Health Care, or Medical Care? Words Matter.

In light of the results from June 2014's performance analysis by the Commonwealth Fund, it must be made clear that the U.S.'s "health care system" is no health care system at all: it's a MEDICAL system, and "health" and "medical" are not synonymous, no matter how often they are used interchangeably by every day people, television, or government departments.  While there are other issues that contribute to the U.S.'s terrible health, when we truly understand this problem of semantics, we can better understand why the United States "health care system" ranked dead last (again) in comparison with eleven other countries, despite "it" being the most expensive in the world.

Until this concept is addressed (perhaps only possible when huge numbers of people voice the truth so loud that our government no longer itself uses the terms equivalently, and also no longer allows "Medicine" the monopolized "right" to talk about itself as "Health care") and the "system" is actually called what it is ("Illness care", or better yet "the big U.S. mandatory, government-subsidized business network that answers just about every call for help with expensive tests that usually are not necessary, drugs, and/or surgeries, along with little to no patient education), we ALL MUST focus more than ever on personal responsibility, self-care, our own research, and possibly doing things we may have never done before.

YES, that means you may well have to pay for a service entirely out of your own pocket. It may involve you doing things your medical doctor never suggested to you, things your medical doctor told you "wouldn't help", or better yet (this is where it gets juicy, and controversial), maybe doing things your medical doctor explicitly told you NOT to do.

Consider the people who found yoga eliminated their back pain, but their MDs never told them to do yoga. Consider the people who found relief from allergies by doing a fast with an alternative practitioner, but the MD said "that won't work, don't bother." Consider the patients who suffered from debilitating migraines, and had also been told by their MDs that their x-rays or MRIs are "so bad" that these patients "should never see a chiropractor because a chiropractor would hurt them more"...but some of those same patients felt real health answers could lie somewhere else, tried chiropractic, are alive and well, and no longer have migraines?

Would these things happen if they relied on, and waited for a cue from, our "Health Care system"?

Own yourself. Live YOUR life, take chances, and strive for quality. That's the best health advice you could ever get, and it did NOT come from someone in the Medical field.

(Illustration by Sally Thurer)

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Air Force man shocked by gentle chiropractic: preventative health AND pain reduction?

Hi all,

I'm an E6, originally from San Bernardino, but currently stationed here in Northern Cali.  I've been in the Air Force for 17 years.  I'm single, with no kids, and my hobbies include fitness training and making music.  Someday, I hope to own my own business.

Before meeting Dr. Sheena and being under her care, I noticed for a long time that my upper body felt heavy, and that one side of my body felt much weaker than the other.  I noticed the one-sidedness even as a teenager, and over the years, I felt like the other side was strained because it was like it had to do the work for both sides.

My role in the military requires that I do periodic fitness tests, and I have to achieve to certain standards during these qualifying tests.  One involves running, and I have usually not looked forward to that part because when I finish running (giving it my all), I have horrible low back pain for sometime afterwards.

After being a patient now, I feel noticeably balanced, even when I am walking.  I am stronger, and I have a better sense of well-being.  My fitness test came up only after a few weeks of care in her office, and I hardly prepared this time at all.  Even Dr. Sheena was amazed when I told her that I had no back pain after the run, and that I shaved 20 seconds off of my running time!

The effects from the positive care I have been receiving have made me more aware of myself and the importance of my health.  I had heard about chiropractic care but I thought it was only to treat problems.  I know now (and I mean I can actually feel it in my body), it promotes wellness and is also a preventative type of care/medicine.

-Mr. K.W.
age 36

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Do you need healing, or curing? The answer may surprise you.

Put simply, the answer is “it depends on your belief system.”  Think that you don’t have a belief system?  Incorrect.  Everyone has a belief system.

A belief system, otherwise known as a “philosophy”, may be obvious to the person, or rest quietly in the subconscious.  It can be detailed and have lots of parts, or it can be simple.  In most cases, there are at least a few bits of a person’s practical philosophy that end up being paradoxical, and require that same person to reexamine concepts they once were so sure were true, but just may not be.  No matter how complex, intricate or even shallow a person’s belief system, you can be positive of one thing:  it guides every single choice that person makes, and guides also his or her interpretation of all events and situations in life.

