This article was written just for my fellow audies to read. As the sign on the treehouse reads, “No neurotypicals allowed.” However, you are invited to sit and watch from a distance, as you might learn something about the world we audies live in.
Compromising is a fact of life that anybody, audie or neurotypical, must deal with eventually in order to have a happy relationship. Whether it is a relationship between you and your parents, you and a coworker or boss, or you and a spouse, sometimes you just have to do what they ask in order for the team to accomplish its goals. Yes, we do like when things go the way we want them to, regardless of what other people think or feel. It’s not that we are selfish or obstinate, like the neurotypical world thinks we are. It is because of how very strictly we arrange the rules of our routines, the rules we live by. If you’ve read my post entitled “How I Pretend To Be (Somewhat) Normal,” you would see clearly how I sometimes just have to manipulate the rules in my head. When I give my autism seminars, I am always approached by a parent or caretaker about what to do about that loved one of theirs that doesn’t want to budge from their “bad” behaviors or ways of doing things. I guess it comes with age, but eventually you come to the realization that it is better to make the members of your team or family happy so that they can feel and know that you can contribute to this world. You just have to tweak the rules a bit.
So how does this happen? You know how you make rules in your head for every little thing? Your bathroom routine must proceed in a certain way. The way you start up your workplace for the day. The way you drive your car. The way you arrange your piles of papers. Everything follows a set of rules that only you can understand. Well, the key is this: In between each rule you have to insert a space. For example, as a rule I always shave right before I take my shower. Usually, I go right from shaving to taking my shower. Over the years, I’ve learned to insert a “space” between these two tasks, a space where interruptions and a change of plans is ALLOWED to happen. This lets me break away from the bathroom routine momentarily to do some yard work or feed my dog before going back to shower and continuing on with the routine as usual. This works so much better when your wife is adamant that the grass needs to be cut TODAY. Interruptions and change are inevitable. Compromising and doing this differently really are possible. Then you will receive lots of pats on the back for having been able to be more “flexible”. But you know, and so do I, that it was possible only because you were able to rearrange the rules!
I know that many of you have to take certain medications such as Prozac or Adderall. Anxiety and feeling that your mind is all over the place really take a lot out of you. Without these medications, it is hard to function, especially when you are expected to do so around a group of people. I know it’s not something you are proud of, but it’s also not something to be ashamed of either. Look at Temple Grandin. She has to take Prozac before she feels capable of being able to get in front of an audience to give one of her great speeches. But what if there was another way of doing things so that you don’t HAVE to take prescription medicines? In reality, there is. Even though you take only half the normal dose of those medicines because of how sensitive you are to changes, you may be just as responsive to the positive changes that the alternatives have to offer. I know this to be true firsthand. Although I’ve never taken prescription psychoactive medicines, I have taken herbal supplements instead. Did you know that 750 mg of St. John’s Wort is just as effective as 80 mg of Prozac, and has far less side effects? That’s what a study showed that was published in the November 1996 issue of the Journal of Natural Medicine. There are similar herbal alternatives to other types of medications as well, and it is up to you to try them.
But there is something that helped me far more than any herbal supplement. Well, actually a combination of things. First, you really need to go to a chiropractor and to visit him or her on a regular basis. If I go more than two weeks without seeing my chiropractor, my ability to communicate coherently, my concentration, and my hypersensitivities become worse. It is by having my nerve system free from interference, interference that happens when bones shift out of alignment and affect how nerves work, that everything in my body, including my brain’s ability to think, work better. In addition to this, I listen to my instincts, my own intuition. Many of my own successes in life are due to this. For many of us, this is not easy because we tend to doubt ourselves and become anxious very easily. What helped me to “tune in” more is practicing a formal type of meditation. By practicing meditation seriously, I can look past all the waves in the mind that make us feel “less than” and see what’s going on behind the scenes, so to speak. It’s a more insightful, “spiritual” if you will, way of looking at the big picture. These are ways in which I have helped myself to navigate the oftentimes confusing and exhausting neurotypical world. Even when reason and advice from neurotypicals seem to work against me, listening to my intuition ALWAYS produced the better outcomes.
