Staying Positive Through Challenging Times

Life can be exhausting, can it not?  Relationships can be challenging, work life can be tumultuous, debt can rise astronomically in a matter of months, the trials and tribulations of parenthood can be overwhelming, etc.  Plus, there is a lot going on in the world right now and a constant stream of information brings other energy-draining issues to the forefront like disease, politics, poverty, and war.  These are trying times. 

Health often takes a backseat to dealing with these various matters.  A culture has been created in our society that has made health more a luxury taken for granted than a necessity that we must strive to achieve.  The two most common reasons to address health among American families are the onset of significant symptoms and New Year’s resolutions, the former very commonly a sign that health has already been lost and the latter a motivation that yields sustainable results just 8% of the time.  These reasons coupled with the adoption of the instant-gratification mindset into our healthcare system exhibit a significant under-appreciation of the work that must be put in to achieve health. 

Maximizing your health potential is all about goal-setting and being proactive.  It is easy to do that when things are good and life has reached one of its calmer stretches, but it is your ability to maintain your healthier habits when times get tougher that defines your overall well-being.  It is said that “stress is the leading cause of disease,” so turmoil should in fact only heighten the importance of working toward a healthy lifestyle, the single most underrated aspect of which is stress management. 

Emotions such as fear, doubt, judgment, and righteousness often promote a demoralized perspective that strips away your vitality and weakens your overall health.  Stress triggers these negative emotions and, like a vice grip on the body, forces you into detrimental long-term patterns similar to a “fight or flight” response in reaction to acute danger.  Imagine you walk outside to take out the trash and a bear is twenty yards away; your body prioritizes the internal organ systems necessary for immediate action like in Star Wars when Han Solo diverts all the power to the Millennium Falcon’s shields amidst attack.  Energy increased to certain systems means that energy must also be depleted from others, so when in stressful situations the body accentuates the function of the heart, lungs, and extremity muscles, it then deemphasizes the digestive and immune systems.  Emotional stressors must consequently be dealt with.

Navigating our respective paths toward wellness when the going gets tough begins with faith that everything is going to work out in the end.  As Napoleon Hill aptly put it when he was studying the common traits of the world’s most successful people in the early 20th century, faith is “the greatest outlet for the expression of initiative, imagination, enthusiasm, self-reliance, and definiteness of purpose.”  People genuinely grounded in faith offer us templates; when they encounter a rough patch, notice how they accept it as an opportunity and move strongly forward to the next phase of their lives. 

Faith is what allows us to see the forest through the trees, maintaining perspective during our journeys that what defeats us is not the challenges themselves but our attitude toward them; it provides a basic framework that we can operate within to give us the best chance to succeed at building ourselves into our best possible versions while life’s challenges abound.  

However, faith is merely the foundation; there is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.  Your attitude is therefore incredibly influential on your life.  Your attitude's role, one might say, is to put your faith into action.  Stress management is made much easier by a fundamentally positive attitude.  The power of positivity has become somewhat cliché, but the reason why it is so important is that it is an agent of reestablishing an emotionally even-keel without which the body remains in the subtle-but-destructive fight or flight response (to stress) and struggles to end the internal chaos thereof.  It is clinically proven that the ability to remain positive through crises yields a far healthier and productive person than a pessimistic counterpart.  Hill once noted that “a positive attitude will naturally attract the good and the beautiful.  A negative attitude will rob you of all that makes life worth living.”  

Genuine positivity allows you to see challenges in more constructive ways and to recognize that we get to choose what kind of energy with which we react to various situations.  Life is 10% what happens and 90% how you respond to it, so if you can react constructively nine out of ten times, then you are going to be an emotionally elastic person quite flexible in your ability to bounce back from assaults on your psyche. 

 “Laughter is the best medicine,” they say, because in the face of adversity it simultaneously favors confidence and zeal while suppressing deprecation and apathy; it is one of the many ways to hit your emotional reset button - a helpful tool in creating positive trains of thought.  A deep, focused breath is an additional way to prevent the onset of a negative thought pattern and coupled with a quiet affirmation that all will be well becomes doubly effective.  A song with a strong (and positive) emotional resonance is another valuable avenue; so too is a picture of a fond memory positioned in a prominent spot in your office or the thought of an upcoming event that you are really excited about.  You can also try counteracting a negative thought with three positive ones, writing them down to get yourself into the habit.

