[Critique Group 1] submission for 11/30/16 meeting - 2580 words

[sitting.duck at springmail.com]

To Illness and Back
2580 words
by C. S. Boyd

Some people regard integrative medicine as medieval sorcery; others shrug it off with no real opinion.  For those who have experienced its merit, it is a welcome alternative to conventional medicine. 

What Happened

up until I was fifteen years old, I had always been very healthy. Occasionally I would have a cold, my glands were swollen one day and I stayed home from school (was fine the next day), had pneumonia when I was 8, and broke my ankle in December of the next year. That was it. As I matured, I had no discomfort and was regular from the start during that monthly time for girls. 

everything changed one fateful fall evening in 1967 when I was kicked by a yearling colt. I collapsed in a crouch trying to catch my breath. After what seemed like an eternity, my lungs began to work again and I drew a breath. I felt strangely like things had been rearranged.

A quick trip to the doctor for X-rays and checkup -- nothing broken thankfully. He gave me a prescription for pain and I went home. 

As you would expect, there was quite a bit of pain as my body reacted to the injury. I went to school the next day but I sat on the bench in gym class for the next several days. After a week I resumed participation in gym class even though I really didn't feel well, but, by then, the teacher was starting to give hints that she thought I was faking, 

In the weeks and months that followed, my life changed. 

Walking normally caused a kind of painful jangling up and down my spine. A metal zipper touching my back caused pain.

I tried to resume my normal activities even though it caused me discomfort and I couldn't shake a feeling that something wasn't right. But, I wasn't "sick". According to the doctors that is.

I participated in gym class very, very, carefully bouncing my body as little as possible so as not to jar my back. When I got new clothes, I made sure there was no metal that could touch my body.

As time went by, I began to experience gastro intestinal discomfort much of the time. 

Maybe a year or so later I was sitting in typing class. I felt ill. My arm itched and I reached to scratch it.

I had big red whelps on my arm.

I went to the school office to call my dad to come get me.

the secretary and a teacher that was there at the time saw my arms and had me show them my back and stomach which were also covered with the red whelps. They diagnosed me as having the measles. 

they said I couldn’t come back to school without a doctor’s note that I was ok.

by the time I got in to see the doctor that afternoon, the whelps were gone and I felt better.

the doctor gave me a note for school stating I was in perfect health, and I went back to school the next day.

by the next summer, I started having something like heart burn, and I had a pain in the area of my right kidney that, according to my mother’s medical encyclopedias, indicated a severe kidney problem. My monthly visitor now came with cramping and all the other miseries most women experience with the event.

As always, after many test, the doctor pronounced me “perfectly healthy”.

I think maybe it was the summer I was seventeen that I turned over in bed and suddenly there was a loud roaring in my ears. It was like when you hold a seashell up to your ear only much louder.

after a while it stopped but would restart every time I moved.

I was terrified. I just knew I was dying and went to the doctor.

the doctors did all kinds of tests, and, you guessed it, I was in perfect health. He would always say this with a big smile.  I guess so, those tests are expensive.

After a while, the roaring came and stayed. I thought I would go crazy, but, in time.  I got used to it.

Next, I became obsessed with things that most people payed no mind. One day when I was sitting in church I felt my shoulder blade move. There was no pain, just felt strange. My left shoulder continued to rotate forward and I developed a small hump. It was impossible for me to "sit up straight".

I guess I was about 19 when I was standing talking to my brother and suddenly there was a movement in my neck followed by severe burning and the feeling that there was a warm fluid running down the back of my neck.

I started having panic attacks.

I was terrified. I felt like something bad had happened. I went to the doctor and was, again, assured I was in perfect health.

by age 21, I was a mess. My stomach burned after every meal. I got to any place a few minutes early so I could scope out where the ladies room was. I hated traveling anywhere with others. It was necessary for me to stop at every town to relieve my bladder. 

sometimes I was constipated and then I would have diarrhea. The doctor said I had a spastic colon. Nothing to be concerned about.

I didn't feel well most of the time and was convinced something was wrong, but test after test always showed I was in perfect health.

A Spoonful of Hope

a friend told me about her gynecologist. He had diagnosed her problem as hypoglycemia. It seemed that his wife had been institutionalized as crazy and after a while, after she went into a coma, they realized she had had hypoglycemia the whole time. 

this was not in his field but he resolved to find as many women suffering from this as possible. He did additional study and learned how to diagnose the problem.

the AMA in their infinite wisdom tried to take away his license to practice.

. I went to him. He did a general exam plus a glucose tolerance test. I tested positive for hypoglycemia.

he put me on a strict diet. The burning stopped and I did feel better. The panic attacks were less frequent and I came to see them as a sign my blood sugar was low. It later turned out this wasn't the answer, but it kept me going when I was at a point when I don't think I could have made it much longer. 

A few years later my brother was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP). I was working for a CPA at the time. We had a blind client that was a chiropractor. He got me in touch with the Commission for the Blind and when he learned about my health problems, he started giving me a complementary adjustment when I picked up their books each month. This helped. I felt I had found the answer. But, stay tuned. There is more to come. 

The doctors tested me and told me I also had RP. I went back to school and changed my profession to something more suitable for my future situation.

this brought me to fort worth.

after the move, I found the diet that had kept me going for years wasn't working anymore. By now, even though continuing to see a chiropractor, my back and shoulder were so out of whack that I could not by clothes off the rack. I found a fine seamstress and had my business suits for work custom made.

my panic attacks returned and I became more obsessed than ever with things most people paid no attention to.

