WHAT CAUSES A COLD?
Breathing in cold viruses does not in itself cause a cold. "If you try to give someone a cold, for example, it takes more than a virus. Experimenters have incubated cold viruses, placed them directly on the mucous lining of the nose, and found that their subjects came down with colds only 12 percent of the time." For germs to grow in you, you must first be fertile soil.

INFLUENZA
Too many of us know the classic symptoms of the flu: fever of 101-103 degrees, backache, headache, muscle and joint pain, runny nose, congestion, sore throat, and cough that may continue irregularly for three to four days. The flu can cause serious problems in those, like the elderly, who are very weak and have little resistance; in some cases it may develop into pneumonia. Yet for most of us, the flu is little more than an annoying illness.

THE MEDICAL APPROACH
Orothodox medicine offers no cure for the common cold or the flu, and almost every drug usually prescribed is useless: "The numerous compounded remedies, including those with vitamins, bioflavonoids, quinine, alkalinizers, multiple analgesics, antihistimines, decongestants, and tranquilizers, are developed for sales profit in a large market of uninformed and uncritical people and are not for the benefit of the patient or his physician." Taking antibiotics for colds is completely worthless because colds are associated with viruses (antibiotics work only on bacteria). Giving antibiotics "just in case" or because the doctor feels obligated to give the patient "something" has been criticized in the medical literature as unnecessary and dangerous.

The effectiveness and potency of flu vaccines are subjects of great debate. Many doctors feel due to the fact the flu strain changes every year, a vaccine is impossible. Some people have allergic reactions to the flu shot or get sick as a result of receiving the shot. Neurological disorders have also been linked to the flu shot vaccine. The Center for Disease Control discredited the vaccine as a failure in protecting nursing home patients from influenza B.

THE CHIROPRACTIC APPROACH

Chiropractic does not treat the common cold. However, chiropractic patients have noticed that their natural reistance to colds increases and chiropractors have often heard patients tell them that, "I haven’t had a cold (or if I get a cold I get over it much faster) since I’ve been under chiropractic care." Natural resistance is the only reason why your cold "goes away" rather than lasting for weeks, months, or your entire lifetime!

Chiropractic care can help raise your natural resistance to disease by removing a serious interference to your proper body function: vertebral subluxation. Keeping your spinal column free from vertebral subluxations helps keep your natural immunity high. Whatever else you do for yourself, it is essential, if your are suffering from the flu, colds, or respiratory problems, that your spinal column be healthy: it could make the difference between a quick recovery and a lingering illness (even between life and death)