Right Now

"It's going to be great when (fill in the blank)."
Not true. This common deception has us ignoring the present (the only place where we have any influence) in favor of trying to live in the future. This creates a way of being that either puts us on the sidelines; killing time waiting for the future to arrive, or causes us to rush headlong past unsmelled roses, bulldozing our way into the future.
Just remember that you'll be taking you with you into the future.
Your dissatisfaction with the present will most likely produce an unsatisfying future. So, if you're unhappy, fearful or stressed today, you're likely to be unhappy, fearful or stressed then. That's because everything is first conceived spiritually before it manifests physically.
Once you sow spiritual seeds of gratitude and appreciation for your current circumstances, regardless of what they are, your future will brighten. As will your present, especially with what we know about emotional-somatic connections. All disease, disability and disorder is caused by a combination of physical, chemical and emotional stress. As good as I am, and as hard as we work, your physical condition will never fully heal—and stay healed—unless you can control the stresses in your life.

Holiday Survival Guide

As we all now, the year ends next Wednesday at 4pm. Sure, the calendar goes on, but we’ve all checked out; any aspirations of health have been replaced with visions of sugar plum (shots) and mini-crab cakes dancing in our heads. On Jan 2 we all crawl out of our eggnog induced haze and wonder what happened while celebrating the abrupt death of our resolutions with a trip to the Chinese food buffet.

So why weight (intentional pun)? Get proactive; to help, here’s my Holiday survival guide:

1. An all you can eat buffet is not a double dog dare. This is the thing I struggle with the most. I paid good money to eat all I can, and I’m going to get my money’s worth; take it from someone who’s learned that lesson, it’s not worth it. Also remember it’s not a race. Generally, the slower you eat, the less you will.
2. An open bar is not a challenge.
3. Water, water, water. No less than 6 glasses a day, more if you’re drinking or eating sweet/salty foods.
4. When possible, take a nap.
5. Instead of doubling your coffee to keep up, try vitamins.
6. Replace one meal a day with the endless salad, not the one from Olive Garden, that’s the endless waistline salad. Recipe: chopped peppers, cucumber, celery, onion, lettuce, other greens, radish, sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, endive, arugula; tossed with lemon or lime juice/vinegar or hot sauce (not wing sauce) Notice how no one said salt? Eat as much as you want, and this time I mean it.
7. What ever was said, can’t be unsaid, let it go. The holidays are an emotionally trying time. Harboring hate and resentment makes you sick. The past is the past and it’s not coming back. Take out a piece of paper and write down his/her name, wad it up, throw it away and forget it; you’ll be glad you did.
8. Exercise. Even if it’s an extra lap around the mall, or a round of Wii, get out and move it.
9. Just because you’re having dinner at 2 houses with 2 different families, doesn’t mean you have to eat as much as 2 families. Portion control is lost this time of year. Try this: Drink a large glass of water. Instead of using a dinner plate, eat off the salad plate-it holds less food. Drink another large glass of water and wait at least 5 minutes before going for seconds.
10. It really is better to give than receive.
11. Eleven, really? Ten isn’t good enough for Spinal Tap, neither for me. DON’T FORGET YOUR APPOINTMENTS!!! I’ll get lonely here without you, plus we don’t want to loose the progress we’ve made in getting you back to optimal health.

Glenn Beck and Keith Olberman are causing your back pain

All disease is the result from stress and how our body interacts with that stress. Be it physical stress, chemical stress or emotional stress. Just as being exposed to nutrition-less food, toxins and pollutants affects our bodies, emotional stress affects us too. One of the most powerful emotional stressors is fear. The largest purveyor being 24 hour news; ‘if it bleeds, it leads.’ The fear and anxiety created (often symptomitized by ‘the need to know’) by watching, listening or reading “the news”- which is nothing more than sensationalism-causes a chemical reaction in your brain; much like that of nicotine, to which you become addicted; think adrenaline rush. The muckrakers are no different from tobacco companies. Instead of infusing you with a drug through cigarettes, the media is injecting it straight into your brain through your eyes. Exposure may lead to depression, anxiety, restlessness, sleep deprivation, loss of libido and a heightened level of stress that affects not only your body but mind and soul as well; in extreme cases bleeding from the eyes and anal leakage.

