Caring: Why Health Care Fails

Caring: Why Health Care Fails

Caring: Why Health Care Fails

There are some remarkable technologies available in our modern health care system. Sadly, these are often unavailable or misused in ways that limit or stop their effectiveness.

Partly this lack of access is from the debacle of our health insurance system. Partly it’s the maze of your primary care doctor linking you up with various specialists, each with their scheduling and plan coverage. Then, there’s the bigger problem of whether this drug or treatment will be effective or damaging.

But perhaps the most important and overriding issue is one you might not realize: caring.

Good communication is a direct result of liking and caring.

I can categorically state that patients will not recover unless they are in excellent communication with their practitioner.

Poor communication means the patient may misunderstand instructions, do the wrong things, or fail to do the right things needed to heal.

Poor communication means that the doctor fails to get the patient’s correct information and makes errors based on that incorrect information.

There’s only one way to be in good communication with a patient: You must care about them and like them! This results in the patient caring and liking the practitioner as well. How well do you communicate with someone you don’t like? Not so good, correct?

Communication before technology

Technology is based on science. It’s observable, provable, and concrete. Communication is based on the interaction between people, which is hard to measure objectively.

Therefore, health care money and attention tend to gravitate to technology, not improving communication.

Good communication is based on actual caring, an activity that gets lost easily in large bureaucracies (think how much caring you’ve experienced at the DMV and IRS?)

Despite this, technology can’t work without excellent prior communication. When this is ignored, we get “the operation was successful, but the patient died.”

Communication is the solution to chronic health conditions

Most chronic health conditions are created or prolonged by lifestyle issues. Diabetes, blood pressure, heart disease, and obesity cause most health problems in the US, and all are lifestyle diseases.

Medicine has focused on technology (drug) solutions to these problems. I’ve asked many doctors why they don’t work harder on lifestyle solutions to chronic conditions. The answer is almost always, “Because people won’t change.”

I beg to differ. I’ve effectively changed the diets and lifestyles of over 10,000 patients, resulting in often dramatic improvements in their health.

A more valid reason why medical doctors have trouble changing their patients’ lifestyles is that the medical system doesn’t care about caring.

A patient may have difficulty making changes to their diet or lifestyle and may need help. The best help a practitioner can give is to be on the patient’s team! This makes the patient feel they have a responsibility to get well and to do their program very well, that their practitioner cares about them and will be excited about their success. In that case, this can overcome many difficulties the patient may be experiencing in making the changes in their life needed for them to heal.

Our sad medical system

Our sad medical system suffers from short visits and overworked doctors who can come off as not caring. They often aren’t in good communication with their patients, a fact that leads to many devastating medical errors.

Often the providers do care. But they’re stuck in a system that values the delivery of products and services while caring little about how and why this happens.

Yes, we need better and affordable health insurance, and we need more access to health care technology. But unless there’s a fundamental shift toward caring for the patient, where the outcome is much more important than the process, we will be stuck with high-cost, low-result, and often deadly health care.

There are many reasons why my treatment programs are so effective

  • I work WITH your body to assist it to heal in the way it is already trying to. I don’t work ON your body like a mechanic.
  • I don’t use any invasive treatments. Everything done is helping your healing process; there are no “side effects.”
  • I provide sufficient help, consistent help, and help over the entire healing period (which is often years).

But, you see, the reason that I do these effective things is that I care!

Caring about the wellbeing and recovery of patients creates effective solutions.

Caring about power, money, and politics creates an entirely different result: our current health care system.


 

 Find Out More Evectics Book Cover

Here is a free booklet with the story of how I developed my techniques and how those techniques work (practical information that shows how your body works and how to start recovering your health for the rest of your life).

 

 

 

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  1. What areas of physical stress in your body are most likely creating your problems?
  2. What could be done to help your body recover from this stress?
  3. What are our recommendations to start you back on the road to health?

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The Problems with “The Pill”

The Problems with “The Pill”

The Problems with “The Pill”

Women are rarely fully informed of the potential problems and health hazards from the birth control pill.  Somehow we think we can take a precisely-running organism like the human body and then insert into it foreign chemicals and other substances, which pharmaceutical labs have explicitly created so that they have a patented product to sell in the marketplace. And then we wonder why the body malfunctions and may develop cancers and other life-threatening conditions as a result. Based on current studies and concern for your health and longevity, you must understand the hormones (birth control pills are hormones) you are being prescribed and how they affect your health and your life.

Preventing Babies

As much as people want babies, they also want to prevent them for myriad reasons.

Birth control has been around for as long as we have been making babies, and its history is quite interesting.  In ancient Egypt, women used a combination of dates, honey, and acacia, and it seems that when fermented, acacia does have a spermicidal effect.

Around 3000 B.C., humans made condoms from fish bladders and animal intestines. Closer to modern times, in 1838, condoms were made from vulcanized rubber.

Birth control has had a very conflicted history.  Religion has long had opinions regarding reproduction and women’s rights that date back into early history.

In March 1873, the United States Congress passed a bill to ban birth control, known as The Comstock Act. Its full name was an “Act of the Suppression of Trade in and Circulation of Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use.” This act prohibited advertisements, information, or distribution of birth control.  It also allowed the post office to confiscate any birth control products it found being sent through the mail.  The ban came about because of anti-vice and temperance groups that considered birth control obscene and worked to outlaw it.  (5)

The Advent of Oral Contraceptives

Oral contraceptives, otherwise known as the birth control pill, were approved by the FDA on June 23, 1960.  The first pill was called Enovid, and millions of women began using it in the first few years of its introduction. It was almost 100% effective at preventing pregnancy and gave women more control over their sexuality and family planning.  The side effects that developed as a result of this new contraceptive, however, were severe.

