My son, Ben, went to ER with a sore throat. They did imaging and determined that he had a cyst or abscess, and further treatment was not needed. He got worse and went to ER again the next day. They used a syringe and drained the abscess. He was told that the swelling was pressing on a nerve and causing his pain. He was having difficulty opening his mouth enough to speak.

I texted him. I reminded him of the time he chipped a tooth when he was young. I checked him. After adjusting his neck, he said, “Wow. That’s better.” I said, “What do you mean that’s better?” He said, “Well, it was the whole side of my head. Now it is just the tooth.” We got him to a dentist who fixed the tooth.

That night, Ben came to the house. He said that his throat was black and blue. It was also swollen. It made sense that the swelling would be painful. I agreed. I checked him anyway.

I adjusted his atlas, axis, and 6th thoracic vertebrae. He got off the table and was out of pain. He could open his mouth. He was surprised. So was I. He went home.

He came back the next morning. After adjustment, he had three hours without pain and had been able to eat for the first time in two days. Then the pain came back. I checked him again and adjusted his atlas and axis. It didn’t help as much.

Ben came back in the afternoon. I checked him again. This time it was atlas, axis, and fifth thoracic. He got off of the table and could open his mouth again.

Then he proceeded to get better.

The story makes several interesting points. One is that if a person needs a chiropractic adjustment, other forms of care might also be needed. However, getting an adjustment may help in ways not foreseen and without an adjustment healing can be delayed.

Another point is that frequent chiropractic checkups can be very helpful. It is not often that people see a chiropractor multiple times per day. It is probably needed more often than either the doctor or patient realizes.

A third point is that the chiropractic adjustment helped relieve his pain without me treating his pain. I examined his spine and adjusted based on my tests. I did not base my care on where his pain was.

How can that be?

If you cut yourself with a knife, you hurt and look where you have pain. You see blood. You have cut yourself.

If you fall and scrape your knee, your knee hurts. You look where it hurts and you see blood. You have scraped your knee.

If you break an arm or leg, it hurts. A doctor takes x-rays and sees a fracture. You have a broken bone.

You are used to pain being the indicator that you need help. It also tells you where the problem is. Sometimes.

I had a wonderful experience when I was about 12 years old. I experienced low back pain. I would have to hold onto the banister to get down the steps. When I bent over to play croquet, tears would leak from my eyes. My father was a chiropractor. He said that the cause of my low back pain was a subluxation in my neck. He adjusted me for days, but I didn’t get any better. Finally, he x-rayed my neck. I’ll never forget the smile on his face as he held the x-rays to the light. “I’m adjusting the wrong side.” He adjusted the other side and I was better immediately. That proved to me that a subluxation in your neck could affect your lower back. The experience helped me realize that the problem was not always where the pain was.

Nearly every doctor agrees that you can’t tell how healthy you are by how you feel. You must get your prostate examined or a pap smear. You must get your blood pressure checked. You must get your blood tested. The list goes on and on. Why? Because you can’t tell by how you feel. You could be minutes from a fatal heart attack and think you are fine.

I also have my tests. I show people the tests before the adjustment. I show the tests after adjustment. Now if you look like that when you hurt, and look like that when you feel better, doesn’t it make sense to run the tests and keep doing better rather than waiting until you hurt?

That is how I preferred to practice. I liked keeping people healthy. I preferred restoring health to treating disease. Keep that in mind. Would you like to stay healthy or just wait for disease to take you?

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I may be getting over an illness. I’ve been coughing for a couple of weeks. Daily I seem to think I’m better, only to relapse. For the last couple of days, I have had low energy. Fortunately, my wife picked up the slack at home. Today my energy is back. Cough is better. Maybe I’m close to recovery.

There is nothing like illness to give us pause. If extreme, we can’t even think. Mine was not extreme, so I had plenty of thinking time.

I was reminded of a medical physician I met at a seminar. We became friends and decided to trade services. Eventually I took x-rays and made him more of a chiropractic patient. He came in after having low back pain for several days. He said, “It is all I can do to keep my mind off of all the possible pathologies. I’m not here for my perspective. I’m here for yours. Just fix it.”

Then, as he got on the table, he said, “It’s probably my axis.”

That made me smile. He was right. I adjusted his axis and his low back pain improved immediately. He knew from experience what many chiropractors never know. A high percentage of chiropractors are now trained to look where the pain is to treat the condition. Often, the problem is elsewhere.

However, what reminded me of my friend was that I too was having trouble keeping my mind off of all the possible pathologies. Was I just fighting a virus? Was my low energy due to my heart or my lungs? Last year I had a cough for a couple of weeks and wound up in the hospital with pneumonia and collapsed lung. Could this be a repeat?

I thought I was getting better, but I did last year too.

Those are the thoughts that can happen to us when we’ve lost our confidence in our ability to be well. I had been having trouble sleeping. I thought that lack of sleep was the most likely cause of my weakness, along with fighting a virus. I checked my blood oxygen level. It was 100%.

I am reluctant to take any medication. I have seen how often it interferes with the natural healing process. I decided to take a cough suppressant to help me sleep.

My energy is back. Cough is better. Maybe I’m on the mend.

However, the point of this article is that I am much more empathetic to people with chronic illness. I have a friend who lives a limited life because he doesn’t feel well. I wonder how much of his problem is that he has limited his life and part of the problem is depression. Money is not a concern. That is one worry he doesn’t have.

It is amazing how much our mind affects our health. One of the things researchers are finding about the benefits of chiropractic care is the effect of changing the brain. My friend talks about seeing a chiropractor but hasn’t done it. Talking about it doesn’t quite do it.

Which gets me to another point. I’ve talked with several people who seem to have problems that might be helped by a chiropractor, yet they don’t try. Or perhaps they try one chiropractor and give up. There are many different chiropractic techniques. No one chiropractor does them all. Trying one chiropractor and giving up on chiropractic is like refusing to go to a drug store because you tried aspirin once and it didn’t help.