Disingenuous positivity is not helpful in the long-term, so these methods should not be thought of as distractions from problems so much as emotional segues that transition your thought patterns from the potential to dwell to the tendency to advance your day uninhibited by any antagonistic albatross. 

Like a garden, your attitude can either thrive or barely survive; it must be cultivated to be positive and left undeveloped will become negative.  It is much easier to maintain a good attitude if we take the time to gain perspective on our situations.  Finding quiet moments to relax your mind reinforces faith and breeds the wisdom necessary to endure the plethora of exhausting tasks on our mental to-do lists.  It is ever more important to find that time for reflection in an age when it seems that all mediums from television to radio to social media are clobbering us repeatedly with the world’s ills; if someone told you that you were stupid over and over again, you might eventually start to believe it, but if you sit back and think about it, you will remember that you are actually quite smart.  Thinking well makes it easier for you to be well.  Taking time to think better allows you to think well. 

While developing a constructive attitude, keep in mind that each of the five essentials of healthy living – normal function, proper nutrition, structural balance, stress management, and physical activity – are important aspects of regaining or maintaining your health as you go with life’s flow.  We do not have to use chaotic times as excuses to take backward steps toward destructive mental and physical habits.  It is all too easy to concentrate our attention on our problems, but these are the times when it becomes most important to concentrate on the brighter side of life.  Resilience is defined as battling back from adversity to become stronger than before and one of the characteristic traits of resilient people is their positive outlooks on life.  

Thinking good things for as always,

Dr. Chad

The Realities of Health Insurance: Part 2

What role do you think insurance should play in your health goals? 

With costs higher than ever, our collective answer to that question will ultimately help determine the future of healthcare and health insurance. 

A few months ago, in Part 1 of this exploration of modern insurance, health was clearly defined as the condition in which an organism performs its vital operations properly and a simplified process was identified to serve as the basic standard for how to achieve it; in review, health is most readily restored or maintained through the combination of optimal nervous system function, proper nutrition, stress management, regular exercise, and structural balance.

The process of regaining and sustaining health is analogous to car maintenance.  The human body is a well-oiled machine designed to heal itself but, like an automobile, it has foundational requirements.  We are educated at a young age of the importance of car maintenance; we become aware that there are certain items on a list that must be checked off to ensure that our vehicles work as well and last for as long as possible.  Oil changes, tire rotations, fluid level checks, air filter replacements, etc., they are all part of a preventative model established from the time a car is purchased.  We budget for car maintenance accordingly. 

Most of us treat our cars much better than we treat our bodies.  When the check engine light comes on in a car, for example, we know it to be a small warning sign of a potentially bigger problem that may not have yet exhibited significant symptoms.  In healthcare as we know it today, the common protocol for the physical version of the check engine light coming on is to do the equivalent of covering up the light with a piece of electrical tape and pretending it is not there; the underlying problem persists without addressing the early warning sign and eventually manifests as a more substantial issue sooner or later. 

Particularly apt for the current season, the example of the air conditioning unit provides another relevant analogy.  Having it serviced is far more cost effective than waiting for something major to malfunction because it was not maintained.  Like any other machine, it needs maintenance to ensure that it operates at peak efficiency and will otherwise break down; the human body is the same. 

Insurance is designed to act as a failsafe should health requirements not be met and should your body experience the catastrophic results of physical decay; it is also designed to meet the needs brought about by the unforeseeable circumstances that we have no control over such as car accidents.  Treating sickness and disease is not the same thing as becoming (or staying) healthy; neither is crisis management.  The preventative-maintenance model utilized with our automobiles and A/C units is the type of mindset that American healthcare principally lacks and needs to adopt. 

Redefining health and reshaping our understanding of how to become healthy are vitally important to establishing economic equilibrium for healthcare costs.  Right now, there is a huge demand for health, but basic health education and knowledge about those practitioners who can facilitate and guide you toward maximizing your health potential is in comparatively low supply. 

Consider that 99% of the $3.27 trillion total expenditure for healthcare in the United States last year was spent on conventional medical practices (mainly drug therapy and surgical procedures) and on the health insurance designed to cover these treatments.  The unfortunate facts of the matter are that the average American spent over $10,000 on healthcare in 2015, all but 1% of which went toward a methodology that has yielded America as a whole dead last among its peers in the industrialized world, statistically, when it comes to being healthy. 

