Our goal at Mountain Chiropractic, PC is to help our patients to maintain their good health or to regain it as quickly as possible with lasting effect. This is accomplished by maintaining or re-attaining normal function. We understand very well, and likewise try to educate our patients, that there are basic needs of the body to function normally. This is called good health. When these needs are not met good health is not present as malfunction and disease begins. During this phase it may not be possible to measure the disease. Its not good health, but the lab results don't indicate any particular disease, yet. Left to degenerate this lack of good health eventually leads to a point where you can put a name on the diseased organ or system of the body. Thus, there is a difference between possessing good health and not being able to measure disease.

All too often in current American system of 'health care" is focused on identifying a named disease and then treating that disease. This is not health care, it is disease care. Treatment of a named disease may include drugs. Drugs typically attempt to modify the symptoms being expressed by the body, often leading to further complications becasue the cause of the problem is left untreated, but also because side effects directly caused by the drug.

A good example of this concept can be found with the popular disease care drugs used to treat stomach acid. It is questionable whether the symptoms of heartburn are due to excessive acid, as the drug commercial suggest, or whether the protective coating that normally lines the stomach and esophagus has deteriorated. Patients are often put on these types of drugs for a lifetime. We now know that stopping the acid production leads to a host of other problems, not limited just to indigestion due to lack of stomach acid. Sufficient calcium absorption relies on proper levels of stomach acid. Studies now show that taking drugs to disrupt acid production contributes to calcium deficient brittle bones. Why not treat the body to restore the normal protective stomach lining in the first place. This path is ultimately less expensive and usually successful. Unfortunately, mainstream American health care has decided to take the easy, more expensive path for many of our health problems.

There are many examples we could discuss here, but this article is not about disease care. Unfortunately for many people their state of health has deteriorated to the point where they cannot realistically re-attein health. For them it may be too late. There are many fine drugs that help those with no other options. This point of this article is to educate the differences between health care and disease care and to offer the hope of health care for those who it is not too late.  

Maintaining or re-attaining a healthy state cannot come without effort provided by the patient. The word physician means teacher. Thus, it is the doctors duty to help his patients learn how to be healthy. We take pride in our committment to continually keeping abreast of the latest research the fields of chiropractic and nutritional therapy. There are other providers that we are familiar with in our area that strive with similar goals within their respective scopes of healing. There are also excellent providers for those that it is too late. If we feel our patient's best interest would be served by other providers we will not hesitate to refer to that provider.