Why bother?

This is the time of year when people start telling themselves this is the year that they are going to get in shape, eat right and stop stealing office supplies. And most will have failed the first two goals by the end of the Sugarbowl Halftime Report, and #3 by 4:00 on the first Monday after the holiday. So in other words, don’t bother.

The problem with lofty goals is that they are unattainable. Then when you slip, you get depressed and completely give up. Or sometimes people will set these ridiculous goals knowing they can’t do it, giving themselves an “out” of doing what’s right.

You can’t go from doing 12 ounce curls on the couch to training for a marathon on New Years Day. You can’t go from 3000 calories of processed meats and sugars to an 1800 calorie whole food diet (and not want to commit homicide) in just a week. And you’re never going to start buying your own stamps when the Post Office keeps raising their rates.

It was either Shakespeare, Lau Tzu or the cast of Glee that said: ‘a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.’ If you want to change, you’re going to have to make reasonable, attainable, measurable goals. Not just make random cheap champagne fueled wishes on the back of a cocktail napkin.

If you want to get in shape, start small. A 5 minute warm up, 5 minutes on the treadmill/elliptical/bike/street then a 5 minute cool down 3 times a week. Then ad a minute every week until you’re up to 5/30/5. If you want to eat better, do Novolife then replace your daily bag of chips with a cup of broccoli and drink water instead of soda; then go from there.

With any goal, no matter if it is health, financial or other, you need support. This is actually true for any change you are trying to make. If you enlist someone (who cares) in your journey you are much more likely to make it. That’s why, as a married man, I’ve been party to lot’s of goals.

So do bother, and as Nike said (I’m sure they stole it) “Just do it.”

If you haven’t heard, the Man is shutting me down. Not completely, just on Facebook. Be sure to look for the new page (Susquehanna Spine & Rehab) and ‘like it’ today!!!

COW
Slipped discs: Did you know a disc actually doesn’t “slip.” It’s just an old term to describe a herniated or bulging disc. Either way, it hurts. And as with most spinal issues, it doesn’t get better on its own, just worse. If you or a loved one is suffering from a bad disc; we can help. Have them call for their complimentary consultation.

De-stress

All disease and disorder is caused by stress. Be that mechanical/physical, chemical and or emotional stress. The stress of life, the stress of work, the stress of family, the stress of trying to decide what you want to get me for Christmas not only tightens up your muscles it causes structural abnormalities in your cervical spine and shoulders. These go on to not only cause pain and discomfort but feed back into your system affecting your over all health. Now I can fix it, but isn’t an ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure?

So am I saying you should quit your job, emancipate from your family and skip me over this holiday season? No, no and most definitely no. What I’m saying is take control of your emotional and mental well being.

#1 It is physically impossible to be anxious, stressed, angry sad or/or afraid while you are grateful. Be thankful for what you have and be sure to thank those around you. An attitude of gratitude will make you more powerful than your current circumstances.

#2 To be happy, focus on happiness. Every morning and night think about, say and/or do something that makes you happy (and yes, dreaming of me counts). Make happiness your priority then do the things it takes make it a reality.

#3 Don’t just wait for it to get better, it won’t. You have to “do;” take action to better your situation, whatever that may be. That band-aid isn’t loosening with time, yank it off.

#4 Simplify/Time Management. Learn to say no. Delegate, don’t waste major time doing minor things. Constantly ask yourself “is this the best use of my time right now?”

#5 List your MIT’s (Most Important Things). Of your 1000 item long to do list, write down the most important 3, do them, and move on. Avoid distractions and don’t create new ones in avoidance. 

Miracles Never Cease

Hang around chiropractors long enough and your bound to hear stories of how a patient who had been suffering from asthma, dysmenorrhea, ADD, colic, infertility, chronic ear infections and a whole host of other diseases had been seemingly cured with just a few adjustments. I’m sure most people file those stories away with other urban legends, but in fact they are true. Not everyone, every case every time, but ‘miracles’ happen everyday in clinics across the globe, and many happen here.

Really, it’s not that miraculous, it’s scientific. It’s all easily explained by neuropathophysiology. First, we must understand the nature of disease. Disease is caused by a bad interaction of our body with our environment. We are daily exposed to physical stress, chemical stress and emotional stress. These stresses affect our spine. Sitting in traffic causes our backs and necks to stiffen; putting up with your spouse will do the same. So does about 10,000 other things we do on a daily basis.

Many of you know that I grew up in Texas. Many of those years were spent in Houston. Four of which were in Pasadena. Yes the same Pasadena, TX that was home to Mickey Gilley’s where Jon Travolta rode the mechanical bull and met Sissy. The same Pasadena that is home to numerous chemical spills and fires. When there was a spill, the alarms would go off triggering Shelter In Place. Everyone was to shut and lock their doors and turn off the AC; the emergency radio would go on and we all waited anxiously.

When our spinal joints are offended, they become hypomobile (less mobile). This leads to biomechanical stress that causes cellular damage that causes cell walls to break spilling their guts everywhere exposing intracellular fluid (in other words, a toxic spill), triggering the firing of nociceptive nerve fibers and an endocrine (hormonal) response.

