It's not a tumor!

Whenever I have a new patient come to my office with any complaint from neck pain, shoulder pain, low back pain, digestive problems, stress, all of the above, etc., I always go over a full medical history. We cover everything from past accidents to medications/supplements to diet (usually consisting of a pot of coffee and fast food). No matter what the main complaint is, I always ask if he/she gets headaches. 90% of the time I get a "duh" look followed by "well, yeah, but that is normal. I get 2-3 per month/week/day, but I have always had them. I just take an aspirin and it goes away." It really makes me laugh everytime.

HEADACHES ARE NOT NORMAL! And taking an aspirin to help your headache is not fixing anything. I like to use this analogy. Let's say you get a pebble in the bottom of your shoe and it is digging into the bottom of your foot. Probably doesn't feel good, right? Do you grab an aspirin to help with the pain? No, you reach down, take off your shoe and empty the pebble out of your shoe. It was the pebble that was causing the pain, not a lack of aspirin. Well, a lack of aspirin is not causing your headaches.

Although there are many different types of headaches (tension, cluster, migraine, etc.) and many, many more types of medications and treatments for those headaches, the posture of your neck can play a huge role with headaches. I especially like to see patients whose headaches have not responded to any of those medications/treatments. There are 7 vertebrae in your neck and the top three vertebrae have nerves that supply your head, face, sinuses. Many times I will find a subluxation (rotation of a vertebrae) in the neck which can cause a pinched nerve leading to headaches. By correcting the subluxation with a gentle manipulation, pressure is taken off of the nerves and usually the headache improves.

If you get headaches on a regular basis, don't suffer through them. You could be a chiropractic visit away from being headache and aspirin free.

Live Well.

Ear pain/infection

With ear infections in children being one of the most common reasons for a doctor's visit, I thought I would pass along a great article about ear pain/infections...

http://www.drpalevsky.com/mediacenter/Alt_to_Ear_Pain.pdf

If your child suffers from repetitive ear infections or is bothered by ear pain, you can call our office at 847.888.3131 to schedule an appointment.

Live Well

Conventional and Holistic Pediatric Medicine

Happy New Year! I hope 2010 brings you all great health and happiness!

I went to a great seminar this past weekend about conventional and holistic pediatric treatment approaches and options. It was taught by a renowned pediatrician, Dr. Lawrence Palevsky, MD, who focuses on the holistic approach to children's wellness. Instead of treating the symptoms with antibiotics and other medications, he treats the cause of the symptoms with diet and lifestyle changes, Chinese medicine, chiropractic referrals, essential oils, and many other holistic approaches. You can learn more about him at www.drpalevsky.com.

The thing that he stressed most the entire weekend was the importance of diet in our health. Where have you heard that before? ;) Whether it is asthma, allergies, bed wetting, ADD/ADHD, eczema, ear infections, etc., many can be prevented and even treated without the use of antibiotics and other medications. In fact, he hasn't prescribed an antibiotic in over a decade. How many of you have had a child that has had an ear infection that was treated by an antibiotic only to return after the antibiotic is finished? Could it be that something else is playing a role in the inflammation in the ear? Well, over my next few posts, I will be going over various childhood illnesses and giving you some helpful preventative tips to use at home!

Live Well.

Food, Inc.

I watched a very interesting movie the other night called Food, Inc. It was a documentary that allowed a look into the food industry and our nation's food supply. It showed how our food production has become controlled by a few corporations. It might not have taught me anything new about how unhealthy our food is, but it really opened my eyes to why our food has become so unhealthy. Unfortunately, as with most things in our country, it all comes back to big business. A company can't patent an organic apple that you can buy at any farmer's market, but they can patent and mass produce a crop that has been genetically modified to resist chemicals and pesticides that will otherwise kill everything else around. All while we get sicker and sicker as a nation.

An insert with the movie gave a list of 10 things you can do to change our food system. Here is a few of them...

