Caution! Put down that bottle of Tylenol!

 

One of the hardest things to face for a parent is dealing with a sick child.  Many make the assumption that our children are more vulnerable than the average adult, and unfortunately this means many tend to turn to potentially dangerous medications to suppress their symptoms.  

What if there was a reason for these symptoms?  Let’s look a bit deeper and explore the natural ability of the body to heal itself.  

First and foremost, our body has an innate intelligence that is designed to not only control every single cell, organ, and tissue of the body, but it also has the amazing ability to heal itself.  In an optimal environment the body will always tend toward health!  In fact, the fear that most parents have on the vulnerability of their child is often unfounded because children have the ability to heal quicker than we do as adults.  Think about this for a minute: our children have not been exposed to all the garbage that we have, not to mention the amount of physical, chemical, and emotional stress; therefore they have higher thresholds for dealing with simple pathogens that may entertain their host.  

Secondly, the intention of a symptom is to let the body know that something is wrong.  It tells the body that it can no longer adapt to its internal or its external environment. In the case of a fever, it is a way of telling the body that it is currently adapting.  Fevers are actually designed to raise the body temperature to designated levels in order to kill the viral and/or bacterial pathogen, thus; eliminate it from our system.  

Click here to read a great article, written by Susan Markel, MD discussing fevers in adolescents in more detail.  It is definitely worth the read for any parent.  

Enjoy!

 

Dr. Ryan Pope is a Kanata chiropractor at The Wellness Group, a multidisciplinary health facility in Ontario, Canada. He currently practices chiropractic in Kanata full time with a focus on educating and empowering his practice members to harness the innate intelligence of the body to heal itself through the chiropractic lifestyle.