We are collectively stuck in a vicious cycle.  For several decades, we have demanded health from sources that are primarily tasked with treating symptoms, disease, and trauma.  That alone has kept healthcare spending higher (15% of the average American yearly income) because we have utilized insurance coverage more often to help cover medical fees.  The basic law of health insurance is that the greater the likelihood of using medical services, the more money it will cost to have medical insurance.  Insurance is, therefore, most affordable when fewer claims are being filed for medical services.   

The cycle will not slow down – much less end – until we command it to change.  First and foremost among the changes is our mindset.  Health is a goal, its various aspects in need of evaluation and intention.  Education is very important in changing the way that we think about health; we need to bring greater awareness to the gaping holes in our current system and put programs in place to outline for the general public the pillars of healthy-living.  If we jointly move away from the symptom-based model and toward a preventative model, we will be collectively healthier and be more consistently productive members of society, resulting in less insurance usage and decreases in cost accordingly. 

Coinciding with a more constructive approach to healthcare will be a shift in our way of thinking about who should cover health expenses.  Going back to the opening question, insurance should go back to playing its original role of disaster relief – the role it plays in all other aspects of life.  So, just as maintenance of a car or AC unit is a separate cost from car or home owner’s insurance, it is important to recognize that the associated costs for the education and guidance that health professionals can offer to help you and your family become healthy are understandably separate, in many cases, from your “health” insurance.  In reality, being healthy is the best insurance, its premiums small and its dividends large. 

Sources: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, National Institute of Health

Dr. Chad McIntyre owns and operates the Triad Upper Cervical Clinic in Kernersville.  Specializing in Upper Cervical Care, his practice emphasizes a proactive, goal-oriented approach to health heavily rooted in thorough patient education.

Guest Blogger Series: Why a Physician Became a Shamanic Healer

The Path of Healing

(and why a physician became a shamanic healer)

Healing is usually seen as a curing of an illness or relief of symptoms. But true healing is much more. True healing doesn’t focus only on symptom relief, but on seeking the foundation and source of any underlying imbalance, while moving towards health and wholeness in the largest sense.

                                                                                  

I have spent my life seeking to understand the nature of healing and help people to heal. That journey began with my going to medical school, becoming a physician, and then spending an additional 4 years training as a psychiatrist, followed by 10 years of private psychiatric practice. But I soon realized that despite my intense years of training, I was still limited in how much I could help people heal – and how I myself could heal. So I pursued other more alternative trainings with a passion, one leading to another, including meditation, hypnosis, breathwork, and shamanic work.

The pursuit of the latter led me to explore and learn about ancient ways of healing from traditional native healers in this country, South America, and Africa.  Those years of intense and diverse (and fascinating!) training and experiences changed my world dramatically and gave me a much larger perspective through which I view healing – a perspective that goes well beyond the western medical model. I have learned of the powerful healing wisdom that exists deep within all of us, the amazing creativity that is our essence, and the necessity of attending to the energetic and spiritual dimensions of healing. I have experienced and witnessed deep healing at all levels – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual – of myself and others.

My greatly expanded view of healing led me to leave my practice of psychiatry in 2005 to fully follow a shamanic path that focused on this deeper nature of healing and transformation. I offer this work of deep healing in my practice in Winston-Salem, in individual healing sessions as well as group classes and workshops.

What does this work entail?

So often, the source of our ailments and suffering lie in aspects of ourselves of which we are not conscious – and which are not often appreciated or understood in our western culture. We are complex beings – and the deeper we go within, the more clearly we can see beliefs, patterns, contradictions, and energetic imbalances that are troublesome.  Healing often entails breaking free of old limiting beliefs, patterns, and traumas, while reconnecting with your own deep inner wisdom, passion, and purpose.

In more concrete terms, healing sessions start by talking about what you are seeking help with as I begin to intuitively sense more deeply into your situation. For most sessions, I offer hands-on healing work with the client laying on the healing table. I create a safe space in which we can open to and track energies, emotions, thoughts, or patterns that need attention. The healing may involve grounding work, clearing of energies, reconnecting to parts of self or Source, balancing, opening to guidance, and more.

