Is Menopause a Disease?

Since when did menopause become a disease? It's a natural event in the life of a woman, and always has been. If it becomes problematic, the most common reason is that something in the body has gone out of balance. Adding drugs to the mix doesn't achieve balance.

Drugs have become the panacea for the treatment of all things that don't feel good. If anything hurts, take a drug. If you feel blue, take a drug. If you feel "too good," must be bipolar... take a drug. Legs feel funny? Take a drug. Can't sleep? Take drug. Can't wake up enough to focus on anything? Stomach acid? Bowels clogged? Losing hair? Depressed? Can't get pregnant? Don't want to get pregnant? MENOPAUSE? Take a drug.

If you want to normalize a normal physiological function, there are natural things you can do. You don't have to poison the body with chemicals that were never meant to be in there.

Quick story: When I was in chiropractic college, in my 20s, an older female student entered that time of life called menopause. She was miserable. But instead of taking drugs, she visited our on-campus clinic every day and received daily chiropractic adjustments, plus some nutritional counseling. She not only lost a little weight, but her menopausal miseries disappeared.

I never forgot that, and when that time of life arrived for me, I did not rush to the M.D. to get some hormones. I visited a chiropractic colleague and received spinal realignments several times a week. As a result, I never suffered anything more serious than a few overheated nights, but nothing like night sweats. I had some of the typical hot flashes during the day, but they didn't last long. And I never had any cramping or bloating or any other things I'd heard women complain about.

And, as a practicing chiropractor myself, I helped many women in my age group work their way through a more normal menopause.... without drugs!

It can be done, but few will look into it. It's not very lucrative for the medical profession to promote natural healing.

Alternative Health - the Propaganda

Anyone born in the last 100 years or so has been exposed to medical propaganda, in an attempt (mostly successful, by the way) to force everyone to believe that allopathic medicine is the only effective way to treat disease.

Of course, "treat" disease is the operative word (pun intended) for allopathy. Anything natural, which allopathy is not, is about preventing disease in the first place, because the primary interest is in promoting Health, not disease. Allopathic medical practitioners are lost without something to treat. The concept of prevention is beyond their realm of understanding.

Allopathic care depends completely on identifying an enemy so they can fight it with a "cure." And all maladies have to have names so they can look them up in their catalogs of drugs.

That's why I call today's medical care a "catalog practice." If it's not in the catalog, they don't know what to do.

Just watch the commercials on television. It seems that every few weeks someone comes up with a new "disease" so they can sell a new drug.

Remember, in allopathic medicine, you can't sell a drug for something unless it has a name. This allows it to be cataloged and charged out on insurance billings. And those companies wouldn't pay any attention to a treatment that doesn't have a code number so they can look it up in their own catalog and agree or disagree with a price.

How about "RLS," Restless Leg Syndrome? Or here's a new one: Nonrestorative Sleep. And how about Dead Jaw Syndrome? Or PAD (Peripheral Artery Disease)?

Sure, you may suffer from any of these groupings of symptoms, but to call it a disease is extremely questionable. And to cover it up with a drug is even worse, especially since most of these problems are caused by drugs in the first place.

Amazingly, most people don't even expect their allopathic doctor to fix anything. As long as it has a name, they're happy. I've even heard people say, "Well, at least now we know what it is!" Somehow, this satisfies them.

Alternative Health... It's All Backward!

In my opinion, what is known as "alternative health" today should be mainstream, while traditional allopathic medical care should be relegated to alternative status. In other words, things are backward.

For all the time humans have been on this planet, food was organic (no chemicals, radiation or genetic modification to make them grow bigger or faster to facilitate profits). Plants provided a large part of any "drug" treatment, and of course, pollution was seldom an issue. At least not significantly until the Industrial Age began.

Well, everything changed in the last couple hundred years, with the most drastic and worst changes taking place in the last 100.

