Why Does This Corte Madera Chiropractor Take care of Really Sick People

Do you still believe that drugs and surgery get you healthy? Then why are the people who take the most drugs, and have had the most surgery, the sickest? THINK ON THIS! I know, this is one of those obvious truths that most people miss.

People who are really sick are not unlucky. They are the most subluxated. There is a reason for the sickness. That reason, that cuase, must be addressed. This is something Medicine does not do.

What Medicine does do is test, guess (diagnose) and treat, test, guess and treat, ad infinitum. Very sick people, who have gone through a great deal of this, have accumulated so many side effects that those side effects can no longer be differentiated from their original condition(s). While the failure of their chosen system, Medicine, is obvious, their psychological attachment, even dependence upon Medicine becomes more and more entrenched.

This psychological dependence is contagious in a sense; it spreads to their family and friends. It becomes the topic of discussion within that circle, what this doctor and that specialist said and did, what my specialist says, what it says on WebMD, what my sister's niece, the first year nursing student says. Every test and procedure is awaited, like the next championship ball game.

When someone offers up some common sense, like coming to me to get checked for CAUSE, the claws and the fangs come out. It is truly amazing how ferociously people defend failure, and reject common sense.

Keep trying anyway. Tell them that Chiropractic is like gravity; whether you believe in ti or not, it works. Ask whoever is the ringleader if it's OK if I give them a call. Even better, sign them up for the email newsletter* and bring them along with you when you come in for an adjustment. You can show them that we don't have medieval racks and jars of eye of newt. You can introduce them to other members of the practice, and they can share their stories.

That very sick person may say "There's nothing that can be done for me. I'm too sick/too old/too far gone. Nobody can help me." "So," you might ask them, "how come you're still seeing you current specialists? Maybe something different might produce a different result. WHAT DO YOU THINK?"

Keep in mind that the sicker they are, the more likely they are to travel here from greater distances. A lot of chiropractors wouldn;t have the nerve to take care of who I take care of.

Don Harte, D.C.
Corte Madera Straight Chiropractor
Liberator of Innate

Advanced Philosophical Series: The Law of Drugs?

"There is no law of drugs. They come today and go tomorrow. The fad of the hour has its drug of the hour. ALL are one of two kinds:
(a) they stimulate an inhibited condition
(b) they inhibit a stimulated condition

"Beyond this premise, he HOPES to give a possible right drug, for an UNKNOWN quantity of an abnormal condition. The heart beats (a) normally, (b) too fast, (c) too slow, or (d) stops entirely. If too fast a drug paralyzes, inhibiting muscular contractions down to less beats. If too slow, a drug stimulates, whips up muscular pulsations to more beats. If all muscles stop beating, patient dies of 'heart failure.'"

This is from the chapter "Law of Par" in Palmer's Law of Life, 1958, B.J. Palmer, D.C., Ph.C., "The Developer of Chiropractic."

I hope, by reading this, and thinking about this, that you are getting the idea that there is nothing fancy, certainly nothing magical, about drugs, prescribed or not. 1959, 2011? No, for the most part, Medicine has not advanced, except in marketing capabilities.

Drugs DO NOT heal. You cannot get health from drugs, from the Outside-in. Health comes from Above-down, Inside-out.

Don Harte, D.C.
Corte Madera Straight Chiropractor
Liberator of Innate

Arthritis, Iatrogenic* Cancer and Chiropractic Results

May is Arthritis Awareness Month. So, let's get aware!

The word "arthritis"... what does it mean? I know that it comes with a lot of baggage... "you're getting old"... "Learn to live with it"... "There's nothing anyone can do" But where does the word come from?

"Arth" is Latin for "joint." "Itis" means inflammation, or swelling. For the most part, the reason a joint hurts is because it's inflamed. So, here is what your "genius" doctor has done, providing you with something that you think is of value, a diagnosis... arthritis. He or she has translated "hurtful joint," in English, into Latin, "arthritis." Brilliant! Astounding clinical acumen!

So, the word doesn't really have much meaning. But you still have a problem. Now, are you more interested in naming your problem (diagnosis) solving it and getting well?

Rheumatoid arthritis is an auto-immune disease, one of those conditions where the immune system is out of control... hyperactive, attacking your own tissue. In this case, that tissue is your joints. Back when Medicine was less intrusive, anti-inflammatories were prescribed. Now, they prescribe drugs that attack/suppress the immune system, which can lessen the expression of rheumatoid symptoms. The problem is, by chemically swinging the pathological pendulum of the immune system to the other extreme, side effects include pneumonia, toberculosis, leukemia, cancer. It's OK with them. Other specialists, other drugs to the rescue!

