"You have but to know an object by its proper name for it to lose its dangerous magic." ~ Elias Canetti
There are two main styles of health care. One is called condition-based care, which relies mainly on categorizing a variety of symptoms into a named condition. Then the symptoms are treated. Once the symptoms disappear, the condition is said to have been cured. A good example of this is strep throat: if a person has a red and irritated throat with white splotches upon it, these symptoms may be said to indicate the condition of strep throat. This condition is then verified by identifying the particular kind of bacteria colonizing the back of the throat as streptococcus. Antibiotics are administered to the person who exhibits these symptoms, and when his throat is no longer red and irritated with white blotches, he is said to have been cured of strep throat. He no longer has the condition because the symptoms have disappeared. The second type of health care is cause-based care. This is the type of care we try to provide at Johnson Family Chiropractic of Peoria. This relies on the medical practitioner's willingness to investigate the cause of the symptoms, not just the symptoms themselves. In the case of strep throat, the doctor attempts to discover why the person's body allowed the streptococcus bacteria to colonize at the back of the throat. After all, every person has streptococcus bacteria in their mouths, but not everyone has strep throat. Why do some bodies allow the bacteria to overgrow? The cause-based doctor investigates the patient's immune system, nervous system, habits, stress and stressors, daily routine, work environment, diet, and so on. Chiropractic is Cause-Based CareChiropractors are curious about the cause of your symptoms. After all, there are many different causes of back pain: nerve dysfunction, nerve entrapment, muscle strain, ligament sprain, bone fracture, bone dislocation, kidney stone, colon disease, and that's just the tip of an enormous list. Pain is merely a symptom of an underlying problem. Most people in Peoria feel pain. The condition is back pain; the cause is something much more important.
Can a doctor treat your pain without knowing the cause of your pain? If the doctor treats your pain, the cause remains. That means you'll be back in the doctor's office within weeks or months with the same pain again. However, if the doctor treats the cause of your pain, your pain ought to disappear as the cause is removed. A Common Medical LanguageAlthough chiropractors treat the cause of your pain, it is still important to use the terminology of condition-based medicine. Using the names of these conditions allows medical practitioners to quickly and easily communicate with each other and with patients. There is another benefit to categorizing symptoms: if a doctor can name a group of symptoms, it can provide you with a great sense of comfort. After all, when the name of a condition is known, it is more easily faced. Naming conditions reduces the sense of the mysterious.
So although chiropractors help a wide variety of conditions, the truth is that our treatment is simply the attempt to restore proper spinal nerve structure and function. When your body functions the way it was meant to, it has an amazing ability to eliminate symptoms and conditions on its own. In other words, when your body functions normally, it can defend and heal itself. Dr. Kyle Johnson, a Peoria chiropractor at Johnson Family Chiropractic of Peoria, has compiled (at the right sidebar) a list of conditions which can be treated by chiropractic. This list is not exhaustive! Feel free to browse the list of conditions to discover how chiropractic can help them by treating the nervous system first. |
Quick Links
|