This past January when I was discussing various topics with my doctor, instead of asking again if I would agree to a Colonoscopy she said to the note taking nurse/assistant working the computer, "You see she's interested in alternative treatments, bio-identical hormones.  We've asked several years in a row for the Colonoscopy, she is most likely not going to get one." The doctor turned to me with eye to eye contact and said "Are you?"  I said, "No."  

Then she provided an explanation for the repetitive badgering about Colonoscopies that their medical practice receives extra money if a certain threshold quota of patients receiving Colonoscopies is reached. 

OK well, some say it's preventative medicine.  Some say the best way to retain health is to eat right, exercise, manage stress and stay out of the doctor's office.

Either way HERE is a great article "When to Say No to Your Doctor" to file away for the next time you are asked by your doctor to take a drug or get surgery etc to take this into account.  

One excerpt:
"The United States spends roughly twice as much per capita as most of the nations of Western Europe, whose citizens on average outlive us by a couple of years. Our own national Institute of Medicine says we waste $210 billion annually on treatments of no or marginal benefit. In a study last year, researchers from the Mayo Clinic went through 10 years of the New England Journal of Medicine, from 2001 through 2010. Of the established tests and procedures reevaluated in studies in the journal, 40 percent were found to be worthless."

"In the U.S., we don't stress preventing disease," Brawley says. "We stress finding disease early and treating it, which is a shame."
Make no mistake: A good doctor is, or should be, your most trusted resource if you're sick. If you're not sick and he wants to treat you anyway, that doesn't necessarily make him a bad doctor. But it does make him a player in a system that operates according to the unspoken and often unexamined assumption that more treatment is better for the patient. It's unquestionably better for the financial health of the stakeholders in the system: the doctors, the pharmaceutical industry, the health-insurance companies, and the hospitals. If you don't know how the game is played, the odds go up that you'll wind up the loser."

This article may be of interest to you as well:
Surgeries You May Be Better Without click HERE

Good posture.  Poor posture.  Debilitatingly painful posture.  
Good to see more and more research (below) confirming the negative impact technology is having on the human body.  

It is FANTASTIC to see more and more research confirming the negative impact technology is having on human POSTURE and human HEALTH.

If you use a "device" meaning a smart phone, iPad or a computer, better look in the mirror or at a photo of yourself and see your POSTURE issues. It could explain the CAUSE of your pain - poor posture.
​
Please observe the picture below, I have drawn in the position the entire SPINE has likely migrated to in red.  The researchers only looked at the cervical spine, the neck.  THEY DID NOT show what total spinal shape changes the rest of the spine has taken on.  

The spine must maintain the original "S" curve to position the head and shoulders in a healthy fully functioning position.  Not only is the neck under 60 lbs of strain holding up the forward head but the entire spine is at risk.  You can NOT stick your head out and hang it over the phone or desk without slouching the REST of the spine AND compromising your pelvic, hip, knee and ankle positions.  The body works as a whole, not separate parts. See this blog post on that topic.
 
The following is an EXCERPT from a Research Study by a Spine Surgeon.  

"Billions of people are using cell phone devices on the planet, essentially in poor posture. The purpose of this study is to assess the forces incrementally seen by the cervical spine as the head is tilted forward, into worsening posture. 
Good posture is defined as ears aligned with the shoulders and the “angel wings,” or the shoulder blades, retracted. In proper alignment, spinal stress is diminished. It is the most efficient position for the spine. Amy Cuddy and associates1-3 showed that high-power posture posers experienced elevations in testosterone, increases in serotonin, decreases in cortisol, and increased feelings of power and tolerance for risk taking.   

Low-power posture posers exhibited the opposite pattern. Poor posture invariably occurs with the head in a tilted forward position and the shoulders drooping for- ward in a rounded position. 

Loss of the natural curve of the cer- vical spine leads to incrementally increased stresses about the cervical spine. These stresses may lead to early wear, tear, degeneration, and possibly surgeries. 

People spend an average of two to four hours a day with their heads tilted over reading and texting on their smart phones and devices.

While it is nearly impossible to avoid the technologies that cause these issues, individuals should make an effort to look at their phones with a neutral spine and to avoid spending hours each day hunched over."

The husband harped on and on about his wife's bad posture.  She was a bit sick of it.  But she was more sick of the burning low leg pain and not being able to put weight on one leg for very long before feeling a grabbing stabbing pain in the hip going down the leg.  She limped into The Posture Clinic.