Above all else, remember that everybody really DOES want the best for you. People aren’t out to “get” you. It may seem that way, more often than not. I know because I lived with this feeling for so many years. I had to see past this belief, and to see past my own feelings of inadequacy, before life really started handing me some great moments. There may be a troublemaker or two you encounter along the way. But on the whole, NOBODY is out to get you! There really is greatness within you and around you, even if it doesn’t seem like it. Sometimes you just have to sit there with pen and paper and start writing things down before you recognize them. Sometimes you just need to have a counselor or a mentor who points these things out for you. I myself see a very caring social worker who helps me to see things in a better light. It’s all a matter of perception, and we audies tend to feel like we are the bad guys in a good world; we are the cause of others’ misery. Everyone is indeed responsible for his or her own behavior, from the neurotypical who is a less-than-understanding crab to the person with an Autism Spectrum Disorder that points the finger at the fact that he is autistic when he makes a social blunder. If you want more insight into any of the topics I briefly discussed in this article, let’s get together and chat. All of these things that work that I mentioned here can certainly be topics in themselves for future articles and conversations. I’m an audie just like you, and I’m here to help!
Showing posts with label alternative medicine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alternative medicine. Show all posts
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Adverse Behaviors In Autism
Every time I teach my autism seminar, I have at least one parent approach me with questions regarding adverse behaviors in their child, wondering how to deal with them while frustration mounts. The answer is always the same: “Be understanding, and be very patient.” By “adverse” behaviors, I am not saying that the autistic child or adult is being purposefully bad. “Adverse” simply means that the behavior is not congruent with the neurotypical (normal) ways of doing things. Stimming, outbursts, lack of eye contact, “headbanging” routines, defiance, anxiety, hypersensitivity, and panic attacks are all examples of adverse behavior. I like to explain that adverse behaviors happen only when the autistic person is expected to act like a neurotypical. In other words, they’re just part of the daily life of a person with an Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Most autistic people will have only one or two adverse behaviors. I believe my two are hypersensitivity and “headbanging”. These behaviors are only made worse when people such as my dad, when I was a child, and now my wife try to correct them. It’s just not going to happen! Headbanging is not to be confused with stimming, and I will explain the difference later. Stimming is the repetitive flapping of hands, hitting oneself, rocking, making annoying sounds, and so on. Stimming was a very common behavior in me when I was a child. I would bang my head against the headboard of my crib and constantly want to go full-speed in a rocking chair or rocking horse. I would also sing, horribly, at the top of my lungs while rocking. Stimming was how I found comfort in the world since everything and everyone around me seemed so intimidating. During my late teens and early 20s, there was defiance. I had no motivation to follow any path, to make any friends, to get anywhere in life. This is what I call my period of “shutdown”. I knew I was different. I felt that nobody cared because nobody understood. So I just wanted out. Thank goodness for one or two adult friends, I never did self-destruct. But it was definitely a sad and lonely time.
One thing that seemed so unusual to many people was the fact that I felt right at home when in front of a crowd. Maybe it was because I had been playing the piano in recitals ever since I was four years old? Whatever the reason, I displayed practically no anxiety at all. I loved assignments in college where I had to prepare a presentation to give in front of the class. I felt right at home playing the role of “teacher”. On the contrary, though, I do experience some level of nervousness when giving instructions on performing a particular skill, such as CPR. I feel most comfortable when I am disseminating knowledge. Because anxiety is very common in people on the spectrum, it is usually dealt with by taking psychoactive medicines such as Prozac and Zoloft. Even though people on the spectrum need only half the typical dosage, I must, as a doctor of natural healing, blow the horn of advocacy for safer ways of dealing with anxiety such as herbal alternatives (such as St. John’s Wort), meditation, yoga, energy medicine, and chiropractic care (particularly upper cervical specific).