Nociceptive nerve fibers travel up and down the spinal cord exciting the Autonomic Nervous System (think fight or flight) hampering digestion, reproduction, and skin health; trigger mast cells (histamine release-allergies) and a whole host of other issues. As they travel on to the brain, 10% go to the thalamus creating the sensation of pain. The other 90% goes to the hypothalamus were their signal is processed as nausea, dizziness, malaise, changes in digestion, respiration, heart beat and reproduction.

The endocrine or hormonal response is much the same. It also leads to the production of enzymes (chemicals) such as PGe2, TNF and other cytokines/eicosanoids. Doesn’t matter what they’re called, they’re bad news. They are the chemicals that lead to the outbreaks and symptoms of asthma, infertility, dysmenorrhea, colic and pretty much every other disease you could name.

Restoring full and complete motion to the joints shuts off the alarm and reverses the “spill.” Restoring full and complete motion to the spinal joints is the proprietary domain of chiropractic.

So there you go.  That’s how chiropractic fights disease. We fix the hypomobile joints that cause pain 10% of the time, but disease the other 90%. If you, a friend or loved one is suffering, we can help. 

Get busy...

Getting busy

One of my favorite movies from the 90’s was Shawshank Redemption. The  two things I remember most are when I saw it originally for some reason I was watching the airplane edit and a friend of mine had to loudly announce what word was being bleeped out along with the famous quote: “get busy living, or get busy dying.”

There are few other such black and white, ying or yang options in life. Inflammation is one of them. We are either inflaming or de-flaming. Inflammation, technically speaking, is the biochemical process that mediates disease. It is a chemical reaction in our body that makes us feel pain, sick, look and feel old along with causing disease. Everything you do in life from the way you sit and stand, eat and drink/don’t eat and drink and even everything you think and feel is either promoting inflammation and disease, or is fighting it.

Inflammation is kind of like ants. If you have some somewhere, you have it everywhere.

It can spill over, it almost exponent-ialize itself. Meaning, if you have a bad back that’s causing inflammation, and then you tweak a knee, the inflammation Wonder-Twins itself and gets worse. Also true is if you eat a lot of processed grains producing inflammation in your gut it will add fuel to the inflammation in your back, or knee or wherever.

You can create disease, make disease worse and conversely treat and prevent disease by regulating inflammation. Common, treatable inflammatory disorders are arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, fibromyalgia, girly-problems, psoriasis and a list longer than I have paper to write.

If not exercising, not practicing proper ergonomics, eating processed and unnatural foods and drink along with ‘stinking thinking’ promote inflammation; then the opposite would fight it. Want to know what else fights inflammation quite well? Regular chiropractic care, it’s true, it works. Come see me and find out for yourself.

A Three Hour Tour

Not to bore you with the mundane of my life, but in Sunday School lately we’ve been reading from Isaiah. His prolific work is often quoted by the majority of all major religions and is also widely used in history and classic humanities. His biggest claim to fame though was the use of allegories. I have one for you, but unlike the prophet, I won’t make you figure it out yourself…








It’s a nice, calm and sunny day, so you take your yacht out on a long ocean voyage. All of a sudden, you start to take on water. Luckily for you, you have a giant bucket. You’re able to bail it all out, but you discover a hole. At this point you really only have 2 choices: wait for the boat to fill up again to the point of sinking, then get out the bucket or bail it out as you go. Then attempt to fix the hole (but you have a 2 ½ inch patch for a 3 inch hole).






You are the boat. The hole is a result of your daily routine (sitting in the car, sitting in front of the computer, falling down the stairs back in college, having been pregnant, what you eat, the vitamins you don’t take, the coke you drink instead of water, putting up with your boss and on and on and on). The water is disease, discomfort and disorder. I am the bucket, all be it and extremely handsome, intelligent and witty bucket, but a bucket none the less.






Your life is what gets you to my office. Together, we can undo the damage, but you still have a life to live. You can wait till it catches up with you again, and start the healing process all over or you can enjoy the benefits of continued chiropractic care in all its glory. Then attempt to de-stress your life. Which you never will; you’ll either have to go to work or be broke, put up with your spouse or be lonely (or happy with ½ your stuff) and switch your diet to an all picked only when ripe veggie and grass feed organic meat diet-but it’ll never be enough, there will always be a hole in the boat.










Healthy Highlight






Depending on where you’re from, Maryland is the northern most Southern state, the southern most Northern state or the middle most middle state. Which ever, it’s that time of year where we no longer receive direct rays of sunlight to synthesize enough Vitamin D for our immune system and emotional well being. Pick yours up today.

Fat is Fun

Fun facts about FAT

-Your (and yes I’m talking to you) brain is made mostly of fat

-Eating fat does not make you fat (eating more calories than you burn, be they fat, carbs or protein makes you fat).

-Fat is the primary fuel source for your heart, especially during aerobic activity.

-Unsaturated fats (the one’s you can’t see at room temperature) are good for you.

-The food your food eats determines the tertiary structure of fat molecules. Omega 3 fatty acids are made by animals that eat what they were evolutionarily designed to eat. In other words, when a cow eats grass, its fat is Omega 3, when it eats corn, soy etc, it’s Omega 6. Omega 6 fatty acids are pro-inflammatory. They promote the development and manifestation of inflammatory diseases and disorders. Omega 3’s fight inflammation.