1. Action: Stop drinking sodas and other sweetened beverages.
Fact: If you replace one 20 oz soda a day with a no calorie beverage (preferably water), you could lose 25 lbs in a year.

2. Action: Eat at home instead of eating out.
Fact: Children consume almost twice (1.8 times) as many calories when eating food made outside the home.

3. Action: Buy organic or sustainable food with little to no pesticide or antibiotic use.
Fact: Over a billion lbs of pesticides are used every year in the U.S. and an estimated 70% of all antibiotics used in the United States are given to farm animals.

If want to get a behind the scenes look at our food system and the food you and your family are eating every day, watch this movie. It may just make you question how your food is made. If nothing else, you will see how bad the chickens you are eating are being treated!

Merry Christmas! Give yourself and your family the gift of good health this year!

Live Well.

Detox Diary: Day 1

In general, I would consider myself a good eater. I am definitely not perfect, but my wife and I focus on eating a lot of organic foods and getting a good variety of fruits and vegetables every day. I tend to eat good during the week and then splurge a little on the weekend with a pizza or a burger or some ice cream and maybe some wine or beer. So the detox is definitely a little challenging for me, but it really does help to refocus my brain and body.

In previous posts, I have talked about the 21-day purification/detox program that I offer to my patients. You can read some more about it here. I like to do the program 1-2 times per year to help detox my liver, clean up my gut, increase my energy, and just get me back on track with eating better. And it is always nice to lose a few pounds in the process. Well, I started the detox today and I plan to describe my first week to give you an idea of what I am eating and how I am feeling. I just got over a pretty good 2-day cold, so it is good timing for the detox.

I did all my shopping yesterday and bought all organic fruits and vegetables. (The first 10 days of the detox is only fruits and vegetables.) I also spent about an hour chopping and preparing all the veggies, so that can just put together a meal quickly each day.

Breakfast: Fruit shake. (I actually have this for my breakfast when I am not doing the detox)

Fruit Shake:

1/2 cup filtered water
1/2 cup organic unfiltered apple juice
1/2 cup frozen organic blueberries
1/2 cup frozen organic spinach
1/2 organic banana
2 rounded scoops of SP Complete Powder (included in the detox kit)
1 Tablespoon of Whole Food Fiber (included in detox kit)
1 teaspoon fish oil

Mixed in a blender

With the shake, I took 7 of the SP Cleanse pills (included in the detox kit).

Before lunch: Pear and some carrots. Green tea and filtered water.

Lunch: Big salad with romaine lettuce, kale, broccoli, carrots, radishes, tomatoes, and alfalfa sprouts. Dressing of olive oil, apple cider vinegar, tumeric, and sea salt.

7 SP Cleanse pills

Afternoon: More carrots and an apple. Filtered water.

Dinner: Spaghetti squash topped with tomato paste, broccoli, zucchini, onions, sea salt and organic butter.

7 SP Cleanse pills

After dinner: Fruit Shake with blueberries and mango.

How I am feeling:

Usually the first 3 days I tend to feel a little tired. Today, I had a lot of energy, but this could be do to me just getting over my cold and getting a lot of sleep the last 2 nights. I did not feel too hungry. Believe it or not the 7 SP Cleanse pills three times in a day help to fill you up. I will get into what is in the pills and the shakes over the next couple days. Just know that it is made up of real, whole foods such as juniper berry, buckwheat juice, barley grass, and others.

Continued tomorrow...

Live Well.

Vitamin D...Part 2

After quite a long break from blogging, I am back. At least I have a good excuse for not posting...After issues with infertility and waiting on the adoption list, Dawn and I are finally parents!!! Zachary William was born on St Patrick's Day and weighed 5 lbs 1 oz and was 17.5 in. We now know why we had to wait for so long. Zack is truly a blessing and we couldn't imagine our lives without him! He is now 3 weeks old and we are having so much fun spending each and every day watching our son grow!!

