Every day we rely on our digestive system to get the raw materials to us to build and fuel our bodies. Yet millions of us are plagued with digestive malfunctions that result in discomfort and illness.
Your digestive problems can come from any of the digestive organs. In general, if you can restore your organ to optimal function, you would be far better off than you would be taking drugs that only cover-up, kill pain, tranquilize or artificially alter the digestive process.
Stomach problems can include pain, heartburn, ulcer, gas, pressure, bloating, incomplete food digestion, diarrhea, constipation and other symptoms. The body needs stomach acid (hydrochloric) to break foods down for digestion. Antacids can cause new side-effects and problems. If you use antacids that dilute stomach acid, you cannot easily fully digest. Calcium, iron, and protein are three examples of essential nutrients that can only be digested and assimilated if there is strong stomach acid. If there is an “acid stomach” it is better to repair the stomach lining than to try to eliminate the acid. There are specially formulated nutritional supplements for this. Medications that cover up your symptoms or “tranquilize” the stomach, do not cure the problem, but you may expect to use them forever for symptom relief only. These medications also have side-effects which worsen other body tissues, the longer you use them. Every day people are prescribed life-long-use drugs on a "guessagnosis", not even based on a reasonable diagnostic certainty.
Hiatal Hernia is a very common problem that responds best to a specialized forms of chiropractic adjustments. A nerve-caused hiatal hernia is typically where the top of the stomach, and the stomach valve is jammed up in the diaphragm muscle. It is originally caused by a compressed nerve, "subluxation", short circuit in the area of the back in between the shoulder blades (usually at Thoracic vertebra number 5). Hiatal hernias cause multiple stomach, chest, heart and digestive complaints. In very severe cases, when food jams on the way down or stomach acid flashes back up past the paralyzed valve (“reflux”) and burns the food tube, a person may be told by their doctors to sleep sitting up! A test from Applied Kinesiology, the chiropractic specialty that developed muscle-testing as a diagnostic method, can detect a hiatal hernia which is causing indigestion, chest or heart pain. Then hands-on adjustment of the stomach, diaphragm, AND spinal nerve areas will deliver both relief of symptoms, and a real cure to myriad hiatal hernia sufferers.
Ulcers of the stomach or duodenum (small intestine) occur where the stomach lining is eaten-through by the body’s own stomach acid. Medically, stomach tranquilizers, acid blockers and antacids are used to treat the problem. If a cure happens, it’s not common. The ulcer patient may often expect to take medications the rest of their life, having, of course, to live with the side-effects on the body’s biochemistry. By correcting nerves to the stomach chiropractically, improving the adrenal glands, and using stomach-lining repair nutrients our approach deals with correcting the cause of the problem. Then the damaged tissue is repaired, and the problem can be made gone. That is the difference between medical "management" of a condition and the correction of it.
The existence of the H. Pylori bacteria as one possible cause of ulcers is now well known. That bacteria can be tested for in several ways, and if present is essential to eliminate. Currently a combination of antibiotics and bismuth is used as the most effective response in killing H. Pylori. Remember that if antibiotics are needed to kill a bacterial problem in your body, that your own wiser-than-your-MD knowledge dictates that you take friendly flora to immediately repopulate your colon with the essential beneficial bacteria!
Colon (large intestine) problems including colitis, Krohn’s disease, constipation, diarrhea, bleeding, gas, bloating and toxicity can respond beautifully to the correct natural approach. Implementing the proper nutrients for colon-lining health, fiber, friendly bacterial flora, cleansing of garbaged-up membranes and correcting nerve problems of the low back, which sends the nerves to the colon and controls the colon’s muscle activity can be crucial to reestablishing health to a sick or irritated large intestine.
All informed scientists now know that we always carry huge billions of organism populations of bacteria in our gut (large intestine principally). We have known for a long time that they play an important role in intestinal and tummy well-being. Bad bacteria also exist in massive numbers in our world, and most of us, at any given moment have some balance point between the good and the bad ones in us. We like to have the beneficial (usually of the acidophilus "acid loving" strains, bifidus, and other beneficial species) bacteria in high quantity, and the bad guys in low. This is done by taking FLORA products that are helpful. There are numerous types, and oddly enough many are patented, produced and controlled by one company, and another type by another company! Strange but true. It is important to use the strains of Flora that are best for you. Bifidus strains, good at any age, when used in infants provide often spectacular immune response. They play a central role in our eliminating Colic (in conjunction with adjusting baby) at the near speed of light. That brings smiles and sleep to previously tortured parents of colicky babies too. When you've taken antibiotics for any reason, typically both the good and bad bacteria in your body are decimated. If you did nothing to correct that, the bad bacteria typically take over your digestive system; not good. Always take enough Flora after antibiotic use.
The most sophisticated understanding now states that the large intestine is a principal site of immune defense function. As important in fighting off day-to-day illness of many types as the better known immune responders. Keeping the right flora population in good order within your body is a longevity strategy. This is just as the unknown-to-some link of mouth-gum disease to inflammatory conditions, and the demonstrated causal link between that and heart attacks. Friendly flora populations work also in the body to keep systemic low grade infection in check and resultant inflammatory process that leads to arterial plaque crises, spelled "heart attack" and also stroke (the number one killers). It's always amazing to see the interplay of seemingly distant factors in affecting health, disease and cause of death. And they can play an important role in your Anti-Aging strategies.
Gall Bladder problems, congestion, even stones can respond to very specific hands-on chiropractic adjustments, and nutritional products formulated for gall bladder health. I have personally turned around rapidly patients who had been ordered to gall bladder surgery removal. I do that with the simple combination of adjustment, organ targeted hands-on chiropractic procedures, and specific nutrition. On the spot, the pain gone, and surgery cancelled. That surgery must have been really needed! And we must not need all the organs given us. Maybe they're just spare parts?
Other Organs of Digestion (pancreas, liver, small intestine, etc.) all can respond to the proper natural therapy. Chiropractic adjustments, nutrition, herbs, etc. are specifically designed for numerous digestive malfunctions, imbalances, and organ diseases. Results are regularly excellent.
Nerve system-wise, the digestive organs are connected to the spinal nerve outflows. Spinal nerves, and short circuits in them from vertebral malfunction ("subluxations") will typically cause problems in control and signaling, harming the digestive organ that those nerves serve. In the mid-back thoracic area: Thoracic 4 goes to the Gall Bladder. Thoracic 5 to the Stomach, Thoracic 6 to the Pancreas, Thoracic 8 to the Liver. Those are all in between your shoulder blades. In the low back vertebral group, the Lumbars: Lumbar 1 to the Ileocecal Valve that can jam between the Small and Large Intestine from nerve interference at the spine. That affects toxin re-uptake into your blood, as food leaves the Small Intestine (Kitchen part) of your digestive tract to pass through that valve to the Large Intestine (Trash part). Nerves from the other lumbars go to the Large Intestine. Short circuits at that part of the spine can cause Intestinal distress, including, in my experience, some of the most delayed and thus toxic constipation patients. Their problems resolved simply and dramatically with correction of the Lumbar spine and correct nutritional supplementation. FAST. Think Chiropractic. Nerves control every body part, and when those nerves are short circuited, problems begin.
Digestion is a natural essential process of life and health. Our digestive systems interface with our lives and health in myriad ways. It only makes sense that there must be natural methods that could restore our digestive tracts to healthier. And there are.