Now, back to the question of “healing” or “curing” . . . What does philosophy have to do with health care?  Let me ask you this:  is the universe and world you live in defective and chaotic, or is it perfect and ordered?  If you answered “defective and chaotic”, you’ll be seeking “a cure” constantly.  If you answered “perfect and ordered”, you will be looking forward to constant evolution.

Do you think a whole is merely the sum of its parts, or do you think the whole is greater than the sum of the parts?  Do you know enough about embryology, endocrinology, physiology, neurology…to state what the difference is between a living being and a corpse?

The answer to that question, you see, doesn’t lie in the study of the fine details of the signaling molecules seen in the process of somite differentiation, or the renin-angiotensin cascade pathway.  The answer is simple, and is no less an answer simply because “modern medicine” cannot bottle it, test it, or recreate it.  The answer is:  vital force.

“Vital force”, “vital energy”, or “life force, “Innate Intelligence”, “Prana”, or “Chi” is NOT a new concept.  To the contrary, it is an ancient concept that reigned for most of human history, until the age of microscopes.  At that point, men became so fixated on the tiny details they then forgot the grandness of the living being, and the "big picture".  For the most part, when Western scientists discovered germs, it was decided in the doctorly community that the key to health was identifying enemies and destroying them (today we can add in “cancer” and “symptoms” to the medical field’s enemy list), instead of strengthening the fortress and the members of the “society” within (the body, its systems, its cells, etc).

You either recognize that there is a vital energy in living things, or you don’t see it.  Likely, you do honor it, but how much weight or meaning you give to that vital energy will vary in proportions relative to other components of your philosophy.  May this tidbit of writing be a call to reexamine how much weight or meaning you’d like to give that vital force in your life from here on out.  Additionally, if you do not “see” a vital force residing in living things, my guess is that you lead a less-than -fulfilling life.  This has nothing to do with Religion, or a personal “God”, I’d like to add:  it is simply a natural truth that you can live with and use to your benefit, or struggle without.

The whole reason I decided to write this article involves the following quote from a colleague.  It struck me as better than anything I could have tried to come up with to explain this fundamental health issue in our modern society.

He says there is a “healing model” philosophy, and a “curing model” philosophy, and each represents a distinct world view:

“The curing model emerges from a Newtonian perspective, which views everything in the world as separate and distinct from everything else.  Here, disease is seen as an isolated event, which must be controlled or eliminated before it causes further damage.  The presence or absence of the symptom is the indication of whether someone has been cured.

The healing model comes from an understanding of quantum physics and unified field theory, which views all of creation as emerging from the same source.  Here, everything is interconnected and affects everything else.  Healing is a process of reintegrating body, mind and spirit.  The measure of whether someone is healing is ‘are you finding more out about yourself?'”

So, YOU get to choose how you want your health care to play out.  YOU get to choose if you need “cured”, or if you need to “heal”.  Principled chiropractic is founded on the healing model.  If you want help on your healing journey, give me a call.  If you want a cure…please call someone else.

Special thanks to Dr. Charles Berrington, DC for this incredible, insightful quote, and thank you Discover Wellness, Inc. and Dr. S.A. Hoffman for sharing this information with the dedicated chiropractic community. 

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Spondylosis, hip pain, sluggish, tired, puffy...these are the things she USED TO talk about!

"My name is Ms. E.D., I am 43 years old, and I am originally from Okinawa, Japan.

I was coping with lower back pain for several years when a doctor told me that I have lumbar spondylosis.  For the most part I would feel O.K., however my job requires a lot of lifting and standing for long periods of time and that would often aggravate my back.  I'm also over-weight, and I have been told that is also stressful for my lumbar spondylosis.

