Ki Center Blog

With so many prescription drugs being pulled off the shelves, most recently the drug Avandia, it would seem that someone somewhere should be raising a flag and asking some hard questions.

Why is this country, with all its wealth and resources, one of the lowest rated for life expectancy? Why is iatrogenic disease (health care caused) the number one cause of death in this country, even above heart disease and diabetes?

I strongly believe that our medical establishment has lost sight of a fundamental truth in health and wellness. You must treat the whole person.

Drugs not always the answer

Using toxic chemicals to drug a person's symptom into submission isn't working for the long term. Side effects from these drugs are the cause of many other problems that are then treated with even more drugs. The cycle continues, and a severe decline in health is seen. For the most part, it is the elderly that suffers I believe, more so than the rest of the population. However, I have noticed an increase in the number of clients that are younger now having the same problems as the elderly. I hope this trend doesn't continue, but unfortunately, unless we as a nation re-examine the national health care system, I believe it will continue.

There is room enough in our health care system for alternative practitioners and allopathic (traditional) practitioners to work together. I have had the opportunity to share my information and findings with a few of my clients physicians. It is refreshing to find a physician open enough to discuss what I find and what course of action I take to correct the imbalances. The treatment is enhanced when qualified alternative practitioners and traditional medicine is combined. The patient benefits, they get better quicker and their health care costs go down as the need for long term medication is eliminated.

Profit over health

Too much emphasis has been put on drugs for everything and nothing but drugs for anything. The profits are too high to stop and the lobbyists are too numerous to ignore. Frankly I think the emphasis is on money and profit and not on the individual. There is a good reason why more people are migrating to holistic practitioners and alternative therapies. People want more choice in their health care. They are becoming more educated about alternatives, and with detailed information available on the internet have more resources to better educate themselves.

Alternative therapies work. Nutritional deficiencies are rampant in this country and no amount of chemistry will change that. Much of the heart disease in this country could be alleviated by simple additions of key phytonutrients to the diet. Balancing the energetic and emotional components of health is a much better choice than toxic, side effect laden drugs for depression. My case files are full of people weaned off of heavy depression medications and now living drug free and happy.

Western medicine does not get it

My concept of an ideal health care system would be one that each person has the ability to choose which type of treatment to participate in. The insurance would cover any qualified practitioner and its components. Allopathic and alternative professionals could and would work together for the good of the patient and holistic (whole body, mind and spirit) care would be the norm.

Most physicians will tell you that vitamins and minerals don't work. They will tell you that studies have shown no significant improvement in conditions when vitamins and minerals were used. And quite frankly, in most cases they are correct. However the use of synthetic, fractionated nutrients will never give you the same results as clinically pure, whole food phytonutrients. There is a huge difference between a vitamin you buy in the local market and a true whole food nutrient that is tested to your body for efficacy and accuracy.

It's about balance

At the Ki Center we practice true clinical bio-chemistry. In addition, we balance the emotions, structure and energetic components of the body. In other words; we treat the whole body. And whenever possible, we will work with your regular doctor and offer the information to him or her and extend the hand of cooperation.

Each modality of health care has its merits. Each has value and can be incredibly beneficial. I will be the first to acknowledge that I cannot help everyone. Some folks are so devastated by illness and disease that strong drugs are the only answer, and are the most appropriate. I cannot however agree that drugs are the only answer to all maladies. I have witnessed many people get better with simple phytonutrient protocols, wean off of prescription drugs and finally have relief from years of discomfort.

Old school is sometimes the best school for achieving results. If anything can be said about the work I do in the clinic it would have to be that we are results driven. I have been doing natural health care now for 11 years and the best and most valuable tool I have is Kinesthetic body analysis. Also known as Applied Kinesiology, or contact reflex analysis, it is a way for me to determine the imbalances that are present in your body at this time. It is highly accurate and using the body's own innate intelligence, can and will find things that even western medicine with all their technology can't find or just plain miss. And mis-diagnosis is a real problem with allopathic medicine.

It works simply by measuring the energy in the body through and indicator muscle as a "circuit breaker" that will trip when there is an imbalance that the body recognizes as detrimental. It will not tell me what the problem is but where the problem or cause is. As an example, the muscle testing will tell me there is a problem with the liver but not exactly what the problem is. But again using the advanced techniques of applied kinesiology, I can then test with specific clinical nutritional products to find what will fix the problem. I may have five different products that will alter the liver function but only one of them may be the exact fit for your particular problem. It takes the guess work out of knowing what specifically will help you. Be it herb or phytonutrient, your body will tell me exactly what it needs to repair.