After two sessions, She said "I am not as bent over. My 'posture problem' is better but my sciatic still needs work."  

Wait, wait, wait.  WHOA. Wait just a second.  

This person referred to her slouching posture as her "posture problem."

She did not put her sciatica into the category of "posture problems."

Posture problems are not limited to the upper body or the spine or just rounded shoulders.  Not at all.  She was saying her posture problem was a slouching upper spine issue but the sciatica is not posture problem. 

SCIATICA IS A POSTURE PROBLEM  
There is no sciatic problem that is not a posture problem.  

When the skeleton is pulled out of position, anywhere in the body, the structure, joints, tendons, nerves LOOSE their freedom to move and function ......freely and completely!

Guess what?  Organs are affected too.  Slouch and you are compressing the 8 inch compartment the organs sit in.  You are also putting the sciatic nerve on a MAJOR stress and stretch.

Sciatica is caused by muscle imbalances that tug bones out of position so when you go to move the bones they now pinch nerves, rub cartilage tendons or jam a bone from partial or complete movement. This impacts other parts.  POSTURE IMBALANCES ANYWHERE IN THE BODY seriously compromise the healthy position and therefore function the skeleton is designed to maintain when stationary and when moving.

Stenosis is a posture problem
Spondylolisthesis, scoliosis are posture problems
Knee pain, ACL, MCL  tears, bone on bone are posture problems
Ankle pain, sprains, strains are posture problems
Foot pain, heel pain, bunions, plantar fasciitis, hammer toes, are posture problems
Hip pain, FAI, Labral tears, Degenerative Hip Dis-ease are posture problems
Shoulder, elbow, wrist, finger pain are posture problems
Back pain, neck pain, herniations, disc issues/bulging discs, stenosis, spondy scoliosis
The list could go on but you get the point.

Unless your joints/parts are smashed or broken the pain you have created is coming from dysfunctional muscles.  

IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO CHIRP "THE BODY IS CONNECTED" THEN .....the next thing that comes out of your mouth is,
​I have bad posture slouchy shoulders and spine but that's not related at all to the pain running down my leg.  

IT IS!!!!   IT IS 100%, 100 MILLION PERCENT RELATED
You don't really believe the body is connected if you have aches, pain, in various body parts and think of them and treat them in isolation to one another.  

Tom Myers, creator/author of Anatomy Trains, makes this point quite well HERE

​This lady understands now that this is a problem that is solvable but it will take some consistency on her part, doing her menu daily until her body learns the new functional movement patterns her hip, leg, upper back and shoulders etc are supposed to make, and the hips, shoulders, legs start doing movements on their own correctly.  

IT IS A WASTE TO THINK THE PROBLEM(S) WILL BE RESOLVED NOW OR SOON.

YOU HAVE TO WORK AT IT.  
​THE PROBLEM WILL BE RESOLVED WHEN YOU REPETITIVELY AND STRATEGICALLY TEACH IT OVER TIME TO BE FUNCTIONAL NOT DYSFUNCTIONAL.  

YOU ARE IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT. YOU CONTROL HOW MUCH BETTER YOU GET AND WHEN.  

STAY CLOSE TO YOUR THERAPIST

STAY IN THE PROCESS AND PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT IS CHANGING SPECIFICALLY AND SHARE THAT WITH YOUR THERAPIST

You are so relieved.  You sigh a BIG sigh of relief.
"Thank God!!!  I know what I have."  
"I know what is wrong-I got a diagnosis."

You have pain, illness, or dysfunction.  After various interventions and attempts to rectify the problem, you got your label.  You and/or your doctor believe that EXPLAINS why you're sick or why your knee/ankle/shoulder/foot/hip/back hurts or why you always have a rash or why you're always hungry or not hungry or thirsty or dizzy or wobbly or have diarrhea!!!

Think again.  Getting diagnosed is ONLY meaningful if you can answer this question: What is the CAUSE of my problem.  

The CAUSE is NOT your DIAGNOSIS.  Arthritis, stenosis, herniations, eczema, Bell's Palsy, tinnitus, heck, diarrhea is not the CAUSE.  Whatever is CAUSING the arthritis, stenosis, herniations, eczema, diarrhea etc is the CAUSE.  Those labels are not the CAUSE. Those labels are symptoms. 

Having your medical or pain problem labeled with a word even a Latin word is not all that useful.    

So you stop there.  You stop right there, satisfied that what you have is that Latin thing, that label, that medical term that you might Google.  

