November is “Senior’s Month” at Synergy Chiropractic!

Chiropractic care is vitally important for the senior population. Many seniors begin to reduce their physical activity and ‘slow down’ as they age. This can prove to have a drastic effect on their quality of life.

For instance, a loss of hip mobility (specifically internal rotation) is the number one cause of falls and hip fractures in the senior population. Worse yet, hip fractures are associated with higher rates or morbidity in this population.

Having a zeal for life and the physical capabilities opens up possibilities for people. this month, we wanted to share our Patient of the Month – Linda Wood. Linda came to us in tears and agony. She had been struggling with unrelenting sciatica. Being a very active person, it had started to take it’s toll on her physically, mentally and emotionally.

Here she describes in her own words, how chiropractic helped her to regain her function and get back to living the life she wanted:

Living Life fully!

“I have always felt that it was important to keep moving in order to be able to move. However, in December 2016 I had a rude awakening! I got out of bed and could not support my body weight. What was happening!?! I went to the doctor and discovered that I had sciatica. One of my first questions was “when does it go away?” I just wanted to continue with normal life. Not so easy! I took pain medication, went to physiotherapy and tried acupuncture to relieve the pain. Someone suggested a chiropractor. I did both. Once the pain was under control, the chiropractic adjustments helped me maintain my ability to move.

This was the conversation I had most recently with a patient of mine.  She had recently taken her kid to see his pediatrician.  Later that morning she cancelled all of his future appointments. 

Frustrated.  Angry.  Disappointed. 

These are the emotions that I felt initially.  How could a physician who has NO formal training in the chiropractic profession determine whether or not our mutual patient can or cannot receive chiropractic care?  If I have no formal training in prescribing medication, how could I possibly tell someone which ones they need?  Which ones they don’t?   

The answer is I DON’T. 

Like most things, when I encounter a challenge, I turn inward and ask how does this serve me to learn from?  I realized quickly that the pediatrician probably thinks that chiropractic adjustments are a ‘once size fits all’ approach.  That the same type of traditional manual adjustments are the only tool in the chiropractor’s toolkit.  That adjusting a child is akin to a ninja movie, whereby someone violently turns someone’s head.  

Not true.

Just this week our office saw two beautiful babies and their families get their lives back. The first one had colic so bad that she cried relentlessly day and night. Her dad would come home to both his wife and daughter balling and exhausted. Not the kind of warm welcome home he had hoped for. The second child had been having severe constipation problems and was miserable and always fighting colds. Both were seen by specialists and told “No one can help”. Well, I guess I’ m Dr “No One”. Even after her first visit the first child napped for four hours and slept through the night.  This child will avoid the “Perfect Storm”.

In my 13 years as a practicing chiropractor and having checked and adjusted thousands of kids, I’ve found that over 90% of the kids have had injury or damage to the cranium or spinal column from in-utero constraint or a traumatic birth injury that was never addressed and corrected. Research from Germany and many more have also shown that the first subluxation occurs either during the birth process or even before. This means these kids are starting off with compromised neurological and immune systems.

Chiropractic is not a treatment for asthma but many patients report having less symptoms after starting care.

What is it and what causes the Perfect Storm?

The Perfect Storm is the collective result of numerous physical, chemical and mental/emotional insults to the integrity of the nervous system.  The accumulation of stress causes the body to be forced into a fight or flight state.  In this state, the body operates in survival mode.  In survival mode, some of the hallmark physiological responses are: higher inflammation levels, hyper-vigilance, decreased immune function, and sleep disturbances.

Subluxation, simply put, is when any of the bones in the vertebral column shift or gets stuck in an improper position and alignment (structure).  This leads to abnormal motion and movement…these two factors then lead to a change in the nerve signals and into the central nerve system (for those that are nerdy like me: spinal cord-brainstem-cerebellum-thalamus-higher brain centers and cortex).  This loss of positioning and movement leads to a loss of regular proper healthy signals, and increases stress in the nerve system forcing the adaptive fight or flight state.