Not only will the kinesthetic body analysis be able to determine cause and need from a chemical standpoint, but it is perfect for determining structural problems whether they be skeletal or soft tissue related. There have been many examples of people coming to me for a structural problem that has not been helped through chiropractic care or any other care for that matter, that through kinesthetic analysis, determined the specific muscle involvement that may have not been any where near the site of pain.

Old school or technology based diagnostics? Both are appropriate and can be helpful. But what happens if the technology based diagnostics are not available? How will practitioners determine treatment if all they know is blood work, MRI's, CT scans and the like? Ask the body, as it (your body) is the smartest doctor for you there is.

Last month we talked about the four legs of a stool representing your health and the importance of balance. I covered the chemical (nutritional) and structural “legs” of the stool. Continuing the analogy, our last two legs consist of energetic and emotional balance.

Energetic Healing

Energy medicine’ as it is being called is seeing resurgence in interest in all types of practitioners. Unfortunately I believe it is one the more misunderstood aspects of health. Of course the concept of this type of treatment is accepted in the form of acupuncture which works on the pathways of electrical stimuli called ‘Meridians’. Remember that your brain is generating bio-electrical signals all the time. Think of your body as an electrical panel and the circuit breakers are trigger/acupuncture points and the electrical circuits are the meridians feeding the rest of the body. Without good communication along these circuits you have an imbalance electrically and loss or impaired function of tissue, glands or organs. The actual science of how it works is much more complicated but I think this is a good start to basic understanding.

There are many ways to influence the electrical system in your body. It can be altered with needles on certain points, it can be altered chemically and it can be altered with another electrical field. This last one is “outside the box” of conventional thinking but easily demonstrated with measurable results. It is harder to explain but when I see a client in my clinic they ‘get it’ once were done. I pay close attention to what your body tells me electrically. The kinesthetic testing I do relies on the electrical circuits and trigger points to tell me what is going on to cause the problems you may be having.

I’ve mentioned this before but it is worth repeating, the body never lies. If you know how to read the body and have the tools to interpret it correctly a practitioner can identify the imbalances that may be causing your health problems and make appropriate recommendations to correct them.

Emotional Healing

When I talk about emotional balance with my clients you can almost see the walls going up. The concept of how emotions play a part in health is understood and is readily accepted as a contributor to poor health. But if they do not want to address emotional pain or traumas then really there is nothing that I can do. This is one area that requires complete participation from the client.

I can demonstrate to my clients that emotions are influencing their health and may be blocking their ability to heal completely, and then outline several different tools to help correct it. One of those tools is a process called Rapid Eye Therapy available at the clinic. I have seen this used for phobias, bad habits, and emotional traumas of all types and personally witnessed truly impressive results.

The brain is incredibly complex and subject to bad programming like your computer. And being the brain it is in charge of the rest of the body. If you have stored anger, grief, fear or emotional problems do you really think you will be completely healthy?

Rapid Eye Therapy

Rapid Eye Therapy (RET) assists in releasing trapped trauma, stress, negative patterns and limiting beliefs and replaces these with positive mental programming. The way it works is kind of like how you would change bad programming in your computer. You remove the bad line of type causing the problem and replace it with the correct instructions, reboot your system and miraculously, no more problems. RET works that quickly and completely if you are honestly wanting to correct the problem. It does this by simulating REM sleep which is the bodies’ natural way to process stress. You are completely awake and interacting with the therapist.

In a typical session the practitioner will use an eye directing device and guided imagery and positive affirmations and statements to affect change. Old stored memories and traumas are released and replaced quickly without having to re-live the situation that caused the trauma.

More information can be seen on our web site that may help to understand RET better if you have the interest. I cannot encourage you enough though that if childhood traumas, anger problems, post traumatic stress and a host of other similar issues is playing a part in your life, and you want to change it, Rapid Eye Therapy may just be the answer for you.

I want to share this final thought with you. Thought is energy and what we believe and put energy into will manifest into our lives. When you combine all four of the areas of health and balance we’ve discussed in these two articles into an overall program of health, success is just around the corner.

There seems to be a significant amount of misunderstanding what holistic healing is all about. In a two part article I would like to explain what you should expect from a holistic healing practitioner and the type of treatment you should be getting.

