I Disagree

by Patrick Flynn

  CHAPTER 3

  What is Health?

  When I look out at a crowd of people, I know they are looking for health. No matter what their job is or how big their house is, they all want health. At my seminars, I ask people to raise their hand if they want to be healthy. They don’t just want health for themselves though. I ask if they want healthy kids, healthy parents and healthy in-laws. They all raise their hands that they want health for everyone they are close to.

  The funny thing is very few people can tell me what “healthy” is. I hear a variety of answers and even a few responses of “I don’t know.” It makes sense. We’ve been taught about fires our whole lives. Fires like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and all the others you see in drug commercials. Everybody wants to be healthy, but we know very little about it. How can you have something, or even want something, if you don’t know what it is? That’s why so many people are sick today.

  Here’s another question I ask people about health: What are three things that make you healthy?

  I already know what they will say. We’ve been conditioned to think specific things make us healthy. Every audience answers the same way:

  Food,

  exercise,

  and sleep.

  These are the answers I hear every time. Just about everyone agrees these three things make you healthy. Unfortunately, it’s yet another reason why people are so sick. These three things have very little to do with making you healthy. You know people who never eat well, never exercise, smoke every day and live to be 100 years old. George Burns lived to be 100 and we all know that he was very open with his cigars and martinis. Then you have people who simply come in contact with second-hand smoke and get cancer. Ladies, you know you hate those women who eat four donuts in the morning, never exercise and are thin. Why are they healthy even though they are eating unhealthy things and not exercising? But are they really healthy, or just thin?

  You may be confused now and thinking food, exercise and sleep aren’t important for you. I didn’t say that. I asked you if that is where health comes from. They are very important to your health, but they aren’t where health comes from. Just like when we talked about the house on fire, is putting the water on the walls good for the walls? We need to start thinking differently. If I hadn’t learned to think differently, my beautiful bride would never have had four beautiful babies.

  Drugs and surgery have done a good job of keeping

  us alive.

  Let me give you an example from my office. I had a nurse practitioner from a local hospital visit me. She thought she had some hormone problems. We went through our normal exam. I took some x-rays and I saw a tumor. You know what I told her to do? I told her to go back to the hospital and check to make sure she wasn’t going to die. Why? Can I rebuild the house if you are dead? No. They took a biopsy and decided since it wasn’t going to grow so they’d just monitor it each year. That was the decision between her and her fire department-type doctor. Let’s say it was cancer and could have killed her. If they pulled it out, did they extend her life? Possibly. Did they make her healthy? No. Within two to five years she would very likely find herself with a new tumor. When you tell people from the “natural” side of healthcare the reason we live so long today is medicine, they tend to freak out. Drugs and surgery have done a good job of keeping us alive. They are doing their job. But we are still sick as dogs because they don’t make us healthy.

  But we are still sick as dogs because they don’t make us healthy.

  I don’t like that definition of health where we are just being kept alive and treating symptoms, so I created one that I think is more accurate. Here’s the definition of health we use at The Wellness Way:

  A condition of wholeness in which all the organs are functioning 100% of the time.

  Let’s go back to the three healthy choices of food, exercise and sleep. Disregarding those conditions, if I cut my finger and my body is functioning well, it will heal. If my body is not functioning well, there are conditions where I could bleed to death. If I cut my finger, do I have to eat a healthy sandwich for it to heal? Do I have to take a nap? Jump on a treadmill? Funny, but do you see the difference? Those choices are good to help rebuild your house, but that is not where health comes from. Health is about function.

  Remember our definition of health? A condition of wholeness in which all the organs are functioning 100% of the time. Our body is designed for homeostasis.

  That’s why people who do unhealthy things are still healthy; because their bodies don’t get out of homeostasis. What’s homeostasis?

  The definition for homeostasis is very familiar in the chiropractic world:

  A self-regulating process by which biological systems tend to maintain stability while adjusting conditions that are optimal for survival. If homeostasis is successful, life continues. If unsuccessful, disaster or death ensues. The stability attained is actually a dynamic equilibrium, in which continuous change occurs yet relatively uniform conditions prevail.

  Your body was built for normal function, and that is the best place for it to be.

  Homeostasis is the scientific word, but all it really means is balance, or normal function. For some of you, this balance is simply between health and disease, but there is more to it. The body has three states: normal function, adaptation, and disease. There is ebb and flow within those states. Your body was built for normal function, and that is the best place for it to be. Oftentimes we spend a lot of time in the adaptation state before moving to the disease state. Nobody worries about the state they are in until they reach the disease state. They don’t worry about it because their body is doing all the work.

  Adaptation is the state between normal function and where symptoms show up. You can be in this state for a long time and not know it unless you’re properly tested. You could wait until you’ve moved into the disease state; that’s when we see those fires. Let’s say your hormones are really high. Your body has left homeostasis and is in the adaptation state. If it stays there a long time, it will go to the disease state. The same happens if your hormones are really low. Your body is in the adaptation state; if it stays there long enough it will go into the disease state. That can be said for any situation that indicates your body has been knocked out of homeostasis.

