I recently wrote an article for LiveStrong about migraines, in particular, what some common causes are in men. If you or someone you know really suffer from headaches and migraines, upper cervical chiropractic may be their answer.
Check out the article here.
Today is AIDS Awareness Day. Most people know that there is a huge crisis occuring throughout the world in the way that AIDs is affecting more people than ever before. The picture above is a pictoral map showing how AIDS affects various countries, and the degree at which it does. Here are some stats to keep in mind:
These are absolutely crazy numbers, and as you start to prepare yourself for the Holiday Season don’t forget that there are people out there that are a little less fortunate than you. So take a few minutes to think about what you could do, today, to support some of those people.
There are 100’s if not 1000’s of organizations that are stepping up this season to make a difference. If you have an organization you are already a part of, great. Make another donation or service today. If you are looking for an organization to be a part of, consider this one: Children’s Medical Mission West. It’s a great organization that I have been a part of for several years, and the woman that runs it has a true heart for helping children.
One less gift this Christmas season can go a long way for someone else. What are you willing to give up to help someone else?
Sickness is the vengeance of nature for the violation of her laws. ~Charles Simmons
She’s always fair- and you always get what you deserve.
A recent study linked obesity and fitness levels with systemic inflammation in the body. The study looked at increases in certain types of white blood cells that are linked to inflammation in the body. It is known that this type of systemic inflammation in the body plays a significant role in heart disease, cancer, fibromyalgia, and other chronic conditions.
The researchers measured the number of white blood cells, fitness levels, and fatness of over 450 non-smoking men. They concluded that the healthier, more fit, and less fat the men were, the more normal their levels of white blood cells. The higher these levels were, the higher the white blood cells which indicates some kind of chronic infection.
Although there are risk factors that some people can’t modify for these chronic conditions; fitness and fatness are two that you definitely can modify. Running goes a long way in preventing both of these factors, especially if done on a consistent basis. As you gear up for the Holidays, grab a partner and start hitting the streets again. Not only will it reduce stress, but also increase fitness and decrease fatness!
Let me know your thoughts.
This is your official invitation to come and join the office on either Nov. 18th or Nov. 20th for a great dinner. We want to spent the evening with our favorite patients and treat you to dinner. We will be dining at the Desert Fire at the Redmond Town Center. The price of admission is a guest that would be interested in looking into Blair Chiropractic.
Dinner will start 7:30 and we will start with a short presentation about our office and chiropractic, then let the feasting begin! There is no limit to the number of guests you can bring, and there are only 40 spots available for each night. This is a once a year event and very popular, so be sure to call Angela soon at 425-820-8837 to RSVP you and your guest’s spot TODAY!
I started this blog with the intent of making it a resource center for people interested in taking their chiropractic care and health to the next level- but it has quickly evolved into something much bigger. Through the process of putting it together and everyone’s input – I’ve come to realize people are really searching for a way to connect and communicate about their health, as well as a way to share their new insights with others.
Many of you may be very familiar with what blogs are and how they work, but in case you’re not- here are some pointers in how to utilize this site to your best benefit.
1. The best way to stay connected to updates is to subscribe to this feed. In the upper left hand corner of the Home Page is an orange button. If you click on it- and follow the directions, it will let you know when I post a new article. I would also recommend getting a Google Reader- and when you subscribe to other blogs it lets you see the newest ones.
2. Connect and give some feedback! Please leave comments about the articles letting everyone know what you thought about it, and especially if you have more information or a better resource about the topic. Also let me if there is something that you want to know more about, and if you are intereseted in writing a post in a field you know a lot about, let me know, I would love to have some guests here.
3. Share! I put the exercises on Worksite Resources for 2 reasons: one is that I wanted to make it accessible to you while you were at work because a lot of the excercises you can do at your desk, AND should be doing at your desk. The second reason is that I want you to be able to share this information with your co-workers. You can probably name 5 people off the top of your head that you work with that are under a ton of stress and need to take some breaks throughout the day also. Share this information with them. They need to be healthy too!
As an aside, I’m going to have videos up off all the exercises under the Podcast Tab at the top. This way you can log on and watch the video at work to do the exercise or download them to your ipod and watch them wherever you go.
Welcome to the Movement- Take control of Your Health!