If you take the example of a four legged stool and each one of those legs represents an aspect of your health: chemical (nutritional), emotional, energetic and structural and each of those legs are balanced and strong then you have optimal health. If on the other hand you have an imbalance in one or more of these legs then the stool is out of balance. A true holistic approach will address all of these facets of health to ensure you are getting the best recommendations possible for your body to heal itself. And this is critical: no matter how talented the practitioner claims to be they will not heal you. You must heal yourself. Claims of being able to “heal you” from any alternative care giver is arrogant in my opinion, and false advertising at the least. At the Ki Center we give you what your body needs based on extensive testing to bring your body back into balance.  Our immune systems were designed to be absolutely top notch at achieving and maintaining health. Many factors have served to compromise that system both in humans and animals. More on that later but for now let’s look at the four factors responsible for health and how to make them better.

Chemical Imbalance

The nutritional leg is the nuts and bolts of your body function. It is responsible for all the factory processes that take place inside you. Everything from hormone production to tissue repair requires nutrients, vitamins, minerals and a thousand other factors to keep the body going on a daily basis. Without the proper materials the factory can’t produce the end product that being healthy body function. When I test the body for deficiencies I’m looking for missing or depleted pieces of this chemical mix. Once replaced the body will start the repair process, slowly at first but it will within 2-3 months get back in balance nutritionally and many of those nagging symptoms will go away. I have used whole food nutritional products, glandular extracts, herbs and just plain old life style changes to achieve this. Chemical fractions of synthetic nutrients won’t give you long term results only short term relief if you’re lucky.

Structural Balance

Another leg on our stool is structure. If your frame is out of alignment, in other words your back is out or there is some part of the bone structure not aligned right then you have a structural imbalance. Lot’s of folks go to the chiropractor for regular adjustments. This is fine but if you are not holding your adjustments and you have to get the same thing fixed each time then something else is contributing to your problem. Is it a chemical component? Perhaps you are experiencing stress which is keeping you from relaxing and in turn tightens the muscles which shifts the bone. Nerves branch out from the spinal cord that carry messages for digestion and organ function. If you have vertebrae out of alignment and it is pinching the nerve then those messages can’t get through or are scrambled, possibly causing digestive problems or a host of other problems. And it can work in reverse as well. Chronic digestive problems will cause problems in structure as well. You can see by these few examples that it all fits together like a puzzle and for your sake please choose a health care practitioner that can see the connections.

All of these four legs are connected and are necessary for balance and health. If you address just one of them and ignore the rest you will not get complete healing. A true holistic approach will look at all of the pieces of the puzzle to achieve balance and allow you to heal yourself. If the practitioner you are seeing can’t take care of all of these areas of health they should at least be able to identify what is missing and keeping you from optimal health and make recommendations to correct it.

Next month I will talk about the energetic and emotional aspects to overall health which in my observation is vastly overlooked in helping people to heal completely. At the Ki Center we look at and test for imbalances in all four of these areas of health. In a nut shell what you will get is a way to improve your health by re-establishing your immune system to it’s most effective and efficient level of operation. We do this by giving the body what it needs and individualizing your care to correct the cause of the problem not just chase after symptoms.

As we begin a new year we will be faced with new challenges, new decisions and ultimately new choices for ourselves and possibly for others as well. Hopefully these choices will be opportunities for growth and to better our lives. There will be challenges that we have no control over but still leave us with choices that can alter our lives significantly. The beauty of choice is that if we do not like the choice we made then we have the right and the ability to choose again.

The Ki Center has been open for a year in its present location in Gresham. During this time I have observed some remarkable healings take place. People with long term medical problems have gotten better and some are completely healed. Nothing I have done can compare with the one dynamic that is essential to wellness and that I have no control over. When people make a choice to get better and are willing to do what it takes to make it happen, there is nothing that can get in their way.

Alternative and Traditonal Medicine

I have had the opportunity to review many studies published by various medical organizations both traditional and alternative. The interesting thing about studies is that no matter what the subject matter and depending on your intended goal, you can hire someone to say whatever you need and tailor the report to fit your marketing needs. There is one variable however in all of these reports that cannot be factored in or defined by any scientific means. It cannot be compartmentalized by formulas or chemical description. It defies definition by Western medicine and is so wildly unpredictable that it often times is ignored in the whole process of getting well. That variable is the power of the human spirit.

I am sure you have heard stories of people making remarkable recoveries from cancer, debilitating injuries and extreme mental problems that defied the medical establishments’ ability to explain it. On the reverse we have seen people who ultimately just give up and by all rights and medical convention should have gotten better but didn’t. The difference of course is the individual. What choices did they make? What part of their mental attitude made them dig their heels in and refuse to give up? I don’t need a medical definition to realize that the human spirit can and will perform miracles all the time.