Hypersensitivity is also extremely common among people on the spectrum. Hypersensitivity doesn’t just mean being more affected by the things people say and do, oftentimes taking too many things personally or the wrong way. It also has to do with sensory input and how it is processed, such as the lighting and sounds in a room, the feel of certain textures, fragrances, etc. If there are too many hypersensitivities at one time, sensory overload occurs. For me, this would cause me to go into “shutdown” mode. When I was a trainee on the ambulance squad, I was definitely hypersensitive to all the activities going on around me during an emergency situation. Therefore, I would always shut down and freeze up as if I didn’t know what to do. I certainly did know what to do. I just couldn’t multitask until I forced myself to learn how. That’s what overload can do to an autistic person, usually causing them to either have a panic attack or an outburst. My hypersensitivities are much more pronounced and devastating when I am unrested or unbathed for a whole day. Lack of sleep can make me fidgety toward things that normally wouldn’t bother me, such as listening to music or the TV, or even having my wife hover around me. Also, I could never ever leave the house for the day unless I’ve had a shower first. Otherwise, I feel as though I have swamp scum covering me from head to toe, and even letting my wife touch my hair freaks me out. Normally, though, I handle sensory overload by turning things off, such as the radio, TV, lights, or by ignoring the (unintentional) aggressor. Unfortunately, though, when I was working in the busy hospital setting during my days as a Respiratory Therapist, this meant that I would shut off my pager without even realizing it if I was concentrating too much on another task, such as taking a patient’s vital signs.
As for the “headbanging” routines, I define these as any task that is repeated over and over again without any purpose or without any results. While stimming equals repetitive actions, “headbanging” means actual tasks. Since making social and business-related contact with people is perhaps my weakest area in life, I figured that I would certainly get somewhere as an entrepreneur if I write a great brochure and send it out by direct mail to prospective clients. In the eight-plus years I’ve been making brochures, mailing lists, spending hundreds of dollars on postage, rearranging my website, and making poor attempts at cold calling, I never received a single client through these efforts. This unproductive dead-end of doing the same thing over and over again with absolutely no results was THE final straw that caused Bianca and I to start drifting apart. It was my sincere wish to pursue marriage counseling that finally brought me to the discovery that I was autistic, thereby forming a strong loving bond between Bianca and me.
So, in the end, how are parents and caretakers supposed to deal with adverse behaviors? How does Bianca deal with mine? She just does. There is no “right” or “wrong” to correct. Adverse behaviors are just part of being autistic. Such mannerisms add color to the world, as they are part of the autistic person’s nature. It would certainly benefit the autistic person to receive counseling from a psychologist or a social worker. I myself see a social worker simply to have somebody to talk to who can help me see things from a neurotypical perspective in a nonjudgmental way while accepting myself, autism and all, as I am. As I stated earlier, adverse behaviors happen only when an autistic person is expected to act like a neurotypical. It is necessary for the parent and caretaker to take away this notion of changing the person with autism. The autistic person needs to be accepted as they are. They may never be exactly the person you want them to be. But they will certainly be comfortable being themselves.
Most autistic people will have only one or two adverse behaviors. I believe my two are hypersensitivity and “headbanging”. These behaviors are only made worse when people such as my dad, when I was a child, and now my wife try to correct them. It’s just not going to happen! Headbanging is not to be confused with stimming, and I will explain the difference later. Stimming is the repetitive flapping of hands, hitting oneself, rocking, making annoying sounds, and so on. Stimming was a very common behavior in me when I was a child. I would bang my head against the headboard of my crib and constantly want to go full-speed in a rocking chair or rocking horse. I would also sing, horribly, at the top of my lungs while rocking. Stimming was how I found comfort in the world since everything and everyone around me seemed so intimidating. During my late teens and early 20s, there was defiance. I had no motivation to follow any path, to make any friends, to get anywhere in life. This is what I call my period of “shutdown”. I knew I was different. I felt that nobody cared because nobody understood. So I just wanted out. Thank goodness for one or two adult friends, I never did self-destruct. But it was definitely a sad and lonely time.
One thing that seemed so unusual to many people was the fact that I felt right at home when in front of a crowd. Maybe it was because I had been playing the piano in recitals ever since I was four years old? Whatever the reason, I displayed practically no anxiety at all. I loved assignments in college where I had to prepare a presentation to give in front of the class. I felt right at home playing the role of “teacher”. On the contrary, though, I do experience some level of nervousness when giving instructions on performing a particular skill, such as CPR. I feel most comfortable when I am disseminating knowledge. Because anxiety is very common in people on the spectrum, it is usually dealt with by taking psychoactive medicines such as Prozac and Zoloft. Even though people on the spectrum need only half the typical dosage, I must, as a doctor of natural healing, blow the horn of advocacy for safer ways of dealing with anxiety such as herbal alternatives (such as St. John’s Wort), meditation, yoga, energy medicine, and chiropractic care (particularly upper cervical specific).