I wish I had written them down somewhere. I don't remember now what they were, but after I found the solution and that symptom went away I understood why my employer sent me to a therapist. I’m lucky they didn't fire me.

If I sat down for more than fifteen minutes, it took me about fifteen minutes to get up and be able to walk. I had severe sciatica down my right leg. X-rays did show some deterioration, but they assured me it wasn't that bad. They would give me prescriptions for the symptoms but still pretty much insisted there was nothing wrong.

by this time when I felt bad I would just look in the mirror, smile real big and say "you're in perfect health." Rather than spend money on more tests.

at work one day for some reason my attention was drawn to my left wrist. There was a small bump under the skin like a small growth on the bone.

I was talking to a doctor at my church the next Sunday and showed him the bump. He glanced at it and said something about sometimes this happens and they could do surgery and saw the little piece off.

I was polite but I thought to myself no way Jose.

The Solution

By now my visits to the chiropractor were not helping. I would feel everything slip back out as soon as I got up off the table. I had mentioned this to him, but he didn't seem to care. I decided to try another chiropractor. If that didn't work I was at my wits end about what to do. I certainly wasn't going to go back to conventional medicine.

The other chiropractor I tried turned out to be one of those "other chiropractors" I had heard other chiropractors talk about with disdain. It turns out there are four or five different techniques practicing under the same license.

The most successful of those techniques, in my opinion, is the Blair (or, hole-in-one) technique of chiropractic. This technique helped me where conventional medicine couldn't figure out what was wrong and regular chiropractors (the kind most people know about) didn't correct the problem.

A Short History Lesson

A very observant chiropractor, B. J. Palmer, realized that all the benefits of chiropractic come from putting and keeping the top vertebra (atlas) in place.

If the atlas is not correctly positioned, the instructions from the brain to the rest of the body are blocked where pressure is being put on the spinal cord.

This is called a subluxation. It is like a water hose being kinked. The water cannot flow beyond the kinked point. Another way to see it is to think of a tree. The tree receives nutrients and water through the bark of the tree. If a section of bark is peeled off, the part of the tree above that area will not be able to receive nutrients and it will die. If you have ever had the root system of a tree damaged, you have probably noticed that the limbs that corresponded to the lost roots will die. It is similar with the body. The organs that receive instructions from the brain via the area that is blocked by pressure, will not receive the correct instructions and will, therefore, not function properly.

B. J. Palmer developed a technique for adjusting it and testing to see that it was holding the correct position.

he used a thermograph test to check for inflammation in the neck area. Inflammation indicates the atlas is not correctly positioned. No inflammation means the adjustment is holding.

Based on the principle of least intervention, if the adjustment is holding, then the doctor does nothing. If not, then an adjustment is made to restore the atlas to its proper position so the nervous system can function properly.

It is amazing, but with the atlas properly positioned and maintained, the spine will correct itself, and the problems that are a result of an improper alignment of the spine will go away.

On My Way

The process was for the doctor to make an adjustment. Then I was allowed to rest for 20 minutes. During that twenty minutes I experienced a number of sensations.

First, my head felt clear or as if a great load had been lifted, 

second, I felt a warm glow over my whole body especially in my hands and feet,

Third, I felt tired and exhausted like a needed to take a nap,

Lastly, I had a feeling of slight hunger.

All these sensations lasted only a few seconds.

within 8 months of my initial adjustment, the bone in my wrist moved back to its correct position, my digestive problems were gone. My obsessions and panic attacks were gone, the roaring in my ears was intermittent and now is gone. 

Trace back is a term used in chiropractic to describe the process of the body moving backward through all the symptoms the person experienced from the time of the injury to the time of the adjustment that started the healing process.

If there was pain getting there, there was pain going back. It was different from the first time, though. This time I had the feeling things were going in the right direction.

After about a month, I had some stomach upset. I fell again and lost my adjustment, but the doctor did an adjustment and got me back on track.

After six months things were pretty much back in place and my back was much stronger. I no longer had to have my suits custom made. That was fortunate, since my seamstress moved to New Jersey with her husband.

I had more energy, I was calmer, I no longer obsessed over pointless things. It was amazing. I don't remember them now, but I couldn’t understand why I thought it was a big deal before. No wonder they sent me to a therapist.

I became more self-aware and focused, and I began sleeping better.

over the years that have followed, I have continued under the care of this specialty chiropractic method. Some of the damage done during the twenty years following the injury and when I found the answer is likely irreversible, but I continue to see improvement. My knees no longer creek and pop. There is still some deterioration in the lumbar area but I no longer experience the severe sciatica. I still have occasional right hip pain but that continues to improve. In short, If you do not have a chiropractic problem, chiropractic will not help. If you DO have a chiropractic problem, nothing else ever will. 

I know that modern medicine has helped many people. If it is something that a pill or surgery will cure, then you have gone to the right place. But, if you have a chiropractic problem, you need a chiropractor that understands why chiropractic works and knows the right thing to do.

I hope my story can help others get the right help.

It is not easy to find a chiropractor that knows and practices this method. Those that practice it have formed the Upper Cervical Chiropractors of America.

You can go to 

BlairChiropractic.com 

there is a tab 

click on "find a doctor" 

type in zip code for the location 

Of course, modern medicine can probably give you a pill to mask the symptoms, and in some cases they can remove the malfunctioning organ. But, what if you could restore the function of that organ and remove the symptoms by simply removing the cause of the problem?

What have you got to lose besides your pain and frustration.

God bless and good health.