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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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.

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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.

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.