Having seen that is another reason I have become more open to medical intervention for myself. I don’t want to discard medical care the way some people discard chiropractic. There is a place for both.

When we are sick, we can all agree that we want to feel better. We want to be out of pain. We want to be able to move freely. We want whatever is necessary to help us achieve those results. We all become equal.

When we feel better and can move freely, it is difficult to agree on how to stay that way. It seems that everything is a probability function. It is difficult to apply probability functions to individual cases.

For example, I am working on my spine. My wife is not. I got sick. She did not. My wife got vaccinated. I did not. Perhaps, I should not be working on my spine and should have gotten vaccinated. On the other hand, our children were vaccinated and suffered more than me. Vaccination might not be the answer. Perhaps I am benefitting from my spinal rehab.

Each of us gets to choose how to live our lives. It is important for us to be able to choose what we believe will keep us healthy. It will always be difficult to prove what any individual needs. We can argue but facts are difficult to find.

Unfortunately, even when sick, the appropriate care can be difficult to determine. It can be a combination of care that is ultimately the answer. I’ve seen many patients whose doctors convinced them of a diagnosis. The doctor’s rationale had them convinced that the treatment was appropriate. Yet, they came to see me because they weren’t getting better. They often improved under chiropractic care. We must never lose our ability to choose.

If you are feeling well, have some empathy for those who are not. Realize that when we are ill, we all want the same thing. Realize that offering advice is great, but often your advice will not be taken. People have to choose for themselves.

Be supportive. Let it go. Don’t take their lack of follow up on your advice personally. It may just be a time of growth. A time for reflection. You might be surprised, as I sometimes am, that the patient gets better without following your advice. It can become a learning experience for you as well - a time of reflection.

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I used to think I could tell how my body was doing by how I felt. If something hurt, it was probably my body’s way of telling me that something was wrong. If I felt better, than I was helping my body. Of course, I was not including drug use in my considerations.

I used to tell patients that there are two different kinds of pain. One kind is sharp, and you don’t want to do that again. The other kind is annoying. A loose tooth was an example that I used. It hurt but you wanted to keep fiddling with it. I’d tell patients to pay attention and not do the sharp ones and continue the other ones.

Then I learned that movement could lessen pain. A young colleague told me that when a sore joint moved, the brain sent down signals to lessen the pain. I asked for the evolutionary advantage, and he said that if you had a sore foot and were being chased by a bear, it would be good not to feel the pain so you could run. I liked that reply.

In addition, I’ve learned that exercise increases the release of endorphins, which help block pain. Endocannabinoids, serotonin, and dopamine are also released and improve our moods. So, exercise makes us feel better. That’s good right? What about my friend who runs to make his knee feel better and has destroyed the joint as a result? When I just think about the pounding that my joints receive while running, I don’t think it is a good idea. I could be making myself feel better and destroying my knees.

However, if we couple movement with knowledge, movement for chronic pain conditions would be great. Best to do things that are easier on the joints than running.

What about the effect of anger? When you are angry, you go into fight or flight. Adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol are released. Your muscles become tight. Blood flow is redirected to muscles from the gut. The brain changes to heighten your awareness but simultaneously impairs judgment. The heightened awareness can make you think you are more alive and invigorated. Those changes may be helpful in an emergency situation, like running from a bear. What about chronic anger?

Chronic anger takes the biggest toll on your cardiovascular system. It leads to plaque formation, and high blood pressure. High cortisol suppresses the immune system, increases inflammation, and increases risk of illness. In addition, anger may reduce cognitive function, exacerbate anxiety and increase insomnia.

Why does it feel good to get angry? It feels good to do something about it. Dopamine, also known as the reward hormone, is released when you accomplish something. It causes you to want to repeat behaviors. Someone wrote about this in a post. The argument was that you read a post that makes you angry. The anger heightens your awareness while impairing your judgement. You share it and get a dopamine hit, making you feel rewarded. You then repeat that behavior. The same thing could happen by shouting or hitting someone.

Is social media driving you nuts? Are you angry? Do you share posts to make others angry too? Is your blood pressure going up? Are you having insomnia?

More important - are you feeling good about sharing the things that make you angry?

One more way feeling good can be bad for your health. What makes it even worse, when you share it, it is contagious. You can be helping others feel good while destroying their health.

What can be done? Stop social media or do what I do, search for truth. Instead of instantly hitting share, engage your brain. Ask yourself could this be false? Could the other side have a point? Notice this is the opposite of what would normally happen if you were angry. Instead of allowing anger to impair your judgement, you begin using judgement to displace your anger.

That is what I am trying to do with these posts. Get everyone thinking. Thinking is a healthy response. It helps you get beyond the programming that everyone is using to control you.

Think!!

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The first thing we must do to have any form of discussion is agree on what we are discussing. Most people want to be healthy. I say most because I had one man mark on his case history that he wasn’t interested in being healthy. I asked why he marked that, and he said that if he marked that he was interested in health, I would tell him to lose weight and stop smoking, and he didn’t want to hear it.

So MOST, but not all, want to be healthy. What is health? A definition that I like is, optimal physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Just not feeling sick does not mean you are healthy.

What is optimal function? Optimal means not too much and not too little. It is proper adaptation for the conditions of the moment. Who or what decides?

I can think of two options. Your nervous system seems to monitor your body and send sensory information to your brain. Other nerves send signals away from your brain to control body function. One option is that your brain processes information like a computer. Your brain takes input, processes it and creates output. Your brain is in control. Another option is that your brain is like a computer, but you are the intelligence behind the brain. You use the brain and subconsciously control your body.

I like the second option. The idea that I can control my brain allows me to make decisions. I am not just my brain or just my body. I am something more.

Some are trying to make us believe that we cannot affect our health. They tell us that healthy people get measles. Healthy people get Covid. To be blunt, healthy people get sick.

However, when we look at the people who die (complete failure to properly adapt), we find they usually had comorbidities. They were too fat. They smoked. They had other diseases. They were old.