Osteoarthritis is kind of a wear and tear thing, kind of like the tires on your car wearing out funny because the wheels are out of balance and allignment. Easy to understand, but They don't. They pump you full of srong anti-inflammatories. Now inflammation, like every other syptom, is your body's, your Innate's effort to heal. When you interfere with inflammation, sure it feels better, but your joint are damaged further. (So is your cardiovascular system.) But that's OK with Them. Artificial joint time!

Then there is gouty arthritis, basically a chemical imbalance, excess uric acid, causing inflammation of joints. So, there you go with anti-inflammatories and medication to reduce uric acid. The latter involve substantial risk to the kidneys.

None of these medical treatments get to the cause. They cover up symptoms, causing more problems. Such is the way of medicine.

Chiropractic addresses cause. Gout? The nervous system regulates the body's metabolism. Why not correct interference to the nervous system? This is what chiropractic adjustments do.

Osteoarthritis? The joints themselves, as well as the muscles attaching to those joints, are under control of the nervous system. Why not correct interference, Vertebral Subluxations? Unlike most chiropractors, I go beyond the spine. I check and adjust extremities. So, if you are having these problems in a knee, or your hands, and there is misallignment, don;t you think that those parts will function better, heal better, if they are adjusted?

Rheumatoid? The immune system, too, is run by your nervous system. Correct interference, and your immune system will tend towards proper function. this is in sharp contract to medical over-correction, which can end up in something as bad as cancer. [*The word "iatrogenic" means "physician-caused."]

The choice should be clear. Now go talk to friends and family who suffer from any of these types of arthritis. Invite them to the office. You might even save them from iatrogenic cancer.

"Heart Attacks, Strokes and Death Right for You?"

Ever listen, I mean really listen, to those drug ads? The listing of side effects is always accompanied by nice music and happy, healthy-looking people. Why? They, Big Pharma, are fulfilling legal obligations, seeming to look responsible, while psychologically neutering the bad feelings with good feelings. Very sophisticated. And very sleazy.

All these ads end with "Ask your doctor is Srcungax is right for you." As if your doctor really understands the biochemical pathways of the drug, and the risks involved. If you are taking multiple drugs, there is no way that your doctor can ever appreciate the interaction of those drugs in you. It is, essentially, unknowable. So this is not science. This is Las Vegas time.

Instead of taking drugs to cover up signs or symptoms, why not get to the cause? Chiropractic adjustments correct Vertebral Subluxation, interference to your nervous system, allowing your body to heal, and to function properly.

Don Harte, D.C.
Marin Straight Chiropractor
Liberator of Innate

10 Reasons NOT to Go to a Chiropractor

1. "I tried Chiropractic but it didn't work."
2. "I'm too old."
3. "I'm too young."
4. "I feel fine."
5. "I feel bad."
6. "I already know my spine is bad."
7. "I'm too sick."
8. "Nothing can be done for me."
9. "I don't believe in Chiropractic."
10. "My doctor told me not to go."

Wow, pretty lame excuses, huh? And the worst part is that you are still sick and subluxated.* And even worse, you never expect to be better.

Open your mind and say "Ah-ah-ah-ah!"

Don Harte, D.C.
Corte Madera Straight Chiropractor
Liberator of Innate

* Subluxation? Don't know what that is? FIND OUT! This is important.

ADVANCED CHIR PHILOSOPHY SERIES: Fractures and Innate Intelligence

"A bone is fractured; its contiguity is interrupted. There was a concussion of forces, external evasion, internal resistance. Invasion was greater than resistance, cleavage occurred, hence fracture. Innate conceived, developed and intended to have a contiguous bone. Now it is one or more segments. What can, will, and how it will occur in a living body. The two or more sections will be welded back into one bone, uniting the sections by osseous sunthesis. Can you by process of what you learn in any school, out of books, called education, perform this uniting, mending process? Do you know where the nearest osseous tissue centers are, above and below the fracture? Do you know how many cells need be expended by them? Do you know exactly where and how many need be expanded? Could you, from what you have learned out of books, direct them to unite these sections? Does your diploma guarantee you to be an artificer of osseous welding of fractures? If you cannot do this, what is inside us which does?"  - BJ Palmer, D.C., Ph.C. The Evolution or Revolution

Obviously, Dr. Palmer is talking to MD's, but more so to DC's (chiropractors) who are full of ego, still thinking that they know more than your body's Innate Intelligence.

Practice Members, and future Practice Members, I beseech you not to trust me; rather you should trust your own Innate Intelligence. Keep in mind that I am smart enough to know that I, nor any doctor of any kind, is any match for Innate Intelligence.

Don Harte, D.C.
Corte Madera Straight Chiropractor
Liberator of Innate

Birth Defects, Bad Memory and Medicine

"Show me a drug with no side effects, and I will tell you that it is not a drug." - Dr. Eli Lily

This is true, perhaps a hundredfold, as a baby develops in mom.

