Archive for March, 2009

Most people go to the doctor because they think they have something they shouldn’t have and want to get rid of.  But over the years, we chiropractors have come to understand that the problem when you aren’t feeling well is NOT that you have something you shouldn’t have and need to get rid of; the problem is really that you have LOST something you need to be healthy and happy.  You see HEALTH (also called “EASE”) is your natural state!   If you are experiencing anything other than ease, it is usually because you have simply LOST something that is necessary for you to maintain ease/health.  Understanding this very simple truth will not only help you get the most out of your chiropractic care, it will also help you and your family to keep growing stronger and healthier for the rest of your lives!

Let’s begin helping you understand this by looking at how your body really works.  There are three things you need to know in order to move consistently toward health, wellness and wholeness.

• 1) Every day, your body either gets a little stronger or a little weaker.
• 2) In order to get stronger instead of weaker each day, you must have a clear neurological CONNECTION between your brain and your body.
• 3) In order to have a clear connection between your brain and your body and keep growing stronger every day, your spine must be properly aligned and functioning normally (because of the intimate connections between your spine and nerve system).

If you understand these three things, you can also understand that if you lose normal alignment or function in your spine, you will also partially lose the CONNECTION between your brain and your body.  This is very important because without proper communication, you lose the ability to purposefully ORGANIZE all of the various parts of your body to work together harmoniously and with EASE.  In other words, you get a little weaker rather than stronger each day and you gradually LOSE your natural state of health/ease.

Chiropractic has only ONE GOAL, which can be summed up in what we call “The 3 R’s.”  Our goal is to;

• 1) Help Restore and maintain alignment and function in your spine, in order to…
• 2) Re-establish and maintain the neurological CONNECTIONS between your brain and your body, so that…
• 3) You can Resume purposefully ORGANIZING all of the parts of your body to work harmoniously together and consistently grow stronger and healthier every day.

And, as you continue growing stronger and healthier every day, you will move consistently from wherever you are right now toward first regaining your natural state of health (EASE), and then keep on moving toward wellness and ultimately into what we call wholeness.

So as we said before, the problem is NOT that you have something you shouldn’t have and need to get rid of; the problem is that you have LOST something you need to be healthy and happy.  HEALTH is your natural state, and if you are experiencing anything other than ease, it is usually because you have LOST your CONNECTION…and our job is very simply…to help you get it back and keep it for Life!

It’s as simple as that!

Your spine and nervous system are so intimately connected that if you lose normal alignment or function in your spine, you will also partially lose the connection between your brain and your body (subluxation). This loss of a clear nerve connection leads to the loss of your ability to function normally which then leads to a loss of your natural state of health.  Adjustments help you by correcting normal alignment and function of the spine which then restores proper nerve supply and your ability to function normally.  Keep in mind, when you are “sick,” it’s not that you have something you shouldn’t have (cold, flu, cancer, pain, diabetes, etc.) it’s that you have lost the ability to function normally.  Getting adjusted helps restore your body’s ability to function and heal naturally through a clear neurological connection.

“If you keep postponing a decision, your indecision becomes your only decision.” Unknown

Billions of dollars are spent every year on health clubs, organic foods, vitamins, bottled water and many other healthy habits but as a whole there are very few who truly experience the kind of health that is possible.  In more than ten years of serving in health care, I have come to believe that the answer lies not only in misinformation but to a greater degree, our motives.  I find day in and day out that most of us have not decided to experience health rather we are striving to “not be sick”.   You see, you can’t escape what you are giving your attention to and when you get flu shots to avoid the flu or take aspirin daily to avoid heart disease your attention is not on health, it’s on the flu and heart disease.  Just look at the proof, our country rates 37 out of 39 industrialized nations and yet nobody spends more money than we do on “health care.”   To decide is to cut off and rule out all other possibilities.  To decide, however unconsciously, to “not be sick” is to postpone the decision to be healthy and be frustrated to no end that your efforts never seem to produce the health you desire.  To learn how to attain health, see our workshop schedule and give your attention to what’s possible, not what the world says you should fear.

For several years now, Sister Luigi Frigo of Cudahy Wisconsin and her second graders, conduct a science experiment to compare the affects of whole food and genetically modified (GE) foods on mice.  Three mice receive nutrition from whole foods while three more receive theirs from foods commonly served in high schools across the country.  The results could not be more revealing and border on science fiction.  The first time her class conducted the experiment, they observed that the mice fed whole foods gave no indication of any problems with health or disposition while the mice fed GE food within days displayed erratic sleeping behavior and became lazy, nervous, and so antisocial that two of the mice eventually killed and ate the third.  Since then, the experiments conducted last only four days however she states that even on the first day of junk food, the mice behavior “changes drastically” and requires two to three weeks on whole foods for their behavior to return to normal.  Any attempts to reintroduce GE foods ends in failure as the mice have learned and will no longer consume the GE food.