At other times I may guide a presencing meditation, helping you to listen to and access aspects of your body, psyche, and soul that have been unseen and unheard for too long. Shamanic hypnosis sessions may also do that, as well as connect in with spiritual guidance or with past lives that need healing.

A note regarding the spiritual aspects of my work: Although there is a spiritual component to shamanic work, it is not religious in any way and there is no dogma or set belief system. When I use the term ‘spiritual’, I mean it in the largest sense, regarding our deepest essence and our relationship with all of creation. I always respect and honor a client’s personal beliefs and faith (or non-faith) as we work together. 

People often ask what kinds of issues or illnesses I help people with. If someone feels drawn or called to work with me, it’s good to listen to that even if you’re not sure why.  That said, most often I find myself helping people with trauma, depression, anxiety, and/or fatigue, as well as those who are seeking more meaning and purpose, a deeper spiritual connection, and/or overall increased health, vitality, and passion for life. I also mentor other healers and health care professionals.

I view a path of healing as one that not only helps to heal illness, but also moves us towards more peace, vitality, and deep connection. A path that helps us access deeper levels of wisdom, intuition, meaning and purpose. A path that brings us more balance and allows for more joy and love. A path that opens us to deeper relationships with ourselves, others, and the world around us.

Sandy Phocas is a shamanic practitioner and workshop leader in Winston-Salem NC. She can be found online at www.sandyphocas.com. 

The Law of Life

The Law of Life
 

In science, there is a step-by-step process to information becoming irrefutable.  The first step is the testing of a hypothesis, basically a question in the form of a statement.  For example, Isaac Newton took a rock and said, “If I drop this, it’s going to fall and hit the ground.”  The question of whether or not he was right was answered by repeated testing; from five feet off the ground to ten feet to twenty to forty and so on.  The second step is proving the hypothesis correct enough times that it becomes a theory, which is an established set of ideas.  The Germ Theory, for instance, states that bacteria and viruses are the most prominent root cause of disease; it has been found throughout the last few centuries that certain microorganisms are present inside the bodies of individuals exhibiting certain symptoms, reinforcing the theory conceptually.  The final step is the theory being proven beyond contestation, making it a scientific LAW.  Gravity was the law that came out of Newton’s “what goes up, must come down” hypothesis and theory, for example. 

 

Another scientific law is Attraction; a popular topic for this newsletter and the first topic for the Atlas For Wellness podcast (link to it).  It is indisputable that “like attracts like” – that what you think about, you bring about; that if you think good things, you’re going to get good things.  When it comes to your health and your overall understanding of what it takes to be healthy, a solid grasp of the Law of Attraction is important because stress management – one of the five pillars of health – hinges on your ability to make the Law of Attraction work in your favor.  It’s almost amusing how controversial Attraction has become in some circles given that it is, in fact, a law already proven beyond contestation. 

Healthcare is an arena in which the spotlight shines brightly on the scientific method.  Interestingly, modern medicine has built its dominant empire in the United States basing what it offers the public on theories, not laws.  Such theories state that the cause of disease is germs or deficiencies within the genetic code.  Its popular philosophy to combat disease is known as allopathy - the treatment of disease by means that produce the effects opposite of symptoms.  Such means include medications, shots, electronic stimulators, nerve blocks, ultrasound, laser, manipulations, etc.  The Germ Theory suggests we are too weak to combat foreign invaders; the Genetic Theory suggests we are fundamentally flawed. 

 

Neither of modern medicine’s theories take into account the Law of Life, however.  Put simply, the Law of Life states that the human body can heal itself, that our bodies have the innate potential to overcome microorganic attacks and to adapt to individual genetic deficiencies.  The theories of disease significantly undervalue our innate capacity to heal.  When someone fights off a viral infection without assistance from medication, he/she does so based on nothing more or less than the Law of Life – the human body is smarter than the virus.  When someone supposedly predisposed genetically to Type 2 Diabetes develops it but then overcomes it by reinstating her brainstem’s full neurologic control and eating well, it is a credit to the human body’s ability to adapt when given what it needs based on the Law of Life. 

 

The human body has developed in the same basic way for thousands of years and there are 7 billion people on the planet whose internal operating systems evidence the fluidity of the process.  It is undeniable that the human body is designed to work a certain way (that’s part of the Law of Life). 

