Wow, what a crazy past couple of weeks it has been!  Some of our regular readers may have noticed we haven’t updated the blog or sent out a newsletter the past couple of weeks.  For that we are sorry.  It has been just been so crazy the last couple of weeks that I haven’t had the time to put my thoughts to paper.  That’s a good thing though.  In fact those of you who have been in the office may have noticed the exciting things happening here at McKinley Chiro.  Here are a few of those things.

1. Our new electronic records system:  We’ve been talking about it for months but we are finally live!  This system will allow us to provide better care and to make your experience at McKinley Chiro even better!
2. The huge amounts of people that are taking their health into their own hands! August saw more people than ever walk through our door, and that means more people in our community taking the necessary steps towards wellness.  We couldn’t do it without all of you helping us to spread our message to Chicago!
3. Chiropractic SuperConference! We are very fortunate to belong to a select group of the top chiropractic and wellness clinics from across the nation.  Our national conference is next week in Orlando.  Dr. A and Sarah will be their starting Wednesday and Dr. M will join us on Friday (the office will be closed that day).  This is our opportunity to bring back to you the latest and best in chiropractic and wellness techniques to better serve you!

Thank you everyone for your patience in this exciting time at McKinley Chiropractic.  We appreciate the support and patronage you have given us and are truly blessed to be living and experiencing the chiropractic wellness lifestyle!

I don’t want to leave you without some great health info so I want to share with you a note I received from one of our mentors, Dr. Dennis Perman.  If this doesn’t illustrate the need to discuss health and wellness with your friends and family, nothing will.  Enjoy!

Dear Doctor

The American Thoracic Society studied 323,000 thirteen and fourteen year olds in fifty countries, concluding that those using Tylenol once a month for a year were more than twice as likely to suffer from asthma, with a 43% increase in those taking it even once in the prior year.

What? Taking this over-the-counter medicine once in the last year caused a 43% increase in the likelihood of suffering from asthma? In a huge study of 323,000 kids worldwide? Are you serious? How could any parents give this drug to their children in good faith, when 43% of the time it increases the chance of asthma? Am I missing something here?

Bizarrely, the researchers said that acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, is still recommended for these kids, since ibuprofen products have already been shown to increase asthma, and aspirin is also contraindicated, which leaves Tylenol, in spite of these startling findings.

It is clear that such misguided pseudo-science is harmful, and we are only now starting to discover how harmful. The hypnosis is so deep that the option of not using a medication is distant on the horizon, except for the radical fringe. It would be bad business, not to mention hard to sell at this point, to just avoid giving children medicines of any kind except when absolutely necessary. In fact, the incidence of child-drugging does vary greatly between international cultures, with only 2% of teens in Taiwan taking Tylenol regularly, 23% in Canada, 42% in the U.S. and 68% in Nigeria.

It should be obvious that the bigger problem is not Tylenol or any drug in and of itself, but rather the pandemic compulsion for and dependency on drugs. Sadly, this ultimately cannot work, as the chemistry of the body is far too complex and interconnected to forgive such inexact reductionist tampering. Everything affects everything, different in different people, and without a philosophy of health, where proactive wellness habits are developed so we can properly evaluate who really needs medications and who does not, we’ll just continue on down this slippery slope toward self-annihilation.

Sorry if I seem negative and melodramatic, but this travesty has reached crisis proportions. Unless we find a way to change direction, eventually such outside-in reasoning will take over every aspect of our lives, to make us thinner, calmer, smarter, stronger, more energized, and help us in bed. The lure is great, but the real answer is to inspire better lifestyle choices, and to find ecological, organic means to address our challenges whenever possible. Anything less is little more than slow suicide.

We chiropractors have our work cut out for us, and it will be no easy task, but the alternative is much worse. Consider your position on this vital issue, and decide to make a bold stand to support this cause. Tell those in your sphere of influence the truth about things natural, and persist until they listen and respond. Someone’s teenager is counting on you to do so.

Dr. Dennis Perman