-Fats produce almost twice as many calories per gram than carbs and protein.

-Low fat foods often times have more calories, sugar and salt than their “normal fat” counter-parts.

-Consumption of fat is necessary for eye, nerve, and brain development along with absorbing vitamins A, D and K amongst others.

-Depending on your needs and health, you should get 10-25% of your daily calories from fat.

Healthy Highlight:

Fiber. Dietary fiber moderates gut activity, absorbs excess cholesterol and fat from your food and promotes the growth of probiotics. Get yours today. Mention this ad for 10% off.

C.O.W.

TMJ/TMD. Headaches? Pain/clicking in the jaw? Ringing in the ears? Face pain? Could be the jaw. Call today for your complimentary consultation.

Day 6 of Novalife Kenny Primeaux

8:00am- Great Monday and not freely hungry or upset because I cant eat.  I am almost done my Nova-life experience and I must say I have tried harder things with no results.  I am telling you its definitely worth the 1 week experience to do the right thing in order to loss weight.


10:00am- Not thinking about eating I can tell you that


12:00pm-  Ready to start working out again today feeling good.


2:00pm- Got some almonds and I am good to go


6:30pm- Trying peppers and onion with salmons for the first time hope its good because I am feeling good.

Day 5 of Novalife Kenny Primeaux

8:00am- I think my stomach is shrinking.  I just got finished drinking the shake and I fill full.  So I am thinking that the Nova-life is working.


12:00pm-  I wanted something to eat so I got a salad. It was huge, but I am upset.  Why you may ask?  Because I sat there with  my very big salad and I could even finish the whole thing.  I am a grown man and can even finish a bowl of lettuce.


6:00pm-  I just checked my weight because I was bored and I have lost 6 pounds already.  Thats what I am talking about.

Day 4 of Novalife Kenny Primeaux

8:00am- Not tired of the program yet.  I am basically use to it.  Not really hungry either.

12:00pm- Another shake bites the dusk

4:00pm- Thinking about food right now.  I am hungry.  Guess I'll go wash the car to change my frame of thought.

7:00pm-  Washing the car worked.  I am not hungry anymore.  I've come to the conclusion that if your thinking about food and its not time for you to eat do something to get rid of that craving for example walk somewhere, play a video game, etc.

Day 3 of Novalife Kenny Primeaux

8:00am- Back to the great shake and mixed it with the ultra cleanse.  Still all good not ready to break yet


10:00am- Honestly, not really hungry yet


12:00pm- Another shake down and still feeling good.


2:00pm- Brought some almonds to eat to help me throughout the day until seven


6:00pm- Yes I get to eat 600-800calories, salmon and broccoli here I come.

Kenny Primeaux Day 2 of NOVALIFE

Day 2

7:30am- Survived the first day and I am right back at it.  I wasn't hungry at all throughout the night.  I notice that when you have things to do you don't think about being hungry.  So make sure you do something to stop your cravings.

            

8:00am-  Still following the novalife program and taking the vitamins, cleanse, and shake.  Believe it or not I am not hungry yet, but I am drinking the shakes and cleanse.

         

10:00am- Just heard my stomach, but I have patients to help so it can wait till 12:00.

          

12:00pm- I usually put one scoop, but this time I put 1 and a half, guess I felt like treating myself. 

Overall, I know I can do this program, besides its just a week, also I get to eat a 600-800 calorie meal on days 3,4,5.  I think I might have spinach and a salmon fillet.

        

Kenny Primeaux Day 1 of NOVALIFE

Day 1

7:30am-I am so excited to start the program so I can be on my way to a six pack!  I am not really up for drinking the shakes because I have tried shakes in the past and they were horrible.
          
8:00am-  Tried the mint chocolate chip shake and its really good.  It really taste like the girl scout mint chocolate chip cookies.  Best part is you don't even have to add milk to make it taste better.  Water does the trick.
        
10:00am- I a little hungry.
        
12:00pm- I couldn't wait for the shake and once again its was good.
      
7:00pm-  I had my last shake and throughout the day I had a hand full of almonds to satisfy my urges. Overall I think that I can do the 7-day novalife program.

A place called Vertigo

Vertigo, a kind of cool Hitchcock movie and a really cool U2 song. But there’s nothing cool about the world spinning around you and puking everywhere. College students everywhere spend their weekends in the bottom of a Nat Light can trying to reproduce it; but there’s many people out there trying to stop it.

Vertigo, just like other symptoms (pain, burning, numbness, tingling, coughing, runny nose…) is not a disease or disorder, but the sign or side effect of a disorder. There are 4 main, treatable causes of vertigo: BPPV, Migrainous vertigo, TMJ disorders and upper cervical trauma/disorders along with intra-cranial masses that maybe somewhat treatable by doctors who drive nicer cars than me, like brain surgeons.

Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) dizziness is thought to be due to debris which has collected within a part of the inner ear.  This debris can be thought of as "ear rocks", although the formal name is "otoconia". Ear rocks are small crystals of calcium carbonate derived from a structure in the ear called the "utricle" . While the saccule also contains otoconia, they are not able to migrate into the canal system. The utricle may have been damaged by head and or neck injury, infection, or other disorder of the inner ear, or may have degenerated because of advanced age/abuse. BPPV is treated by reversing the damage to the head and neck and through gentle adjustments to the ears coupled with specific exercises that dislodge the rocks.

Migrainous Vertigo is just what it sounds like, vertigo from a migraine. A migraine, as you may remember from earlier posts, is more than a headache, it’s an event. A migraine happens when the blood vessels of you neck spasm allowing too much or too little blood into your brain which results in pain, blurred vision, hallucinogenic events, so on and so on along with vertigo. As with migraine headaches, if you stabilize the joints and associated structures of the neck, you can ward off migraine attacks.

The TMJ aka the temporo-mandibular joint, or jaw. People who are under lot’s of stress grind their teeth at night, even though they don’t know it oftentimes. Also people who eat lots of hard and or chewy foods, chew gum, who’ve been whacked in the head or neck, spend a lot of time in front of a computer and/or have bite issues develop TMD (TMJ disorder). TMD is manifested by headaches, ringing in the ear, facial pain, tooth and jaw pain, and as you’ve guessed, vertigo. I am more than the self-proclaimed TMJ expert of Harford County, I am the TMJ expert of Harford County.

The most common form of head and neck trauma that leads to vertigo is whiplash. They say there are 2 types of people in the world: those who believe in whiplash, and those who haven’t had it yet. The facts about whiplash are another story for another day, but it happens, and I’ve fixed it.

Healthy Highlight:

Joint Complex-developed by SD State pharmacist to help her husband, the softball coach and former catcher re-grow cartilage in his knee, and it works. Joint problems? Pick up a bottle.

Hate Tennis

Hate Tennis

When people other than me play tennis, the ball goes back and forth and back and forth and back and forth for hours without end. Sometime during the Regan Administration I was a student at Mt Valley Middle School in Satler, TX. Coach Dement tried to teach us redneck children how to play tennis. But it just turned into Mike Hewitt and I trying to see if we could hit the teacher’s cars with the ball; but I digress…

When people let their hate for each other, groups, ideas, and especially themselves go back and forth, it becomes extremely destructive.

Hate and anger (while the inspiration for some pretty cool heavy metal lyrics in the 90s) destroys not only personal, business and community relationships, but is also the cause of many if not all international conflicts; along with perpetuating disease.

Hate and anger along with all other forms of mental anguish initiate the fight or flight reaction. That causes a rise in your blood pressure, a decrease in organ function and hormone production, along with constricted blood vessels leading to muscle and tissue hypoxia leading to degeneration and decay and thus, when chronic, disease.

Don’t be a Darth Vader, don’t let anger control your life. It is no good, it is a cancer. It will grow and fester until it destroys you and those you love. I once heard Dennis Waitley say that others don’t make you mad, you and only you allow yourself to get that way. Your own interpretation and hang up over people and situations are the main impediments to personal growth. He said to take out a piece of paper, write down the name of the person or situation that is making you that way, then throw it in the trash. It’s over, it’s never coming back the only reason hate is still hanging around is because you let it.

Don’t get caught up in the back and forth. Don’t let your emotions take control of your life and health. Let it go, forgive; stop playing hate tennis.

I pulled a John Kerry

In natural and holistic health care provider dating games, contestants are asked questions like: “bachelor #1, if you were a nutritional supplement, what kind of supplement would you be and why?”

There was a time I would have said magnesium. Magnesium (Mg) is the Rodney Dangerfield of vitamins and minerals. One could almost say the re-headed step-brother to Calcium (Ca). Without Mg, Ca couldn’t work. They’re co-factors. In addition, Mg helps stabilize blood sugar, blood pressure, muscle tone and the effects of stress on the body. Mg is extremely important and often over-looked. It’s commonly found in organ meats and greens and is depleted with stress, alcohol and caffeine consumption.

Well, due to new information and my current understanding, I have changed my view; or as Carl Rove would say, flipped-flopped. I am now an Omega Man. Omega 3 fatty acids, known to many as fish oil/flax seed oil/evening primrose oil. The 3’s are the bomb-diggity (anybody even talk like that anymore)? They have many wonderful benefits. First, they compete and counteract the Omega 6’s. Omega 6 are the oils found in saturated fats, trans fats and the so forth that cause cardio-vascular (cholesterol and blood pressure) and brain disease (stroke). They have the same affect on blood as aspirin (anti-clogging) with out the side effects. Just recently I posted the link on my Facebook page (Susquehanna Spine N Rehab) where the FDA and NIH have now said daily aspirin therapy is dangerous. Omega 3 has also been found to have anti-inflammatory properties that protect against aging and chronic inflammatory diseases such as psoriasis, ulcerative colitis and more.