Before I started care with Dr. Sheena, I had low back soreness, shoulder pain, right hip pain and a stiff neck.  I also had a lot of puffiness in my face, and I felt so sluggish and tired.  A friend kept telling me about Dr. Sheena, so I gave her chiropractic care a try.  After being accepted as a patient, I feel great!

My low back soreness has decreased considerably and my neck and shoulder pain has gone away.  I am amazed that my right hip pain is completely gone, too--I now know that my hip hurt because of imbalances in my spine.  Dr. Sheena also specially-designed a cleansing fast just for me because she said my brain and metabolism were chemically and hormonally "confused", and that my organs needed to heal from eating things that had been damaging them.  With the fast I was put on, I learned a lot about my body--more awareness about what food my body accepted and what food it rejected.  My fatigue has gone away after the fast.

What surprised me the most is that I don't have the urge that I "have" to go to the chiropractor weekly because I don't have that urgent discomfort that had me counting the days 'til my next appointment, where I would only have temporary relief, like I had when I was with other chiropractors.  I used to "have" to get adjustments weekly just to get relief...for over two years!!  Not anymore!!!"

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Debilitating migraines, vertigo, nausea...a thing of the past thanks to gentle chiropractic!

I am a 41 year old female and have been an emergency department nurse for the past 13 years. Prior to my nursing career I was a professional athlete for many years, so Dr. Sheena definitely had her work cut out for her when she accepted me as a patient. 

Before starting my chiropractic care with Dr. Sheena I had daily headaches, vertigo, and constant nausea. I also suffered from frequent debilitating migraines. A few months after starting my care, my vertigo and nausea were gone, as well as my dull baseline headache.  Also I am pleased to say the number of migraines I now get has greatly reduced. What surprised me most was how clear headed I now feel. I no longer live each day in a daily fog of pain.

-Ms. M.S.
Fairfield, CA

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A little baby, and a little chiropractic adjustment....

"I wanted to call you last night, I was in tears..." a mother told me over the phone this morning, "but I was afraid it was too late to call you." You see, she and her husband brought their 3-and-a-1/2 month old son into my office late yesterday afternoon. They told me how he had been suffering with acid reflux most of his short life, throwing up after every meal, snoring every night loudly and now he had an ear infection they were treating with antibiotics. They also told me that after 3 other kids, they noticed that he was exceptionally stiff in his movements, that he seemed to tilt his head a certain way all the time, that he has been generally miserable since he entered the world. "He hates to be held," they said sadly.

I listened, then moved on to the chiropractic exam. I found that the first neck bone in the baby's spine was misaligned and putting pressure on his nervous system. I told the parents what I had found, and asked if I could make a simple, gentle adjustment so that his brain and body communication could be more balanced. Of course, they said yes.  Immediately after just the tiniest adjustment, the baby's eyes lit-up and he looked into my face with the biggest grin and giggles, then went on to kick his arms and legs and "talk" to us all, very animated, very alive and very happy. "He is definitely moving more, and 'talking' more than ever right now!" the parents told me after that one chiropractic adjustment.

Mom told me this morning, "he let me carry him in our body wrap carrier for the first time since he was born, all of last evening as we shopped, and he slept the whole time. Also, he didn't snore last night."

You see, chiropractic isn't just for old working people with arthritis. Yes, it can help them, but chiropractic is for anyone with a brain and a spine, because chiropractic is about unlocking the body's natural vitality. It's about every person, every child, being at their best.

If you want to be at your best, or you want your child to be at his or her best, give me a call. An appointment is just a call away.

-Dr. Sheena

Call Dr. Sheena today (208) 557-3640

"You turned my world upside-down," he told Dr. Sheena. "Nothing will be the same again!"

I am a 41-year-old healthcare worker who has spent more than half of my life in the healthcare field helping take care of patients with a multitude of health problems.  I have seen how medications work and many of their side effects.  I myself  have seen and been treated by medical doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, urologists, emergency room physicians, hypnotists, massage therapists, surgeons, vascular doctors,  physical therapists, acupuncturists, chiropractors, and even a few personal trainers.. etc...I have been in 4­-5 car accidents with the typical pulled muscles, sore back or neck and even some fractured ribs as well as a broken clavicle.  I have suffered from depression, insomnia, anxiety, blood clots, hypogonadism, irritable bowel, and gastric reflux to name a few ailments.

