I would imagine every single house has some sort of medicine cabinet or drawer, full of pills, potions and creams to be brought out whenever they are required to help us live our lives. There is an increasing tendency for the maxim “pop a pill for every ill” to be worryingly accurate.
Of course, many medications are vital for good health. I am by no means suggesting that there is no place at all for pharmaceuticals, and I advise everyone in the strongest terms to consult with a qualified pharmacist or their GP before they consider stopping taking ANY prescribed medication. But they can also be a short term, quick-fix mask that allows you to carry on day to day without ever really addressing the root cause behind the problems you are experiencing.
As a chiropractor, naturally I mostly see people who are in pain and therefore the primary medication group I deal with are painkillers. Widely available, both from your GP and just over-the-counter, I’m fairly sure that everyone at some point will have popped a couple of pills for that headache or that back niggle. I know I have! And there is nothing wrong with that, as long as it really is occasional.
Increasingly, however, I am finding people are taking more and more painkillers of a stronger and stronger variety in order to get through their day. Unsurprisingly, the health penalties of this kind of action can really take their toll. Whether it’s constipation, stomach ulcers or even addiction to certain medications, the side effects can be wide ranging and severe.
Then, of course, you end up with the ultimate irony: taking medication to counteract the side effects of the medication you’re taking. Even worse, taking medication to counteract the side effects of the medication you’re taking which is simply masking the problem, not addressing it!
So, I call everyone to make this month their month of action. If you are regularly taking pain medication, why not call in at your local physiotherapist, chiropractor, osteopath or similar healthcare professional to see if you can achieve better, healthier results another way – addressing the root cause of your pain, not simply hiding it in a fog of drugs.
If the list of prescriptions you are collecting is becoming longer than your grocery list, maybe it’s time for a thorough review of that as well? I frequently get presented with prescription lists which are so long there is no way anyone can simply remember everything on it, and sometimes they clearly haven’t been reviewed for years and contain medications that are both doing the same job, or were for a condition the patient has since recovered from. Even more worrying to me, the patient is often unsure exactly why they are taking the drugs. I don’t expect them to be intimately acquainted with the exact biochemical effect of each pharmaceutical, but at least understanding which condition it should be helping with isn’t too much to ask of their doctor to explain? If you find it difficult to get an appointment with your GP for a review of this sort, then pop down to your local pharmacy – a qualified pharmacist should be just as capable of advising you whether there is anything that can be done to lessen the sometimes astonishing pill packet you have ended up with.
Chiropractic is all about health – whole body health. The new year period we are currently in is an excellent time to take control of your health, and the first step is making sure there are no more chemicals floating round your system then there absolutely must be!
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