The first day of Chiropractic college we were made to memorize the definition of Health as selected from the many definitions in Dorland’s Medical Dictionary. The definition for Health, we young chiropractic students, were made to brand upon our brain was, “Health- 100% function of 100% of the body, 100% of the time”. What this means is that to be healthy all of you has to be functioning at 100% all of the time. Any deviation from that and you are experiencing a lack of health. Now that definition sets the bar pretty high. Dr. Doug McGuff in his book “Body by Science” defines health as “A physiological state in which there is an absence of disease and pathology and that maintains the necessary biologic balance between the catabolic and anabolic states.” Anyway you slice it Health is about how well you are functioning and balancing and not just about how well you are feeling.
In the general public though there is a misconception about health. When polled, the average person 9 out of 10 times is going to define their health by how “good” they feel and by how much “pain” they do or do not have. Everyone assumes that if you feel good you are by default healthy. WRONG!!!! In the first paragraph two definitions for health were given. One from the most widely used medical dictionary on the planet and the other derived from combing the scientific literature for a definition. Both deal with the body being in balance and functioning well, neither simply states that its about feeling good. So the question is then, why do so many people gauge their personal health by how good they feel. I believe the answer comes down to that’s what we were taught by society and by marketing agencies. If you feel bad then that is something you can monitor and then correct. Most of the times the correction can be linked back to a drug or remedy that takes the pain or symptom away. Thus as pain or symptoms disappear we again assume that we are healthy. This can be a very dangerous for your health.
Statistics related to heart disease tell us why waiting for symptoms and assuming your healthy can be dangerous. This year 920,000 american will have a heart attack. Of these heart attacks 50% will be in asymptomatic patients, meaning these people didn’t know they had heart disease. Out of those people roughly 90% will die. This equates to 324,000 people annually who die from a heart attack when they had no symptoms of their impending death and felt fine. More people die from Sudden Cardiac Death than die from all forms of cancer, gun accidents, car accidents, diabetes, HIV and suicide combined. So what that tells me is that people use how they feel to gauge their health and not how they are functioning. ()
At Pivonka Chiropractors in Gilbert we strive to teach all of our patients about health and we strive to help all of our patients achieve health based, not on how they feel, but on how they are functioning. That is why we offer Corrective Chiropractic care, nutritional support, weight loss and now Hi Intensity exercise, all in the office, ensuring that our patients get healthy or healthier. We are not about just adjusting you to make you “feel good” and then letting you go only to suffer some health crisis in the future. At our Gilbert Chiropractors office we take your health to the next level. If you wish to experience what we do and you want to be healthier then give us a call at