April 7, 2006 - CAMP Doc

LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth

CAMP Doc

It wasn't long after beginning practice that I realized that the things that bring people to our offices are not linear. People don't come with problems wrapped in pretty boxes with answers that are for sure. If the answer were obvious, who would need a Doctor? Quickly it becomes necessary to develop an understanding of those processes that can create mischief in a person's body. A presentation begins to look more like a stalking horse for a whole web of processes underlying it and often they have gone wild as a result of the downstream effects of many things over time. While understanding the details is sometimes complex, the questions often become quite simple. Why have they fallen apart? What are the underlying mechanisms? What can be altered so as to begin reversing the physical unraveling we see before us?

There is tissue to be salvaged, damage to be minimized, function and life experience to be enhanced. When things have progressed too far the focus becomes managing what remains, nudging things so that they may last as long as possible, slowing down progression that may interfere with enjoying life. What appears to be a sprint can sometimes become a marathon but when everything is right, people get their working bodies back and move on again with life.

Even so, there is often a cost that goes along with dealing with illness and injury that goes beyond money. It can be in dealing with residuals, in feeling "better" but not quite like before, in changed relationships or sense of self, maybe just in temporary physical pain or loss of time spent healing. The value of that which is lost becomes strikingly apparent and it's almost a clich to say that health would be on most peoples Top Ten List of most valuable possessions. As true as that may be, it is also true that the U.S. Center for Disease Control recently listed the top "actual causes of death" in America as poor diet, physical inactivity, and tobacco and alcohol use, all largely lifestyle and behavioral aspects leading to death. Limiting alcohol and tobacco use, doing exercise as basic as walking, and eating fresh fruits and vegetables can do a lot. These do not sound like hard rules for many of us to live by and in many ways they are panaceas, golden elixirs, if such things exist.

Taking care of things before they have a chance to develop can save a ton of heartache later, as can making those choices that we can to shade things toward giving our bodies and ourselves a chance. Virtually all of our choices influence our biochemical and genetic possibilities in ways that support health or create trouble for us. When the choices lead to trouble it is not so easy to undo what has already been done. The Genie does not go easily back into the bottle. Deciding to make choices in our own best interests, or deciding not to chose at all, will influence our health and how we experience life today and in the future.

Luckily for those who are interested it is next to impossible to explore pathways to health and wellness without running into studies about inflammation, exercise, and nutrition as they relate to health, aging, pain control, and disease prevention. There are piles of information about protecting our nervous and energy production systems, maintaining a brain that works when we need it to, helping our bodies deal effectively with daily exposure to toxins, building reserves in systems basic to our health, recovering from neuromuscular injury, and influencing the expression of our own genetic potentials. In future articles I'll attempt to distil what I find in the literature down to the How Much, How Often, and How Come of Health Care and funnel it into usable concepts to choose from.

While it is obviously true that no one lives forever, it is not destiny that we rush headlong toward loosing the ability to do the things that make life worth living. As we make our choices, it is the course of life between now and then that is at stake.

Dr. Ray Pursell practices at Gentle Chiropractic in the Body Mind Center for Massage and Bodywork on Baltimore Avenue in Rehoboth Beach. He is a Diplomat of the American Chiropractic Neurology Board and holds certifications in both spinal and extremity care. He can be reached at RayPursellDC@cs.com or by phone at 302-542-4468.

LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 16, No. 3 April 7, 2006