Family Chiropractic Clinic, Black Mountain

I just finished listening to a pod cast of an interview between Mike Adams, the Health Ranger and actress, Suzanne Somers regarding her best selling book about alternatives to traditional slash and burn cancer treatment. This was very informative. She mentions the names of doctors around the country who have had success curing terminal cancer without chemo and radiation. Quite wisely she says of course that none of them can guarantee a cure, but one of the doctors has a 60% success rate. I'd be happy with that.

She also has interesting information on mammograms. I have long suspected what she confirms and I am thankful that they have stopped recommending regular exams starting at age 40. I hope they increase the age to 140. I cannot understand how one cures cancer with chemical toxins and radiation. Both are known carcinogens. You "cure" one cancer by giving the patient another cancer? It it madness.

More and more research is discovering the wonderful health benefits of fermented foods. Fermentation is the natural way food was preserved for centuries. Most cultures have their signature fermented foods, German sauerkraut, Korean Kimchi, Bulgarian yogurt, etc. Before refrigeration, it was a way to keep food edible. We now know that fermentation makes the nutrition in foods more bio-available. Fermented foods like yogurt are are a source of beneficial bacteria or probiotics.

If you like yogurt then you might also like kefir. Kefir is like liquid yogurt but the taste is a bit different. Good kefir drinks are wonderful and very refreshing. They too are a good source of probiotics and healthful lactobacilli. These microscopic beneficial organisms produce an abundance of helpful enzymes as well as antibiotic and anticarcinogenic compounds.

If you are drinking raw milk (which is the only form of milk I recommend, see this link) then you might want to try your hand at making your own kefir. We buy several gallons at a time for our family and usually have to freeze some of it. I would rather preserve some of that milk as kefir so I plan to give this a try. The following web site Rebuild from Depression has a lot of really good articles about food and nutrition. They also tell you how to make kefir at home.

Check out the web site and give it a try.
 

Worried about mercury from dental mercury amalgam filings, or cadmium from vaccinations or lead or arsenic or other heavy metals? It is getting harder to avoid toxic heavy metals. They are in the air, water and soil and they add a burden to the body's ability to adapt to stress. When the body loses the ability to adapt to stresses, ones health breaks down and one get sick.

Chiropractic is not just about popping necks and backs. Chiropractic is about living a healthy life by decreasing stresses (physical, mental, environmental) and increasing the body's power to adapt to stress. The chiropractic adjustment is one of the most powerful and rapid ways of accomplishing that goal. However, other stress factors both mental and environmental can quickly reverse the benefits of that adjustment.

If you have a toxic burden in your body that needs to be dealt with before you will be able to enjoy optimum health. Happily there is evidence that adding a simple tasty herb to your diet can help eliminate some of that toxic burden. Cilantro. That is the common name of the coriander plant. The leaves and stems of this parsley-like green herb are used in Mexican, Latin American and Asian cooking. A recent article at http://www.Naturalnews.com cites several resources that say Cilantro helps detox heavy metals.

Here is an interesting technique for stimulating brain function. It's easy and the PET scans show that it really is doing something besides improving your quadriceps muscles.

Follow this link to view video: SuperBrain Yoga

If only it were as easy to find the right chiropractor as it is to find your friends on Facebook. I had a patient this week who drove two and a half hours to come get a treatment. She said that she had tried other chiropractors and an orthopedic surgeon in the large city where she now lives and could not get the results that she received after she had seen me two times, four years ago. She mentioned that the last chiropractor she saw was very dismissive. She tried to explain how I had worked on her and showed him the print out of the Insight computerized spinal test that I had done. He tossed it down and said that he didn't need stuff like that. His hands told him everything that he needed to know. That would have been a red flag to me. She should have picked up her paper and walked out.

Fortunately, most chiropractors are not that way. There are many good chiropractors, but how do you find the best one for you? The best way to find a really good chiropractor is to ask your friends if they see a chiropractor. You want to talk to someone who is very enthusiastic about their doctor. You should be hearing something like, "I've been to lots of chiropractors and this one's the best!" Once you have asked your friends about their chiropractor then ask them, "Is there anything that you don't like about your doctor?" That question should reveal either trivial objections or something that would be a real turn-off for you.

After you have a few names, call the doctor's office. Talk to his assistant. Ask the assistant if she (or he) recommends this doctor to her family and friends? Ask her if she (or he) gets adjusted regularly by the doctor? Ask if you can be nosy? Does she have children and do they see the chiropractor? Positive answers to these questions are a good sign that this chiropractor at least believes in what he is doing and that those who are with him every day do too.

Most chiropractors practice what is called Diversified adjusting. Ask if he uses other techniques? Is he board certified in any specialty, orthopedics, sports medicine, neurology?

Finally, ask who the doctor sees for chiropractic treatment or who the clinic refers patients to when they are on vacation? If you hear the same name come up frequently that is a very good sign. Make an appointment to see that doctor.

