While reading some of my recent columns you might have wondered why a TMJ and Sleep Apnea dentist/orthodontist is straying from his practice by talking about such things as telomeres, which as you may remember, are pieces of DNA that form a protection to the chromosome allowing it to replicate itself and divide.
My desire in doing so was to get you to understand that almost all ailments are best treated with a holistic approach. Not just an approach by medicine, but by biology which includes genetics, physiology, nutrition, and the environment, taking in all of the possible factors.
Medicine, for too long, has become a group of specialties, many of which do not understand, to the extent they should, the other specialties.
A cardiologist probably does not realize that the most prescribed statin drug in America can cause low testosterone and all the problems that go along with it, plus several other side effects. The psychiatrist, when prescribing an antidepressant, may be unaware of the many side effects that relate to other fields if medicine.
The overuse of ibuprofen, (Motrin, Advil), for pain makes it sometimes totally ineffective and all you get is the side effects. Ibuprofen is generally effective for just three months. To be most effective this class of non steroidal pain medicine should be changed every three months. Hopefully, if the cause of the pain can be dealt with rather than just the symptom, it would not be necessary to remain on medicine for more than three months.
Again, I want to emphasize a holistic approach. I don’t want to just cover the symptom, I want to find the cause and eliminate it. For example, due to the fact that I hate the side effects of pain killers, I have found that acupuncture is incredibly effective and have studied the subject at UCLA. I have found that problems in one area of the body can cause dysfunction and pain in another. A condition diagnosed as a migraine could be caused by an irritated colon. A simple test in which acupuncture spot “C1” is chilled with ethyl chloride, can eliminate the headache within seconds. Then we can deal with the cause.
Instead of months of unsuccessful drugs and splint therapy, professionals can study what is irritating the colon. Sometimes it is a food allergy or sensitivity which, when dealt with, can eliminate a host of other medical problems, including the migraine.
There is no question that, if you have a medical problem, it should be diagnosed and treated by the proper professional. The purpose of my writing is that all of us, including the professional, need to understand the whole picture.
The reason your body is failing could be damage to your telomeres. This could be due to early childhood trauma, horrible diet, pollution, severe stress or drug and chemical abuse. Who knows? It could be something else. Our job is to find out the cause of the health problem and return the patient to the most optimal health and vitality possible.
Treating telomere damage is an entirely different field than treating a disease. This field is very new to medicine and foreign to most with traditional medical training. The fact is, if you are just treating symptoms, and not the problems causing them, the disease could be exacerbated by the treatment.
It might sometimes seem that everything is getting so complex that there cannot be an answer. Actually, the opposite is true. Taking into account that new research has uncovered some of the underlying factors that cause our health to fail gives us new hope. It will soon be possible to not only cure the disease, but reverse the damage, establishing new, vital tissue in what was the diseased area.
Robert Brown, DDS has a TMJ, orthodontia, and sleep apnea practice in Danville and thoroughly enjoys discussing holistic medicine. You can contact him at 925-837-8048, at info@aodtc.com, or visit his web site at www.aodtc.com.
Leave a Reply