Barbara Seaman, women’s health advocate, patients’ rights advocate, American author, and co-founder of the National Women’s Health Network in Washington D.C., wrote an important work called The Doctor’s Case Against the Pill.  It was published in 1969 and presented the facts that high estrogen doses posed serious and even fatal health risks to women.  Doctors were not informing women of these risks, including heart attacks, strokes, blood clots, cancer, suicide, and depression.  This book led to Senate hearings in 1970 on the safety of oral contraceptives. The drug companies were required to include printed warnings on all pill packs about birth control risks and clotting disorders because of these hearings. Today, the pill has a much lower dose of estrogen but still comes with its own set of similar risks, still detailed in that printed warning inside every pill prescription pack due to Barbara Seaman’s activism.

How The Pill Works

The combined pill that most women use today contains synthetic estrogen and progesterone that trick your body into thinking it is pregnant.  Mid-cycle, when you would normally ovulate, no egg is released from the ovaries, so pregnancy cannot occur.  The organs that run the menstrual cycle are shut down and do not function as they usually would. When a woman takes the pill, her natural cycle stops.  She has a period because when the artificial hormones stop for a week, and she takes the sugar pill, the uterine lining is shed and her period is often lighter.

Some doctors have recommended women not having cycles at all.  In 2003, pills were released that enabled a woman to go months without her cycle and, on doctor’s recommendation, to have only four menstrual cycles or less a year. Some doctors told patients that no cycles were necessary.  Depo Provera is given by an injection that often stops women’s cycles for three months at a time.  I have seen some extremely negative symptoms and side effects with this injection in some women.

Female Balance and Rhythms

Our bodies ebb and flow with a natural rhythm just as the tides and the moons do.  We live in a world that values convenience over balance, and in doing so, we lose the beauty of our bodies and our cycles.  Being female, having a cycle, being fertile are all things to celebrate!  Taking time from your life to acknowledge this gift can enrich your life as a woman.  The “curse” is really a blessing.

When our cycles are “off” or painful, it is often a sign that our lives or our paths may have veered somewhat from a more balanced existence.  Our diets, exercise levels, and stress may have increased beyond what our bodies can easily handle.  It signifies a time for us to regroup and examine ourselves to see what we can do to bring our lives and bodies back to a healthier state.

In our modern lives and our modern “must have it all” mentality, we can pay the price for ignoring our natural balance and rhythms. Chemically suppressing our bodies’ natural functions can cause many side effects, even death.

The Risks of Hormonal Contraceptives

One of my favorite books to recommend to patients is The Pill: Are you sure it’s for you?  One chapter is titled Dying Not to Get Pregnant.  This chapter details the side effects of the pill we aren’t told and the ones that could cost us our lives.  This same chapter mentions that in 1995 government health ministers went public in Britain about the increased risk of thromboembolism in the third-generation pills.  The incidence of pill use went down in Britain at this point, as did the incidence of deep vein thrombosis.  Women die every year from this side effect and from strokes, heart attacks, and cancers — deaths related to this form of contraception.  We all need to know the risks.

In 2005 the World Health Organization’s cancer research group, The International Agency for Research on Cancer, reclassified the pill from a “possible carcinogen” to humans to “carcinogenic” to humans.  This places the pill in the Class 1 Carcinogen category, along with asbestos and tobacco.  It does appear that the pill is protective against developing ovarian cancer.  I am not sure, though, that one would choose this path only for this reason, considering the other health concerns.  Anything that suppresses ovulation or its frequency, such as full-term pregnancy and breastfeeding, is preventive of ovarian cancers.

As women are given the pill to “regulate” their cycles, it is important to remember that suppression is not regulation.  Taking the pill triples the lifetime risk of breast cancer when taken before the age of 18. It can cause insulin resistance, cervical dysplasia, ovarian cysts, and infertility.

There are many, many other side effects in addition to these.  They include Increased risk of thyroid and liver problems, nutritional deficiencies in Folic Acid, B12, B6, Magnesium, Manganese, Zinc, reduced antioxidant levels, especially in the liver, and a deficiency of Vitamin A. These deficiencies can lead to many more severe health risks.  The liver is extremely stressed in attempting to “detoxify” and clear these synthetic substances.  This hardworking organ can sometimes be damaged long term with synthetic hormones from the pill and conventional HRT.

Deciding on Contraceptive Solutions

Read, educate yourself, and learn about other more natural and safe means to protect yourself from unwanted pregnancies.  Finding alternative solutions may make the difference between health and ill-health. Weigh the risk for yourself, now and for the future.  After “having their cycles regulated” by the pill for many years, I have seen many women who stopped the pill but were unable to get pregnant for months, if at all.  We spent many months cleaning and rebuilding the body after the damage of long term synthetic hormone use.

Read the warnings in the pill packets carefully and see if you feel that this is the right move for you.  I’ve included some links to natural contraception choices at the end of this post.

Make choices that will help solve your body’s health problems instead of making more!

