as offer proactive advice on exercise, stress reduction and nutrition;

Whereas Doctors of Chiropractic are preventative care providers who focus on the health of the “whole person” and have particular expertise in the prevention and care of musculoskeletal injuries; and

Whereas, National Chiropractic Month serves as a reminder about the importance of making good health decisions;

Now Therefore, I, Gary R. Herbert, Governor of the State of  Utah, do hereby proclaim October 2009, as Chiropractic Month.

Why the Delay?

I don’t usually let a week go by without posting something new.  Well there have been a few changes in my life that have caused me to miss this last week.  I try to avoid personal postings on this my professional site, but I wanted to explain, and I will bring chiropractic into it I promise.

First I’ve already mentioned our new baby.  Things are going well there.  I haven’t mentioned that my youngest brother just got married and my grandmother graduated from this life.  As if those things weren’t enough; I got an email about two weeks ago from the United States Navy. There was a contract position that they wanted be to fill.  (I have been lobbying for getting chiropractic care to our troops for over 6 years now.)  They wanted me to be in Florida in 8 days.  I was willing, but closing shop, having a baby and making a move across the country in 8 days was tough.  After some discussion the start date was changed, but I have signed the contract and will be treating our service men and women in Florida for the next few years.

I hope that I am able to do even more from the inside than I was able to from the outside.  I would like to see our troops overseas get the care they deserve and have been promised.  The gears are already in motion on that, I hope to give them a little more grease.  If any of you would like to help, please let me know.

There are some exciting things happening this month, after all it is National Chiropractic Month.  I’ll try to report on them as time permits.

National Chiropractic Month is Here Again

In case you missed the start yesterday, October is National Chiropractic Month in the United States, and this year the emphasis that has been chosen is headaches.  Nine out of ten Americans suffer from headaches. Some are occasional, some frequent, some are dull and throbbing and some cause debilitating pain and nausea. Chiropractic has been proven to be an effective treatment for several types of headaches including tension headaches and headaches that originate in the neck.

I have posted about chiropractic and how it can help headaches in the past and this is a good time to take a look at those posts.

Headache types

Migraine help

I will be focusing this blog this month on chiropractic and headaches.  So if you have a headache story, or some information you’d like to share or link feel free to leave a comment here or email me.