Hypersensitivity is also extremely common among people on the spectrum. Hypersensitivity doesn’t just mean being more affected by the things people say and do, oftentimes taking too many things personally or the wrong way. It also has to do with sensory input and how it is processed, such as the lighting and sounds in a room, the feel of certain textures, fragrances, etc. If there are too many hypersensitivities at one time, sensory overload occurs. For me, this would cause me to go into “shutdown” mode. When I was a trainee on the ambulance squad, I was definitely hypersensitive to all the activities going on around me during an emergency situation. Therefore, I would always shut down and freeze up as if I didn’t know what to do. I certainly did know what to do. I just couldn’t multitask until I forced myself to learn how. That’s what overload can do to an autistic person, usually causing them to either have a panic attack or an outburst. My hypersensitivities are much more pronounced and devastating when I am unrested or unbathed for a whole day. Lack of sleep can make me fidgety toward things that normally wouldn’t bother me, such as listening to music or the TV, or even having my wife hover around me. Also, I could never ever leave the house for the day unless I’ve had a shower first. Otherwise, I feel as though I have swamp scum covering me from head to toe, and even letting my wife touch my hair freaks me out. Normally, though, I handle sensory overload by turning things off, such as the radio, TV, lights, or by ignoring the (unintentional) aggressor. Unfortunately, though, when I was working in the busy hospital setting during my days as a Respiratory Therapist, this meant that I would shut off my pager without even realizing it if I was concentrating too much on another task, such as taking a patient’s vital signs.
As for the “headbanging” routines, I define these as any task that is repeated over and over again without any purpose or without any results. While stimming equals repetitive actions, “headbanging” means actual tasks. Since making social and business-related contact with people is perhaps my weakest area in life, I figured that I would certainly get somewhere as an entrepreneur if I write a great brochure and send it out by direct mail to prospective clients. In the eight-plus years I’ve been making brochures, mailing lists, spending hundreds of dollars on postage, rearranging my website, and making poor attempts at cold calling, I never received a single client through these efforts. This unproductive dead-end of doing the same thing over and over again with absolutely no results was THE final straw that caused Bianca and I to start drifting apart. It was my sincere wish to pursue marriage counseling that finally brought me to the discovery that I was autistic, thereby forming a strong loving bond between Bianca and me.
So, in the end, how are parents and caretakers supposed to deal with adverse behaviors? How does Bianca deal with mine? She just does. There is no “right” or “wrong” to correct. Adverse behaviors are just part of being autistic. Such mannerisms add color to the world, as they are part of the autistic person’s nature. It would certainly benefit the autistic person to receive counseling from a psychologist or a social worker. I myself see a social worker simply to have somebody to talk to who can help me see things from a neurotypical perspective in a nonjudgmental way while accepting myself, autism and all, as I am. As I stated earlier, adverse behaviors happen only when an autistic person is expected to act like a neurotypical. It is necessary for the parent and caretaker to take away this notion of changing the person with autism. The autistic person needs to be accepted as they are. They may never be exactly the person you want them to be. But they will certainly be comfortable being themselves.
Friday, September 18, 2009
The Integrative Approach To Health Care
Today I will be mailing off my portfolio and application for board certification to the American Association of Integrative Medicine. While looking at the requirements for board certification, I realized that I am actually qualified to gain the next higher level -- Diplomate status. Having such a designation always looks good on a resume. It will be especially helpful while I am marketing my newest venture, that of being a mobile practitioner of integrative health services. The question that many people may have now is why I chose the subspecialty of integrative health care. Being a chiropractor, don't you just work in an office all day adjusting peoples' spines? Actually, as with any specialty, whether it be being a medical doctor, nurse, or attorney, a chiropractor can have different fields of specialty.
