Understanding Symptoms

No one enjoys feeling poorly, or suffering and experiencing pain. Symptoms are unpleasant. We have been taught to view them as bad and we seek ways to alleviate them as quickly as possible, but it is often without regard for our health or without understanding their role in our health and well-being.

It is important that we understand that pain and symptoms are not always bad. Our body was designed with an intricate warning system in order to make us aware of injury, harm and danger. Pain tells us to avoid hot stoves, remove the pebble in our shoe and in a hundred other ways, how to prevent injury and harm. To cover up pain in these types of situations is not only unwise, it is dangerous and often invites further serious injury. It is like having an expensive fire alarm system in your home and disconnecting it before going to sleep so that it does not awaken you in the middle of the night. That is its job! Further, symptoms can possibly be an indication that the body is doing its job perfectly. Eating tainted food could precipitate a bout of vomiting and diarrhea. While they are admittedly two of the most unpleasant symptoms, they could save your life as they rid your body of unwanted toxins. Trying to prevent these symptoms could be harmful to your body.

We also must understand that symptoms may be indicative of a serious medical problem that requires immediate attention by a physician or some other provider of therapeutic measures. To make this determination necessitates extensive years of study and training. Your upper cervical doctor has chosen not to pursue that education or provide that service. Diagnosis, the art of finding the underlying cause of symptoms, is not part of the practice of upper cervical care (UCC).

Finally, we must understand that the service the upper cervical doctor provides is not related to symptoms. This is what makes UCC different from therapeutic services like medicine. Head/neck misalignment that interferes with the proper functioning of the nervous system may or may not have any obvious symptoms. That is what makes it so dangerous. It can occur in anyone and give no indication of its presence. But when the head/neck are misaligned, the entire body can be deprived of its ability to function at its fullest potential. That is a serious matter. To wait until symptoms appear, as a result of perhaps months or years of improper function, it not the best approach to maintaining one’s health.

While UCC is not a treatment for symptoms or their cause, the person receiving care must have an understanding of the role of pain and symptoms so that he or she can make intelligent decisions regarding matters of health. We will be happy to explain to you further our role in your health and well-being so that you can be a better informed person and a better expression of life and health.

Understanding What UC Doctors Do.

One of the major differences between the practice of Upper Cervical Care (UCC) and that of a therapeutic approach is the desire to have knowledgeable, understanding patients. The therapeutic providers often neither want nor care for the patient to know everything that they are doing. This is not a criticism, it just reflects the two different approaches. It is not necessary for the patient to understand the therapeutic approach. They are totally uninvolved with the process. The patient does not participate in the surgery, he or she just lies there. The patient merely swallows the medication. Everything is done by the doctor. The therapeutic approach is performed on the patient or done for the patient. UCC is different.

UCC is based upon the principle that the patient’s body does the healing. It maintains health and it actually makes the correction, using the force introduced into the upper neck by the upper cervical doctor. Second, UCC is directed toward health and increasing one’s potential for an improved quality of life in all areas. Obviously, this takes cooperation on the part of the patient. We will make corrections when indicated so that you can get the maximum benefit from your exercise. But you still must do the exercise. We correct your head/neck misalignment and so that your body, free of nerve interference, can get the maximum benefit from the food you eat. But we cannot eat the food for you. UCC is a cooperative effort, from the actual correction to the patient taking responsibility for being regular/periodic in his or her care.

The outside-in thinkers think they are smarter than their patients so the patients should just do as they are told. The upper cervical doctor works with your body’s innate intelligence, which is smarter than all the doctors in the world, put together. As a result, it is the upper cervical doctor's desire that you, the patient, learn more and more about the inside-out way of life so that you can take a more active role in maintaining your health and directing your life and the upper cervical doctor can step back and do the one thing he or she does best, which is correcting head/neck misalignment and the resulting nerve interference whenever it occurs.

To be a participant in UCC, it is imperative that you, the patient, understand as much as you can about UCC and the “above-down, inside-out” approach to health care. If this term is unfamiliar to you, please ask an upper cervical doctor to explain its meaning. This blog is also full of material for you to utilize. We hope that you will avail yourself of these materials. You see, we believe that people truly want to be knowledgeable about their life and health and not just be a bystander to what’s being done to them. We believe that you can see by now that the therapeutic approach has made us a drug-dependent, disease-fearful society and while it may have some success in the treatment of disease, it has very little to do with health. We hope you will read through this blog visit the links and ask us questions. Health comes from first knowing and understanding both your body and certain principles and then making the effort to apply those principles.