  The reason why people are so sick today is because we jump back and forth between the states of adaptation and disease, never landing back in normal function. Our entire health care system reflects this. If your M.D. runs a test, they’re going to be testing for disease and treating your symptoms. Your tests look fine until one day you show up and you have cancer. Then they treat your disease with a drug but you stay in dysfunction.

  The only way to stop the cycle between adaptation and disease is to find out what is triggering the body and remove it so the body can return to balance or homeostasis.

  One thing that sets The Wellness Way Approach apart is how we view the body as a collective whole. If you present one symptom, it may be reflective of a health challenge in a seemingly unrelated part of the body. However, we know there are no unrelated organs or systems within the body. Everything is connected like an intricate Swiss watch.

  The Swiss Watch Principle:

  If you take the back off of a Swiss watch, you see a bunch of gears. Some of them are large and some are small. Some move really fast while others move slowly. They all have a specific action they need to do for the time to keep properly. Imagine that the smallest or slowest gear stops working, or it breaks a tooth and doesn’t work correctly. What happens? Well that’s easy, right? It stops working or doesn’t keep time accurately. Even the smallest gear affects how it keeps time. Each and every gear is needed.

  Did you know your big toe controls your heart? Yes, really.

  The body is just like that. It is very complex and composed of many, many parts. Did you know your big toe controls your heart? Yes, really. If I smash your toe what happens to your heart rate? It goes up. Why? Because even that little
gear can affect everything from your heart rate to your cholesterol. That’s why it is important to not look at just one gear. If you have symptoms happening with your heart, they might be coming from one of the other gears. You can’t just treat the heart with medication. It most likely could be a whole different gear that is making that symptom happen, and those medications have side effects.

  Has anyone ever taken a medication for heart issues and later discovered the medication damaged their liver? The human body is like a Swiss watch with many gears all working together in harmony. You cannot treat one system (gear) without affecting them all.

  For example, detoxification is a very important gear; but it is only one gear. There are others, the gear of proper nutrition, the gear of chiropractic care, the gear of proper mental health (such as the proper handling of stress), and the gear of proper hormone function and so on. If you have even one gear not working properly, you cannot be healthy.

  If a person receives regular chiropractic care but eats fast food all the time and handles his/her stress poorly, this person will not be able to achieve true and complete health. Likewise, if a person takes care of proper nutrition and proper detoxification but neglects the gear of proper care of the nervous system, he or she will never achieve complete health. We must have all the gears working together in harmony—this is complete health.

  We address the cause (or causes) of ill health, not just the symptoms.

  To sum up, it’s important to look at each individual as unique. Clinically, we have to look at all the gears as a whole. That’s why the medical or natural approach won’t work. We have to find out what gear is being stressed and how. The gear can be the GI. As we know the GI can affect a lot of things; but so can the liver, the pancreas, the heart and many other gears. We look for which organ is being stressed to see how it could be causing a cascade of problems throughout the body. We look at the whole “watch” not just a part of it. We address the cause (or causes) of ill health, not just the symptoms.

  You just learned about one of the core foundational principals I work from each day. When a patient comes in with depression, they have probably been working with doctors who scanned their brain and couldn’t find a problem. Patients usually come to us after years of going to doctors and not finding the problem. Those doctors did what they could, but they didn’t look at the hormones, the gut, or other systems in the body that could be causing this depression. They were looking at one gear. They needed to look at the whole watch.

  Erin’s Story

  My family started seeing Dr. Patrick at The Wellness Way when two of our three daughters had adverse reactions to childhood vaccines.

  Two years later, I noticed a lump in my breast. I was 32-years-old. The first thing I did was call The Wellness Way. I was able to see Dr. Patrick immediately. To say I was anxious is an understatement, but we found a fantastic community. When you walk in the door, you know you are in good hands. While I was meeting with Dr. Patrick, one of the front desk associates took two of my young daughters, so I could have a focused discussion. The first thing Dr. Patrick did was help me calm down. After an exam, he had me schedule an appointment with my OB/GYN to order a mammogram and ultrasound. He assured me he was confident I would be told the cyst was benign. He said they would watch it over the next several years. Dr. Patrick went on to ask a few more questions. By the time I left that first appointment, I felt much more confident.

  The next appointment with my OB/GYN went as Dr. Patrick predicted. She did a quick breast exam, ordered the mammogram and ultrasound. During that time of waiting for appointments, our family had other visits with Dr. Patrick. Each time he would give me pieces of information to research. He already knew what I was going to face and wanted to prepare me. His confidence calmed me and my husband immeasurably.

  Immediately after the mammogram, I was taken for additional testing. After a few days, I received a phone call. I was told the cyst was benign and they would keep an eye on it. I went back to Dr. Patrick armed with my good news. His answer was simple. I was “safe” for now, but my estrogen levels were abnormally high. I had a choice to make. I could either let things go and in 3-5 years I’d most likely be facing a cancer diagnosis with 3 young daughters and a husband in my mid-thirties. Or, I could work to get healthy now. It was an easy decision. Let’s do this and get healthy! The date was October 17.