          This study is not unique in its attempt to provide information about the power of food on health.  A study in science (December 2002) concluded that “food molecules act like hormones, regulating body functioning and triggering cell division. The molecules can cause mental imbalances ranging from attention-deficit disorder to serious mental illness.”  When you reconcile this information with the ever increasing numbers of kids being diagnosed with mental health or “behavioral” disorders, you can’t help but wonder what’s going on.  Schools all over the world and especially in Europe have banned GE foods to prevent their children from becoming lab rats in a grand social experiment. In America however GE foods are in a majority of our processed foods with no labeling requirements whatsoever; teaching our kids to read labels and expect the government to look out for us will not keep them healthy.  It’s like teaching them that walking in the cross walk gives them the write of way without reminding them to look for traffic; whether you had the right of way or not, if you get hit crossing the street because a truck didn’t yield, you’re still dead.  Don’t be fooled; if your seven year old can’t sit still or concentrate and your 13 year old seems to be on an emotional roller coaster, there’s little evidence to support a deficiency in Ritalin or Prozac, even when the media suggests it as a miracle cure. An old Chinese proverb states that whatever the father of illness, the mother is wrong food.  For more information about genetically modified foods see seedsofdeception.com

Your eyes are incredible; as an extension of your brain they use one third as much oxygen as the heart, need ten to twenty times as much vitamin C as the joint capsules that move your arms and legs and require more zinc (our intelligence chemical) than any other organ system in the body.  When combined with your brain, they make up 2% of your total body weight and yet consume 25% of the nutrition we take in every day. (14) 

It’s no wonder then why blindness is such a concern for diabetics.  Your eyes are unable to protect themselves like other tissues from too much insulin in the blood stream and because both insulin and vitamin C resemble one another in structure, the doorway for each cell to let in the vitamin C (an antioxidant) is blocked from the excess amounts of insulin that compete to get in.  When you then realize that the vast majority of diabetics do not exercise, (a requirement to increasing the bodies ability to acquire and use oxygen), you can begin to see a recipe for disaster.  See yourself clear to understanding how your body really works and you will gain the power to experience health without limits.

“98% of the atoms in your body were not there a year ago.” Deepak Chopra M.D.

This is an extremely profound quote when you think about its implications. The various parts of your body are constantly regenerating new cells to replace old cells as the cycle of life rolls on.  Some cells, like the liver cells that detoxify your body, regenerate much faster than the cells of your bones. As a result, the entire body takes roughly 13 months to completely rebuild itself. That’s right; at any given moment you are no more than 13 months old.  Why then does our body seem to degenerate with time? 

Consider this process of cell replication like using a copy machine with one rule; you have to use each copy to make the next copy rather than have access to the original.  When you place the original in the copy machine, your first copy is the best copy, but from that point on each new cell or page is made using the previous copy.  As you might guess then, the copies begins to fade and blur making it more and more difficult with time to produce good quality copies.  This then places a tremendous importance on using good quality material and an active maintenance program to care for your copy machine. The quality of the ink and paper, whether you maintain the machine at its most efficient level and your commitment to keeping a clear and steady supply of electricity running to the machine all affect the final product.  Not only that, in the case of your body, the worse the quality of the material you use and the more you abuse the machine, the faster the copy machine works.  The goal then is to use the best nutrition and maintain your body’s ability to function at its optimal level if you want not only to slow the aging process down but produce the healthiest happiest you possible.  Should you ever have questions about health and healing, please don’t hesitate to ask or join us at our weekly workshops.

I don’t watch a lot of television these days so I’m not quit sure if the ads are still running, but do you remember all the commercials where celebrities and athletes were sporting milk mustaches?  I wonder if they really drank milk and if they did, would they drink it now when offered the truth about what they promoted.  I personally love milk and drink my share of it but I have to qualify that what most consider milk is not really milk at all.  When we go to the grocery store or stop down at the local ‘gas and go’ to pick up “milk,” what we are in fact buying is one of the most adulterated convenience foods ever corrupted by the hands of man.  It’s a modern day three part lab experiment gone terribly wrong.

Part one: Consider that what goes in a cow is not what comes out and you’ll have no compunction about feeding them anything as long as it’s cheep. The result; an average gallon of milk bought from our modern day distribution centers, gets you a serious dose of estrogen from soy meal, aflatoxins from GMO grains (which are very susceptible to mold and rot that produce the aflatoxins), very potent neurotoxins from citrus peel cake (the by product of making fruit juice from fruit routinely soaked in pesticides), antibiotics and growth hormones just to name some of the more obvious contaminants. 