  

Remember, we don't consciously control any vitally important thing that happens in our bodies.  Our bodies are a complex electrical network that would astonish New York City's electrical engineers.  The brainstem develops first.  It's our generator; our main fuse; our Houston control.  It powers the body, it directs the remainder of development, and it will ultimately govern the function of every vital organ, muscle, tissue, and cell.  The brain and spinal cord are next in line.  The brain is your body's own, personal super computer that comes readymade with an indescribable amount of intelligence; enough to ensure that 75 trillion cells in your body perform 200,000 chemical reactions every split second for up to a hundred years.  The brainstem and brain work together to direct the flow of information to the organs, muscles, and tissues, using the spinal cord as a highway.  The billions of nerves that extend from the spinal cord are the exits and roadways off of which the information from the brain/stem reaches the organs, muscles, tissues, and cells.  The organs, muscles, and tissues develop at the ends of the nerves.  The organs produce the cells.

 

Digestion, immune response, seeing, hearing, heartbeat, breathing, reproduction, urination, hormone production, and each and every other key function of the body is run by this system that was built without our conscious control and continues to be run without our conscious control.  It's an internal, organized, wildly intelligent system.

 

The Upper Cervical Practitioner’s Corollary to the Law of Life is to remove any obstruction that may reduce the capacity of our innate healing abilities; to ensure that the body's ability to self-regulate and sustain itself is no less than 100% / normal.  Stress management, proper nutrition, and exercise are all essential parts of maximizing our potential as well.  Why not, then, build healthcare around the Law of Life instead of the theories of disease? 

 

Thinking good things for you as always,

Dr. Chad

The Big Idea

The Big Idea

 

 

 

The following was inspired by and often paraphrased from the writings of the founder of Upper Cervical Care as we know it, Dr. BJ Palmer

 

Just think…the power that you wield should you choose to make the most of it…

 

A slip on a snowy sidewalk is a small thing; it happens to millions.  A fall off a bike or a ladder, a trip and a tumble; these are small things that also happen to millions.  The slip, fall, or tumble produces a brainstem subluxation; the brainstem subluxation is a small thing.  The brainstem subluxation produces interference within the hub of the body’s control center and throws off the body’s foundational balance; that is technically a small thing.  That interference decreases the flow of information from the brain and the foundational shift causes the rest of the body to physically compensate; that decreased flowing and structural adaptation is technically a small thing.  That decreased flowing and structural adaptation produces a diseased body and brain far less resilient than it’s inherently capable.  That is a big thing to the individual suffering due to that brainstem subluxation.  Then, amplify that already sick person’s condition by poor nutritional habits, a sedentary lifestyle, and completely inadequate stress management skills. 

 

Multiply that sick person by twenty thousand and you significantly weaken the physical and mental welfare of a city.  Multiply that sick person by ten million and you significantly weaken the physical and mental destiny of a state.  Multiply that sick person by 319 million and you can forecast and prophesize the physical and mental downfall of a country.  So the slip or the fall or the tumble, the brainstem subluxation, the internal interference, the reduced flow of information from the brain, the structural imbalance, the lack of nutritional education, the sedentary and high stress lifestyle, and the disease(s) that follow are big enough to control the thoughts and actions of a nation. 

 

Now comes along a person; any one person is a small thing.  This person gives an upper cervical correction or tells a loved one about how to find a person who gives an upper cervical correction; the correction or the conversation that ultimately leads someone to a person who makes a correction are small things.  The correction removes the brainstem subluxation; that too is a small thing.  The correction of the brainstem subluxation eliminates the interference within the hub of the body’s control center and re-establishes the body’s foundational balance; that is technically a small thing.  The return to normal internal function and structural balance restores health to a person; that is a big thing to that person!  Amplify that well person’s health by better nutritional habits, an active lifestyle, and strong stress management skills.  Multiply that well person by twenty thousand and you step up the physical and mental welfare of a city.  Multiply that well person by ten million and you increase the efficiency of a state.  Multiply that well person by 319 million and you have produced a healthy, wealthy, and highly capable country both for now and in the future.