Back when my wife was pregnant (my son is almost 27), all the moms were being told to take no drugs, prescription or over-the-counter, except where they were absolutely necessary to maintain life. Alcohol and caffeine were very strongly discouraged. Now, it seems the OB -GYN's have forgotten all that, and gone back to their evil, drug-crazed ways.

Have you seen the late-night lawyer ads, the ones about pregnant moms taking Zoloft and other SSRI's (the most popular class of anti-depressants), having babies with defects and disease as a result? Cleft palate, heart defects, lung problems, club feet, and a few that I can't recall. Terrible. Ask your prescribing doctor exactly the chemical/physiological pathways of drugs you are given as an adult, and about what side effects YOU will get, and they cannot honestly and fully answer you. Mulitply that manyfold when it comes to giving drugs to children. Multiply that lack of knowledge at least a hundredfold when it comes to giving drugs to pregnant women, that will be passed along to their developing babies.

The greatest fault lies with the OB-GYN's that take this great leap into a baby's unknown, that have forgotten Hippocrates' dictum, "primum nocerum"... "first, do no harm."

Fault also lies with the mothers who say "OK" like sheep, and the fathers who don't or won't speak up. Come on! Is it really "depression?' If so, can't you find ways to cope without risking your baby's health? Hey, if you didn't know, now you do!

Don't get offended; get smarter. Pregnant moms out there... if there was a way to get your brain and your nervous system right... functioning better... might that help with mood? Might that help with every other aspect of your health, since your brain and your nervous system runs every system, organ and cell in your body? Isn't your health your baby's health?

EVERY pregnant woman should get a chiropractic check-up, to locate interference to her nervous system. You want the best for your baby, right? Chiropractic care, now, for you, is how you start.

What do you think?

Don Harte, D.C.
Corte Madera Straight Chiropractor
Liberator of Innate

Corte Madera Chiropractor Accepts the Challenge: "Dangerousness" and Chiropractic?

No, I am not talking about the stupid myth that Chiropractic is dangerous. If you want my take on that, check out the op ed I wrote in the SF Chronicle on that. (For other articles... )

There is a courageous man in Cuba, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet. No, he is not a chiropractor. He is a medical doctor. Courageous because he is a REAL freedom fighter. He stands up against Castro. He has been jailed many times, beaten, tortured. He received the Presidential medal of Freedom in 2007, though, obviously, he was unable to attend the reception.

In totalitarian regimes, charges are often deliberately vague. Kinda like my experience with the chiropractic Board. (No, I wouldn't dream of saying that my courage is anywhere near that of Dr.  Biscet's.)

The charge against Dr. Biscet? "Dangerousness." Let that sink in. Dangerousness. Yes, the very idea of freedom is dangerous to a totalitarian regime. How can one defend (if that were even possible) against such a nebulous charge?

I full understand that, underlying all of the nonsense that Chiropractic, as a profession, must endure is the charge of "dangerousness." Yet here it is more subtle. It is a charge pronounced by the powers that be, who I call the PMG (Pharmaceutical-Medical-Governmental) Complex. It is a charge that is taken up by society at large, just regular folks, because they have this deep-down feeling that "They"... those in authority, certainly "scientific" authority, KNOW.

Chiropractic is, indeed, "dangerous" to the commonly swallowed belief that the body is just a stupid piece of red meat surrounded by skin and hair, tand hat it needs the near-continual help of Medicine. Look down deeper, and that boils down to the absolutely psychotic belief that we are born with a deficiency of drugs and an excess of organs.

Against this, it is "dangerous" to suggest that the Power that made the body heals the body, that the only real healing is from Above-down, Inside-out. "Dangerous" because Chiropractic is, clearly, not part of Medicine. It is a whole 'nother universe.

Chiropractic is "dangerous" because, when it becomes properly and widely understood and utilized, the whole PMG Complex will come crashing down, beginning with the vaccine manufacturers... the makers of the Holy Water of the PMG Religion.

When They see people coming to me and other straight chiropractors (the simple pain relief guys do not count) adjusting people on a wellness, non-therapeutic basis, and these people are getting well from diseases that cannot be "cured," and they are dumping their drugs that they allegedly needed for the rest of their lives, and they are no longer in need of proposed surgeries, and they no longer line up their kids for the Holy Water...

Come along with me. Stand against the rule of the PMG Complex. Stand with me for health, from Above-down, Inside-out.

Don Harte, D.C.
Marin Straight Chiropractor
Liberator of Innate

The Joy of Chiropractic: The Big Vision

I know that I get cranky a lot. It's hard not to when I see all of the unnecessary suffering from far too little Chiropractic and far to much Medicine, and when I see chiropractors abrogating their duty, and demeaning their own profession. Hey, I'm from New York. I have a right to get cranky whenever I want. (Ya gotta problem wid dat?)