After experimenting on myself, and seeing first hand the wonderful benefits and results that I (like loosing over 15 pounds), my wife and staff experienced we started to offer the Novolife de-tox to cleanse the body, promote optimal function and weight loss. Right now I’m in the beginning of an emotional cleansing. I am fasting from the media. For the next 7 days, possibly longer, I am not going to watch, listen to or read the news, no yahoo news, no political blogs no nothing. I am going to disconnect. And so should you. Read a book (no puppies with cancer stuff either), do something productive, exercise, make-out or something else uplifting. You’ll be surprised how good you will feel, not just emotionally, but physically as well.

Man-o-pause

DHEA is a hormone that serves as precursor to male and female sex hormones. DHEA levels are low in some people with anorexia, type 2 diabetes (non-insulin dependent diabetes) and a host of other disorders. DHEA levels may also be depleted by a number of drugs, including insulin, corticosteroids, opiates and especially hormonal birth control. High levels of physical, emotional and psychological stress also lowers DHEA concentrations.

Low levels of DHEA have been contributed to depression, abnormal weight gain, poor muscle definition, sexual dysfunction and decreased cognitive abilities.

We have DHEA available here in the office long with a full line of other high quality vitamins and supplements. And all vitamins are 10-30% off this month!!!Man-o-pause. Yes it's true, we have it too; unfortunately we didn't hire the better PR firm, so not as many people know. As we get older (Once you hit 25, it’s all down hill) our hormone production also starts to slow and we start to loose some of our secondary characteristics. Trust me, 10 years ago I look like I just walked off the set of those Spanish speaking soap operas shot on South Beach, with out even trying. As time goes by, it gets harder to keep that chiseled chest and washboard abs with that full, flowing lock of dark hair.

What can we do? First, don’t smoke. After that, make sure to get plenty of sleep (7 hours a night). Make sure to get plenty of exercise, avoid fatty and processed foods also foods that contain lots of soy (soy has estrogenic properties).

The main male hormone is testosterone. We can boost our testosterone production by not only the above, but

Get more exercise?

Get more exercise. How many times have we heard that? What exactly does that mean? Years ago I sat on an incline bike at 24 Hour Fitness in Pasadena, TX listening to a 300+ 50+ year old smoker complaining to his equally pre-disposed buddy that his doctor told him to get more exercise and that the afore-mentioned pending cardiac arrest was aghast when his doctor told him that being able to bench press over 200lbs didn’t count. Exercise can be divided and sub-divided into many different categories, but there is really 2 main types. Aerobic and anaerobic, Latin for with and without air; you breath during aerobic exercise, but actually hold your breath during anaerobic.

When your doctor tells you to get more exercise, he’s talking about aerobic (jogging, swimming, biking, basketball….) vs. anaerobic (weight lifting). Before all you nay-saying meatheads start leaving dirty messages on my facebook, strength training is important, just not that important.

Aerobic exercise however, improves not just your physical, but psychological and emotional wellbeing too; and can be used to treat/prevent depression along with nearly every chronic disease from abetailpoprotenemia to zygomycosis including heart disease, diabetes and cancer. It keeps/burns the weight off while boosting your over-all energy levels promotes better sleep and (make the kids leave the room): sex. And for some demented souls out there, exercise can be fun.

What should you do? Pretty much anything you want that gets your heart rate to whatever 220 minus your age is for 20 minutes three times a week.

Product of the week: HGH support:

HGH is responsible for the repair and regeneration of human tissue throughout our lives. By the time most of us are 30 years old, our bodies no longer produce enough HGH to repair all of the damage that is occurring in our bodies. As our HGH levels continue to decline, the damage that we call aging continues to accelerate. By increasing the levels of HGH in our bodies, we can slow, or even reverse, many of the manifestations of aging.

The safest way for increasing HGH is to take a substance that increases the natural secretion of HGH by the pituitary gland. Growth Hormone Support contains the amino acids arginine and ornithine. These amino acids may synergistically support healthy growth hormone production. Growth hormone is naturally released by the pituitary

gland in response to sleep and exercise.

Swine Flu, Schim schflu, part deux

Swine flu, part deux.

Like the proverbial bad penny, Swine flu, or H1N1 just won’t seem to go away. Let me re-phrase, the media’s obsession and government’s over-reaction with the swine flu won’t go away. I can understand the media, it’s all about selling more papers (figuratively speaking, no one reads newspapers anymore). Fear mongering equals high ratings. The government? Who knows, maybe they’re trying to divert us away from the fact that they’re hiding the bodies of little green men shot down over New Mexico.