Once you meet the doctor and talk to him, see if your personalities are compatible. This is important because over time you will see this doctor a lot more, I hope, than you will ever see your medical doctor. So you will want someone you don't dread seeing.

Look for signs that the doctor listens to you, that he respects your opinion, that he is responsive to your questions. Ask him what kinds of problems he feels that he has the most success treating?

Over all, you should feel comfortable with this doctor and confident that he knows what he is doing. He should be able to tell you in one to two visits what he thinks is wrong with you, how long it should take to fix it and approximately how much it should cost.

If you do this, I hope you can avoid being mistreated like my patient was and that you won't have to drive such a long way to see a good chiropractor.

Thanks to one of my patients, I have been on the Warrior Diet for about a week now. After he told me about it and how much better he felt, I thought that I would look into it. I am always interested in anything that will help people be healthier, naturally. He had often been having severe stomach distress after eating but not after every meal. Ever since being on the diet he no longer has stomach problems and he can occasionally eat some of the foods that affected him the worst without the old symptoms flaring up.

Well, last week I read the the book and got started. During the the day one can eat fruit and vegetables for breakfast. Light and easily digested proteins like cottage cheese, yogurt or boiled eggs are also allowed. So for breakfast I have been having cottage cheese and sliced peaches or a hand full of blueberries. This is a great time of the year to go on this diet because everything is in season now. Some mornings I have had yogurt and fruit. In addition to the yogurt or cottage cheese one can stir in some milk whey protein. The extra protein helps one feel full.

I have also been adding my daily tablespoon of flax oil to the the yogurt or cottage cheese. Doing it this way helps me remember to take it. It also tastes good this way or rather I really don't taste the oil at all when it is mixed in. According to Dr. Johanna Budwig, this combination may actually impart an anti-cancer benefit. Her research indicates that seriously ill cancer patients are low in phosphatides and lipoproteins. Fortunately, they are easily replaced by the cottage cheese and flax oil combination but these must be eaten together to be effective. Dr. Budwig reports that in combining the two one triggers the properties of the other making these nutrients available to the system.

I had some doubts about what I would actually eat and whether or not I would actually feel like I was starving all day only eating rabbit food. Somehow the thought of gnawing raw carrots and celery sticks every day was none too charming. I was happy to find that there are lots of raw food recipe web sites out there with tons of raw food recipes. I had never even heard of raw foodists. I knew about vegetarians and vegans but here was an entirely new sub-group. New to me at least. They are passionate about their food choice.

My wife has joined me in this new diet and we are gradually getting accustomed to the new menu. For instance, this afternoon for lunch I had a hard boiled egg. When I asked what vegetables we had, she brought out a big round green thing with antennae sticking out of it. She said, "It's a kohlrabi. My mom says it's good raw." I am sure that she did not miss my dubious expression. While she sliced the thing, I went to the internet for helpful ideas.

Actually there was a lot of good information about this unusual cousin of cabbage. Armed with inspiration about new ways to eat raw food, I fixed a salad of diced kohlrabi, diced onions, a little mayonnaise and Dijon mustard, salt, pepper, a drizzle of olive oil, some roasted sunflower seeds and raisins for a little sweetness. Wow, for something thrown together it was great. I'm going to make that again.

One of the best features about this diet is also probably the most controversial. For supper one can eat pretty much whatever one wants and as much as one wants until he's full. Can you beat that? I don't think so. It goes against what we have all heard as standard dietary advice. Advice, I might point out, that has not succeeded in making anyone skinnier. Hofmekler bases his diet on ancient eating patterns particularly the Spartans and Romans, hence the title.

So far I have actually enjoyed this diet. I lost four pounds last week and hope to lose more. I don't really feel bad but who wouldn't want to feel better? I will see if there are other changes. There are two fundamentals I have been looking for in a diet. The number one question is, does it work? Well, it seems to be working for my friend and his wife who introduced me to it. It also seems to be helping a patient whom I told about the diet three weeks ago. I just gave him the basic outline, viz, raw fruits and vegetables in the day and whatever you want at night. He got the extremely simplified version, but he took my advice and today he came in for an adjustment saying how much better he felt. He was very excited and thankful for the advice.

The second question is, can you stay on this diet forever. I think that the answer is yes to this also. The worst thing about most diets is that they are unsustainable. They are boring or hard to do or tasteless or weird or unbalanced and eventually one just wants to eat some normal food. On this diet one can. Only one must wait until supper.

Fresh raw foods, live active enzymes, essential fats whole food vitamins, detoxing the body during each day, an alkalizing diet this diet has all of that going for it. If you are part of the 66 percent of American who are overweight, I would highly recommend that you get the book and try it.