For people who have known me my whole life, it should be no great surprise that I am an integrative practitioner. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "integrate" as "to form, coordinate, or blend into a functioning or unified whole." In this case, I am bringing together multiple disciplines to help a person with his or her health concerns. As a youngster growing up, my parents always took me to medical specialists to find out about my health problems, from a life-threatening food poisoning to chronic ear infections to stunted growth and development and finally being diagnosed with a heart condition that eventually needed open heart surgery to correct. It seemed to go on and on and on. I'm not sure if this is why I've always been fascinated with the science of studying the human body, but it certainly kept me interested. I used to spend hours diving into medical text books before I was eight years old, showing off a rather profound hyperlexia for my age. Even when I decided to pursue health care as a career, I saw that there were so many fields to choose from that I just didn't know which avenue to take.
As fate would have it, I happened upon deciding to make a career in health care after becoming a volunteer ambulance attendant. During those ten years, learning how to save lives and enjoying many great adventures, I spent one year in nursing school. Even though I was always at the top of the class in book work, I performed miserably in the clinical setting. In fact it wasn't until just last year that I finally was able to put my finger on the disability that always stunted my capacity to learn hands-on skills. Eventually I became a Respiratory Therapist, and then from there a chiropractor. Throughout the years of my life and my education, I have always been fascinated with various lab tests and what they mean, diagnosing illnesses, finding out how the human body actually works, and helping those who were suffering from various health woes. Even now as a chiropractor, I see how making use of these same diagnostic tools can help me to help people better their lives. Now as a chiropractor, I feel that I have more tools to work with than the average chiropractor AND the average medical practitioner. I am INTEGRATIVE in my approach.
As an integrative physician, I have knowledge from "both sides of the fence," so to speak: medicine and "alternative" medicine. As I explain myself in interviews, because I have knowledge of both, I know the abilities and limitations of both, and I know when and where I can cross the lines between the two when caring for a patient. In my office, I perform physical exams. I do D.O.T. physicals, pre-employment physicals, athletic physicals, routine physicals, neurological evaluations, and functional medicine lab tests. I will order X-rays, CAT scans, MRIs, and even medical lab tests when I feel that they are necessary. Because I have knowledge from both sides of the fence, I know when a headache might be due to an upper neck misalignment and when it might be due to an undiagnosed brain tumor. I know when a bad case of enuresis might be due to a lumbar nerve compression or a urinary tract infection. To see things from the integrated view means that I can pool diagnostic and treatment options from medicine, alternative medicine, and of course chiropractic to help a person heal.
Looking back at the illnesses I suffered in my life, I can see what could have been helped by chiropractic when medicine failed, and I can also see when medicine was necessary to help what chiropractic would not have been able to help. Just to stick to one regimen is limiting. The person in need needs to open their mind to the various options and NOT feel hopeless just because the medical approach gave no results. It is just as limiting to rely only on natural methods, including chiropractic, for a particular problem when it is obvious that only medicine, or a life-saving operation, could help. Even the healthcare providers themselves, NEED to open their minds, and open their hearts, if they are TRULY to consider themselves HEALERS.
It's time for both sides to stop throwing stones. To the medical doctors: chiropractors are NOT "quacks," and your Committee Against Chiropractic (later renamed to Committee Against Quackery), which was formed by the American Medical Association in 1963, was your biggest mistake. Your concerted effort to destroy anything you couldn't own for yourselves was despicable, and it set back the healing possibilities of this nation hundreds of years. Likewise, to the chiropractors, I say this: YOUR blind following of super-straight philosophers leads you astray. I was horrified by the blasphemy I heard directed at me by teachers and fellow students at the best chiropractic college in the world because I needed to have medicine for certain conditions that I suffered from. Do not dare tell people that they do not need a certain medication until you have already helped them with your super-straight ideals. Even D.D. Palmer, the founder of our great profession, said in his book "The Chiropractor's Adjustor," "The good Doctor of Chiropractic will know what he can help and when he needs to refer to his medical counterpart."
Now let's integrate and get to work.
For people who have known me my whole life, it should be no great surprise that I am an integrative practitioner. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "integrate" as "to form, coordinate, or blend into a functioning or unified whole." In this case, I am bringing together multiple disciplines to help a person with his or her health concerns. As a youngster growing up, my parents always took me to medical specialists to find out about my health problems, from a life-threatening food poisoning to chronic ear infections to stunted growth and development and finally being diagnosed with a heart condition that eventually needed open heart surgery to correct. It seemed to go on and on and on. I'm not sure if this is why I've always been fascinated with the science of studying the human body, but it certainly kept me interested. I used to spend hours diving into medical text books before I was eight years old, showing off a rather profound hyperlexia for my age. Even when I decided to pursue health care as a career, I saw that there were so many fields to choose from that I just didn't know which avenue to take.