You might say, "now wait a minute, a diagnosis is VERY critical to the treatment."  Not entirely because many times once the diagnosis is decided upon the next step is to open the Merck Manual and choose a drug.

My opinion is....this procedure of being given a medical term, even a Latin term or diagnosis only, could in time potentially be very instrumental in KILLING you!!!!

Yes, true, you could get hit by a bus.  

You could also die a slow horrible death because YOU didn't take responsibility and use common sense to buck the current system EVEN a LITTLE bit.  

ASK WHY you have (fill in the blank with the diagnosis label) and DON'T GIVE IN UNTIL YOU GET THE FULL and COMPLETE ANSWER.

What is THE CAUSE of my Latin word for disease or "itis" on the end of a word or bone rubbing cartilage away or scoliosis or plantar fasciitis, or the torn tendon or continuously herniating disc or my continuously horribly painful or disturbing ....... ANYTHING!!!

If the answer you get is "idiopathic" meaning "we don't know" then you are dealing with a doctor who is too lazy to figure it out.  If the answer you get is "old age" again laziness......RUN, or get the heck out of there.

Better start asking and finding out WHY.  What is the reason this problem developed.  If your doctor says that's a disease called XYZ -there is no cure but you can take these pharmaceutical drugs or get surgery. Perhaps ask, will the drugs reverse this condition and heal the CAUSE?  If it's non-curable then what is the point of the drugs.  Drugs force artificial chemical changes upon your cells, symptoms may disappear temporarily and drugs will cause side effects and may require dose increases over time and may over time cause the problem to worsen.  

Yes the Drug Companies have brainwashed most people who watch tv or read magazines and even doctors.  

Drug companies are interested in ONE thing only:
Finding customers NOT cures.  

Instead of Run for a Cure, how about Run for the CAUSE.

Finding the CAUSE would bankrupt most drug companies, doctors, hospitals and cancer centers.  The American Cancer Association, Breast Cancer Foundations, etc. are not finding the cause, they are finding ways to make the pharmaceutical companies profitable for a long time.  

Click HERE for more info about Cancer.  And HERE to watch June tell how her BREAST CANCER was diet related and how IMPROVING HER DIET GOT RID OF HER BREAST CANCER.

Back to Musculoskeletal problems, If you have pain and the doctor says it's arthritis and prescribes a drug, that drug is going to forcefully decrease inflammation so that you don't feel the pain of arthritis.  Don't be fooled, this has not CURED a thing.  It has masked the pain.  Nothing is cured, it's just temporarily reduced inflammation.  You have just kicked the can down the road, the problem that is what caused the pain is still there and getting worse with every step you take. Plus the drugs are having detrimental effects on organ systems.

If you are open to common sense approaches that surpass conventional thinking, you can find the cause and many times solve the problem.  You have to be determined to save your life or your loved ones.  You also have to be ready, willing and able to work OUTSIDE the Western Medical model AND also not be so naive to think Alternative Medicine operates better. (They too can be just as lazy and not worried about the Cause.)

You must be ready to dig down and dig in and BE OPEN and not assume just because a doctor has a degree (even a degree from a famous school or hospital) that they want to find the cause and aren't threatened by looking at the body and problems differently.  

Once the cause(s) is found, the next step is to find a treatment that corrects the underlying problem(s).  The treatment should be non-invasive (non-surgical, non-pharmaceutical) safe, easily recognizable by the body as "close to home" 
The treatment may require money (not insurance reimbursement), a lot of patience and commitment to stay the course until the body can make the necessary changes to overcome the cause and be able to heal the problem.  This is real healing not putting a band-aid on the problem by cutting out the problem or masking it with drugs.  

YOU ARE NOT BROKEN.  Your body is doing something and wants you to pay attention and get it help to correct it.  Your job is to find smart people who understand the real CAUSES of muscle/joint pain and dysfunction or whatever illness you have and to find the solution.  

YOU OWN AND DRIVE AN AMAZING MIRACULOUS MACHINE CALLED THE HUMAN BODY.  

It has unparalleled capacity to heal but it needs YOU to be smart and not turn responsibility over to someone motivated to keep the money coming in by ILLNESS versus doing whatever it takes to find the path to your HEALTH, REAL HEALTH.  

​NOT FAKE HEALTH or the ILLUSION OF HEALTH in pill form in a bottle.

​You have a CHOICE, you can choose whether you want to kick the can down the road or stop the Merry Go Round now.  
Call us for an insightful consultation.  772-559-1532