Sure, many things are better: discovery of germs so we can deal with that, the "aha" awakening that cleanliness did more for the eradication of certain diseases than any vaccines, pills or potions, and the vast new knowledge of physiology and anatomy, along with the technology that allows better treatment of injuries and birth defects.

Certainly the medical profession has made huge strides in disease classification, identification and description, but it's all off balance. Many of them are virtually clueless about how to prevent or treat disease, naturally or any other way. They are all about covering up symptoms, not addressing causes. They are about sickness, not health.

Alternative Health - Let's Spell The Professions Correctly!

First, there is no such thing as Chiropracty, Chiropractory, Chiropathy, etc. Now, there IS a degree called Dr. of Chiropody, but that's a foot doctor (chiropodist), and because of the confusion, they no longer use that term. (When I graduated from Chiropractic College, my grandmother asked me to cut her toenails. And no, I refused to do it.) This is the kind of thing that explains why we now know Chiropodists as Podiatrists, and Chiropractors have an uphill battle keeping their titles spelled correctly.

We who hold the D.C. (Doctor of Chiropractic) degree are CHIROPRACTORS, and we practice CHIROPRACTIC. That's it. There are no alternative spellings, no other terms used. And no, we are not "CHOIR" Practors, either. (One year, I sent out Christmas cards with a church choir on the front of the card. Inside it said, 'Merry Christmas from your Choir Practor.' I'm sure not everyone got the joke.)

Increasingly, however, our profession does use the term, Chiropractic Physician. Technically, that's not quite right either, but on the other technical hand, it is more correct than the other ridiculous-sounding names.

It's such a simple matter to use a dictionary and is one method I highly recommend when someone needs to use a term they may not be very familiar with... even if they just think they are.

Alternative Health could mean "do it yourself" after all

I want to tell you something that might save your life.
It's something that probably will never happen to you, but this story has some built-in lessons that could apply to other situations as well as the one described.

This will not be a lecture about eating right, losing weight, or getting regular checkups. This is about doing your homework. You see, most people are under a spell, created by all those authority figures in our lives who have led us to believe that there are smarter and better educated people around us who will always be there to take care of us if something goes wrong. All we have to do is call on the right one.

But it's a huge myth... a very dangerous myth.

And the biggest myth of all of them is the one about health. The largest percentage of our population has been thoroughly brainwashed to believe that the final answer to all things health-related can be solved or handled only by the medical profession.

But contrary to this popular myth, doctors are NOT gods. Get over that right now or you could easily become their next victim.

OK, here's what's happening... right now... as I write this: Someone I know very well has been exposed to the rabies virus.

We are both heavily involved in the animal care field and see animals in various stages of health, and often, in a state of disease. We are exposed to many risks, so it's just a matter time for the law of averages to catch up with us on something dangerous.

Dealing with unwanted, abandoned, abused, wild or otherwise compromised animals that will never make good pets leads us to have to make decisions, for the protection of the humans involved, or for the animals' own relief in some cases. This means some of them will be euthanized, and handling them during this time can be risky.

Exposure to rabies is one such problem. Wild animals, or abandoned pets that have supposedly gone wild, are very vulnerable to contracting this extremely fatal disease.

It affects all mammals (yes, you are a mammal, too), all over the world (except in those few locations that have eradicated it or have never had it).

Now here is where things become problematic. What would you do if your child had been exposed to the virus? Why, you'd go to the doctor or the hospital, right?

Why? Because you believe they will know what to do, right?

Well, try this on: What if they're WRONG? Or don't know what to do? My colleague could become a victim of our faulty health care system and could die. The only thing that has been done correctly so far, is that the animal has been tested and found positive for rabies.

Now that that has been established, the human victim, who I'll call Jane Doe for the sake of anonymity at her request, must undergo the dreaded rabies treatment.

One would think that a hospital would know what that means. One would think that a doctor would know, too. However, if they have only read about it in books during school, they probably won't know what to do in the real world.

Such is the case with Jane Doe at the moment. So far, she has been asked to go pick up the vaccine and bring it in so they can administer it.