You are beautiful, and your body is an amazing miracle of systems and organs and hormones.  You can be well at any age.  Work towards health and wellbeing. You are a beautiful woman, and you are here to share your gifts with the world. There is only one you!

Beneath the Sweater and the Skin

How many years of beauty do I have left? she asks me. How many more do you want? Here. Here is 34. Here is 50.   When you are 80 years old and your beauty rises in ways your cells cannot even imagine now and your wild bones grow luminous and ripe, having carried the weight of a passionate life.   When your hair is aflame with winter and you have decades of learning and leaving and loving sewn into  the corners of your eyes and your children come home to find their own history in your face.   When you know what it feels like to fail ferociously and have gained the  capacity to rise and rise and rise again.   When you can make your tea on a quiet and ridiculously lonely afternoon and still have a song in your heart Queen owl wings beating beneath the cotton of your sweater.   Because your beauty began there beneath the sweater and the skin, remember?   This is when I will take you  into my arms and coo YOU BRAVE AND GLORIOUS THING you’ve come so far.   I see you. Your beauty is breathtaking.   -Jeannette Encinias

Here are links to more information on these topics:

Natural family planning tools:  https://www.fertilityfriend.com Natural fertility tracking devices:

Barrier methods of birth control:  https://www.webmd.com Fertility tracker:  https://usa.daysy.me/

 Find Out More Evectics Book Cover

Here is a free booklet with the story of how I developed my techniques and how those techniques work (practical information that shows how your body works and how to start recovering your health for the rest of your life).

Want Some Help?

Complete this Online Evaluation: Your First Step to Ending Severe, Long-term or Frustrating Health Problems

If you answer the questions on this symptom evaluation, we’ll be able to answer these questions for you:

  1. What areas of physical stress in your body are most likely creating your problems?
  2. What could be done to help your body recover from this stress?
  3. What are our recommendations to start you back on the road to health?

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The Villain of the Piece: Endocrine Disruptors

The Villain of the Piece: Endocrine Disruptors

The Villain of the Piece: Endocrine Disruptors

Reader’s Note: This post introduces a little-known topic that can be very dangerous to your life and health. Reading the facts as I present them can be overwhelming… maybe it’s just easier to “give up and hope for the best.” Rest assured, this would not be the best decision you ever made. My approach to this problem is simple: You live in the environment in which you live. There is no such thing as altogether avoiding the toxins I discuss in this post. But you can minimize your exposure to them. If your hormone system ever fails from toxic exposure, I have spent 20 years of research working out practical solutions to allow your body to overcome this type of stress.

In the end, your health is limited only by your willingness to search out and apply effective answers. Giving up? Not the solution at all!

Harmonious Hormones

Your hormones are amazing substances. Working at a molecular level, they are your body’s messengers and influence and control all your organs.  These hormones coordinate and work together to create a symphony of magic in your body.

The orchestra is playing; all the instruments are in harmony and blending their voices in a beautiful symphony. The beautiful sound reverberates in the air—when suddenly a loud squawking is heard from the brass section, and a horrible wail begins from the strings section.  Violins fly through the air, instruments are dropped, and a black coated band of invaders displace the rightful musicians and begin to play their version of the piece.  Chaos ensues.  The conductor is yelling as musicians try in vain to regain their seats. All the while the invaders continue their horrible rendition of the once beautiful song.

Daily, your body is experiencing this invasion. Your systems are invaded repeatedly by toxins that either take the place of or block your body’s correct function.  Now, instead of proper hormone flow and balanced output, we have hormone chaos.  Your cycles hurt, you have PMS, you are angry or sad for no apparent reason, your body begins to grow tumors, benign or otherwise, in your uterus or your breasts, you have hot flashes and night sweats, you are exhausted and depressed, your body is no longer yours. It has been hijacked by these foreign substances that now run the show.

Endocrine Disruptors

These invaders are called endocrine disruptors.

If you are to control your health in our current chemical-rich environment, you must understand endocrine disruptors, which are mostly manmade chemicals.  They are found in pesticides, plastics, plasticizers, metals, additives in food and personal care products, and many pharmaceuticals.  Endocrine disruptors include heavy metals such as mercury and lead, dioxins, PCBs, DDT and pesticides, and bisphenol A. These chemicals have long been proven to cause altered reproductive function in both males and females, increase in reproductive cancers in women and men (breast, uterine, ovarian, prostate, testicular) and decreased fertility in both sexes. Neurological and developmental delays have also been seen in children.

As many of these endocrine disruptors mimic estrogen, there has been a substantial increase in the number of women suffering from estrogen-dominant conditions. These issues include PCOS, ovarian cysts, cervical dysplasia, uterine fibroids, heavy cycles, severe PMS, and other female disorders.

How You’re Exposed

We are exposed to these chemicals in food and water by inhaling gases, particles in the air, and absorption through our skin. One primary source of exposure is the transfer of these damaging and extremely harmful chemicals from the pregnant mother to the developing fetus through the placenta and the infant and small child through the breast milk. Pregnant women and children are the most vulnerable to these toxins, even though the effects may not be evident until later in life and may decrease immunity over time.

The World Health Organization, The Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences have defined and cataloged the existence of and the damage caused by these endocrine disruptors that are rampant in our environment.  I would highly recommend that you watch the video Our Chemical Lives.

