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An Eternal Spring

Your body creates an eternal spring every day with with new growth.

Winter, spring, summer, fall, winter, spring, summer, fall, winter-those are the seasons and the cycles of life. Birth, growth, decay and death, these are the seasons of our lives. Yet our macrocosm is a reflection of our microcosm because every organ, tissue and cell has its own cycle of life. Throughout our lives, there is constant birth, growth, decay, death and rebirth. Your body is alive but not static, it must replace its parts all the time. 

eternal spring

Every cell in your body is replaced at least once every 7-8 years. But some are replaced at an astounding rate. For example:

  • your body replaces about 4 million red blood cells every day
  • your stomach cells are replaced every 2-4 days
  • you have a new skin every 10-30 days, a new cervix every 6 days, new taste buds every 10 days

There are just a few parts of your body where the cells are not replaced: you don’t replace lens cells or oocytes in the ovaries-they are for life.

The key to healing is to replace sick or damaged cells with healthy cells. How do we do that? Chiropractic care is a very powerful healing art that helps to keep your body properly balanced, without obstructions to your nerves and brain, so life energy and information may flow to all your parts and you become healthier day by day. Regular chiropractic care ensures that your body is free from life-damaging spine and nerve stress. 

This helps keep your energies flowing and your brain’s information to each cell at close to ideal.

Every day we’re getting one day closer to spring. Make sure all your cells are replaced with healthier cells so you may have an eternal spring in your body for your entire life.

 

How many joints are in your spine?

Questions and Answers About Chiropractic: How many joints are in your spine?How many joints are in your spine?

Chiropractors adjust the spine to correct vertebral subluxations – but do you have any idea how complex your spinal column is?

Your spine contains 24 vertebrae (spinal bones) that are connected by 23 discs. These discs act as shock absorbers, give the spine its curve, strengthen it and increase its flexibility.

Each vertebra has four posterior (back facing) joint surfaces that connect it to the other vertebrae, PLUS each vertebra connects with the discs above and below. In addition, many vertebra have joints that connect your spine to your ribs, sacrum, skull and other structures.

In all your spine has 364 joints! About one for every day in a year. Coincidence? Maybe there’s a joint that resonates with every day! That’s a stretch, but you never know.

All those joints work together to support your weight and permit you to move in lots of different directions, and to get into all kinds of weird positions. Is it any wonder that chiropractors are so busy keeping this structure in alignment with all its parts balanced with gravity? Stop by and we’ll make sure everything is in order. (1)

  1. Cramer G, Darby S. Clinical Anatomy of The Spine, Spinal Cord, and ANS (3rd Edition). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier/Mosby. 2014;Appendix I:638-642.

 

Chiropractic, CTS and TOC: Where is your carpal tunnel?

You won’t find the carpal tunnel on any map-it’s in your wrist. Your carpal (wrist) bones form a tunnel-like structure-the carpal tunnel-through which pass tendons and the median nerve.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) is the occupational disease of the 21st century. Sufferers experience tingling and numbness in the hands, fingers and wrists; blanching (whitening upon pressure) of the hand; pain so intense that it awakens you at night and more. (1-2)

carpal tunnel

Who gets CTS?

Years ago, telegraph operators, seamstresses, carpenters and meat cutters were the CTS sufferers. Today office workers, computer operators, musicians and assembly line workers are more prone to it. 

Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (TOS)

A similar condition is thoracic outlet syndrome. TOS affects the nerves in the upper back as they exit the neck. The symptoms include pain, weakness and numbness or tingling in the arm. (3) 

The Medical and Chiropractic Approaches

The medical approach to persistent symptoms may include corticosteroid injections or surgery. For over a hundred years, however, Doctors of Chiropractic have been adjusting people’s spines to release stress from their nervous systems. Clinicians, researchers and patients have reported relief of classic carpal tunnel symptoms and improvement in overall body function after chiropractic adjustments. (4-5)

  1. Davis L, Wellman H, Punnett L. Surveillance of work-related carpal tunnel syndrome in Massachusetts, 1992-1997: a report from the Massachusetts sentinel event notification system for occupational risks (SENSOR). Am J Ind Med. 2001;39(1):58-71.
  2. Verghese J, Galanopoulou AS, Herskovitz S. Autonomic dysfunction in idiopathic carpal tunnel syndrome. Muscle Nerve. 2000;23(8):1209-1213.
  3. Narakas AO. The role of thoracic outlet syndrome in the double crush syndrome. Annales de Chirurgie de la Main et du Membre Superieur. 1990;9(5):331-340. 
  4. Bonebrake AR et al. A treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome: evaluation of objective and subjective measures. JMPT. 1990;13:507-520.
  5. Davis PT, Hulbert JR, Kassak KM et al. Comparative efficacy of conservative medical and chiropractic treatments for carpal tunnel syndrome: a randomized clinical trial. JMPT. 1998;21(5):317-326.