As fate would have it, I happened upon deciding to make a career in health care after becoming a volunteer ambulance attendant. During those ten years, learning how to save lives and enjoying many great adventures, I spent one year in nursing school. Even though I was always at the top of the class in book work, I performed miserably in the clinical setting. In fact it wasn't until just last year that I finally was able to put my finger on the disability that always stunted my capacity to learn hands-on skills. Eventually I became a Respiratory Therapist, and then from there a chiropractor. Throughout the years of my life and my education, I have always been fascinated with various lab tests and what they mean, diagnosing illnesses, finding out how the human body actually works, and helping those who were suffering from various health woes. Even now as a chiropractor, I see how making use of these same diagnostic tools can help me to help people better their lives. Now as a chiropractor, I feel that I have more tools to work with than the average chiropractor AND the average medical practitioner. I am INTEGRATIVE in my approach.
As an integrative physician, I have knowledge from "both sides of the fence," so to speak: medicine and "alternative" medicine. As I explain myself in interviews, because I have knowledge of both, I know the abilities and limitations of both, and I know when and where I can cross the lines between the two when caring for a patient. In my office, I perform physical exams. I do D.O.T. physicals, pre-employment physicals, athletic physicals, routine physicals, neurological evaluations, and functional medicine lab tests. I will order X-rays, CAT scans, MRIs, and even medical lab tests when I feel that they are necessary. Because I have knowledge from both sides of the fence, I know when a headache might be due to an upper neck misalignment and when it might be due to an undiagnosed brain tumor. I know when a bad case of enuresis might be due to a lumbar nerve compression or a urinary tract infection. To see things from the integrated view means that I can pool diagnostic and treatment options from medicine, alternative medicine, and of course chiropractic to help a person heal.
Looking back at the illnesses I suffered in my life, I can see what could have been helped by chiropractic when medicine failed, and I can also see when medicine was necessary to help what chiropractic would not have been able to help. Just to stick to one regimen is limiting. The person in need needs to open their mind to the various options and NOT feel hopeless just because the medical approach gave no results. It is just as limiting to rely only on natural methods, including chiropractic, for a particular problem when it is obvious that only medicine, or a life-saving operation, could help. Even the healthcare providers themselves, NEED to open their minds, and open their hearts, if they are TRULY to consider themselves HEALERS.
It's time for both sides to stop throwing stones. To the medical doctors: chiropractors are NOT "quacks," and your Committee Against Chiropractic (later renamed to Committee Against Quackery), which was formed by the American Medical Association in 1963, was your biggest mistake. Your concerted effort to destroy anything you couldn't own for yourselves was despicable, and it set back the healing possibilities of this nation hundreds of years. Likewise, to the chiropractors, I say this: YOUR blind following of super-straight philosophers leads you astray. I was horrified by the blasphemy I heard directed at me by teachers and fellow students at the best chiropractic college in the world because I needed to have medicine for certain conditions that I suffered from. Do not dare tell people that they do not need a certain medication until you have already helped them with your super-straight ideals. Even D.D. Palmer, the founder of our great profession, said in his book "The Chiropractor's Adjustor," "The good Doctor of Chiropractic will know what he can help and when he needs to refer to his medical counterpart."
Now let's integrate and get to work.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Enter The "Holistic Physician"
Last week while I was working at my security job at the Guthrie Theater, I got talking to a couple of the ushers. Most of the people I work with already know that I am a chiropractor. But what they don't know is that I am very holistic in how I care for my patients. "I address all of my patients' health concerns," I said at one point in the conversation. At that moment, one of the ushers I was talking to perked up and started asking me all these questions about her high blood pressure problems. She wanted to know what natural ways there are to take care of it. I then thought to myself that THIS is why I became a doctor -- to help people with their health concerns in a holistic way. I didn't become a "back pain specialist," and I really hate being mistaken for one. Even though my business card says that I am a "holistic chiropractor," the word "chiropractor" insinuates, in most people's mind, that I take care of only back pain and headaches. I've been in health care for over 26 years now in many different capacities. I certainly never intended to limit myself by becoming a chiropractor!