A great way to reduce the cost of healthcare is to reduce demand. Unlike my patient who was not concerned about his health, you can do things to be healthy. Yes, something might happen to you, but you will be more likely to adapt and have lower treatment costs.

Remember, when I had a lung collapse? One of the nurses said nobody had ever seen a recovery as fast as mine. A doctor told me that I could take credit for my recovery because I had taken good care of myself.

That could be you. I have been under chiropractic care my entire life. Some may question the benefit, but the evidence is mounting that it is helpful.

There is no question that being active is helpful. I walk three to five miles per day. It is now 8:51 pm. I just checked my phone. I have walked 3.8 miles today.

You can be too thin. Tall, thin, males are more likely to have a spontaneous pneumothorax (collapsed lung). I am 69 inches tall. My weight at the time of my pneumothorax was 147 pounds. When I could begin exercising again, I bought a set of selectable dumbbells. I now weigh 162 pounds. My waist is the same as it was at 147 pounds. I’ve added muscle. I’m in better shape.

Things are easier when you are stronger. I can mow the grass easier. I feel stronger while walking my dogs. I enjoy that feeling. Whether I will get sick less or not, I am having a better experience.

I have also found that I feel better if I eat more protein. I usually have eggs for breakfast and a large meat and cheese sandwich for lunch. My digestive system seems to work better when I eat a little more than I was at my low weight point.

Another thing you can do is learn to control your mind. I am not into guided meditation. I don’t want someone else telling me what to think. I created a five-minute meditation video for students in my Udemy course. I just have students focus on a thought. I interrupt every 30 seconds to remind students in case their minds are wandering. Getting control of my mind is the most important thing I have learned. Although it is not always in control, it is never out of control for long. I am happier because I can choose to be.

Insurance didn’t cover my dumbbells. Insurance doesn’t pay me to use them. Insurance doesn’t pay for my food. Insurance has no effect on my brain. Insurance does not pay for me to meditate. Insurance does not make us healthy.

When I got sick, insurance covered treatment for my illness, as it should. According to the medical professionals, my bills were less because I take care of myself.

I’m trying to encourage you to do things that will help you have a better life. You will feel better. You will have a higher-level experience. You might even help reduce the demand for treatment.

Imagine if we all chose to be healthy. What a change we would see in the world.

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I’m giving my subscribers the opportunity to read and comment on my upcoming book. I first wrote it about 15 years ago. I have been encouraged to republish it. I know it needs to be updated, feel free to comment. The following is the preface.

Societal evolution over the last 200 years has changed many ways we think and behave. Our health care system has also evolved over the last 200 years. While an undergraduate student in the mid-1970s, I wrote a paper on health maintenance organizations. At that time, it was a little-known concept and most people talked about medical care not health care.

Today our politicians are talking about access to health care. By that they mean having an insurance policy. It galls me to hear that access to health care is no longer about whether a sick person can get in to see a doctor but merely whether the person has insurance. Politicians don’t seem to understand that people can be financially bled with insurance premiums to the point that they can’t afford the deductibles and co-pays. They can’t see a doctor, even though by the politicians’ standards they have health care.

While writing this book I realized that I actually have two points. One point is that health care costs are going up because government intervention has limited supply while encouraging demand and favored insurance, corporate hospitals, and drug companies over private citizens, this book. The second point is that health care costs are going up based on a false philosophy of science of life. The second point is covered in the companion book, Health Science - The “Science” of Medicine and the Dollars It Generates.

It is my hope that the two books will contribute to the debate about our health care system. I encourage us to place removing the impediments to health ahead of corporate welfare, whether the corporation is an insurance company, corporate hospital, or pharmaceutical company.

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How times have changed. We moved to Bellingham, WA in 1984. During the Clinton administration, ICE agents raided a local manufacturing business and deported about seven workers. Many people were upset and blamed the employers for hiring illegal workers. The argument was that if employers didn’t hire illegal workers, they wouldn’t come here.

I thought of that while reading about the South Korean nationals who were recently arrested for entering the country illegally or overstaying their visas. The new argument is that employers need illegal workers. It is illegal to hire undocumented workers.

I’ve read that Hyundai brought in labor from South Korea because they required special skills that U.S. workers did not possess. That is an example of a worker that visas are made for. Some are saying South Korean workers were doing basic construction like reinforced concrete.

The idea that we needed open borders for labor seemed to start with people picking crops. We were told that no Americans would take the jobs. Now we’re finding that illegal labor may be taking well-paying construction jobs. If the law was upheld, I believe the workers would be deported and the company fined and possibly company officers imprisoned.

What bothers me is that some people only want to enforce laws when they want to. Indeed, I’ve noticed that many of the people who vote for nearly every proposal for a new law are the same people who refuse to enforce the laws already on the books.

They permit excuses for lawlessness. Somehow the laws are unfair. I say enforce the laws and if they are unfair change the laws.

Certainly, our immigration laws should be updated. The original intent seems to be to maintain our European majority. I like to believe that the U.S. is a land of opportunity. I’d like to welcome those who agree with our constitution and way of life. I’m not so welcoming of those who want to come here to bring down the U.S.A.

Equality of opportunity does not equal equality of outcome. We should continue to level the playing field without tipping the game in favor of anyone.

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A fallacy that most people fall for is that I feel well therefore I am healthy. We all want to feel good. However, feeling good has little to do with health. The following are the top five chronic health conditions.

1. Hypertension (High Blood Pressure): Affects about 32% of the U.S. population, with prevalence rising to 61% among adults 65 and older. It’s a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke, often linked to aging, poor diet, and physical inactivity.

   Most of us can have hypertension and feel healthy. In 2022, I experimented with a different chiropractic approach to my neck. I was having headaches. Ultimately, I got a prescription for antibiotics. I suspected a sphenoid sinus infection. The headaches improved. At the same time, I was having hypertension with systolic ranges from 140s to 170s. I tried no caffeine, no alcohol, diet, meditation, nothing was helping the hypertension.

   I switched to a chiropractor who practiced NUCCA. That didn’t help my hypertension either. However, it did seem to help when my headache began to return.