September is National Cholesterol Month. Running is a great way to lower cholesterol as we’ll talk about later, but first here are some facts and figures that you need to know about cholesterol.
First, cholesterol isn’t completely bad. Most people know there are two types of cholesterol; HDL (good) and LDL (bad) cholesterol. There is actually no such thing as good or bad cholesterol. Both of these are vitally important to different functions in your body and bringing your LDL levels too low is actually not healthy for you. BOTH HDL and LDL are proteins that transport cholesterols from tissue to tissue. Your body also can’t make a majority of the hormones it needs like testosterone or estrogen without cholesterol. Even more importantly, it can’t make new cell membranes without cholesterol. So the main reason you have cholesterol in the first place is to repair and replace old damaged tissues and cells.
Yea, but I have high cholesterol so I need to take drugs to lower it right? Not necessarily. First of all, before 2004, 130-mg LDL was considered healthy. Since then, the U.S. government’s National Cholesterol Education Program has started to advise those who are at risk for heart disease to lower their LDL’s to as low as possible(70-100). I don’t want to get into the politics of how this opened up a much larger of number of the population that now was at risk and needed drugs but the numbers are truly astounding.
Dr. Mercola, a prominent medical doctor, states that it is very RARE for anyone to need a cholesterol lowering drug. In fact, he says that of the 20,000+ patients that have come to him only 4 or 5 have actually needed cholesterol lowering drugs, as they had genetic challenges that had required it.
On his website he reports that statin drugs can actually increase your risk of heart disease because they lower the amount of Coenzyme Q10 (Co-Q10). This leads to weakness, muscle aches, increase cancer risk, and immune system suppression.
Many times, a person’s cholesterol is increased because arteries are being damaged and your body is trying to repair them by sending cholesterol to the areas. The real problem is instead too much sugar in the bloodstream and inflammation in the body.
So this month, remember, the best way to lower cholesterol isn’t to take drugs. It’s to change your lifestyle. And part of that lifestyle change is to get out there and run. Running is a great way to relieve all kinds of stress, regulate blood sugar, and reduce this chronic inflammation in the body.
Set a goal, and start a running program today. If you want your gait analyzed before you do, let us know, I have a great deal going on right now. 425-820-7088
I’ve been having a lot of people ask me lately about the scans that we do in our office, so I figured I would shed some light on the subject since this is the main thing that sets up apart from physical therapists, massage therapists and most other chiropractors.
The scans that we do in the office are called Infared Thermography. It measures the blood vessels just underneath the skin which are directly controlled by the nervous system. So if there is an imbalance in the way your nerves are firing, it shows up on the scan as unbalanced.
This is important because your body should constantly be adapting to the environment around it, and when we see that it’s stuck in a certain pattern of not adapting, that’s when we know that you need to be adjusted. This is also why we don’t adjust every patient on every visit. The less we have to adjust you, the better your nervous system is doing to adapting to the environment.
There is virtually no way to tell if there is an imbalance in your nervous system without using some type of objective device like this. You cannot tell the nervous system is out of balance just by feeling the body.
Because the nervous system controls EVERY single organ, tissue and cell in the body it is VITALLY important that you get your nervous system monitored. We know from research as well as experience that when the nervous system gets balanced out the communication is restored from the brain down to the rest of the body. The nerves getting turned on again is like a flood-gate opening. Your body not only starts to heal the current injuries and problems but over time goes back and fixes old chronic ones as well.
There is NO other system in the body like the nervous system and your body CANNOT do anything without it. Upper Cervical Chiropractors are the only doctors trained to use this type of thermography and you don’t want anyone guessing when it comes to your body.
If I eat the snack size bag or bar, it’s okay because it’s less calories. Right? This is true, but according to a recent study published by the Journal of Consumer Research this could spell trouble for chronic dieters. They reported that people who are continually dieting tend to eat more junk food because they eat more of the snack size portions of these junk foods. They underestimate the number of calories they are still consuming, and they think because it’s in a small package that it’s a diet food.
Junk food in a smaller package is still junk food and not the type of calories that you want to be consuming for energy and fuel. If you constantly searching for the next new great diet, I encourage you to talk with a nutritionist or someone to help you develope a plan.