Now back to the business at hand. Considering I started giving you information about Vitamin D about 2 months ago, I'm guessing you are more than ready for me to finally finish the topic. In the first post about Vitamin D, I talked about the importance of Vitamin D and health issues that have been associated with Vitamin D deficiency. All that information is great, but you are probably wondering how you know if you are Vitamin D deficient and what you should do about it.

Finding out your Vitamin D level is as easy as a simple blood test. You can have your blood drawn at your doctor or at our office or there is even at-home Vitamin D test kits that you can order on the web. However, you need to make sure you get the right type of Vitamin D levels checked. 25-hydroxyvitamin D or 25(OH)D is the proper form of Vitamin D that is best used to check for Vitamin D deficiency. If you go to your doctor, make sure you ask for this form of Vitamin D to be tested and not 1,25-dihydroxy-vitamin D. Normal, healthy levels of 25(OH)D is between 50 and 80 ng/mL. Any levels below 50 ng/mL may be considered deficient.

Fortunately, if you find out you are deficient or if you live in areas of little sun, you can supplement your diet with Vitamin D to improve your level. Vitamin D3 is the most useable form of Vitamin D in humans, so make sure you supplement with Vitamin D3. The FDA suggests supplementing with 400-600 IU of Vitamin D daily, but studies have shown that higher doses are needed to achieve optimal levels. Here is what Dr. John Jacob Cannell MD, the director of the Vitamin D Council, suggests...

"If you have little UVB exposure, my advice is as follows: healthy children under the age of 2 years should take 1,000 IU per day—over the age of 2, 2,000 IU per day. Well adults and adolescents between 80–130 pounds should start with 3,000 IU per day while those over 130 pounds but less than 170 pounds should take 4,000 IU per day. Those over 170 pounds should receive 5,000 IU per day. Two months later have a 25-hydroxy-vitamin D blood test, either through ZRT or your doctor."

With springtime hopefully around the corner, do your best to try and get 15-20 minutes of sun exposure per day. If not, you should consider supplementing your diet with Vitamin D3.

Live Well.

Our New Office!

I am super excited to announce that we have moved into our new office! It is our 3rd and hopefully final move in just over a year. For those of you who don't know, we had a fire that destroyed our original building in November of 2007. We scrambled over night and were seeing patients in a different office the morning after the fire. It was a make shift office that we had to use for over a month while we renovated another office. In January of 2008, we moved again into the renovated office. The office was temporary, so another doctor in our practice took the opportunity to build out new office space in a nearby medical building. It was a very long process, but she did an amazing job and as of this past Monday, February 2, we are officially in our brand new office. Thanks Dr. Renee!

Our new website is not complete yet, but you can see some pictures and information at http://www.acucaretotalhealth.com/. I think you will really like the new office and will find it very welcoming and representative of the type of care and treatment you have come to expect. It will not only be a place where you enjoy coming, but it is a facility where you feel comfortable referring friends and family. I hope to see you there soon!

If you have never been to a chiropractor and want to know what to expect with your first visit, view this previous post. If you want to schedule an appointment, you can call our office at 847.888.3131.


Live Well.

Low Back Pain? Don't Stress It.

Happy Wednesday!!

If you are like the majority of people, you will get low back pain at some point in your life. It may be due to a fall, or a car accident, or lifting something wrong. But what about those of you who have had sudden low back pain when bending over to pick up a pencil or showering or just doing your normal daily activities? What most people don't realize is how much stress plays a role in our physical health. You may realize that stress can cause anxiety, high blood pressure, or fatigue, but did you know that it can also cause pain in the body?!

Stress from work and/or personal life as well as stress from your diet can not only weaken your immune system leaving you with less defense against colds and/or infections, but it can also make you more susceptible to pain or injury. Most of us can figure out where the stress is coming from at work or in our daily lives, but what about with our diet? Well, the 4 biggest stresses of our gut through our diet are 1) coffee, 2) pop, 3) chocolate, and 4) alcohol. When our gut gets stressed, then the rest of our body gets run down and fatigued which creates an environment where we are more prone to pain.