 

You never know how something you say or do today could affect the lives of millions tomorrow.  The correction of the brainstem subluxation to eliminate the interference within the hub of the body’s control center and to re-establish the body’s structural balance in combination with proper nutrition, the right kind of activity, and sound strategies for stress management to restore health is BIG enough to rebuild the thoughts and actions of the world.  The idea that we can correct the causes of disease is one of the biggest ideas known.  Without it, nations fall; with it, nations rise. 

Atlas for Wellness Podcast #1

 

"The Single Most Underrated Aspect of Healthy Living"

 

Have you ever gotten frustrated with your doctor for telling you that "stress" is the reason why your health is suffering?  It seems like an ellipsis is attached to the end of such statements, does it not?  "You're probably just stressed...."  The words of wisdom that tell you what to do about said stress rarely come.  The thing is, he or she is at least partially right in all likelihood.  Stress wreaks havoc on your health.  The problem is that you go home from being reminded how stressful your life is without any tools to manage it.  That changes today.  Listen in....answers await.

 

Coming in April!

The Realities of Health Insurance, Part 1

The Realities of Health Insurance, Part 1

The more money that we spend, the more thought gets put into the purchase.  For the vast majority, that is a fact of life.  When performing a costs vs. benefits analysis, it is necessary to know the right questions to ask.  Unfortunately, as costs have continued to rise in healthcare, it has become increasingly difficult to know what needs to be evaluated in order to make sound decisions.  It can be very confusing. 

At the heart of the confusion is so-termed “health” insurance.  Years ago, it was purchased by consumers to protect themselves in the event of a crisis requiring hospitalization.  As the modern American mindset toward health changed to fit a philosophy primarily concerned with treating symptoms in as instantly gratifying a manner as possible, what constituted an emergency began to encompass a much larger scope of issues, most of which had not previously necessitated evaluation.  The healthcare industry exploded.  The last resort became one of the first options and the number of unnecessary hospitalizations soared to nearly 10 million per year. 

The primary therapy for nearly every ailment became pharmaceutical; the by-product of expanding the list of reasons to visit doctors is that Americans now consume 80% of all the medication produced in the entire world despite making up just 5% of the world’s population.  This “ready, fire!, aim” mentality that often ignores the cause and context of symptoms has been instigated by direct-to-consumer advertising from pharmaceutical companies.  Since the turn of the century, between $2.5-4.5 billion annually has been spent on prescription drug advertising; six times that amount was paid yearly to promote medications to doctors.  The average 17 year old has seen over 20,000 hours worth of drug commercials.  Everywhere you turn, you are reminded about the various symptoms of the thousands of modern diagnoses.  The insurance industry has jumped in and assumed a lot of the corresponding astronomical spike in cost, but the premiums to afford insurance have skyrocketed accordingly. 

Quality of healthcare has plummeted down as costs have continued trending up.  Despite spending nine times more per household on healthcare today than was spent in 1980 (adjusted for inflation), our health system is one of the worst in the world among industrialized nations. 

Our healthcare system, around which the health insurance system is built, has been operating on shaky ground for several decades.  The term “health” is defined as the condition in which an organism performs its vital functions properly.  Yet, over 90% of our healthcare system is designed to get patients to treat their symptoms with medications that may or may not stop the symptoms, but unquestionably do disrupt vital functions; such is why the drug advertisements are two-thirds full of side effect warnings.  If health is about maximizing function, the primary means by which Americans supposedly achieve health – drug therapy – serves the opposite purpose.  No wonder our health system is in shambles.

In order to lower health insurance costs, progress must be made in fundamentally changing our healthcare system.  For that to happen, the consumers that drive the system need to be empowered to thoroughly appraise the current state of affairs.  One important question to ask is: what role should insurance play?

One of the basic laws of the insurance business is that the greater the likelihood of dire circumstances, the more money it will cost to purchase insurance against it.  Insurance is, therefore, most affordable when fewer claims are being filed due to dire circumstances.  A fundamental problem with modern “health” insurance – more appropriately named “sick” insurance – is that we have collectively lost sight of when it is and when it is not appropriate to use it.  The more we utilize it, the higher the premiums will be; the more the public is educated to visit the doctor for even minor concerns, the more money the public will spend.  The best way, then, to keep your insurance costs to a minimum is to be healthy enough to avoid using it. 