A while back I talked a little about the swine flu; and the fact that it’s not Ebola or Hanta, it’s the sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, fever flu, with a cool new name; there’s some 16,000 known variants of influenza. Now, I’m not saying let’s just ignore it and hope it goes away, I’m just saying let’s get a little perspective. At last count about 109 Americans have died from the swine flu this year; 30,000 have been killed by complications from taking Tylenol in the same time period.

As Ben and I have both said, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And I’m not talking about a vaccine, that’s being pro-active, and a whole host of other issues. Over the past 30something years, I’ve eaten tons of watermelons, seeds and all; and have yet had a vine grow out my ear (thanks Uncle Mike for scaring the bejesus out of me). What I’m saying is, just because you plant a seed, doesn’t mean a plant will grow. The environment has to be just right.

So how do we create a flu-unfriendly environment? #1Vitamin D. Vitamin C is to Marsh Brady what Vitamin D is to Jan Brady. We all know how great C is, but no one ever talks about D. Ever notice how fewer people are sick in the Summer? It’s because the direct rays of the sun create Vit D in our body. Once the equinox rolls through and takes away our direct UV light, we no longer make Vit D; quite possibly the most important vitamin involved in boosting our immune system. #2 Proteolytic enzymes. All disease is manifested via the prostaglandin E2 pathway. Enzymes such as bioflavanoids, ginger, turmeric (mustard), paipan (pineapple), NAC and a long list of others that are hard to say and spell, act on said pathway stopping the tissue damage and thus “dis-ease” of disease. #3 Me. As we go through our daily lives, life inflicts stress upon our bodies. This stress causes our joints to stop working, which causes immobilization degeneration leading to a chemical reaction the body mal-affecting the immune system. Regular chiropractic care reverses this boosting your immunity and resistance while improving your function and vitality.

Kids these days…

Just this past week down in Ann Arundel County, 17 HS football players were taken to the hospital due to heat related illness; all 17 at the same time, not a cumulative count. Now that I’m old enough to say: “kids these days,” I have to say, kids these days are a little weak. I did 2 a days under the blistering South Texas sun under stifling coastal humidity, and we never passed out. Now the truth is the blame falls with the coach. He should have noticed something was wrong when that many boys are getting sick; but that is actually beside the point itself. Like I’ve mentioned many times before, being proactive is not prevention. Being preventative with hydration entails 24 hour a day vigilance, and more than drinking Gatorade and eating bananas. Just recently I wrote about hydration and it’s importance, when you dealing with extreme conditions, that importance quadruples. They need to be drinking no less than 8 glasses of water a day along with 1 more for every 15 minutes of activity, eating mostly fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meats and whole grains; a low-calorie carb/electrolyte replacement beverage (Gatorade) is fine for about every hour to two of activity.

I also want to talk a bit about childhood obesity. This generation of kids is the first in recorded history not expected to outlive their parents. Even though 2/3’s of children under 12 are clinically overweight, only 40% of parents believe that their children are (mostly because they are too and don’t realize it). Back when I was a kid (and yes I actually did walk uphill both ways in the snow. In college, in the Utah mountains where it snows feet upon feet, I lived on top of one hill and campus was on top of another.); I can count on one hand how many times we went out to eat in a year on one hand, we went outside at 9, and came back at 9, and soda was only for special occasions. Today, it’s McD’s 3 times a day, gallons of Mt Dew and the only exercise is thumbs on the video controller.

So what to do? Eat well, think well and move well…

Pro-active vs Prevention

There's been lot's of talk about using preventative measures to lower health care costs during all this reform hoop-la. I'm here to tell you "their" idea of prevention won't save anything, and will cost extra, because it's not prevention at all but just being proactive. Heart disease: "they" say early testing and monitoring is cheaper than by-pass. It is, but stress tests, MRA's and angio-grams cost $10K each and then your avg cholesterol medication is about another 7 grand a year. It's cheaper for the insurance company for you to have a heart attack and die, that's called hedging your bet. "Their" so called preventative measures aren't really about prevention, but finding things that may or may not be wrong with expensive tests and medication.

