Sickness & Disease: Reverse Engineered

Reverse engineering involves taking something apart and analyzing it in detail. With today’s post, I’d like to reverse-engineer the process of sickness and disease. So let’s start at the end…

The final component is the name of the condition itself. This is called a diagnosis.

Before a diagnosis can be labeled, there must be a series of events or sensations that precede its identification. These are called symptoms.

Before symptoms can result, a function or process must take place abnormally. This is considered malfunction.

Something must specifically disrupt or cause this malfunction to occur; this is known as interference.

Prior to this interference, functioning is normal. “Normal function” is the definition of health.

So “sickness” can be described a four-step process. When a healthy person experiences some form of physical, chemical or emotional interference, it can disrupt the normal function of their body, causing malfunction. Given the opportunity, this malfunction develops into one or more symptoms. A collection of symptoms is labeled with a diagnosis.

Now, in a medical model of health care, symptoms of a diagnosis are most commonly treated with pharmaceutical drugs. This approach focuses exclusively on the second half of the process (Symptoms/Step-3 & Diagnosis/Step-4).

Assuming the medication stops the symptoms, what happens to Steps 1 and 2 of the problem? Well, if the symptoms reoccur when you stop taking the medication, then the problem wasn’t actually solved, and you were never really “cured.”

In order for the problem to be truly eliminated, the first half of the process (Interference/Step-1 & Malfunction/Step-2) must be addressed.

The chiropractic model of health care reverse-engineers the process of sickness and disease. Instead of masking symptoms, chiropractors target Steps 1 and 2 by locating and correcting the interference.

When you correct or reduce the source of interference, function will be restored. With the return of normal function, symptoms disappear naturally. This is true health restoration.

Both approaches have value, but which approach makes more sense for your current health problem?