Many of our everyday personal care products and convenience products contain endocrine disruptors. Some common examples are found in plastic drinking bottles, flame retardant clothing, toys, cosmetics, pesticides, detergents, birth control pills, conventional HRT (hormone replacement therapy), perfumes, nail polish, soaps, spermicides, adhesives, metal smelting, waste incineration, dry cleaning chemicals, dental sealants, food, and beverage packaging. This is just a shortlist of the chemicals found in our clothes, food, and the personal care products we may think of as safe for everyday use.

A recent report by the Environmental Working Group found the average level of the bromine-based flame retardant in American women’s breast milk was 75 times higher than the average found in recent European studies. I don’t know what you think, but flame retardants should not be in mother’s milk! They should not be in salmon or cow’s milk, but they are. The places children are supposed to be the safest, inside our bodies and at our breasts, are where we are inadvertently passing toxins on to our future generations.

Endocrine Disruptors

Hormones “talk to” cells by plugging into “mailboxes” on the cell called receptor sites. The hormone plugs into the mailbox and downloads instructions to the cell. Endocrine disruptors look like hormones to the cell. They are literally “counterfeit hormones” and fool the cell into letting them plug into the mailboxes. Once in the mailboxes, these chemical toxins block real hormones from plugging in, and may continue to do this for the life of the cell. This makes the cell “deaf” to instructions from the body, leading to many malfunctions and disease processes.

How Endocrine Disruptors Cause Damage

Endocrine disruptors mimic hormones in the body, such as estrogen, testosterone, or thyroid hormones. They bind to receptor sites in the cells and block the real hormone, preventing the hormone from completing its action, creating confusion or no action at all. Endocrine disruptors can also block or interfere with the way natural hormones or their receptors are made or controlled.

Hormones are your body’s messenger system. Microscopic amounts of hormone are released directly into the bloodstream and exert extraordinarily profound and far-reaching effects on the body. Hormones are measured in nanograms (parts per billion) and pictograms (parts per trillion). Hundreds of different hormones course through our bodies at any given time, precisely and in exact measurements, to carry out their duties in the beautiful symphony we’ve talked about previously.

Endocrine disruptors are the villain of the piece. They are the evil infiltrators that ruin the magnificent choreography of the body and disrupt the symphony. They block, damage, and destroy these fragile hormones, creating any of the countless health problems you can encounter when your hormones do not work correctly.

Worse yet, you are being poisoned by the countless chemicals allowed into our environment. I’ve read that over 80,000 manmade chemicals have been introduced into our food and water supply in the last 60 years. Our bodies have not had time to adapt to these chemicals, and most have never been evaluated for health risks in humans. No wonder we as a nation are so sick.

The Result of Toxins

What are the consequences of this flow of toxins into our world and our bodies? How are they affecting the intelligence and behavior and our offspring’s health after years of accumulation of these pollutants?  No one knows for sure, but we can point to an infertility epidemic, an increase in behavioral and psychological problems, and a very alarming rise in deaths from all kinds of cancer. Politics and economics combined do not create a climate of rapid change—after all, look at how long it took for cigarettes to be “proven” to be bad for your health.

There are many dangers that I have been warning my patients about for years, and the “establishment” is very slow to accept these things as truth. It is essential for all of us to be wise and savvy consumers, research, and be our own advocates. Trust your intuition. If something seems wrong, it probably is.

When my son was eight years old, he would ask me why they showed sugar cereals on TV as healthy and good for children. It is disheartening to tell your child the industry lies and advertise things purely for profit in blatant disregard for life and health, but the truth is that they do.

Our Standard American Diet is killing us. If food has ingredients that you cannot pronounce and you do not recognize, it is safe to say these ingredients are not healthy for your body and very well may be endocrine disrupters. Consuming endocrine disrupters is destroying your symphony of health.

EndNote:

When I started research on a treatment solution for Endocrine Disruptors back in 2001, the whole subject was considered highly controversial and even pseudo-science. My assertion at the time that most thyroid problems came from or were made worse by endocrine disruptors was deemed to be laughable. Try this: Google “endocrine disruptors and thyroid disease.” You’ll get more results than you could read in many years, including many papers from the NIH (National Institutes of Health), CDC, and every major university.

Things have changed. We are still a long way from any significant action being taken by industry or government to curb this problem, but awareness and research have expanded exponentially.

Later, I’ll post some guidance on avoiding endocrine disruptors and have a section on therapies that help relieve this stress on the body.

 Find Out More Evectics Book Cover

Here is a free booklet with the story of how I developed my techniques and how those techniques work (practical information that shows how your body works and how to start recovering your health for the rest of your life).

Want Some Help?

Complete this Online Evaluation: Your First Step to Ending Severe, Long-term or Frustrating Health Problems

If you answer the questions on this symptom evaluation, we’ll be able to answer these questions for you:

  1. What areas of physical stress in your body are most likely creating your problems?
  2. What could be done to help your body recover from this stress?
  3. What are our recommendations to start you back on the road to health?
 

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The Female Curse

The Female Curse

The Female Curse

Sometimes an entire subject can seem inspiring or terrifying, depending on how you view it. A child who is afraid of dogs might overcome that fear, get a dog as a pet, and discover love, loyalty, and responsibility. Similarly, my patients often are angry and fearful of their bodies, and then realize that they were misinformed, experience their body healing, and become a happy partner with it.

I’ve talked to countless women who view the fact of being a woman as an unfortunate disadvantage. Menstruation is the “curse,” and common female health problems are just more proof of the disadvantages of being born a woman.