   I began using Pettibon traction (if you get one I recommend getting the TMJ version) and resting over a neck support. Now my blood pressure is rarely over 140 and usually in 120s. More on this later.
   

2. Obesity: Impacts 42% of U.S. adults as of 2022, contributing to over 200 related chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease. It’s driven by lifestyle factors and social determinants like food insecurity.

   
   After her first adjustment, an elderly patient was concerned that she lost her appetite. I told her not to worry. After weeks of care, she was feeling better. I noticed that she was wearing a smaller patient gown. I hadn’t weighed her and didn’t ask. When she came in after an appointment with her medical doctor, I asked how far her weight was off from normal. She said five pounds.

   Another patient felt so much better after beginning care that he began walking. He lost 70 pounds.
   

3. High Cholesterol: Reported in 55% of adults 65 and older and 37% of midlife adults. It increases cardiovascular risks and is manageable through diet and medication.

   I always prefer diet to medication. There are always unintended consequences to medication. See if diet can help first.
   

4. Arthritis: Affects 51% of adults 65 and older, causing joint pain and reduced mobility. Osteoarthritis is the most common form, linked to age-related wear and tear.
   
   We often see worn spinal joints on x-ray. We can predict which joints will wear out based on alignment. That is why I encourage everyone to get spinal x-rays and get aligned.
   

5. Diabetes: Impacts 12.5% of U.S. adults, with type 2 being the most common. It’s a leading cause of death and complications like kidney disease, driven by obesity and lifestyle factors.
   
   Again, look to diet first. Exercise. Reduce your weight if you are overweight.

We never know what will happen to us. I could drop dead before I get to the end of this sentence. Consider what the anesthesiologist told me when I was in the hospital last April. Before surgery, he told me that he was good at what he did. After surgery, I complimented him that I felt pretty good. He said, “Which is worse to correctly brag about your ability or be falsely humble?” With that as background, he stopped to see me a couple of days after surgery. I told him I was doing well and thanked him. As he walked out, he turned and said, “You can take credit for your recovery. You’ve taken good care of yourself.”

I exercise. I eat well. I meditate. I work to align my spine. Those are things I do to take care of myself not to avoid chronic conditions. When people ask why I look so young, I usually say genetics. The truth is my father looked just like me when he died at the age of 50. Maybe it has something to do with taking care of myself. My father couldn’t rehab his spine. He had a fracture that didn’t heal properly.

Something to think about.

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“I had an interesting conversation with my doctor,” my neighbor started. His wife chimed in, “And it started because of you.”

I thought, Ah-Oh.

He continued, “We were talking about knee replacement surgery. I told him I’d rather have it done by robotics. He asked me what the advantages were. I told him that it is more precise and less damage to muscles and nerves. He said we do that for intestinal surgery but not for orthopedics. I told him that I have a friend who is a doctor (of course it is you) who told me about doing knee replacement with robotics. The doctor started ignoring me and looking things up on his computer. He spent 10 minutes watching a YouTube video and just saying - Wow. Turns out surgeons around here don’t do it but somebody about an hour away does.”

I’d forgotten. Peter and I had been talking about his options. One night I queried Grok and sent him the article. It gave him his options, including robotic surgery. I’ve read that robots are being compared to surgeons and are able to outperform many. A prediction is that within a couple of years robots will be better than the top surgeons.

No doctor can be on top of everything. I wasn’t able to help Peter because of my training or experience. I helped him by using AI.

You may remember that I had a collapsed lung last April. In a few minutes, Sam, my oldest son, knew more about my options than the hospitalist in charge of my care. He used AI.

I encourage you to become familiar with AI. Don’t accept the results. Ask for references and look up the references.

One problem is querying when you have no knowledge of the subject. It can be difficult to ask the right questions or to know the right follow up questions. If you have no knowledge of a subject, you won’t know if you get a garbage answer.

If you have a retired friend in the field, run it by your friend. Get an expert opinion.

I’m finding AI to be a great tool. I encourage you to use it.

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I’m taking a course to become C.E.R.T. (Community Emergency Response Team) trained. The course materials are developed through F.E.M.A. The local team is under the county sheriff. I highly recommend everyone take the training. We respond to disasters with the mission of doing the most good for the most people. As I learned helping with the Goldilocks Revolution, the way to do the most good for the most people is to minimize harm. It all starts with you. We are being trained to be rescuers and not on the treatment list. Be prepared. Here are four tips that I am changing in my house.

1. I keep a pair of shoes under my bed. The most common injury after a disaster is to feet. There may be broken glass on the floor. Windows, picture frames, televisions, mirrors, aquariums, and pots for plants, may be broken and on floor. Having shoes under your bed helps you be prepared to quickly evacuate.

2. Make sure you have two exits out of every room of your home in case of fire. One of my sons is a general contractor. I think bedrooms are required to have a window as an escape route. I have two bedrooms upstairs. We have ordered two ladders to keep under the beds. I will be training guests to use them.

3. Most of us have smoke detectors. Carbon monoxide detectors are now required. I thought they had to be low. Turns out the new detectors can be nearly anywhere. My son sold a home with detectors on the ceiling. Some detectors may detect both smoke and carbon monoxide. Make sure detectors have good batteries.

4. Fire extinguishers. Yes, we have several. No, they are not easy to find. I plan to buy three more fire extinguishers. I’ll put one upstairs and one on the front and back of my home.

Those are four quick tips. Knowing is only half the battle. We never know when disaster may strike.

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These lessons will be based on the book You Are the Placebo by Dr. Joe Dispenza. I am listening to the audio book. You can buy it using the link.

Conditioning - happens when you associate a past memory with a change in your body. Dr. Dispenza uses the example of using an aspirin to get relief from a headache. When you link something outside of yourself is changing the inside of you, you have associative memory. With repetition, the association becomes stronger. A sugar pill that looked like an aspirin might have the same effect of relieving the headache, due to the association.