She has been given the wrong vaccination schedule, which must be done correctly to get proper, life-saving results.

She had to call the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to get the correct information, which she printed off and took to the hospital to prove to them that they had misinformed her. Did they say thank you? Oh no... they are still angry that she has challenged their superior knowledge and abilities. Typical responses include: "Oh? What medical school did you go to?" and sarcastically, "Are you a doctor?" followed by a lot of heavy sighing and eye-rolling.

In effect they are saying, "What gives you the right to find out what's correct so you can save your own life?"

They finally gave her the first injection, but the second one is a different product and must be given at about the same time, or the first one is useless. The hospital is sorry, but they don't have access to that other product and don't know when it will be available.

The burden has been placed totally and squarely on Jane's own shoulders.

Now, the lesson here is this:

If you want your own scary health emergencies to come out right, you had better know what is going on and how it is correctly treated. If you have only some blind faith in one of those white-coated "gods" in your town, you might not come out alive.

In other words.... do your homework, people! Doctors are NOT gods. Neither are nurses. Wearing white with a stethoscope placed fashionably around the neck does not confer omniscience... or even the most basic competence.

Get over it now, or you could be sorry.

With the wealth of information available on the Internet now, there is NO excuse to remain ignorant. Medical people have always enjoyed intimidating people into submission and acceptance, and until now, that has been relatively easy. Now it's much harder, so expect them to try harder in putting you "in your place."

Bottom line: Do your homework, question anyone who wants to subject you to anything, and don't be afraid to stand up for what's right. Your life may depend on it! Really!

Which Alternative Health Care Method Should You Use?

As we become a more and more global community, we learn of each others' health care philosophies and experiences. And we can only benefit from this sharing of ideas and methodologies.

There is no one particular health care method that solves all problems for all individuals, but rather, a comprehensive approach can be seen to achieve the greatest good by embracing as many protocols as may be necessary for a particular situation or condition.

Medically, the "shoot the attacker" approach to health care is really only a "shoot the messenger" philosophy.

Symptoms are "treated," when using a medical approach. But addressing causes is the only truly effective method that can return a failing body to a state of normalcy, or well-being.

Just What is Alternative Health Care?

According to the dictionary, "alternative" means "choice."

Theoretically, then, alternative health care means we have many methods and fields of practice from which to choose. However, within the mainstream traditional medical community, the philosophy is that "alternative" means unorthodox - or perhaps even quackery.

They forget that they once were considered quacks themselves. Dentistry was performed by barbers, and only midwives delivered babies. Surgeons proudly wore smears of blood on their gowns from the day's line-up of patients, and bathing was considered wasteful and unhealthy.

The medical profession has come a long way since then, and they have accomplished much in the way of effective disease management, surgical technique, and development of a vast documentation of health conditions. Their research has been, and continues to be, unequalled in depth and breadth.

However, it's still primarily one-sided. The official position is that current medical care and thinking are singularly responsible for all health care - or should be. Alternative, or "other" choices for health care are to be avoided, shunned, eliminated if possible, and at the least, discredited as the useless babbling of charlatans and con artists only out for money. (Has anyone checked the latest costs for hospitalization... or drugs.... or office visits lately?)

But we live in the Information Age now, and it's becoming little excuse to claim ignorance of other methods of caring for ourselves, our families, and our friends.

Free Report on Chiropractic

I wrote this report not too long ago and would like to share it with you. It's a brief, but I hope concise, background on how chiropractic started and evolved into what we use today.

I believe chiropractic is the premier form of "alternative health care" and has some of the most amazing benefits to our healthy lifestyles as anything else you can do.

Of course, being healthy has more to to do with a comprehensive approach to life, which can include proper diet, exercise, attitude and many other forms of alternative lifestyle changes. And I will bring many of those up as this column progresses... or as I have time, I should say.

But today, please feel free to download my report on chiropractic. It's called A Brief History and Philosophy of Chiropractic. (Right click to download, left click to open.)