That begs the question: how does one go about becoming healthy?  How does your body, as the definition states, perform its vital functions properly?  First, its central nervous system must be capable of working normally; that means limited to zero interference within your body’s electrical network – the body cannot function properly if its brainstem, brain, or spinal cord has been even subtly injured due to even minor trauma no more than a faulty smart phone is capable of performing 100% of its advertised features.  Second, if the structural foundation is properly balanced, the body can develop normally and sustain itself physically over time, but the opposite is true if the foundation has shifted, making a simple task like exercise far more difficult.  Third, the body needs constructive sources for sustenance; it accepts water, naturally grown fruits and vegetables, and animals farmed without antibiotics or hormones much easier than it does soda, processed meats, and food from crops sprayed with chemicals.  Finally, learning to navigate emotional highs and lows is quite important, for the less stress on the body the better; stability is one of the primary things necessary for functioning properly. 

You may then ask: shouldn’t your insurance cover the above?  Not necessarily, because the reality is that insurance is not designed to support how you go about achieving health; it is most readily accessed by the cumulative effects of not being healthy and/or by catastrophic events.  Tweaks to the insurance system to include within its costs the ability to seek preventative care are inherently flawed because the basic law of insurance is that catastrophes are going to happen (why else would people buy insurance?); preventing calamity breaks that law.  So, it is important to recognize that the associated costs for the education and guidance that health professionals can offer to help you and your family achieve the above and become healthy are understandably separate, in many cases, from your insurance premiums.   

The confusion ends when the understanding begins.  If we cooperatively redefine health, we consequently demand that healthcare changes.  If we inspire healthcare to change, we simultaneously hold insurance companies accountable.  The consumers will have to be the ones that initiate the grassroots process, one person at a time.  With a better grasp of the right questions to ask, sounder decisions can be made, health can increase, and costs can decrease. 

Sources: The Washington Post, The American Thinker, American Medical Association, Sciencebasedmedicine.org, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Chad McIntyre owns and operates the Triad Upper Cervical Clinic in Kernersville.  Specializing in Upper Cervical Care, his practice emphasizes a proactive, goal-oriented approach to health heavily rooted in thorough patient education. 

ESPN Special Focuses on Upper Cervical Care, Jim McMahon's Recovery

The ’85 Bears
Original Air Date: Thursday February 4, 2016 at 9 pm

CHICAGO -- Jim McMahon would leave home and forget how to get back. The last time we saw Jim McMahon on national television it was not a pretty picture. In an episode of HBO’s Real Sports with Bryan Gumbel that aired one year ago he talked about his pain, about how he used excessive amounts of painkillers, about his many surgeries, about his memory loss. The former quarter back admitted he had considered suicide, like teammate Dave Duerson, who shot himself to death in 2011.

Filmmaker Jason Hehir said McMahon’s doctors have determined that the root cause of his problems is in his cervical spine and not so much his brain, the result of repeated concussions. It has completely revolutionized the way people are starting to look at the concussion issue.

Executive producer Vince Vaughn insisted the upper cervical specific chiropractic care McMahon received was “not quackery. We show him in an MRI machine, we show you the scans and the scans don’t lie. It’s how his brain was before and after the treatments. His condition has improved immensely under upper cervical specific chiropractic care.”

The most significant objective proof of upper cervicals results has been demonstrated by Scott Rosa, DC, McMahon’s chiropractor, and Raymond Damadian, MD, inventor of the MRI. Recent research shows a correlation between trauma and Chiari, by hyper flexion type strains of the cord, in which the neck over stretches as it is pulled forward by the weight of the head moving in a chin toward the chest direction, can traction the brainstem and pull it down toward the foramen magnum. On the way down it causes a compression deformation of the larger part of the brainstem in the foramen magnum. The action would be similar, for example, to pushing a cork into the top of a wine bottle. The cork compresses and deforms as it enters the bottle top. As the driving force is released the cork then expands and becomes trapped in the bottle top. If you turn the bottle upside down the wine cannot get past the cork. In the brain, blood and cerebrospinal fluid similarly get trapped.