Part two: Make people believe that the process of pasteurizing milk or any other product for that matter is good for them and soon they won’t even suspect that the hero is the villain in a modern day science fiction movie.  Pasteurization denatures, deforms, devitalizes and breaks down the “milk” proteins in such a way as to force the body to think they are foreign. The result is a full blown immune response that causes your body to expend a great deal of energy fighting something it should otherwise be getting nourishment from.  If the immune response is aggressive enough, we chalk it up to “lactose intolerance,” a catch all phrase similar to fibromyalgia that simply means someone doesn’t do well on or they get sick from drinking “milk.” If the body’s response is not so aggressive, the low level reaction quit often leads to allergies down the road that for many people seem to come out of nowhere.  In a recent interview of Sally Fallon, the founder of A campaign for Real Milk and president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, she states “Pasteurization destroys enzymes, diminishes vitamin content, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamins C, B12 and B6, kills beneficial bacteria, promotes pathogens and is associated with allergies, increased tooth decay, colic in infants, growth problems in children, osteoporosis, arthritis, heart disease and cancer.”  Imagine, as it is in the case of ultra pasteurization taking “milk” from slightly chilled to above the boiling point in two seconds.  If it doesn’t strike you as a violent means of treating food, it’s only because advertisers have done a bang up job of keeping us distracted with happy pictures of famous people with “milk” mustaches.  Don’t worry about your child’s health Mr. and Mrs. Jones; see how happy the super stars are?  Remember, calves fed on pasteurized milk do poorly and many die before maturity.

Part three:  Play every angle, use any mirror and appeal to every emotion to keep the consumer buying in spite of the evidence.  If consumers are looking for “health food,” create one and two percent milk, use the cream for ice cream, which makes more money, and add non-fat dry “milk” containing oxide cholesterol, a number of carcinogens and MSG to give the water that’s left the appearance that it’s still “milk” while convincing them “it does a body good.”

According to Sally Fallon in the same interview, “milk” sales have decreasing at 1 percent per year, “relentlessly decreasing.”  Do yourself and your family a favor and opt out of the cultural lab experiment and opt in to eating real foods like real “milk.”  Again, if the cream doesn’t rise to the top, don’t drink it… its not milk!

Not too long ago and for the better part of man’s existence, the milk of cows, sheep, goats, llama’s, water buffalo, rain deer, camels and several other mammals have been vital to the health if not ultimate survival of many cultures around the world.  In each case there was no pasteurization, homogenization, refrigeration and certainly no regulation about consuming raw milk from real animals fed on real feed as an integral part of ones daily sustenance. Generation after generation were raised to understand and appreciate the value of an animal that when properly cared for would sustain them on what can only be considered one of natures perfect foods.

At the turn of the 19^th century many families had their own cow or had access to someone who maintained a small herd of old fashioned breeds like Jersey, Guernsey or Red Devons. These cows, living an average of 12 to 15 years were raised on green grass from early spring to late fall and green feed, hay and root vegetables through the winter. They spent the vast majority of their lives on pastures exposed to the fresh air and sunshine doing what cows do. The result was one to two gallons of milk rich in vitamins A and D and what is known as the “Price Factor” (a fat soluble catalyst that promotes optimum mineral assimilation) produced every day for the making of butter, yogurts, clabber, cheeses etc. 

In sharp contrast, the modern day cow is a mega Holstein that lives three to four years in confinement with very little access to fresh air and sunshine. To produce three times as much milk per day as the old fashioned cow, she’s fed a diet rich in growth hormones, antibiotics, cottonseed meal, soy meal, commercial feeds, citrus peel cake laced with pesticides, chicken manure and bakery waste.  Then without fanfare she is sold off to become pet food for the family dog.

Only in modern times have we found such a circumstance in which one is led by hook or by crook to believe that a gallon of milk is a gallon of milk whether you buy it from the local big box department store, a convenience gas station or from a “real” farmer.  For better health, don’t be fooled; real milk comes from real cows fed real food.  Remember, if the cream doesn’t rise to the top, don’t drink it!

Chiropractic works by restoring your body’s inborn ability to be healthy. When under the proper control of your nervous system, every cell, tissue, and organ in the body is designed to function at such high levels of health that they naturally resist disease and illness without any help from us.

 Chiropractic emphasis’s the innate healing power that already exists in each of us and that most often is suppressed under the strain of subluxation.  Our spine, while designed to protect and house our nervous system, can quit frequently strain the delicate nervous system to such a degree as to prevent it from communicating properly with the brain, which as you know, controls everything.  As a result our body finds itself unable to maintain normal health.

Locating interference (subluxation) and adjusting the spine works to restore the normal impulse of life that communicates through your nervous system.  The goal of Chiropractic then is to restore normal communication to the nervous system with specific chiropractic adjustments that allow your body to heal itself naturally.  So you see, chiropractic is not about removing anything, it’s about increasing the impulse that from conception has always done the right thing given the environment in which it is placed. The expression of health and vitality is normal. Maintaining a deliberate focus, a healthy lifestyle and a clear neurological connection are your keys to health and vitality!

There’s no age limit when it comes to living a healthy life.  Adjusting a pregnant mother improves the health of a developing child by improving the health of the mother.  Newborns, considering the modern birth process and especially if they experienced a difficult or traumatic birth, need to be checked for subluxation as soon as possible while older folks can be adjusted well into their advanced years without ill effects.  As Chiropractors, we are trained to know if there is any condition that would contra-indicate a certain adjustment technique and we tailor our care to every practice member so that they get the spinal adjustment that is the safest and most comfortable for them to receive.  Even teenagers should be checked; we can’t promise the music they listen to will be better but you never know – adjustments are known to do some incredible things. The younger the child is when checked the better the chance at correcting any problems before they grow chronic.