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.

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