There is another way to view being a woman and having a cycle, a joyous, optimistic, and creative viewpoint.

So, without further ado, I’d like you to meet your hormones!

Your hormones are amazing substances. Working at a molecular level, they are your body’s messengers and influence and control all your organs.  When they are at their best, these hormones somehow coordinate and work together to create a symphony of magic in your body.

My favorite class in university was endocrinology or the study of hormones. It was a miracle and a wonder to me as I studied this system that such important effects came from such tiny messengers and that somehow the cascades of hormones streaming through the body had meaning. They all seemed to follow the same symphony conductor to produce their music. Of course, when those hormones become unbalanced, the symphony will be very much out of tune. In my opinion, the beauty and complexity of our hormone system are unmatched.

Have you ever wondered what a hormone is made from? Cholesterol! Crazy, right? Who would have thought that?

Do you know what makes your hormonal orchestra play beautifully all the time?  Nutrients and lots of them.

Nutritional imbalances and deficiencies severely impact the hormone system.  Making and replacing our hormones requires many different nutrients, and many of us are not getting these nutrients from our diets.  You truly are what you eat. All your physical functions require nutrients, and your female hormones need many of these.

The Beautiful Symphony that is the Female Cycle

Your female cycle is magic. It’s what creates new life on earth.  We women hold the seed of creation inside our bodies!  What an honor to have in your physical self the future generations of the world.  Helping young girls understand this honor should be a priority as we nurture strong and independent women.

Understanding this perspective can give girls, and young women respect for their bodies, and ultimately themselves. Viewing our female bodies in a derogatory and demeaning manner is a dishonor and a disgrace to all sexes. Sex and the reproduction of the body are beautiful things. This beauty has been stolen by the coarse and misinformed and subverted to a dark, dirty and evil subject.

Sex and reproduction have been subjected to many thousands of years of social and religious taboos.  It has been and will continue to be a difficult subject for the societies of earth.  Suffice it to say that the purpose of sex includes both reproduction and the resulting pleasure for those involved. The female menstruation cycle, and the gestation cycle that results in a new human being, are nothing short of a miracle—a beautiful symphony of hormones in harmony and balance. 

 

The Phases of the Cycle

The Follicular Phase is the first part of your cycle and is run mainly by the hormone estrogen. The first part of the cycle is about building up the uterine lining for a possible pregnancy.  This is when ovulation occurs at about day 14.  Many amazing things happen during this time to prepare the body for pregnancy.

The hormones LH (luteinizing hormone) and FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone) are important in ovulation.  LH and FSH work in concert with estrogen and progesterone and come from the brain, not the female organs.  These hormones working together in perfection to create the few days out of the month that the body can reproduce.

The second phase of the menstrual cycle is called the Luteal Phase and is run by the hormone progesterone. During this part of the cycle, your hormones will cause ripening of the uterine lining in preparation for possible pregnancy. They will help the body keep the embryo safe if implantation occurs.  This phase, when working correctly, helps prevent spontaneous abortions and ensures smooth menstruation.

If no pregnancy occurs, both estrogen and progesterone fall, signaling another cycle’s start, and bleeding begins again. If pregnancy does occur, the embryo produces small amounts of hormones that communicate the need for more progesterone.

The Out of Tune Orchestra

Your female hormone system organs secrete certain hormones that communicate in various ways with other parts of the body. These organs then secrete their hormones in response, and—wonder of all wonders—if these hormones and organs properly harmonize with each other, a human being can be conceived and then born! 

But what happens if they don’t? Just what happens with any orchestra:

You can only imagine what would happen if the flutes did not chime in on time or the violins were squeaky, or the conductor didn’t time his gestures to the music, and whole instrument sections played off-key.  You would be holding your ears and begging for it to stop!  This is what happens when even one or two of these hormones or organs do not work correctly. 

A disruption in even one area can lead to many different symptoms of imbalance and suffering for women. 

Many symptoms can result: PMS, heavy cycles, irregular cycles, weight gain, hot flashes, insomnia, mood swings, depression, mental fog, headaches, fatigue, dysfunction of the thyroid, adrenals and gallbladder, facial hair, cold hands and feet, and infertility.

You may see yourself and some of your health struggles in these symptoms. As you start to understand your body more, you can see how and where things can get off track and what to do to help your body heal. 

I love the hormone system.  I can feel its ebb and flow in my own body.  It is a beautiful rhythm and a wonderful song when all is well.  The dissonance we feel in our bodies and the resulting illnesses are often a result of many things going wrong in a distressed body all at once. 

Stress can begin at a very early age.  Lack of sleep, long nights, chemical solutions, poor diet, and seemingly unrelenting life stresses can start the slow, or in some cases, quick, deterioration of the beautiful symphony of our hormones.

 Find Out More Evectics Book Cover

Here is a free booklet with the story of how I developed my techniques and how those techniques work (practical information that shows how your body works and how to start recovering your health for the rest of your life).

Want Some Help? Need Help?

Complete this Online Evaluation: Your First Step to Ending Severe, Long-term or Frustrating Health Problems

If you answer the questions on this symptom evaluation, we’ll be able to answer these questions for you:

  1. What areas of physical stress in your body are most likely creating your problems?
  2. What could be done to help your body recover from this stress?
  3. What are our recommendations to start you back on the road to health?