Healthy Highlight

While you’re here picking up your Omega’s, might as well grab you a Lyflo Joint Complex while you’re at it. Developed by a pharmacist and research chemist at South Dakota State to treat her husband’s crapped-out knees. There’s no rule that says you have to let your joints slow you down. You can soothe and refresh them, simply and naturally. Lyflo Select™ Joint Complex helps lubricate and restore the health of your joints with a premium blend of liquid glucosamine, chondroitin, MSM and vitamin C – without any shellfish or harsh chemical processing. Lyflo Select Joint Complex gets to work fast and is easier to take than pills, because all of its ingredients are already dissolved in liquid. And unlike pills, Joint Complex requires only a single dose each day. Gret for people with knee pain (such as me) and/or disc disorders!

Let ‘Em See You Sweat

In undergrad out west, we didn’t have air conditioning. We had swamp coolers. Anyone who’s ever been in the inter-mountain west knows what I’m talking about; so the remaining 99% have no clue. A swamp cooler is a giant refrigerator size box that sits on top of your house (they do have funny looking window units). The tap water in the Utah Mountains felt to be just barely above freezing; so what they do is run it through coils and blow air over it and through the house.

Sweating is our bodies’ natural swamp cooler. As the water evaporates, it creates a cooling effect that cools us down; in theory. Obviously evolution did not occur on the Gulf Coast.

Sweating is also an effective way of balancing electrolytes. As we have all noticed, our sweat is quite briny. As we sweat, we rid our bodies of sodium. Most of us have sodium imbalances that lead to hypertension, aka the silent killer.

In certain areas of our bodies (pits and low back mainly) our sweat is extra special, it’s much more viscous due to the presence of enzymes that are to protect us from harmful invaders (hence the yellow stain).

Yet for its good, we should be mindful of our sweating habits. During the summer, an average adult can sweat up to 4 liters, with most of it evaporating before we even notice. At only 2% dehydration (a 200 lbs man loosing 4 lbs of body weight to the water loss associated with sweat-not hard to do, back in HS football in S Texas I would loose 10-15 pounds per practice) we loose 20% function. So without out having to do all the math, I’m pretty sure that 4 liters is close enough to cause problems. Dehydration can have the same affects on the body as sleep deprivation and intoxication. Chronic dehydration is associated with headaches, muscle pain and spasm, fibromyalgia, sleep issues, overeating, inability to loose weight, kidney stones, irritability so on and so on.

So, what do we do? Get regular chiropractic adjustments. That doesn’t really affect your water balance, (but water balance does affect the effectiveness of an adjustment) just thought I’d throw that in there. But seriously, you need to drink water. Not coffee, not tea, not even any scotch in the water, just water. 8 glasses a day. More if you’re outside or drinking that scotch.

All that and good looking too.

Everyday people will ask me what exactly I do. Other than optimizing human performance, increasing vitality, making you look and feel younger, adding life to your years and years to your life along with improving your quality of living; not that much.

I do it all by focusing on disorders of the musculoskeletal system and the nervous system, and the effects of these disorders on general health.  Even though it’s mostly to treat neuromusculoskeletal complaints, including but not limited to back pain, neck pain, pain in the joints of the arms or legs, and headaches; through therapeutic and rehabilitative exercises, as well as  nutritional, dietary and lifestyle counseling.

The most common though being a “spinal manipulation,” also called “chiropractic adjustment.”   The purpose of manipulation is to restore joint mobility by manually applying a controlled force into joints that have become hypomobile – or restricted in their movement – as a result of a tissue injury. Tissue injury can be caused by a single traumatic event, such as improper lifting of a heavy object, or through repetitive stresses, such as sitting in an awkward position with poor spinal posture, and through a varying barrage of chemical and emotional stress for an extended period of time. In either case, injured tissues undergo physical and chemical changes that can cause inflammation, pain, and diminished function. Manipulation, or adjustment of the affected joint and tissues, restores mobility, thereby alleviating pain and muscle tightness, and allowing tissues to heal.

Adjustments also remove the affects of the other forms of stress on your body, boosting your immune system and improving performance helping to treat and prevent all forms of disease and disorder (more on this to come).

Healthy Highlight

Whether you are an athlete or an arthritis sufferer, Lyflo Select Topical Pain Crème helps provide speedy relief to aching joints, muscles and bruised tissues. Using Celadrin®, an all natural proprietary ingredient clinically proven to reduce pain and inflammation as well as rapidly promote joint health, Lyflo’s Topical Pain Crème acts fast with deep absorption to improve flexibility and mobility.

COW

Know anyone with headaches? Stop the pounding fast with chiropractic!

La Leche

Breast milk is kind of like Coke, there’s nothing better than the real thing. When at all possible, breast milk should be the only source of calories for children for as long as possible. Does that mean 17 years old? Probably (ok, definitely) not. But 6-18 months is doable under most circumstances. It’s the perfect food, it has everything you need.

The milk lobby is better than its product. They have many people thinking that cow’s milk is just as good and is good for adults too. In a pinch, whole milk can work for kids under 2; for everyone else, dairy is a condiment, not a serving. Turns out it’s not as good for us as we once thought. So lots of people have switched to soy.

Well, soy, in a large population of people, causes intestinal inflammation; especially in children. This inflammation spills over into other systems and can be made manifest in hyper-sensitivity and hyper-irritability disorders such as colic, sleep disturbance tactile abnormalities and ADD/HD.