My mother always used to tell me that I can do anything if I just put my mind to it. How true this has become for not only me but hundreds of ailing clients over the past year.

Past Experiences

l'll share one experience with you of a client who was experiencing a terrible case of psoriasis. I followed all the usual holistic approaches to helping this person. Dealt with the detoxification issues, supported the liver and skin and addressed the digestive problems associated with this terrible condition. From an alternative approach you must remember that psoriasis is a symptom and not a stand alone disease. We were able to get some relief right away and a significant amount of improvement in the physical symptoms but it would keep flaring up and would never go away completely. For those of you familiar with this problem you know the amount of mental anguish that these people can go through. Once the emotional component was targeted and she was able to feel better emotionally as well as physically her attitude and her spirit was super charged. She had been having problems with this condition for over twenty years and once she saw light at the end of the tunnel her own body, with the help of good nutritional tools and Rapid Eye Therapy made the connection to achieve balance and she got well.

It took about six months to get to this point of her skin being clear and to be sure we came across some hurdles and bumps in the road. The amazing thing about this story is that before coming to the Ki Center she had been working with a research Dermatologist who of course was going through several different medications both approved and experimental. Nothing seemed to work however until natural protocols were used to bring her back into balance chemically and Rapid Eye Therapy was used to bring emotional balance.

None of this could have been accomplished if she had not made the conscious choice to get better. She choose to make changes in her life and once she saw physical improvement her mental attitude, her spirit if you will, was determined to be healthy and she would not settle for anything less. And it worked.

I would like to wish you all the best for the New Year and offer you a challenge. If you don’t like where you are at in your life right now then please choose again, it’s your right.

Holistic Healing

A large percentage of people coming to this clinic are at their wits end. They have been through numerous traditional health care practitioners, and yet their disease or illness still persists. In addition, many have developed other problems due to the side effects of medications they have taken.

When, as a last resort, they decide to look at alternative medicine, they bring a healthy dose of skepticism with them. This is an ideal situation for an alternative health care professional.

As one of these professionals, I can honestly say, and with practical experience to back it up, that new hope can be found.

I spent eight years as an emergency medical technician. Traditional allopathic medicine has some of the best tools available to help people in specific situations. Where they fall short, in my opinion, is health maintenance, auto-immune problems and the understanding of how the body works holistically.

The scientific aspect of what they do is excellent. However, when it comes to “outside the box” thinking–how energy, structure, chemistry and emotions play a part synergistically—that is where they (and you) run into frustration and failure.

A phrase I hear quite often from my clients is, “I haven’t felt this good in years.” We are not performing miracles, nor do I heal anyone. You heal yourself. I just find the right tools that it takes to get you there. I look for imbalances in the body, find the tools it takes to correct those imbalances, and let your body do what it is designed to do.

Does this mean that everyone will be able to eliminate all disease and illness from their body? Of course not. Some people have so much long term damage that no amount of care will get them back to their youthful health and wellness. However, you can improve many areas of your health and be in the best possible condition for you, under the circumstances. Sometimes that may mean being in less pain, or simply being able to function better than you did before. Never the less, improvement in any form is a positive move in the right direction.

Whether you choose to explore acupuncture, chiropractic, nutrition, energy work or the various aspects of massage, they all have value, and can be helpful. The trick is to find that which will benefit, and not waste money and time. How that is determined is relatively straight forward. Using kinesthetic body analysis–which accurately identifies imbalances in the body– a plan of action can be established that will begin your return to health.

Chemical Imbalance

When I use supplementation or herbs to correct chemical imbalances, I want to make sure that whatever I am using is specific, and that it will get the job done. I use only Standard Process brand whole food supplements and Medi Herb herbal products from Australia. I have every confidence that these products work. I have seen them achieve amazing corrections consistently, and they are available only from health care professionals. But chemical imbalance is only part of the holistic picture.

An often misunderstood (or missed) piece of your health is that which encompasses the emotional aspect of health and healing. Rapid Eye Therapy is one tool we use in the clinic to regain the emotional balance that can be so critical to overall health. I don’t need to tell you how stress can affect you mentally. What you may not understand, however, is that stress affects your physical well being, too. An accurate quote is, “Where the mind goes the body follows.” There have been many occasions with my clients that an emotional problem has kept them from being completely successful in their healing. Once that issue was addressed, their recovery was accelerated.

Every part of your body works in synergy with each other. Ignoring, or missing part of the whole picture, can certainly cause otherwise good treatments to fail.