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Making the Best of Your Life: The 20s and 30s

Making the Best of Your Life: The 20s and 30s

Making the Best of Your Life: The 20s and 30s

In a time with nothing but bad news, pessimism, and doom and gloom around the subject of health, I have decided to lighten things up. Imagine how your life could and should be if you were taking care of yourself and had all the health and life energy you wanted. Of course, there are extenuating circumstances, environmental issues, and factors outside your control that may be preventing this, but what would your health look like at its best?  How would this feel? This is not a pointless exercise. Nothing in your life is likely to change until you decide what future you want. I have seen my patients take control of their current health situations and become closer to the ideal picture of what they envisioned their health and their life to be. You can do this at any age and at any time. Envision your life the way you want it to be right now.

Your 20s and 30s

(I may do more posts for different age groups, but if you are older than 40, read this description of the 20s and 30s to get a better idea of how you arrived at your current health.) Ages 20 through 39 is the time of your life when you should be experiencing all things new. You may be in college or graduate school or pursuing a new job challenge. You may be newly married or beginning your family. At this time of your life, your health should be vibrant and your energy abundant as you move and grow and change. In this period, you should be eating a balanced diet of excellent quality fruits and vegetables and lean, organic, non-processed meat, keeping processed foods, alcohol, caffeine, and sugar to a bare minimum.  You should be exercising 3–4 times a week to keep your energy up and your body in shape and sleeping at least 7-8 hours per night.

Children and Families

This is when many women choose to start families and may go through pregnancy for the first time. Pregnancy should be a unique and amazing part of a woman’s life.  A new person is coming into the world! A family is created to bring joy and new little people for the family and the world. Pregnancy should be a time of hope and expectations and a time when a woman cares for herself and her future little one. She should be balancing her work and her family life in a way that brings joy to herself and others. OK, I realize this might sound like a fairy tale! I imagine this is how a balanced healthy life should be. It isn’t how it is or was for most of us, but think how much better it would be if this were the reality. If you haven’t had a family yet, think how wonderful it would be for you to plan YOUR ideal situation and create it! I wish I had. I would have made some changes! During pregnancy, you and your body have exceptional needs. Specific supplementation for moms, recommended by an alternative or functional medicine professional, will enable you to keep your energy up and spot any deficiencies before they become a problem. Pregnancy can be very hard on a body, especially one with a lot of previous stress. Help from a qualified health practitioner can make the difference between a joyful and healthy pregnancy and one that takes a negative toll on the body, possibly even causing future health concerns. After your baby arrives, you and your family are overjoyed. Now is the time for you to pass along the same healthy habits you practice to your new child and family. Eat processed foods, fast foods, and sugar products infrequently, if at all. Use whole foods and natural sugars for baking and in drinks. As you live through your 20s and 30s, you can start to see the fantastic things you can create as a woman, at home, and in your career.

Careers and Success

If you do not have a family, the 20s and 30s are often a time when you are focused on creating a career and a name for yourself in your area of expertise. Ideally, you are sleeping and eating and balancing work and life in a way that gives you joy and fulfillment. If you are in a stressful work environment, take time to balance yourself. Notice the stress you’re under and do something practical to address it. You’ll be more productive and happier in the long term. In this balanced scenario, you’d work hours that allow you to exercise. You’d eat healthily. If you’re in college or graduate school, you’d take care of your body and eat and sleep the proper amount so that you can keep your immune system healthy and robust. College, graduate school, and new jobs can be very stressful times of life, so good sleep habits, healthy food, and specific supplementation to support extreme levels of stress are particularly important.

Planning a Well-Lived Life

Taking time to plan out what a balanced life looks like and how you can achieve it can be a life-changing decision. Looking back on my life, I realize I went into many situations with no planning, knowing I would “handle it” — and in many cases, I was “handled” by the situation instead! Maybe this is the way of youth, but when taking your next big step in life, understanding and seeing—really seeing—what you want your life to be like can be invaluable. I wrecked my health in graduate school, and it took me years to recover. I will always have a weakness in my adrenal glands as a result. What a difference it would have made for me if I had understood that while school was undoubtedly going to put me through the wringer, I would come through the stress with my health intact if I ate whole foods, stopped the junk food and sugar, exercised and slept. Instead, I ate whatever I wanted, with no thought of what it could do to my body. I ate pans of brownies and bags of Doritos and drank extreme amounts of coffee and soft drinks. I had completely unrealistic standards for myself for my grades and my life. I did not exercise, and I constantly stressed about my grades and classes and projects. I was sick after final exams every quarter and lost a relationship that meant a lot to me during this time. These times can and will shape you, and the results of your choices will be with you, perhaps for your entire life. These are the foundational years of your life and your health. Treat yourself well. Know there will be stress. Eat healthily, exercise even if you are stressed—especially if you are stressed. Find ways to handle stress, even if that means taking a quarter off or fewer hours at work if your health is suffering. Finishing college or graduate school quickly or getting that promotion isn’t worth it if you lose your health in the process.