Expectation - in regard to placebo, “is when you have a reason to expect a different outcome.” (Dispenza) If you are told that a new medication will give you a better outcome, and you believe it with enough emotion, the brain will create the chemicals necessary to produce the change.

Meaning - if you are educated to believe something will work, it is more likely to work. For example, when maids were told that while working, they were actually getting exercise, they had better health results than a control group.

Much of your thinking is repetitive. You get up in the same way and all of your actions, from breakfast, to work, throughout the day, to home again are the same. You continue to think the same way. You make the same choices. Your brain doesn’t change. You have the same thoughts and emotions. Your brain signals genes to make the same proteins, and you continue to have the same outcomes.

Many years ago, a friend recommended consciously changing my routine. Take a different route to work. Brush your teeth differently, etc. Think about making little changes to change your thinking.

Dispenza says that “your personality is made up of how you think, act, and feel.” Would you like to feel differently? If you change what you think, you will make different choices. Different choices will create different actions. You will have different experiences. Ultimately you will feel differently. That success will inspire you to have new thoughts. The cycle continues.

Rather than looking at the brain as a computer, Dispenza says that we should look at each neuron as a computer. Each cell of your brain (neuron) is computing and making connections to other neurons. The connections are actually little gaps called synapses. Synapses persist if they are reinforced through use. If not, they are gone within about three weeks.

Think of a group of neurons that connect to each other as a neural network. You can use the neural networks without having to think about them. Think about learning to brush your teeth or drive a car. It was difficult to create the neural network but once created you don’t think about it.

Think of your mind as a firing pattern in your brain. If your mind has a previous thought, the brain is firing the same pattern. If there were emotions attached to that thought, you are experiencing the same emotions. Your body will respond in the same way. You may begin laughing or crying. Your stomach may tighten. How do you get out of that?

Dr Dispenza compares your neural connections to a box. Think of having a box inside your skull. The box represents your mind. To change your mind, you must think outside the box. Once you change your mind, you change your brain and body.

What if I’m wrong? What if someone else is right? Where is truth? Those are questions that help me think outside of my own box.

If you think about it, you may notice that I have difficulty putting myself in a box. Many of my colleagues will say that they are Doctors of Chiropractic. Other colleagues will say they are real estate brokers.

One of my mentors said, “I am a citizen of the universe.” That leaves things pretty open. Although I maintain licenses in chiropractic and real estate, I don’t allow those fields to define me.

I might have more success with this newsletter if it were more focused. In light of this article, I look at expanding my thoughts on politics, spirituality, business, health, and personal growth as keeping me from creating the box in my brain.

Perhaps reading these posts will help you get out of your own box and have a different experience.

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I thought perhaps I’d better chime in on Secretary Kennedy’s proposal for creation of government publication of government research. Quoting from Stat:

On the “Ultimate Human Podcast with Gary Brecka,” Kennedy said, “We’re probably going to stop publishing in the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and those other journals because they’re all corrupt.” The journals, he said, publish studies that are funded by the pharmaceutical industry. As a substitute for them, he continued, the NIH will establish medical journals for its various institutes and centers — unless current journals change “radically.”

I’ve seen articles covering Kennedy’s announcement that make it seem as though the government wants to control what is published. The articles talk about the age and prestige of the journals. They don’t talk about the darker side.

Marcia Angell, M.D., former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, has written two books: Science on Trial: The Clash of Medical Evidence and the Law in the Breast Implant Case; and The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It.

Voices in Bioethics did an interview with Dr. Angell in 2016. She was asked,

The new policy allows drug companies to pay a writer $10,000 annually for editorial reviews. Yet, writers may receive payments from multiple companies, and a company may pay more than one writer, which gives writers multiple sources of income and thus presents a conflict of interest. Given this, is any amount acceptable? Do you think there should be a zero-tolerance policy?

Her answer,

Zero. …

One person said that what the senior faculty really likes, in addition to money, is food, friendship, and flattery, and you see how that works and how that co-opts people who think they’re objective and who want to be objective, but who are in fact so closely allied with the big drug companies that they start to feel their pain. (laughs)

Explaining the death of my brother?

Dr. Angell also talked about drug companies only publishing positive results and hiding (not publishing) negative results from new drugs. The example she gave was new blood thinning drugs to replace Warfarin. A problem with new drugs:

So this was a part of Bud’s (her husband and also a former editor of NJM) objection to the studies on these new Warfarin replacements. They have a serious side effect in that they can’t be reversed. If you’re taking these drugs and you start to hemorrhage, there’s nothing that can be done about it. Whereas if you’re taking Warfarin, hemorrhage can be reversed with vitamin K.

According to my sister-in-law, my brother Steve was given a blood thinner at the hospital. I suspect they believed he had a blood clot. He also had hemorrhoids. His hemorrhoids began bleeding, and they gave him vitamin K. The bleeding didn’t stop.

I certainly don’t have enough information on my brother’s death. I was not there. I do find it interesting to run across the problem in this interview.

Have Democrats and Republicans changed sides?

Usually, Democrats trust government over private companies. Although I’ve heard the claim that Republicans trust private companies over government, I don’t think a lot of Republicans trust anybody. If you don’t trust a company, you can refuse to buy. If you don’t trust government, you are forced to buy. Covid gave us a national example.

Democrats are questioning Secretary Kennedy’s motives. Will they trust government publications? On the other hand, Republicans (at least those who think like Kennedy) don’t trust independent journals. Will they trust government journals?

Another example of changing our thinking based on who is in power.

My ankle was hurting so badly I was limping. We were moving my office. Friends noticed and were asking why I was limping. I didn’t know what I had done. We took a break for dinner. When I got up from eating, my ankle hurt even worse. I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. As I looked in the mirror, I suddenly heard, there is nothing wrong with my ankle. I didn’t think about it again for a couple of hours.

I like to use that story as an example of faith. What if I had imagined, prayed or hoped that my ankle was better? Wouldn’t the first response be to take a step and see if it hurt? I didn’t even think about it. I knew nothing was wrong. I think one of my friends noticed that I wasn’t limping and made me think about it. I was fine.