Now, I'm not saying don't get your tests, early detection is far more valuable then money; do them, do them regularly and on time. Being proactive is priceless, but it's not prevention.

Want true prevention that actually prevents disease and saves money? Move well, eat well and think well. Exercise $75-100 for a good pair of shoes; putting down that snickers, saves you money; brocolli $2ish/pound; letting go of anger and angst, sometimes free; not having a heart attack, priceless.

Paying for health care

I. End the corn subsidy. Corn is processed into corn syrup, a highly inflammatory, high but empty calorie goo that makes us fat and promotes disease. It also alters the histology and biochemistry of the animals that eat it; which in turn alters the biochemistry and histology of us meat eaters. Cows should be eating grass. Corn makes them bigger and is cheaper because of the subsidy. Take the money and put it to health care, and the increased cost will force farmers to raise healthier meats.

II. Tax fast food, prepared, processed and junk foods that all tend to be cheaper than healthy foods. Take that money and put it toward health care. It will also make healthy food cheaper (by comparison).

III. Make gym memberships, visits to true preventitive providers such as chiropractors and nutritionists tax deductible. Healthier people go to the doctor less.

IV. Make health insurance merit based, such as auto. In that I'm self-employed, I have to buy my own insurance. Private plans are exempt from ERISA rules; which means that people with unhealthy habits, the over weight, with pre-existing conditions and those who go to the doctor more, pay more. All health insurance should be the same.

V.Mal practice reform. Not tort reform.Currently 80% of all medical costs are diagnostic, not because the doctor doesn't know what's wrong, but so he can document he did his diligence incase you sue. Insurance companies charge outrages fees to doctors not because of law suits, but because they lost their shirts in the market. I know an OB that has been in practice over 20 years, never been sued and by law has to carry a $1 million policy, which he pays $100,000 a year for. If you capped malpactice payouts today, I doubt rates would go down. Insurance companies are there to make money first, provide a service second.

Put the burden (and financially) on the plantiff. If you loose, you pay for court costs, investigations and the doctors lost wages. Cases can only be filed after an obudsmen finds that it is true neglegence, not just a mistake.

Get Real About Health Care Reform

About 6 months ago I quit paying alot of attention to the news. I still listen to NPR, watch Stewart and Colbert and read homepage headlines; but I'm not super-engaged. So what I'm saying is, I'm not really that sure what is going on with health care reform, except it isn't really going. I do know that no one is even really talking about health care reform, but health care finance reform (and not really doing much with that either).

I'll hear on TV all the time that here in the US we don't have a health care system, but a sick care system. It isn't even that. We run a symptom care system. My head hurts, take this pill, I can't breath, take this pill; run this test, cut that out to alleviate this/that symptom. If we were even serious about sick care, we would get to the root cause of headaches, backpain, shortness of breath etc and fix it (which IS what I do, but that's another subject for another day).

The leading causes of death, disease and health care expenditures in this country are all life-style related. Smoking, diet, accidents and sexual. There isn't a single disease, disorder or system that smoking doesn't mal-affect. If in 2009 you still smoke, come by the office so I can wack you with a stick.

Diet. We eat like crap and don't exercise, and the food we eat we think is good, is crap. The average American should eat about 1800 calories a day, we usually get 2600; of which about 60% is usless, i.e has no nutritional value. Such as simple carbs, alcohol, fats and some dairy products (ice cream, processed cheese etc). We should get most of our calories from fruits and veggies (potatoes, lettuce and ketchup are not veggies); followed by lean meats (no visable fat) and tree nuts. Less than 10% should come from a refined source. In short, if it comes in a sack, box, bag or comes from the grocery store ailes and not periphery; don't eat it.

Even then, much of our fresh food is lacking or even dangerous. The way our meat is grown (feed corn, drugs and hormones) creates a biochemical change in that meat that promotes inflammation in our body.

If we want to get serious about health care reform, let's reform our health.

More of Me

I've started this blog to further promote health, wellness and prevention. The real thing, not how a politician or salesman uses those words. Quickly, I am a trained chiropractor with physical therapy priveleges in Bel Air, MD. I have thousands of classroom and hundreds of thousands of experience hours in diagnosing and treating all manor of disease along with how to prevent it from a natural model of health. You can visit me on the web at http://www.susquespine.com or http://belairdiskpain.com and be my facebook friend: Susquehanna Spine N Rehab