The Danger of Perfection

Being a perfectionist is the way to early burnout. Being a perfectionist is the recipe for unhappiness and more stress. Take it from a perfectionist! You cannot ever be perfect, and if hearing that makes you cringe, you need to take some time right now to realize that trying to control your own life or someone else’s within your concept of perfection will not make you happy. It is a sure route to unhappiness. What I have learned after many years of being a perfectionist is that living that way hurts. It hurts everyone around you, but mostly you. You may never lose that urge to be perfect, but you can learn to love the imperfections. You can let go and let the world and your actions be imperfect sometimes. Yes, you should have high standards, but you have to let yourself fall short of them sometimes without self-recrimination—or for some of us, self-flagellation! As we see the world through our lens, we often see others the way we see ourselves. Expecting a loved one to respond to life the way we do and treating them the way we treat ourselves when we make a mistake is not healthy and puts the same heavy burden on them that we put on ourselves. Relationships with friends or others often can’t withstand this type of pressure. You can choose a different way! Choose the path that creates more sanity and more joy. You can find it because it is in you. Make your plan and include a lot of love and patience for yourself!

 Find Out More Evectics Book Cover

Here is a free booklet with the story of how I developed my techniques and how those techniques work (practical information that shows how your body works and how to start recovering your health for the rest of your life).

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  1. What areas of physical stress in your body are most likely creating your problems?
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Vaccination: a Fightin’ Word

Vaccination: a Fightin’ Word

Vaccination: a Fightin’ Word

Vaccination is a four-letter word these days. I am an alternative health care practitioner, a doctor of Chiropractic who runs a holistic nutrition center in Atlanta, Georgia. For someone like me, discussing the subject of vaccinations can be a no-win situation. For many in my line of work, being against vaccinations comes along with the territory. My profession, holistic health care, has a skepticism of the mainstream health care system, which is often not misplaced. But right now, if I were to state any misgivings at all about a particular vaccination or ask for more transparency, I risk the label of “anti-vaxxer” and “crazy.” On the other hand, someone who fully vaccinates their kids become the “enemy” and supports the “evil empire.”

There are many things that modern medicine has right. The technology of imaging, diagnosis of disease processes, and correction of damaged body parts with surgical procedures and emergency medicine are second to none. However, some very pointed weaknesses exist in the medical system. Being in the field of alternatives, I am very often able to supply some of the pieces that our healthcare system is missing, especially regarding chronic health conditions. I utilize safe and straightforward solutions to a variety of health concerns often overlooked in many medical settings.

Despite the weaknesses and strengths of medicine, I do not think that a conversation about vaccinations should be a forum for name-calling and abuse. We are about as divided on vaccinations as we are on politics and unable to speak about either safely.

What’s Wrong with Medicine

Our current healthcare system is very much in partnership with pharmaceutical companies and large corporate structures that were created to make a lot of money. Many of these companies have failed the trust we placed in them and in the medical system they serve. The doctor-patient relationship is, for me, a sacred honor. Patients rely on me to help them in some of the most challenging times of their lives, and I need them to be honest with me so I can give them the best possible advice. In conventional medicine, there is this same requirement. There must be trust for patients to be helped, but in many cases, this trust is violated.

The public is losing its trust in medicine as a whole. The perception that the medical model is driven by profit and not by the patient’s needs or health concerns is becoming more apparent.  When you see the inflated prices of a hospital stay and what the hospital charges the insurance company for aspirin, it is hard to remain idealistic in the face of sheer insane overcharging. In our current healthcare system, a third party often makes the decisions, not the patient and the doctor. Prescription drug prices are skyrocketing, and patients don’t always believe that the procedures recommended are in their best interest. Patients may be treated as a number, and patient care suffers in the face of corporate profit.

Distrust

Added to this distrust are the racial bias, fraud, and medical malpractice perpetrated on minorities. Medicine has a checkered history to overcome. Examples: the infamous Tuskeegee study where doctors let black men die of syphilis, and the case of Henrietta Lacks, a poor African-American woman whose cancer cells were used for decades without her permission.

I see many minorities in my practice. Often I am the only healthcare provider they will agree to see because of deep distrust in the “system.” This year alone, I have referred at least three patients in some stage of kidney failure, a breast cancer patient, and numerous others who needed medical intervention for severe diabetes or unmanaged blood pressure—but who were afraid to seek medical care. In many cases, they would not have gone but for their trust in me as their doctor. Because they trusted me, they were able to receive the medical intervention needed that they had been afraid to seek because of distrust of the system.

Vaccinations, like any health care, must be safe, effective and above all, trusted. Polls done this past May showed only about 50% of Americans are willing to get a coronavirus vaccine. Right now, especially now, there is distrust in government and the science that that government represents in the form of public health initiatives.

False Information

Possibly because of this distrust, we’re experiencing an explosion of “at home experts.” These are people who mistake their internet “research” for the professional opinions and advice of the actual experts who spend their lives studying and perfecting their art and science.

The internet and social media are a constant source of misinformation and outright lies, and many people can’t tell the difference. Confirmation bias is the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories. In many cases, people only see and recall proof that supports their ideas. For example, if one believes that vaccinations are harmful, one only searches for this type of data and for studies that back up their beliefs on the subject. The more one finds people and articles that confirm this belief, the more that belief is bolstered and strengthened. People tend to ignore information that contradicts their existing beliefs.

It’s embarrassing to be wrong. If you have believed in a flat earth or a cheesy moon for your whole life, it’s going to be hard to admit to being wrong on these subjects, especially if those around you still believe it. Often, it is how we grew up, where we went to school, or in what church we had our upbringing; but by the time we reach our 20’s our world views have been formed and are difficult to change. I see this in friends I grew up with who never moved outside their small towns and belief systems. I also see it in health associates I went to school with, who were indoctrinated in a particular philosophical belief system. We are all the sum products of our nature and our nurture.