These lessons will be based on the book You Are the Placebo by Dr. Joe Dispenza. I am listening to the audio book. You can buy it using the link.

In chapter 2, Dr. Dispenza gives examples of the power of placebo and nocebo effects. Placebo effect is when people get well because they believe they are benefiting from a treatment. Nocebo effect is the opposite - people become sick because of their thinking.

There are dramatic anecdotal examples of individuals making recoveries from cancer and other diseases. In fact, one man became well, discovered the medication was worthless and immediately developed tumors again. Then he was told he just needed a stronger dose and his tumors disappeared. He finally saw reports that the treatment really was worthless, and he died of cancer shortly.

In addition to case reports, there are research studies showing the power of our thinking. When people have positive thoughts, they are more likely to have better outcomes. One study stroked the arms of children with leaves. One arm was stroked with poison ivy and the other with leaves that were not noxious. If told that the arm stroked with non-noxious leaves was poison ivy, that arm was likely to have symptoms of poison ivy and the other arm might not. Dr. Dispenza gives many examples. He also looks at faith healing as a placebo effect and Voodoo as nocebo effect.

He is presenting the idea that the mind controls the body. At this point in the book, he has not gotten into the idea that there is no such thing as mind.

I gave a talk to a psychology class at Western Washington University. The professor told me that he was not allowed to talk about the power of the mind to control the body. The mind is considered to be an effect of the brain.

The reason is that dualism, the idea that there is a God or spiritual realm in addition to the material realm, is considered to be unscientific. Karl Popper presented the idea that all scientific ideas must be capable of being falsified. The sun rising in the east and setting in the west is the classic example. We believe that to be true. However, if the sun rose in the west and set in the east just once, the idea would be falsified and discarded.

It is claimed that a spiritual realm can’t be falsified. Those who believe tend to ignore data and claim they just need faith.

If there is only a material realm, then the idea that we have a mind is an illusion created by the brain. Under this hypothesis, everything is just neuroscience. As one psychologist put it, if we can’t find a mind around here somewhere, we might as well fold our tents and admit we’re just neuroscientists.

I find the idea of dualism to be beneficial even if it proves to be wrong. Telling people that they can control their lives is much better than telling them they are victims. Research points that out.

Placebo and nocebo effects can be explained by dualism or monism (only material realm). Either way the brain makes changes. We can measure the changes. If I tell someone they are getting a treatment, does the brain change to create hope in the mind? Does telling people they have control and how to live a better life create brain changes that make them think they can do better? Isn’t that better than the books that are written against free will?

I’m looking forward to learning more from Dr. Dispenza and passing it to you along with my thoughts.

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I listened to Secretary Kennedy’s address to Congress today. A congressman asked him about his focus on nutrition. Kennedy used colon cancer as an example. He said that research has led to treatments that will save 50% of people with colon cancer. There is no research on what causes colon cancer.

Imagine eliminating the cause of diseases rather than treating the disease after it happens! The problem? There is no money to be made in helping people make healthy choices. That is why government should focus on it!

Now for today’s lesson.

These lessons will be based on the book You Are the Placebo by Dr. Joe Dispenza. I am listening to the audio book. You can buy it using the link. He was run over by a SUV while running a triathlon. He had compression fractures of six vertebrae. He was told he would need to have rods surgically implanted to stabilize his spine. Without the surgery, he was unlikely to walk again. He chose a different path.

Dr. Dispenza is a chiropractor. He used visualization to direct his body to heal. One of his realizations was, “we are all divine creators.” He was walking in less than 10 weeks after the accident.

That experience changed his life. He became a researcher into the mind-body relationship. He studied spirituality and spontaneous remission. He furthered his post graduate education in neurology.

He was in the movie, What the Bleep Do We Know, and he wrote a book. He was asked to teach classes. He continued to teach classes in more depth. Later, he was providing corporate training and developed a coaching company.

He teamed up with scientists to measure the changes in bodies that were happening during events he was hosting. The team was able to objectively record the changes that were happening through personal transformation.

Everyone has heard of the placebo effect. A patient is given a substance that should have no effect on the illness. The patient gets well. Dr. Dispenza wondered if people could be taught to believe in themselves. Could they believe in their own ability to be well without the external pill? That is what he covers in the book.

Can we transform our lives through thought alone? That is what the book is about.

I look forward to presenting future lessons.

Two weeks ago, I posted The Great Health Myth, I know I’m healthy because I feel good. Ironically, four days later I was admitted to the hospital. Yesterday, I took the last of the bandages off and had a shower for the first time in a week. Here is what happened.

We often take care of our grandkids. They have been coughing, and I began coughing. I didn’t really think too much about it. The kids got better. I would too. I think I had been coughing for a couple of days when I mowed my grass on Saturday. It wasn’t any extra effort. It took the usual two and a half hours of pushing a mower.

Monday, I posted The Great Health Myth. I mentioned that we could be feeling well and be near a life-ending or changing event. We could be feeling poorly and be recovering. It is difficult to tell how we are doing by how we feel.

Tuesday, I helped my son clean up a house he was selling. I lifted some boards that were part of a fence and put them in a trailer. It was just rotten wood and wasn’t particularly heavy.

I think I was just walking when I felt intense pain along my spine between my shoulders. I was having difficulty breathing. I thought I couldn’t breathe due to pain. I didn’t say anything. I thought I would tell my wife what to do and I’d feel better. That happened.

We were supposed to watch two-year-old Geni on Wednesday morning. Mandy was going to go to exercise, and I would watch Geni for a few hours. I sat on the edge of the bed and said, “I just don’t have the energy to chase her around today.”

Mandy took care of Geni and I rested. I could hear wheezing and rales after coughing and sometimes while breathing - without needing a stethoscope. I was able to walk. I was concerned that I had bronchitis or pneumonia.

Thursday, I could breathe a little better. I was still walking a few blocks. I felt weak. I could still hear wheezing and rales.

Friday, I decided it was time for a medical opinion. Mandy took me to an urgent care.

