US health care spending reached $1.6 trillion in 2003, representing 14% of the nation's gross national product. Considering this enormous expenditure, we should have the best medicine in the world. We should be preventing and reversing disease, and doing minimal harm. Careful and objective review, however, shows we are doing the opposite. Because of the extraordinarily narrow, technologically driven context in which contemporary medicine examines the human condition, we are completely missing the larger picture.
Medicine is not taking into consideration the following critically important aspects of a healthy human organism: (a) stress and how it adversely affects the immune system and life processes/homeostasis (b) insufficient exercise; (c) excessive caloric intake; (d) highly processed and denatured foods grown in denatured and chemically damaged soil; and (e) exposure to tens of thousands of environmental toxins. Instead of minimizing these dis-ease causing and disease-resulting factors, we cause more illness through medical technology, diagnostic testing, overuse of medical and surgical procedures, and overuse of pharmaceutical drugs. The huge disservice of this therapeutic strategy is the result of little effort or money being spent on preventing disease.
Just consider Pain Medication alone...
Pain medications and the adverse drug reactions to them are the fourth leading cause of death in the US. This is only behind cancer, heart disease, and strokes. But still, millions of people take some form of pain medication every single day. Prescription or over-the-counter, the vast majority of these people taking these just don't realize the incredible dangers.
The risk of you or someone you know dying directly from or from a side-effect from pain medication is higher than the chance of dying from illegal narcotics, diabetes, lung disease, or an auto accident. That's scary. Awareness is the only way we can help people realize just how dangerous these drugs really are. This information could save your life!
The top three most dangerous pain medications
3. Opiate pain medications
Some of the most common opiate-based prescription drugs are Codeine, Morphine, Hydrocodone, Vicodin, and Oxycodone. These drugs are commonly prescribed after surgery, major accidents, severe injuries or for painful medical conditions.
These drugs may numb the pain but at an extremely high price. The number of overdose deaths is now greater than those of deaths from heroin and cocaine combined and over 15,000 people die annually from Opiate pain medication overdoses.
2. NASIDs
You have heard the names before: ibuprofen (Advil), naprosyn (Aleve), and Motrin. There are others. Researchers from Denmark showed that patients with a history of prior heart attack that took NSAIDs - even in the short term - had a greater risk of death, or another heart attack.
Legions of other studies have been done on NASIDs and they too report an increased rate of death and heart attack. NASIDs cause over 16,000 deaths per year. That's as much as AIDS.
1. COX-2 inhibitors
Celebrex is a type of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) known as a COX-2 inhibitor. Celebrex is commonly used treat several conditions related to pain and inflammation.
What's deeply concerning: Celebrex is the only selective COX-2 inhibitor left on the market, as its close "cousins" were all pulled due to either their killing tens of thousands of people or to their unacceptably high heart risks. While studying the drug's potential as an anti-cancer drug, the National Cancer Institute discovered that those taking 400mg doses of Celebrex had a 250 percent greater risk of dying from heart attack or stroke and those taking 800mg had a 340 percent higher risk.
More facts/stats worth mentioning
Reviewing statistics for Adverse Drug Reactions (ADE's) reveals:
$76.6 billion in medical bills per year
106,000-190,000 deaths per year
8.8 million hospitalizations per year
In 1987, 1 out of 539 outpatient deaths were due to medication errors
By 1993, 1 out of 131 outpatient deaths was due to medication errors
More than 100,000 people die annually from unanticipated Adverse Drug Reactions to "PROPERLY PRESCRIBED MEDICATION AND DOSAGE"
Fatalities due to ADR's are greater than high-risk sexual behavior, firearm and motor vehicle accidents combined.
The bottom line
It cannot be stressed enough. Pain pills are dangerous. Tens of thousands of people die every year from complications related to pain medications. Be very careful what you put in your body. Do your research so you or one of your family members are not the next victim of these deadly drugs.
Stay tuned for my next email/blog entitled, "Some Need Medical Intervention. EVERYONE Needs Chiropractic Care." I have been working hard on this one, and it will be a two-parter. Part 1 will acknowledge the need and proper usage of the medical system as I see it. Part 2 will get into some philosophy along with help support and give validity to why every human being needs checked for subluxations and needs adjusted on a regular basis.
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We're doing another raffle this month!!!
Just like our facebook raffle we did in March, we're keeping track of your comments and recommendations. This time for every recommendation, rating, or review you give us on Google, Yelp, Facebook, or Citysearch your name will go into the raffle for a 60 minute massage. We will draw for the winner Friday May 31st!
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Yours in Health,
Dr. David Mason
Be fit. Eat right. Think well. Get adjusted.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have recieved from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have recieved from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.