Wednesday, June 30, 2010
On the Morning Show, May 21. We discussed Dr. Copp’s teaching about, and treatment of, stress-related autoimmune diseases. There was much interest expressed in talking about this subject and asking for “additional information on what Dr. Copp does for Autoimmune Diseases.” What we do is not only very efficacious but I think, novel and interesting. Basically, we Americans are a very stressed people, not only from emotional challenges, though we certainly have enough of those – unfortunately, I expect a rash of patients struggling with this oil spill – but other stressors and stresses that we don’t normally think about, such as environmental stress, nutritional stress, dietary stress, body (structural) stress, etc. As it happens, the body does not differentiate between these various kinds of stress. Because of the GAS (General Adaptative Syndrome), all stress looks the same to the body. A part of the GAS is immune system dysfunction, which leads to infection and sickness. That is why we tend to get sick with the change of seasons: the stress of adapting to a different length of day and temperature depresses our immune system. It’s quite interesting, and once one understands the principle, it becomes a matter of what can be done to stop this stress-related disease. That’s what we do here in the clinic. In the absence of doing anything about it, the syndrome escalates to frank autoimmune disorders, like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, lupus, MS, and many more. These diseases are commonly treated as if they were completely different diseases, but they are much more similar than different, being simply different expressions of the same or similar immune dysfunction, depending on what area is weakest in a particular individual. Below is also a syllabus for a 12 hour, post graduate seminar to give you an idea how these concepts are taught.
Dr. Bob Copp, DC, BS(medHB), CAcu
familychiro@knology.net
12 hour syllabus outline
The physiological Aspects of Stress.
Hour one: Intro. and overview. 80% of diseases are attributable to chronic stress.
Hour two: defining and understanding stress – the GAS and a patient introduction to the broader concepts and definitions of “stress” of which most are unaware.
Hour three: signs and symptoms of stress (set up for the ASI questionnaire that will be introduced later).
Hour four: Where to start: history taking, the ASI questionnaire
Hour five: Measurement of stress
Hour six: Treatment of stress. Role of the adrenal gland, thyroid, HPA
*Hour seven: Monitoring the patient properly.
Hour eight: Patient education (steps and concepts to cover): who gets Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, fibromyalgia, etc., and how they are all related.
Hour nine: How to go from patient lecturing into actually getting the patient.
Hour ten: Warning about type A personalities – they types who are most prone – and the danger of bringing stress level back up to the new threshold because they feel better (instead of learning the lesson and controlling their involvement in stressful situations).
Hour eleven: Chiropractic, Acupuncture and other stress treatment and the role of ongoing patient counseling during treatment..
Hour twelve: Expectations. Question and answer session.