After listening to my lungs, the doc said I might have pneumonia. The only way to tell was to take chest X-rays. Was I up for that? Yes. Actually, that was what I wanted.

When he got the results, he came into the room and said, “Am I glad you came to see us today. You have a pneumothorax on the left side. You have to go to ER.”

For those who don’t know, think of the five lobes of the lungs as five balloons in your chest. The air is inside the balloons. If you get a hole in one of the balloons, the air goes from inside the balloon to between the balloon and your chest. The air presses on the outside of the balloon, causing it to deflate. That is pneumothorax.

So, we were off to ER. I was admitted to trauma care quickly. Of course, they had to take their own X-ray. The pneumothorax didn’t show up. So, off for CT. The surgeon came to give me the results. She looked me in the eyes and said, “You have pneumonia on the right and pneumothorax on the left. No wonder you feel shitty.”

Treatment is to insert a tube into the air space and suck the air out. The idea is that the lung will inflate and heal. Then the tube is taken out. At first, they thought I’d be easy. They took the tube out on Saturday. I vomited my lunch and coughed. I was taken to CT of abdomen to see why my digestion was giving me trouble. I had thought that I might have had a restriction and encouraged diagnosis. While they were at it, they did CT of lungs. Pneumothorax had returned.

I was rushed to have another tube inserted. They decided to leave it for 48 hours. I talked with a surgeon on Monday. She advised a procedure that would essentially glue my lung to the chest cavity. She had an opening for Wednesday. I decided to take it.

I was told that it would be a painful operation. I was very lucky. My pain level was about a 7/10 when I got to my room. I was given another drug that brought the pain down to 4 within 15 minutes. By evening, I walked the floor around the wing for one lap.

Thursday, I walked five times - two laps the first time and three laps the next four times.

Friday, I walked four times - three laps each time.

Saturday, I was released. I took Tylenol Saturday night and no pain meds since then.

Why did I decide to get a medical opinion? My energy level was low. My trajectory didn’t seem to be improving well enough.

What happened? What caused it? We don’t know. I looked at the research and opted for surgery.

The nurses were laughing about my recovery. One said, “Do you hear us bragging about you out there?” Another said, “I’ve never seen anybody recover as quickly as you.”

The anesthesiologist stopped by and I thanked him for my low pain level. He said, “I’m good, but you can take credit for your recovery. It is because you have taken care of yourself.”

I knew I couldn’t tell how healthy I was by how I felt. The most pain I had was due to the tubes. However, I’ve been exercising. I’ve been correcting my spine. My tests show my nervous system is more balanced than in many years. Perhaps all that paid off not only in feeling good, but a speedier recovery.

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Asked if they are healthy, most people will say yes, if they don’t hurt. Yet many of those “healthy” people are days away from fatal heart attack, stroke, or a cancer diagnosis.

What does potential heart failure feel like? It feels like you are healthy. What does a stroke feel like an hour before it happens? It feels like you are healthy. What does early-stage cancer feel like? It feels like you are healthy.

I don’t know of any doctor that believes you can tell if you are healthy by how you feel. Nearly all doctors have tests that they believe help determine if you are healthy. If you perform poorly on the test, then you are not healthy, and treatment is recommended.

Do drugs restore health? If I have a headache, I want the headache to go away. I don’t like being in pain. If I take aspirin and my headache goes away, has my health been restored? Was my pain caused by lack of aspirin? Should I take aspirin to prevent pain?

People rarely think about cause. What causes a headache? What causes stomach upset? What causes backpain? What causes heart trouble? There are many medications for each of those conditions, but do the medications target the cause? Of course not.

I’m not denying that taking medications are beneficial. We all want to feel good. I’m just pointing out that medications rarely, if ever, address the cause of our problems.

Think about the treatments for virus. As I mentioned in Dupe ‘em and Dope ‘em, a patient came in and told me she had nausea and diarrhea. She thought she should see her medical doctor. I agreed. In a few days, she came back. The conversation went something like:

“Did you see your medical doctor?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“He thinks I have an intestinal virus.”

“What does he propose to do about it?

She rummaged in her large purse and with a bottle of pills in each hand said, “He gave me this one for nausea and this one for diarrhea.”

“Yeah. That’s why I could never be a medical doctor.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well assuming he’s right, you have an intestinal virus. Your body is trying to throw it out both ends and he’s going to keep it in there. It makes no sense.”

Sure, we want to feel better. We might even need to control our physiology while we heal. However, drugs are not the cause of health. Drugs do not heal us.

Health is optimal physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. What causes optimal function?

You do!! You are an intelligence controlling your body. You subconsciously use your brain and nervous system to control and coordinate all body functions. If your nervous system fails to respond to your directions, you begin the disease process.

Disease is the process of failing to properly adapt to the environment. Think about COVID. Some people were exposed to the virus and adapted quickly. They were unaware they had been infected. Others adapted more slowly. The virus built up until it was recognized. Then more drastic adaptive measures were necessary. Think of the people who died. They had co-morbidities. They were already failing to adapt. They were already sick.

In future articles, I’ll give more information on adaptation and restoration of health.

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I have left a lot out of the three-hour course to create four articles. I’m not getting into the areas of the brain. I didn’t mention the roles of cortisol and adrenalin. You can get a lot more out of the course. I’m giving you a sample, my perspective. Take it for what it is worth.

The course discussed three brain networks. The default network deals with how we are feeling, memories and thoughts for the future. The salience network deals with what is most important - right now. The executive network is the thinking part. During trauma one or more networks become disconnected. The goal of therapy is to integrate all three networks.

Using a mindfulness slogan was mentioned. The slogan was, “Ah I understand now.” The idea was to stop when we feel stressed and repeat the slogan.

Key to that process from my perspective is that YOU must catch yourself feeling stressed and YOU must remember the slogan. Then YOU must repeat it.

That seems trivial. However, think of it from the standpoint of Newtonian physics. Remember nothing moves or changes without an outside force. Where does the force come from that causes your brain to change? It comes from YOU.