Jim McMahon, former quarterback for the Chicago Bears, speaks in Stamford, Connecticut on behalf of the Trauma Imaging Foundation. McMahon suffered three diagnosed concussions while in the NFL, but states that looking back, he knows he had many more that went undetected. He has been diagnosed with early dementia. An upright MRI revealed that McMahon had misalignment of C1 & C2 with the base of the skull, pathological cord distortion, aberrant cerebrospinal flow and significant stasis of cerebrospinal fluid pooling in the frontal lobe of his brain. Since the skull is a closed hydraulic system, too much CSF means not enough blood. McMahon says that Dr. Rosa’s TIF research and treatments literally “saved my life.”

He found out about five years ago, when he went for X-rays and an MRI. Doctors told him he had broken his neck at some point, and McMahon believes it happened with the Minnesota Vikings during the 1993 season, when he got sandwiched by two Giants defenders in a playoff game at New York.
Just moments after the first cervical adjustment, McMahon said "it felt like a toilet bowel flushed and all the pain and stress went away". This occurred because the CSF (Cerebrospinal Fluid) flow went from being obstructed to flowing normally, allowing it to remove the neurotoxins and wastes that are a byproduct of brain function. This improved Jim McMahon's dementia symptoms as well his brain fog, migraines and slurred speech.

The pain in the 55-year-old former quarterback's head was so excruciating, the throbbing of every single heartbeat in his ears so persistent, that he mostly sought refuge in the bedroom of his home in Scottsdale, Arizona. It was the only way he could find any sort of relief, and even then -- just lying on his bed with the lights off -- he couldn't completely escape the pain. "It got to the point where I wouldn't get out of bed for weeks at a time," the former Super Bowl-winning quarterback said.

"Let's raise the awareness about this problem,'' he said. "I wish they had figured out what was wrong with me sooner, but at least I got some help. Let's help others out there and let's deal with the problem."

"Medicine will start looking at the brain, spinal cord and spine together. The emphasis is on the together part. Medicine sees a brain injury as something that only exists in the brain, and a neck injury as only something that exists in the neck, but the blood, tissue, and cerebral spinal fluid are all continuous between these two parts of the body. Symptoms of brain trauma can actually be symptoms of neck trauma, and vice versa,” said Guskiewicz. Kevin dedicated his career to discovering and harnessing knowledge about head injuries. Now, he's a highly regarded concussion expert and the recipient of the $500,000 Genius Award.

As a researcher he has made major advances in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of sports-related concussions. Each year, approximately 3.8 million athletes in the United States experience mild traumatic brain injuries, or concussions. Through laboratory and on-the-field research, Guskiewicz has played an important role in raising awareness about the dangers of sports-related brain injuries in both professional and youth athletics. He was among the first to identify the long-term effects of multiple concussions, including cognitive impairment and depression in later life, through large-scale epidemiological studies of retired professional football players. Recognizing the inadequacy of traditional concussion screening tools — most rely solely on an athlete's self-report of symptoms — Guskiewicz demonstrated that postural control, or balance, serves especially well as an objective measure in the evaluation of concussive episodes. His portable and cost-effective Balance Error Scoring System is now widely used by athletic trainers at colleges and secondary schools to diagnose and manage injury more accurately and rapidly. 

His recent work focuses on the cumulative effects of repetitive, sub-threshold brain impacts. Using accelerometers embedded in the helmets of college football and youth hockey players, he and colleagues are investigating the relationship between magnitude and number of head impacts and clinical symptoms of concussion. Taking this research a step further, he is working directly with collegiate football players and coaches to identify dangerous hits in real time and to correct improper tackling techniques associated with sustaining concussions. While engaging clinicians, coaches, parents, and athletes in recognizing the immediate and long-term effects of concussions, Guskiewicz is contributing significantly to state and federal policy discussions concerning development of more stringent return-to-play guidelines and headgear investigations that will improve the safety of athletes of all ages.

“I first discussed the correlations between my Meniere’s research with Kevin and his concussion research fifteen years ago,” Dr. Burcon commented. He encouraged me to stick with it even though mainstream medicine would first dismiss it because it was something new.

You might not have bought a movie ticket for “Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy,” but that is the actual syndrome at the heart of the movie “Concussion.” CTE is a brain disease found in patients with a history of repetitive hits to the head.

“Luckily, upper cervical care can allow people to play contact sports safely,” states Tom Forrest, Blair upper cervical doctor practicing in California. All athletes of every age should get regular checkups by an upper cervical specific doctor, just like going to the dentist.