As you likely have heard in the news, America is officially experiencing an opioid epidemic. An exponential increase of prescription drug-related deaths has unfolded over the past decade, with tragedies that have infiltrated even the smallest rural American communities, involving adolescents and adults alike. Since 1999, prescription opioid drug sales and deaths have quadrupled, killing 165,000 people and counting.
Oxycodone, hydrocodone, codeine, morphine, fentanyl and others are stupefyingly potent pain-relieving drugs that, when administered carefully for short durations, have a warranted use under dire circumstances. However, they pose a serious threat to public health due to their highly addictive and deadly qualities, and often lead users to turn to heroin which is easier to procure when prescriptions run out, despite its illegal status.. All too often, people in pain visit their medical doctors seeking help, and walk away with a prescription poison that is intended to reduce pain, while giving rise to more health problems dubbed "side effects" and never fixing the problem that caused the pain in the first place.
When the patient continues taking these medications, their body physically degenerates while their brain is chemically reprogrammed to depend upon more and more drugs until their death, via overdose or poor health induced by a chronic toxic state.
Pain is the sensation interpreted by the brain when sufficient quantities of action potentials, or nerve impulses, reach the brain from their origination in pain receptors, or nociceptors, located throughout the body. The job of nociceptors is to spare the body from harm by notifying the brain of excessive hot, cold, chemical or physical stress. Thankfully, the body is also equipped with its own arsenal of painkilling chemical compounds that are several times more potent than anything made by man, including morphine, with no negative side effects and an added bonus of euphoria along with absolute pain relief. In fact, the only reason that opiate drugs can work in the human body is because they interact with the body's endogenous opiate receptors- locations that interact with self made, or endogenous, opiate peptides like dynorphins, enkephalins, endomorphins and endorphins- all of which are produced in the brain or spinal cord in response to pain and stress, but also with pleasurable stimuli like excitement, delicious food, love, vigorous exercise, and chiropractic adjustments.
Chiropractic not only induces relief by the body’s natural painkillers, but more importantly restores the normal position of joints, allowing normal function and movement in the spine, ribs, pelvis, and limbs. This eliminates the cause of pain, and over time, allows the body to heal and remodel itself properly.
Chiropractic is safe, effective and appropriate for all body types, ages, and stages of pain or disease, provides immediate and long lasting relief of pain, and costs less than traditional medical management by drugs and surgery. Painkilling opioid drugs do not treat the cause of pain, are not effective and appropriate for all users, have dozens of uncomfortable and deadly side effects including death, addiction, severe constipation, behavioral and cognitive changes, and more… while allowing users to physically destroy their body without feeling it. The choice is obvious: choose chiropractic for yourself, your family, and your community!
Reference:
- Opioid Addiction Facts & Figures 2016 http://www.asam.org
- Chiropractic: A Safer Strategy than Opioids www.f4cp.com/f4cp_opioid_white_paper.pdf
- Endogenous Opioids: Their Physiological Role and Receptors http://idosi.org/gjp/3(3)09/7.pdf