When YOU realize you are feeling stressed, YOU are beginning to take control. When YOU remember the slogan, YOU are changing your brain. When YOU say the slogan, you are changing your brain again.

In my opinion, it is using YOUR power that causes the integration. YOU somehow exert the force that changes your brain.

R. W. Stephenson wrote a chiropractic text in 1927. He said that force is the missing link between intelligence and matter. It is the missing link because nobody thinks about it. We talk about the brain changing, but we don’t look for the forces causing the changes. Does the brain simply change itself? Do environmental forces cause changes in the brain? I don’t think that is a helpful way of thinking. If either of those is true, then we have no control. YOU change your brain because YOU are the intelligence.

The brain/body can malfunction and fail to respond to intelligence. Sometimes chiropractors can help correct the malfunction. Sometimes input from a therapist may be helpful. Sometimes drugs may be helpful. However, key is learning to take control and change your brain. That is what happens with mindful meditation. YOU integrate your brain. Learning to stop your thinking and change your mind is the most powerful thing you will ever learn.

Look around you and you will see many people who are upset. They can’t sleep. They are worried. They aren’t happy. They can’t control their brains/minds. Imagine if they could sit and control their minds.

When I was a kid, when we were mad, we were taught to count to ten. Why? It helps us get control of our brains. We were taught to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. Why? By thinking from someone else’s perspective, it helps us reprogram our brains.

Think about what has happened to you. Get help to reconnect or integrate your brain. Along the way, learn to take control as much as possible.

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Okay. I admit it. I thought drug companies did their own research and drug prices were high to compensate them for their investment. Maybe. Maybe sometimes. What about when they are not?

An article published in ProPublica (legit?) titled What a $2 Million per Dose Gene Therapy Reveals About Drug Pricing, gives us reason to think. Zolgensma is a gene therapy drug to help children with spinal muscular atrophy. Private charities and grants from the federal government funded initial research. The price was determined to be over $2 million based on “the value it provides to patients” or what I call what-the-market-will-bear. “This was a case where the charities and the government did everything to get this thing commercialized, and then it just became an opportunity for a bunch of people to make transformative, generational wealth,” said James Love, director of the public advocacy group Knowledge Ecology International.”

I first became aware of the role of government financing while listening to The Real Anthony Fauci by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (RFK, Jr). For some drugs, the process seems to be that the major heavy lifting of research is funded by National Institute of Health. The drug is patented and then licensed to drug companies. The payments from the drug companies help make our government workers millionaires. According to Money, Inc., in 2021 Dr. Fauci received $456,028 in royalty payments from pharmaceutical companies. That doesn’t seem right to me.

Before IBM hired me in 1978, I signed an agreement giving them rights to any intellectual property I created while working for them. Shouldn’t we have the same agreements with scientists working for taxpayers? If we are paying to develop drugs, shouldn’t the drugs be delivered to patients on a cost-plus basis and not on a whatever-the-market-will-bear basis? That change alone could be huge.

Lest you believe some “scientists” on the news lately, let me give you a couple of quotes that should make you shudder. The first is from Richard Smith, editor of The BMJ until 2004.

We have now reached a point where those doing systematic reviews must start by assuming that a study is fraudulent until they can have some evidence to the contrary.

In 2009 Marcia Angell wrote: “It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.”

When we have editors of the top medical journals saying medical research is fraud, we need to do something. RFK Jr. seems to understand the problem better than most and has vowed to confront it.

Government pays for the research, if it is even done. Patents the drug. Licenses the drug to pharma. Bureaucrats get a cut of the licensing fee. Academics and bureaucrats determine the “value to the patient” and set a super high price. Insurance must pay the price, but they don’t care. Think about it. They are getting a cut too. If you could afford the drug, you wouldn’t buy insurance.

The system is corrupt. For the first time in a very long time, I am hopeful.

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(I’m taking a course called The Neurobiology of Trauma. It is based on the latest technology on how the brain works. It is taught by psychologists. I wish I had known this forty years ago. Thought I’d post some ideas that may help you or someone you know.)

In Part 1 I gave the definition of trauma as an experience that overwhelms the brain’s ability to cope. I also gave some examples of experiences that might be traumatizing.

Not everyone will experience trauma from the same events. The course gives an example of a race car driver’s experience of a car wreck might not be traumatic for the driver. The driver has had similar experience on the track. It might be quite traumatic for those of us who have not experienced rolling a car.

The first part of the brain to be activated is the brain stem. That is where the nerves for sight and hearing connect. We actually begin to act before we are conscious of what is happening. We’ll get back to the brain stem in a bit.

An experience of people who have had severe trauma is the feeling of inescapability and helplessness. The brain can put these people in a state of paralysis. They feign death. If that doesn’t work to make the predator go away, the next stage is the release of hormones to deaden pain. I like to think of it as preparation to be eaten. We see it in animals. People can get stuck in either paralysis or hyper alertness. The problem is that the brain is not properly integrated.

The course talks about helping clients integrate thoughts, emotions and the body. Dr. Ogden said, “We work with cognitions and belief systems that are formed after trauma, which involves the cortex. We also have to work with the emotions, especially how to regulate those trauma-related emotions, like rage and terror – that has to do with the limbic system. Then, we also have to work with the body because that's where trauma impacts.”

The psychologists go on to talk about clients whose posture is tense. When a client has an emotion, the therapist can ask questions to help engage the cortex and integrate the emotion with thinking. The therapist can also have the client move to engage the body and integrate posture.

I promised to get back to the brain stem. As a chiropractor, one of the things I examine is posture. Subluxation of atlas (bone of the spine below the skull) can affect the brain stem and cause imbalance in posture. Adjustment removes the interference to the brain stem, allowing muscles to relax and posture is balanced.

So far, I haven’t seen anything in the course that mentions working with chiropractic. At one time, Palmer had three sanitariums studying the effect of chiropractic on mental conditions. Perhaps chiropractors and psychologists should be working together more.

Next time I’ll cover epigenetics and how you can live a longer, healthier life.

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