Bonjour!! Sharon and I just returned from a wonderful workshop we attended in Montreal. It is the first of a four part series revolving around the Wellness Preventative Lifestyle.
Friday morning, after I packed up the car to leave, I hopped in the driver's seat, started the engine and pulled the car to the front of the house and waited for Sharon to come out the front door to join me for the 6 hour drive ahead of us. As I pulled up the driveway, one of the dashboard engine red warning lights came on. I immediately felt that sinking feeling you get - you know the one - when you realize that something is going wrong. My mind filled with negative thoughts about: Murphy's Law; what could be possibly wrong; not being able to leave on our trip; how could I find a mechanic who could look at the car ASAP, etc. Then I realized, with a huge sigh of relief, that the red dashboard light was just saying that the parking brake was on. I had obviously jarred it enough that the sensor triggered the warning light. I moved the parking brake handle back to its proper position, thought how silly I was for panicking (got over it in 2 seconds), and got back to focusing on the trip ahead.
We knew that the Service Centres along the way would be limited to donuts, coffee,
French fries and Burgers, so we had packed our own snacks for the trip. We brought our own healthy foods - protein bars, celery sticks, cucumber slices, boiled eggs, and barbecued chicken along with walnuts, almonds and cashews, protein powder and shaker bottles - and bottled water.
There was light to moderate rain showers the whole way there but the trip went smoothly. We listened to audio lectures to stimulate our brains the entire time so it passed very quickly and we learned something while en route. We arrived at the Dorval Airport Marriott Hotel in the afternoon and pulled into the underground parking lot. This is a beautiful, new hotel that is attached to the main terminal building of the airport. You literally walk out of the lobby of the hotel and into the arrival/departure regions of the airport - very cool!
The next morning we did our morning yoga in the Hotel's well equipped gym, ate breakfast, and went down to the conference room for the workshop. I have read almost all of the articles written by the lecturer, Dr. James Chestnut, who is a chiropractor/researcher specializing in investigating Wellness/Prevention Lifestyle strategies.
The first day we got lots of mind-blowing (and sometimes scary) information about
our current Healthcare (Sick care) system and the evidence that it will ultimately fail and collapse. The collapse is estimated to occur in about six to seven years - at the peak of the baby-boomers increased need for intervention. It is expected that if the present trends continue and we don't start focusing on prevention that 100% of all tax dollars collected will be soaked up just trying to keep up with our Sick Care system by 2017-2018! That means ultimate failure and it will occur predominantly for one reason - our current Healthcare system doesn't get anyone 
healthy. As more people get sick, they must be admitted to the system, but no one gets healthy and leaves the system. For example, once someone develops heart disease they are admitted into the system and from that point on, they must stay in the system - never getting away from treatments like medication or surgeries or both. They are told that they will have to take drugs for the rest of their lives. Very few come out permanently once they go in. No one gets healthy after being admitted into the system. Thus, the system gets more and more overloaded every year with no hope of any major relief by people getting well and being able to stop treatment. With the waves of baby boomers entering their senior years, the system is heading toward being completely overloaded and collapsing.
An interesting fact was brought up supporting the position that our current system doesn't work. It drives the point home that taking drugs for things like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, elevated blood sugars, etc. doesn't return people back to a healthy state. It was pointed out that Insurance Companies have extensive data on disease, life expectancy and the use of drugs. They need to have extensive data 
because that type of information is used to determine premiums on things like extended health benefits and life insurance policies. Like all companies, Insurance Companies are there to make money - get the premiums wrong and they don't make money. Anyway, the question was posed: If two people have a physical exam for a life insurance policy and both are the same sex, weight, height, etc. and they both have normal blood pressure, but one of them has normal blood pressure because they take high blood pressure medication, do they both pay the same premium or does the medicated person pay more? And if so, why?
The answer is that the medicated person will definitely pay more - a lot more!! The answer as to why is because statistically it is well documented that the person on medication is still ill. The drug they are taking forces their blood pressure down but
does not improve their health. Therefore, they are still a higher risk. But what that means is that even though the medication has forced their blood pressure back to normal values, it has not returned their increased risk of death back to normal. In other words, the medication does nothing more than mask symptoms. It does not improve the person's health and Insurance Companies are well aware of that fact. Their actuarial tables show that medications do not improve health or health outcomes. If they did, then statistically the premiums would not have to be different. The medicated applicant would be charged the same premium - but that NEVER happens.
You see, symptoms like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, elevated blood sugars, etc. are warning signs from your body and it's trying to tell you that something is wrong. The symptoms are your body's way of saying that you need to do something to try and get better. The symptoms are like the dashboard engine red warning light in a car. The red light is trying to tell you that something is wrong and needs to be fixed. Taking drugs to mask over a symptom is the same thing as cutting the wire to the engines red warning light.
If you cut the wire to the red warning light in your car you don't see it anymore, but if you don't get the engine fixed you're going to be in big trouble very soon. If you take a drug to mask a symptom over and don't do something to fix the problem, it's the same thing as cutting the wire to the engine red warning light.
I would NEVER consider cutting the wire to the engine red light on my car's dash - that would be foolish. I want my car's engine to run smoothly and serve me well. I would ALWAYS make sure my car's engine got the right service to correct the underlying problem. I would NEVER mask over the red warning signals from my body. I would ALWAYS make sure that my body got what it needed to return to health.
As a Chiropractic Wellness Lifestyle Practitioner that is my job - to help you return your body towards health.
How do you service your engine?