by Dr. Brandon Crouch
Life has many forks in the road. That’s what keeps life exciting. When you come to one of those you get to make a choice. Which direction do you want to take your life? Your choices decide your education, career, finances, friends, family, physical health, emotional health, and spiritual health. When you look ahead, where do you see yourself? The type of health care you choose now will determine your future outcome. Do you choose to patch your health care or to restore it?
Patch health care is when you live your life with no real concern about the outcomes of your actions. There is no planning involved. You eat what you want to eat when you want to eat it. You get as much or as little exercise as you feel like for the day. Patch care also means that you don’t deal with problems until they arise. Once a problem surfaces you go to the doctor for a pill, potion, or lotion to get you going again. Once you’re out of crisis mode you return back to your normal rogue ways of living. Patch health care is living your life just reacting to symptoms, sickness, and disease as they appear.
Restorative health care is the complete opposite of patch care. Restorative health care is looking ahead through the weeks, months, and years ahead to see where you are going. It’s a road map for your health. Restorative health care looks at your time for each day. Restorative care decides what you are going to eat for each day of the week. It also looks at how much time you are going to have through the week so that you can plan to get some form of exercise (even if it is just walking). If it is planned you are more likely to do it no matter how you feel that day. Restorative health care doesn’t wait for symptoms, sickness, or disease. Symptoms are the last thing that show up in a disease process, and by that point, sometimes it’s too late.
Time can be your worst enemy. It is the number one reason that leads to living a patch health care lifestyle. A lack of time is what leads you to grab quick, fast food meals because you didn’t plan ahead for those busy nights in the middle of the week. A lack of time in a busy day will cause you to skip your exercise today, tomorrow, and then the day after.
Let’s use a specific example of patch or restorative health care. When you go to the dentist, why do you go? Is your goal just to get rid of the current toothache or is your goal to get pain relief plus to keep your teeth healthy? It’s a choice you get to make. Do you constantly patch up the severe problems and then just wait for the next one to surface or do you make the proactive decision to get your teeth healthy to prevent problems.
You can use this logic for any component of your life. Do you maintain your car by changing the oil and changing tires or do you wait for a tire to blow or your engine to break down? Sure, buying new tires when the tread gets low costs money, but it’s the safest approach to driving your car. If you wait for a tire to become unsafe you could have an accident from the bald tread or from the tire blowing out. A car engine that locks up because it hasn’t been maintained will not only cost you a lot more money, but it could also cause a tragic accident.
Just like dentistry, chiropractic care can also be utilized as patch care or restorative health care. When it comes to pain, numbness, tingling, burning, or weakness in your neck, back, arms, or legs, chiropractic care can be a great way to get your body working properly again. Doctors of chiropractic want to catch problems before they arise if possible. This is why a good chiropractor will evaluate your entire spine not just your area of complaint.
You may be asking why the health of your spine and nerves matter? Your spine is what holds your entire body together and your nerves allow your brain to communicate with your body. They are essential to life. They are your lifeline. If your spine becomes unhealthy, you will become unhealthy.
The actor Christopher Reeve played Superman in the 1978 big screen movie. We all know Superman is invincible except when there’s kryptonite around. Unfortunately, the man who played him, Mr. Reeve, suffered an accident that showed just how much the health of our spine and nerves affect our life. Mr. Reeve was thrown from his horse and landed on his head, which caused him to severely fracture the top two bones in his neck. The broken bones of his neck damaged his spinal cord and left him paralyzed from the neck down. It was a split second spinal damage that changed his life forever.
Although the likelihood of suffering a tragic accident like Mr. Reeve is low, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have to worry about your spinal health. According to the AANS National Neurosurgical Procedural Statistics in 2011, almost 1.5 million spinal surgeries were performed. I don’t know about you but I’ve never met a single person who wants to have spinal surgery. Although some surgeries are inevitable, many could have been avoided with good proactive restorative health care long before issues developed.
You may think that spinal surgeries are just for older people, but it can happen at any age. Just recently, I referred a gentleman who was barely over the age of 30. He had no previous trauma. The neurosurgeon said he had the most severe spinal damage that he had seen in his career. Your spine can be damaged at anytime through your life due to the jarring and jolts your body takes as you grow up. Unfortunately, by the time some symptoms show up the damage has already occurred. The same example can be seen if you wait until you have a toothache before going to the dentist. The damage has already occurred.
I’ve been told that once you go to the chiropractor you always have to go. That simply is not true. When you walk into a chiropractor’s office, you have a choice to make. You can choose care that provides only relief for the current issue or care that promotes health and wellness for your spine for years to come.
The best approach to keeping you healthy is prevention. Thomas Edison is quoted as saying, “the doctor of the future will give no medicine but will instruct his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.” Lower your risk of future health problems by taking a proactive stance toward your health. Take care of your teeth, your eyes, your spine, your muscles, your diet, and your emotional and spiritual health. If you take care of yourself now, you will thank yourself in the future.
About the Author:
Dr. Brandon Crouch is a chiropractor with Crouch Family Chiropractic. Dr. Crouch is an advocate for being proactive when it comes to your health and encourages people to make healthy informed decisions. For more information or questions you can contact him online at www.crouchfamilychiro.com or find him on facebook at www.facebook.com/CrouchFamilyChiropractic.
Disclaimer: This article is used for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any specific condition. If you have questions or concerns please talk with your doctor.