Then there’s the cereal that we put in the milk so the kid gets fuller so we can hopefully sleep instead of watching Last Call with Carson Daily holding a bottle. Well, like any other carb, the cereal burns out too fast actually making the little poop machines hungrier in the long run (kind of like Chinese noodles). If that wasn’t enough, our intestinal tract is home to 100’s of different types of single-cell organism such as yeasts and bacteria that live in a happy, separate but equal medium. Disturb the balance, and your innards turn into 1990’s Yugoslavia where numerous factions with un-pronounceable names battle for control of the same little area wreaking havoc on everything insight.

Simple carbs too early in life and too many in toddlers through adults help feed the over-growth of the yeasts that snow balls over time resulting in chronic, progressive intestinal inflammation. Manifested by: ADD/HD, tactile abnormalities, blood sugar issues, irrational behavior, anxiety, depression, bowel disorders; chronic inflammatory diseases such as arthritis, psoriasis, lupus, fibromyaglia and so on and so on and so on.

Healthy Highlight

The breath of life. Isn’t it kind of funny how the thing that gives us life is the same thing that deteriorates it? Oxygen. It’s really not that good for you. Technically, it’s half bad for you. Oxygen is taken into the blood, transported to the cells and cleaved in half to power cellular activity. The problem is, these oxygen halves run around the cell wreaking havoc like Boy Scouts at a pizza buffet trying to steal electrons in a process known as oxidation (yes, the same oxidation that rusts American cars). Oxygen makes you look and feel old from that damage. That’s why I take anti-oxidants like the ones found in Lyflo Select’s antioxidant complex to help me keep my boyish good looks-Ok, so maybe I’m not the best spokesman, but could you imagine how bad it would be if I didn’t take them?

COW

Disc disorders-disc disease, such as degenerative disc disease, herniated discs, bulging discs, internal disc derangements and the such are responsible for the vast majority of back pain. Good thing Dr Lee is a disc expert. If you or anyone you know is suffering from disc problems, low back or neck, let us know!

Novolife Cleanse for Caitlin Day 6 And the FInal Day &

Day 6 - so this day was a little hard becuase you had those three wonderful days where you got eat dinner of chicken and vegetables and then you had to start drinnking the cleanse again and only shakes so I thought I would miss the food a lot but becuase of it being later in the week the shakes actually filled me up more and I was not nearly as crappy as I was on Day 2!

Day 7- definetly went by slow cause it was the last day and I was looking forward to the next morning. But other than that it wasnt bad. The cleanse even tasted better and I did not have a lot of cravings for the foods I ate before the cleanse. I was really ok and am still doing fine. Let you know if I lost any weight but the big thing for me was changing my cravings and I feel great!

Novolife Cleanse for Caitlin day 4 & 5

Day 4&5 - these two days were basically the same for me. I had more energy then I did on the other days and in general since cleansing and I was not craving foods and was full most of the day off the shakes and some almonds and then ate my 400-600 calorie meal at night and felt completely satisfied. Overall I would say these have been the easiest days especially because the shake for meals has sort of become routine now.

Day 2&3 Novolife cleanse for Caitlin

Day 2 - so this day got alittle bit harder...I noticed I was hungry a little more and was not as energetic but overall I felt better. This was probably the toughest day for me so far.

Day 3 - This day was great because I got so excited that I got to have "real" food at the end of the day. and you don't drink the cleanse on these days so you start to enjoy what you are eating. The shakes have always tasted great so not having to drink a cleanse with them is great

Novolife Cleanse Day 1 for Caitlin our Patient care coordinator

End of the first day of the cleanse and besides being very cold in this freezing office I feel ok. I wasnt too hungry today shakes really were filling. The cleanse portion did not taste that great but it was bearable and got better every time I drank it. It also seems to taste a lot better with cold water. So I am still alive and besides a little cold feel great!

To Kill a Rabbit

To kill a rabbit

Not too many of you under 50 might know what that means. Back in the days before the ‘Clear Blue Easy,’ you had to wait till Aunt Flow didn’t show, go to the doctor, pee in a cup and then they’d inject the urine into a rabbit. When you’re pregnant, your body creates a hormone called hCG, which allows your ovaries and uterus to prepare for and maintain pregnancy. Well, the hormone also causes a rabbit’s ovaries to change, so the lab would inject a woman’s urine into a rabbit, cut it open and see if the ovaries were swollen, thus killing the rabbit and Steven Tyler’s drunken ramblings: “You’re telling me things but your girlfriend lied You can’t catch me cause the rabbit done died.” Instead of 2 minutes in the privacy of your own WC, you had to wait.

There is nothing in the world more stressful than pregnancy. There’s not hardly a single person on earth not stressed about being pregnant and wanting to be, being and not wanting; not and wanting to be, not and trying not to; a combination of or close/related to someone in the above categories. And as we all know stress is not good for your (and baby’s) health.