Ah, but there is so much joy in what I do, and in what you, who are Practice Members, receive. Sure, there's the bad backs that get better, even those who were supposed to have surgery. Sure, there's the folks with "bone-on-bone" knees or hips, who were supposed to get new parts. With so few exceptions that I can count them on one hand, we, together allowed their old parts to become new, to heal, from the Inside-out.

There's all of the people who got well from digestive problems, from GERD to Irritable Bowel Syndrome to hemorrhoids. Those with out-of-control diabetes that not only became stable, but eventually became well, like no more diabetes. (Yes, I know, that's medically impossible. But Innate Intelligence doesn't know that that's impossible.) There are those on thyroid hormones that were able to dump them. Many with decades-long insomnia that now sleep normally. Horrible migraines that are a thing of the past.

Then there's that part of the nervous system that contains the mind, the brain. Correct interference to the nervous system... why shouldn't the mind work better? This is why I have seen so many with chronic depression and anxiety get well and dump their meds. Maybe even more striking is seeing personalities and temperments change through the course of chiropractic care, people getting along with others better, happier, better adjusted (excuse the pun).

The best gift that I get is parents bringing in their kids, who get sick less often, behave better, do better in school. I remember three instances where chiropractic care was directly life-saving. One was failure to thrive, another was a baby bent backwards like a warped board, and another with a weird auto-immune disease. All ended up well!

Even more far-reaching are the parents that I have under chiropractic care, then mom gets pregnant, mom continues to get adjusted, and then the baby gets adjusted a very short time after birth. (The medical birth process often results in the first subluxation.) Here, we are certainly not talking bad backs, or any sort of pain at all. We are not talking about any diseases or symptoms. Stop and think..............................

When Vertebral Subluxation is corrected, Innate Intelligence is free to express itself at the highest level possible. A child is conceived with a genetic blueprint. NOTE that genes are, by and large, only a range of possibilities. When Innate is free, without interference, right from the beginning, that child is free to express the most of his or her genetic potential as they grow and develop. What might that mean for his or her future?

What if every child had this opportunity, or even just 5% of children? Would we have a different, better world? With better people, why not? This is the Big Vision of Chiropractic. This is my mission!

I have a mission for every one of you reading this, especially those who are parents of young children. (I am writing this on the eve of Mothers' Day.) I want you to get this message out to other parents. Their kids need to be adjusted, to fully express their potential. Forward this blog to them. Discuss it with them. Ask them if it's OK if I call them to invite them and their children in for a chiropractic check-up.

I started this blog about my crankiness. Well, look at the state of the world. How about we do something positive, fundamentally positive, to change the world?

Dr. BJ Palmer said, "Remove interference, and all else follows." I say to you, "Open your heart and then your mouth and tell the Truth, and good things will follow."

Don Harte, D.C.
Corte Madera Straight Chiropractor
Liberator of Innate

Orthopedists' Stupid Tricks: Cortisone Shots to the Knee

"Primum nocerum." That's Latin for "Do no harm." This is considered to be the primary dictum for medical doctors, written by the Old Man himself, Hippocrates. (He was, of course Greek. Why the expression is known to us in Latin, I dunno.)

"Corticosteroid therapy is the refuge of the destitute." This is in the introduction to a classic medical textbook, Boyd's Pathology. This is a medical doctor talking to, writing to medical doctors and students. What it means is that the doctor pull out the cortisone when he's got nothin."

The topic today is corticosteroid injections of joints, a common procedure of orthopedists.

Yesterday, I was talking to one of my favorite practice members about the very sad state of his knee. The knee joint was subluxated for years, as was the nerve supply the the knee, above and below, and the nerve supply for posture, coordination, balance, etc. That much is commonplace. What puts him, and his knee, in a very bad way is that he has had several cortisone shots there. Disastrous!

I explained that this kind of treatment, shots to the knee, or the hip, or the spine, etc., may be a good deal if one is planning to die in a few months. HUH? Well, often the shots "work," they kill the pain. How? Cortisone and related compounds are the most potent of the anti-inflammatories. Since inflammation is the most common cause of joint pain, get rid of the inflammation, you get rid of the pain, sometimes even completely, sometimes for several months.

So what's the problem? Inflammation, like every other symptom, is the body's effort to heal itself. If you interfere with this healing, you've got big trouble. That's why Vioxx, an oral anti-inflammatory, was taken off the market because of damage to the heart and circulatory system. And that is why cortisone shots are a very bad idea. While they can sometimes offer very good relief, they leave your joint, that is already in trouble, with further damage. The more shots, the more damage.

Could they, the orthopedists, be drumming up surgery business by destroying joints?

Why not get to the cause? Bad knee? Get adjusted. Allow your body to heal. Yes it can, even if you've been told your knee is "bone-on-bone."

Don Harte, D.C.
Marin Straight Chiropractor
Liberator of Innate