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.