What people DO understand is the word "physician". D.D. Palmer, the founder of the chiropractic profession, always frowned on chiropractors who would call themselves "chiropractic physicians". Many medical doctors with an ego would also frown upon a chiropractor considering himself to be any kind of physician. I've always been neutral to using this term because, as the Latin origin of the word "physician" implies, a physician is a practitioner of a "natural science". (Source: the Online Etymology Dictionary) So the question would then be, could I simply call myself a "holistic physician"? To answer that, I turned to the good ol' internet, that magical land where all knowledge can be bestowed. Alas, I came up with an article who answered that question with a profound "yes". Here is the link to the article: http://www.radicalmedicine.com/holistic_physician_defined.html .
According to the article, there are six different healing professionals that can use the title "holistic physician": medical doctors, osteopaths, chiropractors, naturopaths, dentists, and acupuncturists. Therefore, I feel at ease to change my business cards to read "Dr. Patrick V. Suglia, Holistic Physician". Then, to be in accordance with Minnesota state law, I would list chiropractic care among the services that I offer. I do offer a slew of others, such as health status testing (which the American Holistic Medical Association calls functional medicine), routine and specialized physicals, Reiki healing (which the AHMA refers to as energy medicine), and others. I won't go into detail about them here because you can always see everything I do on my website at http://sufletesc.twicmn.org .
People haven't quite made the full paradigm shift yet to fully comprehend and appreciate the words of Thomas Edison: "The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest her or his patients in the care of the human frame, in a proper diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease." The human frame IS the specialty of the chiropractor, and the other mentioned items are the concern of any holistic physician. The paradigm shift started only 18 years ago when in 1991, for the first time, more visits were made to practitioners of "alternative" medicine, with chiropractors leading the figures, than to general practice medical doctors. Yes, the paradigm is still shifting. More and more people are learning about the wonderful HOLISTIC benefits of chiropractic care, while the current being created by the medical establishment, who is trying to hold on to their dying ego, continues to try to push us further from the public's interest. Until the paradigm shift is complete, which I hope I live to see, I will, for now, call myself a Holistic Physician.
What people DO understand is the word "physician". D.D. Palmer, the founder of the chiropractic profession, always frowned on chiropractors who would call themselves "chiropractic physicians". Many medical doctors with an ego would also frown upon a chiropractor considering himself to be any kind of physician. I've always been neutral to using this term because, as the Latin origin of the word "physician" implies, a physician is a practitioner of a "natural science". (Source: the Online Etymology Dictionary) So the question would then be, could I simply call myself a "holistic physician"? To answer that, I turned to the good ol' internet, that magical land where all knowledge can be bestowed. Alas, I came up with an article who answered that question with a profound "yes". Here is the link to the article: http://www.radicalmedicine.com/holistic_physician_defined.html .
According to the article, there are six different healing professionals that can use the title "holistic physician": medical doctors, osteopaths, chiropractors, naturopaths, dentists, and acupuncturists. Therefore, I feel at ease to change my business cards to read "Dr. Patrick V. Suglia, Holistic Physician". Then, to be in accordance with Minnesota state law, I would list chiropractic care among the services that I offer. I do offer a slew of others, such as health status testing (which the American Holistic Medical Association calls functional medicine), routine and specialized physicals, Reiki healing (which the AHMA refers to as energy medicine), and others. I won't go into detail about them here because you can always see everything I do on my website at http://sufletesc.twicmn.org .
People haven't quite made the full paradigm shift yet to fully comprehend and appreciate the words of Thomas Edison: "The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest her or his patients in the care of the human frame, in a proper diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease." The human frame IS the specialty of the chiropractor, and the other mentioned items are the concern of any holistic physician. The paradigm shift started only 18 years ago when in 1991, for the first time, more visits were made to practitioners of "alternative" medicine, with chiropractors leading the figures, than to general practice medical doctors. Yes, the paradigm is still shifting. More and more people are learning about the wonderful HOLISTIC benefits of chiropractic care, while the current being created by the medical establishment, who is trying to hold on to their dying ego, continues to try to push us further from the public's interest. Until the paradigm shift is complete, which I hope I live to see, I will, for now, call myself a Holistic Physician.
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