  Dr. Patrick laid out the plan for me. I would have a very restricted diet for six months and the first few weeks would be especially intense. At the end of six months, I’d feel like a whole different woman. I was also excited at the prospect of losing the extra 40 pounds I was carrying. I had recently met a young woman about my age at church who had won her battle with breast cancer. I asked her what she knew about estrogen fed cysts and breast cancer. She pointed at her now flat chest and hair freshly grown back and told me she wished she had known more.

  Remember that restricted diet and the date? The very next day was my daughter’s birthday. I chose to give her a healthy momma and not have a piece of cake; and for the daughter who had a birthday two weeks later; and the next daughter, 3 days after the second. I said “no” to unhealthy eating at Thanksgiving, Christmas and all the holiday gatherings; including New Years, Valentine’s Day, my husband’s birthday and our wedding anniversary. Finally, six months later, on my birthday I was able to indulge in a piece of fruit. Dr. Patrick was and is right. Food is emotional. Your health is largely dictated by the eating choices you make.

  I had a lot of questions from family and friends. I didn’t want sympathy. I didn’t need critics. This was an intentional decision to give my children a healthy mother, my husband a healthy wife and to reclaim my health. I cut out all sugar and nearly all my favorite foods. I learned a lesson that would affect many decisions we would make for health in the coming years. I was able to teach my beautiful daughters what has now become a family mantra – “food is fuel, not a friend”. Was it hard? Yes! Was it worth it? Undoubtedly.

  I’ve not been back to the OB/GYN for the last 10 ½ years. Why? The cyst dissolved, and had I followed their advice, I wouldn’t be where I am today. My husband may have been a single father with three young daughters. I didn’t want to play their guess and wait game. There was too much at stake.

  For any woman wondering if taking care of herself and/or her hormones is worth it – absolutely. Look at your children, look at your husband. Get over the “hard” and do the hard and right thing. There’s too much life to live. Choose to live it.

  CHAPTER 4

  Stressors

  Chiropractors deal with stress. This puts them in a unique position to look at health differently. I learned that from the beginning of my adventure to Palmer Chiropractic College. Stress happens. It’s how we deal with it that can make or break our health. I was finishing up my last semester at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay and had sent my transcripts off to Palmer Chiropractic College where I’d be going to school in October. It was June, and there were just days left to final exams. I got a call from the admissions office.

  They said I was missing a class. I said, “I’m not missing any classes. I have them all.”

  They said, “Oh wait, you have an exercise physiology class, but that doesn’t count as a physiology class.”

  I said, “That was a level 300 physiology class and I was told that would be approved. I start there in October! I’m not going to wait another semester to start for a physiology class that I took.” My mind and heart were racing.

  They said, “Listen, we have a community college here that offers that course. You can finish it in six weeks. Then you can start school early.” I had a choice to make either start in July or start in February. I asked when the class started. Monday! I’m a twenty-two-year-old guy in Green Bay, Wisconsin on Tuesday, with exams to finish. Class would start in Iowa on Monday, I didn’t have much money, and I had nowhere to live. What did I do?

  I scrambled. I finished my exams on Friday. I found a room to rent in a hou
se with upper level chiropractic students. My parents and I packed up their pick up and headed to Iowa. I made it down there in time to take the course I needed.

  I went home six weeks later to visit the weekend before I officially started at Palmer Chiropractic College and bad luck struck me again on my way back to Iowa. I was in Illinois, twenty miles from the Iowa border, when my car died. I couldn’t get it started again, so I tried to flag someone down. No one would stop. Finally, this college kid heading to St. Ambrose University in the same town stops. He says he’ll drive me to Ambrose, but I’ll have to find a ride from there. I hopped in. When we got there, it was the middle of the night. There was no ride to be found, so I walked six miles to my new house with all that I could carry. I was stressed about how I was going to tow and fix my car, but I had class in the morning. Moral of the story? Stress is everywhere. We encounter it every day.

  Some people say I’m just a chiropractor, but I’m proud of the potential of chiropractic.

  Some people say I’m just a chiropractor, but I’m proud of the potential of chiropractic. People say chiropractors are just pain doctors. I disagree. I’m proud of what I can do. Chiropractic helps me look at things differently. Through studying chiropractic, I learned what stresses are and how stress impacts the body.

  What damages our health? What knocks our body out of homeostasis? Stress, or what we call the 3-T’s in chiropractic. Traumas, toxins and thoughts damage our health. These are the 3-T’s that chiropractic was meant to address at its foundation. Unfortunately, due to a wide variety of reasons, chiropractic has gotten away from its original directive. This means the value of what chiropractic can do is being overlooked. The 3-T’s are the stresses that disrupt homeostasis. Stress is a stimulus that can produce mental or physiological reactions that may lead to illness. Technically speaking, stress is a disruption to homeostasis which may be triggered by alarming experiences.