When a patient comes to my office complaining of low back pain that just started out of the blue with no trauma or injury ("My back just went out"), I usually address their stress level and diet. Most of the time, the person admits drinking a pot of coffee per day or a 6 pack of coke a day or just got back from a weekend of drinking a lot of alcohol or all of the above. Hey, it's the American diet, right?! If I ask further about their digestion, they usually complain of constipation or diarrhea or both. In these cases, acupuncture and chiropractic manipulation is a very effective treatment at our office, but I also try to have the patient modify their diet by drinking less pop, coffee, and/or alcohol to increase their natural healing ability. The patients that do change their diet usually notice an almost immediate improvement in their symptoms.

Next time you have sudden low back pain, or any sudden pain for that matter, think about the stress in your life and diet. If you have too much of any, try to modify things so that you give your body the best chance to heal!

Live Well.

Prevent It!!

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and are enjoying this holiday season! Sorry it has been so long since I have done a post, but I'll try to make it up to you with this one! As you know, I use this blog to try to give you practical tips and general information you can use to be as healthy as you and your loved ones can be.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Dawn and I flew out to Denver to spend time with my sisters and their families. While we were at the airport waiting for our flight, a title of a magazine at a stand caught my eye entitled, "The Sorry State of American Health." I read a lot about health and alternative health, so at my office I probably would have just put this in my "to be read" stack. However, when I realized it was a TIME magazine, I was caught off guard and immediately purchased it.

The reason I was surprised is because rarely do we see a main stream publication talking about the problems of our health care system. We read, hear, and see so much about the pharmaceutical industry with the newest drug on the market or the latest drug study and are lead to believe that we, as a nation, are healthy. We are inundated with drug ads on tv and in magazines. However, according to an article in this Time magazine, although the U.S. spends the most on health care out of any other nation in the world and has superior medical resources, we rank only 34th in the world in life expectancy and 29th in infant mortality rate. A couple more alarming statistics is 40% of Americans NEVER exercise, two-thirds of adults are over-weight with one-third being obese, and 17% of children are overweight! With all the money we spend and resources we have, I know I would expect these numbers to be much better.

I think what this shows is that we focus too much on sick care and not enough on preventative care. People tend to take their health for granted and rely on the latest medical advances once they do get sick instead of relying on themselves to keep from getting sick. They would rather continue to eat McDonald's and avoid exercise and just take medications for their worsening blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar while probably becoming overweight than to eat a healthy diet of fruits, vegetables, and lean meats and getting the right exercise to live a longer and healthier life. I am not talking about those of you who are on medications for high cholesterol, etc. because of hereditary reasons. My whole point is that we try to prevent problems with our cars by getting oil changes and we try to prevent cavities by getting dental cleanings and we try to prevent weeds on our lawn by using fertilizers, so why shouldn't we do everything we can to try to prevent disease, illness, and injury with ourselves?!!!

As you can probably tell, I am very passionate about the subject of preventative health care. I just hope that I can continue to effectively give you a few things that you can easily do to improve your health and to best PREVENT problems from happening in the future.

In my next post, I will be giving a list of healthy home tips for parents!

Live Well.

Your eyes will get stuck that way!

Our moms always told us not to crack our knuckles because it would cause arthritis. Well, that was just a creative way of them not having to hear the kids cracking their knuckles all the time. In fact, the opposite is actually true as far as joint health is concerned. A healthy joint should have movement in it. Lack of movement in a joint can lead to scar tissue and calcium build up which can cause osteoarthritis. Our spine is made up of many vertebrae which help protect our spinal cord. We have 7 vertebrae in the neck (cervical spine), 12 vertebrae in the upper back (thoracic spine), and 5 vertebrae in the low back (lumbar spine) . The joints that connect these vertebrae (facet/zygapophysial joints) are what allow our spine to move and twist. Sometimes, through injury, repetitive movement, bad posture, or general daily activities, a vertebrae can become stuck out of the normal position (known as a subluxation). Most of the time, this causes no pain or symptoms. However, it can cause a pinched nerve, muscle tightness, scar tissue, calcification, and can put pressure on the intervertebral disc. Therefore, by helping to correct the positioning of the vertebrae, it can help reduce the symptoms by addressing the problem...