Let’s walk through it in detail…

This subluxation is often caused by the positioning required for even normal, natural, vaginal deliveries… and is greatly magnified in its effect from breech positioning, long labor, suction/vacuum extraction, forceps, and cesarean deliveries. All of these situations put an excessive amount of physical force on the head, neck, and spine and lead to subluxation (by altering structure and movement/kinesiology)… that in turn causes neurological sequelae.Both of these two kids were born via forceps.

Many kids have troubles with their ears in the early years. This subluxation complex also causes imbalances in the musculature of the upper cervical spine and surrounding tissues, greatly affecting the function and movement of the eustachian tubes, sinuses, adenoids, etc.  Not only does it alter neurological function, it alters the flow of lymph, mucus, and other fluids in and “out of” the head and ENT-type structures. This fluid is then allowed to “sit” for too long in these areas, thus harboring opportunistic ‘ bugs’ that can then take hold and replicate… then in turn causing infection, inflammation, and irritation. It is not that the eustachian tubes are horizontal at that age… that does not “help” the situation, but it is not the primary cause of ear infections at all.

These children are then continually challenged when the antibiotic prescribed for the ear infection, eliminates and lessens the beneficial bacteria of the gut and colon, thus causing poor regulation of the immune system and leaving them susceptible to recurrent infection. Not only does this affect their immune system, but also their digestive system as well. Now they cannot process and eliminate food stuffs and toxins near as well, and this leads to a further “spilling over” effect of these into the bloodstream… which causes further immune reaction and inflammation and can begin the autoimmune cascade that may be linked to things such as allergies, asthma, eczema, and even ADHD later in life.

What is more, the upper cervical subluxation greatly effects the neurological control of the central nervous system, especially brainstem and other centers that are important for neurological “info relay” and autonomic control of tissues, organs, and glands. The subluxation, along with other factors, leaves their autonomic system in a highly sustained stressed sympathetic state (fight/flight) which as you know is associated with lowered immunity, hyperactivity, anxiety, social challenges, decreased GI function (reflux, dyspepsia, constipation), and more.In the case of these two kids, their upper cervical areas were subluxated causing both of them to be unable to calm their nerve systems down.

The result? They can’ t poop and can’t calm.

Chiropractic for kids is safe, gentle and effective

There is help and there is hope

Pediatric chiropractors such as myself are also highly trained in nutrition and supplementation. I won’ t go into the details here, but another major contributor to things such as otitis media, ADD/ADHD, colic, allergies, eczema, and asthma is a diet high in grains and dairy. The proteins and sugars in these foods are very difficult to digest and again lead to a strained and inflamed GI system, which spills into the bloodstream and causes and autoimmune reaction. Cleaning up a kids diet and getting him on the right supplements goes a long way to treating, and most importantly, preventing these issues.

Left un-aided, these kids end up on the merry-go-round and eventually develop a lifetime of health challenges. While medications may treat the symptoms, the child is left subluxated only to continue have challenges that remained masked. The Perfect Storm is the result – the build up to significant ‘ unexplained’ health issues.Through safe, gentle, low-force scientific and specific chiropractic adjustments, we were able to help these little ones just BE. For that, I am honored.

To learn more about the Perfect Storm and the effects on today’s children with respect wait ADHD and Sensory Integration Challenges, join me for a webinar August 22, 2017 at 7pm called “FOCUS; ADHD”

To register: Go HERE!

Seems like Spring has taken forever to get here, but it has arrived and that means lawn maintenance.

On any given Saturday morning, you can hear the buzz of a lawnmower outside.  People are planting their gardens and busy landscaping their yards.  It’s great to see all the kids playing out on the street and in the fields.  After a long winter it’s certainly a welcomed change.

I’m busy trying to get my lawn in shape for the summer.  The grubs took their toll on it last

Healthy Lawn Requires Certain Things

year and now I’ve got dead spots scattered all over.  So I’m doing the top soil and grass seed thing.  I’ve become “that guy” who has neon pink ribbons around his lawn to keep the kids off.  Actually, I’m a harbinger of sorts it seems…three others on the street have followed suit.

The whole process got me thinking about the similarities of getting a healthy lawn and one’s personal health.  It seems that most anything I look at reminds of health in some way, shape or form.  Have you ever thought about health in terms of your lawn?