Did You Know? Which of your organs is the largest? 

Is it your liver? Brain? Intestines? None of those – it’s your skin! It’s gigantic. Your skin includes everything that covers your body and that organsincludes your hair and fingernails. Your skin is rather heavy – it accounts for about 16% of your entire body weight. 

Even though it’s heavy, it is very thin. At its thickest, the bottom of your feet, it is 1.5mm thick (as thick as a grain of rice). At the thinnest, your eyelids, its only 0.5mm. 

How much do you know about your organs?

We know you can recognize people from looking at their face; you can also recognize them from their liver, stomach lungs, heart, eyeballs, spine – our parts are unique. Every part of your body is like your fingerprints, unlike any other fingerprint in the world. Even identical twins have different fingerprints! 

Speaking about fingerprints, they are not just useful to the police for identification. Fingerprints give your skin friction so you can pick things up and hold them.

Your skin is also a barrier to protect you from infection and also serves as a major waste disposal site – using sweating, rashes, boils, pustules and other yucky mechanisms to keep you healthy and free from toxins.

Perhaps most amazing is that your skin completely renews itself every 27 days! Even during this complete change, your fingerprints remain the same. So, you can improve your looks by eating better, getting a massage, sitting in a sauna, fasting and cleansing – but it’ll take about a month to see the difference.

 

Researching Chiropractic: Chronic headaches, constipation, and autism

Chiropractic clinical case histories have been a regular feature of our patient newsletter since its inception and have included papers published in various bio-medical and chiropractic journals.

There seems to be no end to the conditions that respond to chiropractic care – physical as well as psychological.

That is because chiropractic does not “treat” a particular condition. Chiropractic care “treats” or, more accurately, “corrects” a serious interference to brain, nervous system and energy function known as the subluxation.

No matter what condition you or a loved one may have, you will always function better when free from subluxations. Chiropractors are uniquely trained to locate and correct subluxations.

Chronic headache in an eight-year-oldheadache young girl

An 8-year old boy who suffered from chronic headaches for two years was brought in for chiropractic care. The headaches were described as sharp and throbbing, worse with noise, better when lying down, and located in the frontal skull area and occasionally lasted an entire day. He also suffered from sore throat, fatigue, queasiness, aches, pains and dizziness.

His parents brought him to a neurologist, psychologist and nutritionist with limited health improvements.

 The child was adjusted over a  20 monthperiod. Initially his cervical x-ray showed a flat spine – there was no curve. After 6 months of care his cervical lordosis (curve) was near normal for his age. His headaches and other symptoms resolved.

Chronic constipation in a childconstipation 2

A 7-year-old-boy presented for care with complaints of chronic constipation, headaches and neck pain. The boy had suffered from constipation since the age of three. At age 5, MDs prescribed enemas (three times per week) but this gave only temporary relief. By age 6, stool softeners and the laxative MiraLAX® were prescribed. Three to four weeks prior to chiropractic care, the boy had bowel movements of once per week.    The child was adjusted over a 10 week period. The mother reported that her son had bowel movements of 5-6 times per week without the need for laxatives.

Two autism cases

Case one involves a 20-year-old autistic male who displayed aggressive behavior towards others. Case two involves a 17-year-old autistic female who abused herself.

Both patients received a trial of chiropractic care for 5 and 4 months respectively with visit frequency of once per week. Both patients responded favorably to chiropractic care with the male patient decreasing in aggressive behavior and the female patient decreasing in self-abuse and improving in socialization.

 Please share with someone you know who might be encourages to help with any of these issues through gentle chiropractic care. 

 

Chiropractic for pets?

Is Chiropractic for pets beneficial?

Sure! Why not? Of course, chiropractic is for dogs and cats. After all, animals that have spines can have subluxations that chiropractors can correct – to the benefit of all creatures with spinal columns.

In fact, since chiropractic’s inception in the American Midwest (Davenport, Iowa) in 1895, Doctors of Chiropractic have had many different kinds of four-legged patients: dogs, cats, horses, sheep, goats, cows, bulls, etc.

Chiropractors have taken care of championship race horses, expensive show animals and everyday dogs and house cats. It’s a shame that many people don’t know about “animal chiropractic” so we have highlighted a recent chiropractic animal adjustment case study. Read it here.

A note from Dr.C.– I have been taking care of dogs, bobcats and other animals for many years and have some wonderful stories to share.

Chiropractic for pets

Medical Breakthrough or Just Hot Air?