Most recently I had been suffering from severe pain and muscle spasm in my neck and involving my right arm.  I had already missed 3 weeks of work, and was beginning to feel helpless.  I had an xray showing severe degeneration and malformation of my C4-C6 vertebrae.  Not only were the muscles spasming but the nerve involvement from my neck left me immobile at times and in severe shooting/stabbing/tingling pain in my right shoulder/forearm and fingers.  Temporarily relief would come from laying in traction to elongate my spine and from using all sorts of things like ice, heat, tylenol, ibuprofen, muscle relaxers, toradol injections, and lidocaine injections into the muscles to release the pressure.  This started on Jan 11 2014, became worse on the 16th and by the 19th I knew something was terribly wrong.

I knew where back and neck pain led, and I knew about spinal fusions and operations on the spine and where cervical spine injuries could lead me.  I feared the worse and after 3 weeks of being treated by my amazingly positive and encouraging physician;  I was on a waitlist to get into see a physical therapist with the earliest appointment Feb 25th which was almost another 3 weeks away!  I had a friend who was helping me around the house and he could see the pain and discomfort.  He called upon one of his friends to help me--a massage therapist from Sonoma, named Joshua Morello, CMT (jm.massage@comcast.net ).  This is was the beginning of relief for me.

Josh is hands down the best massage therapist I have ever had work on me.  He came to my home with his table and I had a 2 hour massage.  He found places and knots that I had struggled getting therapist to understand or acknowledge.  He previously worked at a Chiropractic office before going into massage and he told me I really needed to be seen by a chiropractor due to his findings and my symptoms.  He gave me great tips on how to deal with some of the pain and the spasm, and I began my search for a local Chiropractor.

Having had been to a Chiropractor before, and not really looking forward to having someone hold my head, tell me to relax, and then SNAP (paralyzed for the rest of my life or dead!!--ok that is a little extreme, but it was what I was thinking--); I wanted to research this very closely before continuing.  Then, I came across Dr. Sheena Boyd, BA, DC in Vacaville, CA and her website www.kindgentlechiropractic.com.  Once I read “Feel the results, not the adjustments”, I had made my decision.  She saw me the next day and assessed my situation, evaluated my spine as well as my lifestyle and medical history and told me she would put together a plan for me and let me know if she could help me or not.  That was on a Thursday, and I was to return the next day to discuss my treatment plan if she could help.  I left in pain, but hopeful and anxious to see her again.

        The next day changed my life possibly forever.  When Dr. Sheena saw me on Friday, I came in holding my arm in an outward rotated position to try to relieve the spasm and numbness, my neck hurt to try to lay flat, and I could barely get comfortable.  After she assessed the situation she did the adjustments on my neck, back and spine without snapping!  I stood up from the table, and reached for my arm in anticipation of the pain;  the pain was gone.  The rush of emotion was overwhelming and I cried; right there in her office a 41 year old man cried.  I had felt so helpless and desperate and now hopeful and encouraged.  I had found the treatment for me.

          I know that the medical field frowns down on Chiropractic care, and I know the struggles this field has had to fight (check out the documentary “Doctored”).  I realize that it may not be for everyone, but I returned back to work 2 weeks later.  I am sleeping, I am the happiest I have ever been, and I feel a new excitement for life that I have not had in a very long time.  All of this, without medication!!  I know that there is still much more work to be done, and I'm not to expecting to be normal overnight;  but continued work with Dr. Sheena, Joshua, and letting my body naturally heal itself is the path I have chosen for me.

        And by the way, Dr Sheena uses an Activator for my adjustments and I no longer fear the“snap, crackle, pop” of my neck.

Thank you Dr. Sheena and Joshua

-Mr. JK

Vacaville, CA

Call Dr. Sheena today (208) 557-3640