Looking At Both Sides

Opinions of vaccinations are subject to a person’s previous experiences as well. What you think about vaccinations and whether or not your kids are vaccinated probably has everything to do with what your education was on the subject and what your closest friends and family thought. You probably already have an opinion—perhaps a really strong one. I want to suggest a little experiment: whatever your belief, find and study ideas and content that is in direct disagreement with what you hold to be true.

When I was young, I came to realize that if something was true, I could examine it. If it still turned out to be true for me, then I’d consider it actually to be true. Do not be afraid to look and examine and ask questions and doubt. If your eyes are blue, you can examine it up and down, and no matter what you do or who you talk to, your eyes will still be blue.

With a belief, though, you do have to be brave. Your eyes being blue is different from a belief. Beliefs are, by their very definition, changeable. Be brave and be humble and be willing to examine information that is different from your previous experiences. Be willing to be wrong.

Do Your Research

If you think all vaccinations are safe, go to the CDC and read the ingredients and the side effects of childhood vaccinations. If you feel all vaccinations are harmful, read the efficacy rates and the rates of immunity for a particular immunization. Read how polio and smallpox affected our world when they ran rampant and what happened after we developed vaccinations for these diseases.

To counter confirmation bias, you need to study and read ideas and content that disagree with your stated belief. But you would have to have your mind open to learning and to possibly seeing something new. I don’t want to convince you one way or the other. Instead, I’m offering the possibility of broadening your experience.

The source of the material you read to get your information is essential. Reputable sources that use real science are the best places to get information. Personal experience and stories are just that—someone’s experience. They don’t add up to everyone’s experience and can’t always be extrapolated out to the population at large.

Public Health Needs Public Relations

I lay the responsibility for demonstrating and proving vaccination safety at the feet of our public health servants and other scientists. It is these professionals who should be safeguarding the public regarding pandemics and epidemics as well as vaccination safety. Certainly, these health officials desperately need a reputation makeover to handle the distrust that much of the public feels for their public health institutions—and vaccinations specifically.

A definition of public health is the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private communities, and individuals. Public health is achieved by promoting healthy lifestyles, researching disease and injury prevention, and detecting, preventing, and responding to infectious diseases. So much of our lives benefit from public health initiatives like hand washing and hygiene, seat belts, and safe water, to name a few.

Vaccinations are part of public health, supposed to prevent disease and sickness. If someone believes that vaccinations will kill or damage themselves or their families, they won’t get vaccinated.

Lies, Truths, and Science

Winston Churchill said, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. “ This certainly describes vaccinations. Mixed in with the lies are half-truths and urban legends, often creating confusion and misunderstandings. Churchill also said, “People always find lies more exciting and thrilling than the truth. Lies are like a virus that spreads easily around and contaminates the truth, making it impossible for people to separate actual facts from malicious rumors.”

Science is something one can see and can experience. Vaccination science is real science. In a fantastic turn of events, we humans can inoculate our bodies with a substance and create an immunity that is long-lasting and, in some cases, life-long. It’s a miracle and a fascinating story. My opinion is that public health advances in our world have been nothing short of miraculous, and to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” as many have advocated in regards to vaccinations rings particularly hollow.

In any application of medicine and with any drug, and especially vaccinations, we must demand transparency and safety. We must require this to improve our world with more and better science, not negating progress made and especially not lumping all vaccinations and scientists into a group intent upon harming the population. There is a real concern for the state of our healthcare. We have a “sick care” system, not a “well care” system, and that needs to change for all of us. We can do better than this. But do we want to go backward to a time when we had no vaccinations and no control over some pretty nasty diseases? To a time when our grandparents feared polio and smallpox? We are privileged not to have these fears and not to lose our loved ones to these incurable diseases.

We will have a vaccination soon for Covid-19. What will you do? How will we know if it’s safe? There is a lot to cover regarding vaccinations. I can’t possibly address all the pros or the cons right here. This is a post to encourage dialogue and discourse. If you cannot see how anyone could distrust vaccinations, read a book by Dr. Sears or talk to someone who has these beliefs—and really listen.

There are many organizations dedicated to educating people on the efficacy of vaccinations. If you think vaccinations are the devil’s work, find a doctor you respect and see why they think the way they think. You may find some interesting information from your asking. Be willing to learn and, at the very least, be ready to see another’s point of view.

There are rigid and structured steps to developing vaccinations. Nothing should be skipped, and one’s observational skills should be employed when examining data and evidence for or against vaccinations.

We have a lot of coming together to accomplish in this area, and I can only hope for more data and fewer lies and innuendo from both sides of the immunization issue. This could make a real difference in all our lives moving forward.

 Find Out More Evectics Book Cover

Here is a free booklet with the story of how I developed my techniques and how those techniques work (practical information that shows how your body works and how to start recovering your health for the rest of your life).

Want Some Help?

Complete this Online Evaluation: Your First Step to Ending Severe, Long-term or Frustrating Health Problems

If you answer the questions on this symptom evaluation, we’ll be able to answer these questions for you:

  1. What areas of physical stress in your body are most likely creating your problems?
  2. What could be done to help your body recover from this stress?
  3. What are our recommendations to start you back on the road to health?

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  • Weekly blog posts with vital tips and warnings
  • Interesting “pass it along” health facts
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