Welcome to a chiropractic manipulation. You may also have heard it called a chiropractic adjustment or "crack". After finding the "subluxations" in your spine, a chiropractor then uses a gentle hands-on approach to help reposition the vertebrae and take pressure off of the surrounding nerves and soft tissue. Yes, it does make a "cracking" noise, but that is just gas bubbles being released from the normal fluid that allows your joints to move. Someone with arthritis in the spine usually doesn't get that "cracking" sound because the fluid and mobility in the joint has been lost. Keeping the joints healthy and mobile is very important to keeping your entire spine and you healthy!

BTW, feel free to continue to use the cracking the knuckles story with your kids, but just as cracking your knuckles is safe, so is chiropractic care for you and your kids!!

Here is a good link to let you get a good visual of the anatomy and function of the spine...http://images.chiromatrixbase.com/3d_spine_simulator/nerve_chart/index.htm.

As always, I love to read comments, so please feel free to leave a comment, question, topic for another discussion, chiropractic experience, or just to say hello!

Happy Weekend!

Live well.

What to Expect...

In my last post, I gave you a general idea of why you would go to a chiropractic physician. Now, I want to let you know what to expect on your first visit. There are many different types of treatment styles used by chiropractic physicians, so my approach to a patient may be different from another chiropractor. When a new patient comes to my office, I spend a lot of time talking with them not only about the history and description of their present symptoms, but I also like to get information about about their general lifestyle as far as diet, sleep, stress, exercise, etc. Usually after talking with the patient, I have a pretty good idea of the different things that could be causing the symptoms. I then put the patient through a very non-invasive exam (looking at posture, orthopedic tests, muscle testing, reflexes, range of motion, etc.) to help determine the most likely cause of the symptoms and give a diagnosis. Getting the correct diagnosis is very important since we want to treat the cause (spinal disc, nerve, muscle, vertebrae, tendon, ligament, diet, etc.) and not the symptoms. A variety of therapies can then be used to help the patient start to fix the problem (chiropractic manipulation, acupuncture, ultrasound, massage therapy, nutrition, diet modification, at-home exercises, etc.). If I feel the patient would not respond well to chiropractic care, I give them as many options as I feel necessary to help them find a way to fix the problem. Every patient's case is unique, so the treament approach to each person is based on how they will respond best!

Have a great week!!

GO CUBS!!!!

Don't Hit the Snooze on that Alarm!!

If you have never had chiropractic treatment, but have always been curious about how it might help you...this and the next few blogs are just for you!
Chiropractic medicine is based on the principle of allowing the body to heal itself. Whether it's a headache, low back pain, neck pain, stomach aches, fatigue, numbness or tingling, or any other symptoms, we all experience discomfort from time to time. Sure we can take something for the pain and it might make us feel better, but what usually happens? The symptoms come back and we take something more for the pain! But what exactly is causing these symptoms? As much as we don't like having discomfort, these symptoms are our body's alarm system telling us that something is just not right. I am by no means downplaying the role and effectiveness of medications in fighting chronic disease, but I do feel that we, as a society, tend to turn to the quick fix without first considering all our options. That's where chiropractic medicine might be able to help you.

As chiropractic physicians, with a thorough consultation and examination, we try to determine the cause of the discomfort and then work with you to help fix the problem. I always tell new patients that I will do everything I can to help them get out of pain, but the ultimate goal is to keep the pain from coming back! A good analogy to this is having a leaky roof. You can put a bucket (medicine) under the leak (symptoms) and your floor isn't going to get wet (you feel better), but what about the big hole in your roof (cause of the symptoms)?!!

To be continued with discussion about chiropractic treatment, chiropractic myths vs. reality, and more fun stuff!

As always, please feel free to leave a comment and/or question and I will be sure to get back to you.

Live Well.