Every week we hear headlines about another “medical breakthrough” whether it be for cancer, the common cold or hangnails. But then a funny thing happens – we don’t hear about these great breakthroughs anymore. Our lives go on and so do the diseases. What happens to these amazing discoveries that would save us from suffering, extend our lives and make us healthy, wealthy, wise and give us better singing voices (OK, at least healthy)?

medical breakthrough

These “medical breakthroughs” are fake news (to coin a phrase) but they sell. Many of these so-called “breakthroughs” are produced by professional advertising agencies who give it to the media and they just run with it. After all, it does sell. Who doesn’t hope that they (whoever they are) will finally cure (fill in the blank)? We read all about it.

medical breakthrough

No one remembers the stories that have disappeared. We won’t ever read or hear, “News flash, remember that exciting breast cancer cure from last month? Well, never mind.” Or at best it’ll be buried on page 39 near the obituaries (where it would belong).

What we need is for media reporters to perform an unnatural act: report on past medical breakthroughs. Recently some researchers did just that and did follow-ups of the so-called cures.

What did they find? The majority of the medical breakthroughs were found to be just so much hot air. They couldn’t be replicated by other scientists. (1)

In an interview, lead author, Dumas-Mallet advises: “When a study is an initial study, even if it’s very exciting and amazing … it still needs to be confirmed.” (2)

This seems like a good time to remember Ronald Reagan’s famous dictum, “Trust, but verify.”

  1. Dumas-Mallet E, Smith A, Boraud T, Gonon F. Poor replication validity of biomedical association studies reported by newspapers. PLOS One. February 21, 2017.
  2. Harris R. Reports of medical breakthroughs don’t prove out. Health News from NPR. March 6, 2017.

Our Unique Heritage

America’s Heritageheritage and constitution

America is a unique nation with a unique heritage– founded on the recognition that all people have inalienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

But what does inalienable mean?

It means that the government doesn’t give us those rights; we have them by right of birth. Our founders understood that our rights are derived from our Creator; they are our natural rights.

The American government was founded to protect our inalienable rights.

Government, kings, potentates, parliaments, committees, politicians, dictators, etc. can take our natural rights away. History is replete with such abuses. The American government was founded to protect our inalienable rights. Government, laws and courts are created to protect those rights. Once our unique constitutional system was put into place, the definition of that principle, and its limits, needed to be understood by all.

For example, in his famous 1790 letter to the Jewish congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, President George Washington went out of his way to set up a critical distinction between a false type of tolerance – by which “one class of people” might condescendingly extend certain privileges to another, inferior class – and the American system, in which all enjoy “their inherent natural rights” equally, provided only that they “demean themselves as good citizens.”

How Does Our Heritage Relate to Healthcare?

The more we give politicians, bureaucrats and “professionals” permission to control and manage our lives, the less free, the more dependent and the less capable we become.

As the Elders of the Oraibi Arizona Hopi Nation remind us:

“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

The world-renowned sociologist Ivan Illich, Ph.D. applied this understanding to health in his famous book Medical Nemesis:

A world of optimal and widespread health is obviously a world of minimal and only occasional medical intervention. Healthy people are those who live in healthy homes on a healthy diet in an environment equally fit for birth, growth, work, healing, and dying; they are sustained by a culture that enhances the conscious acceptance of limits to population, of ageing, of  incomplete recovery and ever-imminent death. Healthy people need minimal bureaucratic interference to mate, give birth, share the human condition, and die. (1)

1. Illich I. Medical Nemesis: the Expropriation of Health. New York: Bantam Books, 1977.

A New Discovery About How Your Body Works

New Ways in Understanding How Your Body Works

You’d think we knew pretty much everything we need to know about how your body works. But we are in the dark ages in many ways. For example, earlier this year it was discovered that the brain connects to the immune system and that communication is especially important when we sleep.

How Your Body Works: The LungsHow Your Body Works

More recently, UC San Francisco scientists have discovered that the lungs do more than breathe. The lungs play an important role in blood production. Yes, blood is made in the lungs. Using a special tracking system, researchers discovered that the lungs produce more than half of the platelets – blood components needed for clotting to stop bleeding, among other critical roles, in many conditions.

Blood cells were also found to travel back and forth between the lung and bone marrow. It appears that the stem cells that produce blood travel in the bloodstream to other organs and adapt to their needs.

Now you know!

Is it Really a Medical Breakthrough?

Every week media headlines tell us about another “medical breakthrough” whether it be for cancer, autism, depression, Alzheimer’s, obesity, glaucoma, the common cold or hangnails.

But then a funny thing happens – we don’t hear about it anymore. Our lives go on and so do the diseases. What happened?

Fake Newsmedical breakthrough or fake news

It turns out that most of the “breakthroughs” are fake news (to coin a phrase). Why? Because it sells. Who doesn’t hope that they (whoever they are) will finally cure (fill in the blank)? And we read all about it.

Following up on medical breakthroughs

Recently researchers did something the media doesn’t often do – they did follow-ups of the so-called cures. They were found to be just so much hot air. They couldn’t be replicated by other scientists.

In an interview, lead author Dumas-Mallet’s advises: “When a study is an initial study, even if it’s very exciting and amazing … it still needs to be confirmed.”

Remember Ronald Reagan’s famous dictum, “Trust, but verify.”