When stressed, the body initiates the autonomic nervous system, aka fight or flight. Just how Geordie had to reduce the shields to get more power to the warp drive (I had a roommate in college that turned every night into a NG marathon), your body has to divert energy from certain, not-at-the-time necessary organs to send it to the heart, lungs and muscles to get you away from the omnipresent, cave man scenario saber-toothed tiger. Fast forward a few hundred thousand years and saber-tooth’s are gone, but the stress remains the same. The constant physical, chemical and emotional stress in our modern lives has caused us all to live in a sympathetic state (fight or flight overload), greatly affecting and down-grading our systems, especially reproductive.

For those who are not pregnant and want to be, worrying about it makes it just that much harder.

The body knows if you are in any condition to get and maintain a pregnancy. If you under any degree of physical stress (weight, job/home requirements) chemical stress (what you’re eating or not eating, drinking or not, the air you breath, environmental pollution) and/or emotional stress, your body isn’t going to allow it to take on the massive amounts of stress involved with being pregnant.

A complete wellness overhaul starting ASAP, but preferably around a year before you plan on conceiving, may make hunting wabbits that much easier. Wellness coaching, including chiropractic care has been able to help countless couples with un-diagnosable infertility find success.

Not now, I have a headache.

Headaches can be due to a wide variety of causes, such as drug reactions, temporomandibular joint dysfunction (TMJ), tightness in the neck muscles, low blood sugar, high blood pressure, stress and fatigue, the majority of recurrent headaches are of two types: tension headaches (also called cervicogenic headaches) and migraine headaches.

Tension type headaches are the most common, affecting upwards of 75% of all headache sufferers. Most people describe a tension headache as a constant dull, achy feeling either on one side or both sides of the head, often described as a feeling of a tight band or dull ache around the head or behind the eyes. These headaches usually begin slowly and gradually and can last for minutes or days. Tension headaches are often the result of stress or bad posture, which stresses the spine and muscles in the upper back and neck.

Migraines are intense and throbbing headaches that are often associated with nausea and sensitivity to light or noise. They can last from as little as a few hours to as long as a few days. Many of those who suffer from migraines experience visual symptoms called an "aura" just prior to an attack that is often described as seeing flashing lights or that everything takes on a dream-like appearance.

Migraines are caused by a spasm in the blood vessels in the brain. During the constriction of the blood vessels there is a decrease in blood flow, which is what leads to the visual symptoms that many people experience. Once the blood vessels dilate, there is a rapid increase in blood pressure inside the head. It is this increased pressure that leads to the pounding headache. There are a number of things that can trigger migraines, such as lack of sleep, stress, flickering lights, strong odors, changing weather patterns and several foods; especially foods that are high in the amino acid tyramine (found most in aged foods).

No matter the headache or cause, they all respond well to chiropractic and wellness care. If you or someone you know is suffering, call ‘now;’ now you’ll have to find another excuse.

Supplement Spotlight: Anti-oxidant support. Not only does it make you feel younger; you’ll look it too. Anti-oxidants reverse the damage of life on your body.

What is Wellness

Wellness. Wellness is a word that people like to throw around a lot. It’s almost become a marketing buzz word. So what is it? I’ll tell you what it’s not: a noun, or even an adjective. It’s not something you achieve or become, it’s not a state of being, but a state of doing; it’s not even a verb, but an adverb. You live it. Wellness is also not just a lack of disease or being sick, it’s the opposite of that. Wellness is also more than just living a lifestyle not to get sick, but a lifestyle to get the most out of life for you, for the ones you love and for those in your and surrounding communities.

Wellness is lived by moving right, eating right and thinking right. Here’s the short list: loose weight; Eat more food that comes out the ground, not a sack; take your vitamins. Drink more water and less soda, coffee and beer. Exercise. Be more forgiving and less vindictive; instead of fighting over who’s right, figure out how to make things better. Have more s-e-x with who you are in a committed relationship. Hug your kids. Sleep at least 7 hours each night. Go outside. And most of all, get your chiropractic (by me) adjustments.

Want to help out? Visit https://atl.etapestry.com/fundraiser/DomesticViolenceCenterofHo/HopeBowl/individual.do?participationRef=657.0.70870041 to donate to my fight against domestic violence.

My 2 cents

Jenny McCarthy, THE hottie of my under-grad years; where are you now my beloved Jenny? She’s done a few ‘had to pay the rent’ roles, but usually out stoking the vaccine-autism link debate.

Just recently, The Lancet, under extreme pressure, retracted its years old article noting the link. There’s tons of circumstantial and anecdotal evidence in favor, but the official evidence paid for and submitted by the manufacturers of the vaccines and bought politicians says no. So who’s right? They both are. Having slept in both camps as former a researcher in the vaccine industry and now as part of the counter-culture alternative medicine society, I’ve got my views.

Except for having a headache after getting clocked in the head with a baseball bat, there are very few one-cause diseases in the world. Everything else from dandruff to ingrown toenails, from the abdomen to the zygomatic arch and everything in between; all disease and disorder is the result of the interplay between physical, chemical and emotional stress and your body’s reaction to that stress. The sum is more than the whole of the parts. Just like a cake is more than flour, eggs, sugar and butter. This explains why someone who smokes 4 packs a day will live to 100 and die from being hit by a bus, and someone else who’s never smoked will die of lung cancer at 30.

