Maintaining your health is very similar to maintaining your car. When you really think about the comparison and look at it on a very basic level, there is not much difference.
The Parable of the Poorly-Maintained Truck
When I was 18, I had a white ’97 Chevy S-10. It was my first vehicle and I really enjoyed it.
The dealership we bought it from gave me a checklist of things that needed to be done on the truck i.e. oil change every 3,000 miles, rotate the tires regularly, etc.
I enjoyed having a truck, don’t get me wrong, but I wasn’t the most intelligent human being at 18.
I was also pretty lazy.
Case in point: I did not get my first oil change in the truck until about 12,000 miles.
That was my first and last oil change for a long time.
The truck had a warranty for 3 years or 36,000 miles, whichever came first, which is pretty standard with a new vehicle.
At about 36,001 miles, my truck started making a clicking noise. I didn’t pay much attention to it for a while. What’s the big deal, right?
The clicking gradually grew louder and louder, until finally I decided I better take it in to the shop. I took it to the dealership we bought it from and they looked at it. I waited for a while while they looked at it, until finally the service manager came out and asked me a question.
“Have you changed the oil lately?” He asked.
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “I think I changed it, uh, just last month.”
“Really,” he said in a very skeptical tone. “Because there’s nothing but black sludge in the engine, and that usually happens when the oil hasn’t been changed in a very long time.”
While he was talking, I was thinking to myself that it wasn’t a big deal and they would just fix it.
Then I snapped out of it when he said “Your engine has to be replaced.”
I suddenly felt a pit in my stomach. Getting an engine replaced was a big deal… and it was expensive. I knew that much. I also knew that I did not have that kind of money.
He told me he was going to see what he could do and get back to me in a few days.
Eventually it worked out. They were able to replace the engine, and somehow, by the grace of God, they were able to apply the engine replacement to the recently expired warranty. I don’t know how and I don’t know why, but I escaped that incident without paying a dime. But, I did learn a very potentially costly lesson: change your vehicle’s oil more than every 12,000 miles.
Needless to say, I make sure to get the oil changed regularly now.
Comparing a Truck to a Human Being
What happens if you don’t maintain your health? Let’s take a look.
Let’s say Bob slips and falls and smack his head on the ground. That fall shakes his spine up and his atlas (C1) misaligns. He starts to develop headaches not long after the fall. He begins feeling achy everywhere as well, due to spinal compensation, which is a re-alignment of the rest of the spine to compensate for the misalignment of the atlas… Not a good thing.
Over time, the headaches get worse and Bob goes to see a general practitioner (GP). They prescribe him Thorazine to relieve the pain and occasional nausea that accompanies it.
At the same time, Bob’s spine is beginning to degenerate a much quicker pace than normal. Because his atlas has misaligned, the rest of his cervical spine has leaned forward to compensate. This gives him a forward head posture that stretches his spinal cord, which over time may lead to leg weakness, incontinence, and scoliosis. His cervical spine begins to develop a reverse curve, which his thoracic spine compensates for by curving more than usual. His lumbar spine then responds by straightening itself out.
Now Bob begins to have bad low back pain. He begins to take over-the-counter NSAIDS like ibuprofen.
Bob also realized, from his recent trip to his GP, that he has high blood pressure, so he is now on Sectral as well.
Because of all his pain and discomfort, Bob has become depressed. He goes to a psychiatrist and gets a prescription for Prozac, but it needs to be balanced out so he doesn’t get too much of a high, so the psychiatrist prescribes Bob lithium as well.
During this time, Bob’s spine continues to degenerate. His intervertebral discs start to degenerate in his neck. The friction that the newly touching vertebrae are creating causes bone spurs to form in his cervical spine.
Meanwhile, all the drugs he is taking are causing him severe abdominal pains and his liver is not functioning properly anymore. His cervical spine begins to fuse in places where the intervertebral discs have now almost completely disintegrated.
And the process of dis-ease becoming disease goes on and on until Bob is finally relieved by death.
How many of us want to go out like that?
Prevention is the Best Medicine
Just like getting an oil change maintains the health of your vehicle, getting your upper cervical spine checked and/or adjusted on a regular basis is key to allowing your body to function at 100%. Allowing your body’s Innate Intelligence to express itself properly so that dis-ease does not take hold is paramount.
The only way to do that is to make sure your body is free of nerve interference.
The best place to start is a specific upper cervical adjustment.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
That’s funny about your truck.
Thanks for the info about upper cervical.
It is very important to practice preventive medicine, and chiropractic is a good way to keep the body tuned up. Thanks for your contribution to Take Charge of Your Heath Care Carnival.
I agree, It makes so much more sense to get checked for subluxation right when we are born and continue until for the rest of our lives. I have been preaching that for 20 years and have some people who come in regularly to get checked. For the most part though, people come in with symptoms and want them treated, they never think of coming to us until they hurt. I think that when we treat their symptoms we undermine the chiropractic principle which results in having a majority of patients in a practice who are there for symptom treatment.
I agree with Dr. Doble regarding undermining the chiropractic principle. As chiropractors we want to help our patients with their issues that they present with. What better way to confuse them, however, if they come in with a symptom and then they get better if we help them. Confusing, even to those of us that practice principled chiropractic.
Regarding your example of Bob, what if he never slipped and fell? The message I get from the example is to get checked if the there is physical trauma and/or if there is a symptom.
As chiropractors we know the 3 causes of subluxation. Our challenge, as I see it, is presenting the message that life’s stresses (any of the 3; physical, emotional, and chemical) can cause subluxation. Even the ones we don’t know about.
Great points Marc. I was simply using the example of Bob to make a point, not to say get checked only if you get injured or have a symptom. It was an example of how things go in our society, that instead of dealing with the problem, people look for an outside-in approach to correcting the problem, which obviously never works.
Treat there symptoms!! All will come around. To getting uc checked so they dont have symptoms. People are suffering and dont know you can treat symptoms. It is epidemic. Let them know!! I was Just checking your site and work awesome. LOVED your video. Powerful and moving. Keep it coming. And getting it out there!!!! and taping your miracles and their journeys. You cannot deny what you can see. Media is the most powerful tool in the world, its how they sell all the drugs. I have the skills and passion to make the next one. You all have the experiences> i need on film camera phone, i phone etc Thats what we need to move forward on this end Before atals prilofax atals reconnect etc. Need realty footage and medical journeys on tape. Now that would be awesome spread the word. We are waiting and there for you.