Wednesday, January 28, 2004

Fix the symptoms or fix the cause

“The body has an ability to fight germs and infections and healing itself,” said Dr. Andrew Weil of Harvard University, a well-known author. “Doctors should be concentrating on prevention and stimulating the body’s natural healing power. Most drugs just prevent disease from expressing itself symptomatically. Symptoms disappear but the disease actually gets worse.”

This has been chiropractic’s main premise since its beginning in 1895. Chiropractic focuses on the cause of disease and breakdown in the body rather the symptoms associated with the disease. However, chiropractic does not cure the disease. Through the chiropractic adjustment, the cause of the disease is eliminated, which allows the body to heal from within.

The human body was designed with an amazing ability to heal itself, as long as there is no interference. The nervous system controls every aspect and function of the body, right down to the way the body heals from injury and breakdown. When interference is present in the nervous system, usually from misalignments of spinal bones (subluxation), the body is unable to function or heal at its highest level. This is the most common way to lose your health. The goal of the chiropractor is to find and remove the subluxations causing the interference to the nerves, thus allowing the body the opportunity to heal and function at its given potential.

When any highly functioning machine has a breakdown, warning signals go off to alert you to the problem. Would you just turn off the alarms on the machine and keep working or would you find the reason why the alarms are going off and fix it? Of course you would fix the problem.

Warning signals of breakdown in the body show up as symptoms. Yet when the alarms are going off in our bodies we are told to take some pills to “turn off” those symptoms. Or worse yet, we ignore those warning signals, hoping that they will just go away. If we only cover up the symptoms, the cause of the problem will continue to get worse. Wouldn’t it be more effective to fix the cause of those warning signs (symptoms) rather than just turning them off? There is no illness or disease in the body that has been caused by a lack of drugs. So why do we think that adding these chemicals to our sick bodies is going to make us well?

Don’t be fooled into thinking that just because we do not have any symptoms that we are healthy. Health is not about how you feel; it is about how your body functions. A nervous system that functions at 100 percent is what makes a healthy body.

Have your spine and nervous system checked by your chiropractor today. You will be glad you did.

— Dr. Ryan Napp

(This information is written for educational purposes and any questions should be discussed with a health care professional. Dr. Ryan Napp is a chiropractor at Napp Chiropractic Center in Fayetteville. For more information call 770-716-5228.)