It all starts with grandma. The eggs of a female begin developing while she’s a fetus. Your kid’s developmental pre-dispositions start with what type of stress your mother was under when she was pregnant, especially the first 3 months when she might not have known. What did she eat and drink and not? How well did she sleep? What type of emotional stress was she under? What type of chemicals and toxin was she exposed to? Fast forward 20 or so years and ask yourself the same questions.

Autism, like any other disease, is caused by the same. Water boils at 100 degrees C. 99 degree water is hot, but not boiling. To make it boil, you need to add an additional calorie. Autism is boiling water. Vaccines are calories. They are chemical compounds designed to invoke stress on your body. They create a reaction, and according to the laws of physics, they must have just as many side effects as intended reactions.

So, if a fetus is under stress because mom smokes, drinks, is worried, doesn’t eat well, doesn’t exercise, has certain genetic pre-dispositions, has a traumatic birth, is not breast-feed and on and on and on, that baby is now 99C. Then a vaccine is that extra calorie that makes the water boil.

Snack yourself Skinny

Snacking yourself skinny

Now that the Olympics have pre-empted most every show on TV, I have found myself channel surfing more than usual. I came across one of the shopping channels with a program titled: “Eat yourself thin.” Since I’m a man, I just kept flipping for another hour or 2, and missed it, but the premise does hold true.

Take a wood-burning stove. If you throw a lot of wood in, it will flame up really big, get really hot and waste most the heat and die. Then you have to repeat the same in-efficient process over and over. Now if you were to add just a little wood at a time, you’d keep a nice, steady fire that keeps the house at an even temperature. Your metabolism is the same.

That is what happens to us when we eat 2 or 3 meals a day. Breakfast, lunch and supper is a scam devised by the robber barons of the industrial revolution. Workers were given one break in the middle of their 12-16 hour shift and that was it. Our earlier forbears were more Forrest Gump-esk. When they were hungry they ate, when they were sleepy they slept and when they had to you know, they you knowed.

According to the laws of physics, energy cannot be created or destroyed. After a long day you’ll throw down 7-800 calories, but your body only needed 500 of them at that time. What happens to the rest? Look behind you. Your body will run much more effectively and burn calories more efficiently when they are introduced fewer at a time. Don’t eat more or extra food; but you’ll run a lot better on 1500-1800 calories consumed as breakfast-snack-lunch-snack-supper than 2000 over 2 or 3 meals.

The Silent Killer

The Silent Killer

No, I’m not talking about your old college roommate after burrito night at the dorms. I speak of hypertension. I can remember when high blood pressure was THE focus of primary care physicians and cardiologists. Then sometime in the ‘90’s the focus switched to cholesterol. Now that big pharma’s patents on statin drugs are running out, I’ve notice a switch back to the basics in the literature.

Lately I’ve seen throw backs to warning about salt intake. So much that in some jurisdictions in California and NYC, health departments is contemplating regulating restaurants’ usage. When we consume salt, sodium chloride, the sodium enters our blood stream. Because of homeostasis (the body’s inherit drive to keep everything equal-your body is a socialist) osmotic pressure forces extra fluid into your blood. By the laws of physics, if you increase the volume of a closed system, you increase its pressure. Thus putting extra work on the vessels causing them to harden and occlude which sets off a downward spiral of the above over and over until your lungs fill with fluid and your heart expands then dies.

Step 1, put down the salt shaker. 2) Drink more water. At first this may seem counter-intuitive, but the more water you drink, the more sodium that gets flushed out of your system. 3) Eat more veggies (unsalted of course). Everything that comes out of the ground is high in potassium. Potassium competes for space with sodium in your body. The more you eat, the less sodium, the less sodium, the lower your blood pressure. 4) Chill. Stress raises BP. 5) Chiropractic care. Many research studies have shown that a weekly chiropractic adjustment lowers BP by 10 points.

Held captive by a relationship?

Whom do you try to avoid? An ex-employee? An estranged relative? An ex-associate? An especially demanding client? An ex-boss? Someone you just can't stand being around? (Please, please, please don't let it be me!!!!!!!!!!!)
You have allowed that person to imprison you.
It looks as if you're in control, orchestrating your life so you won't encounter them, expending massive amounts of energy in the process. Instead of being at ease, you're on guard. Instead of fully living, you find yourself continually defensive; on the lookout.
Eliminate this kryptonite from your life. It's based on the lie that this person "does" something to you. When in fact, whatever your reaction is, you do it to yourself. You create the uncomfortableness. You create the feelings of inferiority. You create the sense of dread. Or resentment. And massive amounts of emotional stress that feed back on your body causing/aggravating back pain, carpal tunnel, heart disease, diabetes, sciatica, take you pick of another million or so disorders.
If the person who is the source of all this angst lacks positive qualities (unlikely) then at least chose to become indifferent and lose the shackles.
Take out a piece of paper and write their name on it. Crumple it up and throw it away. Get the thought of them out of your life. Unless of course it's me. If it is; please, please accept my most sincere apology. If I or we've ever offended you, it was not on purpose. I know to many of you this may come as a surprise, but I am not infallible. If you are in pain, don't suffer because of something I may have said, done or failed to.