Dr. David Pollack
I hear from many parents and patients that their children are constantly having health problems—allergies, acid reflux, ADD, anxiety, constipation, always getting colds, ear infections or upper respiratory infections. I have even seen some teenagers with thyroid disorders and other hormone imbalances.
Often these parents are confused and frustrated. They’ve spent years trying every medical treatment, and sometimes quite a few dubious alternative treatments, to help their beloved child any way they can. These problems certainly are not the way things are supposed to be. What’s going to happen in 10 to 20 years when these children grow up? What sort of health problems will evolve? Many of us may recall that we hardly knew any kids having such issues 20 to 30 years ago—probably never even heard of childhood acid reflux or thyroid disorders before. There was no ADD in 1980.
- What’s going on?
- How did this happen?
- What do we do?
The intricacies of why our health as a nation has declined are far reaching. We could blame vaccines, the GMOs, chemicals in our environment, clothes and furniture; however, that does not improve our health and often can be an aggravating dead end. Certainly, while we should all fight for improvements in public policy, I find proactive approaches to improving our health far more powerful than complaining against the unknown.
There actually are many effective strategies to combat these childhood maladies that can be significant and rather quick. The first thing to do is stop paying attention to the “symptoms” and start trying to figure out the cause. When I speak of causes, I am not referring to the various toxicity and poor food supply issues mentioned above, I am referring more to what actually “functionally” changed in the body to create these symptoms.
As an example, even in the realm of natural and holistic medicine, many, if not most, strategies and treatments are actually symptom based. “Here’s a great formula for ear infections” or “Here’s a calming formula for anxiety and ADD.” These strategies, while helpful, will not make a permanent change or improvement to health. They are just masking the symptoms.
While many high-quality natural products can be effective with symptom management, finding the cause of the problem will often cause rapid and wide-spread improvement in health that an off-the-shelf product marketed to your child’s particular symptom will never achieve. Each child has his/her unique health profile and issues, and must be examined to figure out why in his/her case these issues have arisen. There are many great, experienced holistic wellness practitioners; find out if they may be of help to you and your child.
Source: Dr. David Pollack. Location: Pollack Wellness Institute (formerly Creating Wellness Center) is located at 66 Commack Rd., Commack. For more information, call 631-462-0801 or visit CreatingWellnessLI.com.