This comes from the American Association for Health Freedom

Statin Drugs vs. Red Yeast Rice A newly published, randomized–controlled trial has concluded that a natural supplement, red yeast rice, had significant cholesterol-lowering properties. This is important news for those who cannot take (or would prefer not to take) statin drugs because of the medication’s side effects.

As previously discussed in Pulse of Health Freedom, statin drugs have been oversold to physicians and patients alike, with little risk-to-benefit ratio analysis. The compliance record for statin drugs remains poor because of the numerous side effects associated with their use. Beatrice Golomb, MD, PhD, at www.statineffects.com and Duane Graveline, MD, at www.spacedoc.net have both documented statin side effects ranging from muscle fatigue and complete muscle shutdown to increased risk of heart failure and loss of memory—and a long list of other reactions as well. While it is important not to ignore blood lipids, the idea that (read the rest of the article here.)

Why did not someone tell me that your neck could cause headache?

That was the question that my Russian patient asked me after about his tenth visit. This patient, whom I’ll call Ivan, was referred to my clinic with a complaint of chronic headache of ten years duration. He had never experienced relief from this constant pain in the back of his neck and head. Ibuprofen only took the edge off but it never went away.

“I feel blah all the time,” Ivan told me in his charming Russian accent. “I can do nothing. I come home. I can’t play with my children. I go to vacation. I don’t want to go out. Everything I do makes it hurt worse.”

Ivan had been through the medical gamut several times already. You know the drill, MRI’s, CT scans, blood tests, trial medications, etc. All to no avail. Nothing had helped, but at least he had ruled out some alternative reasons for his head pain. It was fair to say that the headaches were not coming from a brain tumor or infection.

I found when I examined him that the joints of the upper neck were malfunctioning, what chiropractic calls subluxations. This malfunction was causing irritation to the nerves and spasm of the neck muscles. This in turn was giving Ivan the headache from Hades that just would not go away. The irritated nerves and tender muscle bundles were referring pain to his head and possibly causing a reduction in blood flow to the brain.

The exam findings indicated that he was suffering from cervicogenic headache, or a headache that is caused by problems in the neck. Duke University studied the results of various conventional and alternative treatments for this condition. They concluded that chiropractic is a viable treatment alternative that lacks the harmful and sometimes fatal side effects of conventional treatments when it comes to managing tension and cervicogenic headache patients.

Two significant findings were:

Manipulation appeared to result in immediate improvement in headache severity when used to treat episodes of cervicogenic headache when compared with an attention-placebo control. Furthermore, when compared to soft-tissue therapies (massage), a course of manipulation treatments resulted in sustained improvement in headache frequency and severity

and:

In another trial conducted among patients with tension-type headache, amitriptyline was significantly better than manipulation at reducing headache severity during the 6-week treatment period; there was no significant difference between the two treatments for headache frequency during the same period. Interpretation of these results is difficult because all patients received the same relatively low dose of amitriptyline (30 mg). Despite the uniform and relatively low dose of amitriptyline, however, adverse effects were much more common with amitriptyline (82% of patients) than with manipulation (4%). During the 4-week period after both treatments ceased, patients who had received manipulation were significantly better than those who had taken amitriptyline for both headache frequency and severity. Although amitriptyline is usually continued for longer than 6 weeks, the return to near-baseline values for headache outcomes in this group contrasts with a sustained reduction in headache frequency and severity in those who had received manipulation. [emphasis added]

Compared to other physical treatment methods (including physiotherapy, acupuncture, and electrical stimulation), the evidence supporting chiropractic appears to be more robust. Consequently, this report is an invaluable resource for documenting chiropractic practice to practitioners in other health care professions, the public, and third-party payers.

Excerpted from: Evidence Report: Behavioral and Physical Treatments for Tension-type and Cervicogenic Headache Duke University Evidence-based Practice Center, Center for Clinical Health Policy Research. This report is available exclusively from FCER. To order your copy, please call 800-622-6309. Evidence Report is available for $39 for non-FCER members, $35 for current members (plus shipping and handling). The Executive Summary of this report is available www.fcer.org.

Happily for Ivan, he was helped by the first adjustment. He returned the next day for a report of my findings and a second adjustment. When I asked him how he was feeling he said that his pain had gone from a 9 out of 10 to a 2 out of 10 level of pain. By the tenth adjustment he said, “I cannot believe that I could feel this good!” He continued to improve.

I saw him once a week over the next two months. At his last visit, he turned as was walking out the door to say, “Thank you Doctor, you have saved my life.” A doctor cannot get a better compliment.

Ivan is a living example of what the Duke study found. It has been almost four years since he came to see me. I called recently to check on him and he says that he is still doing well and has not had any more trouble with headaches.

With spring temperatures rising also comes the rise of little springy things called fleas. Flea shampoos are often used to control fleas but a recent study[1] has found that mothers of autistic children were twice as likely to have washed their pet dog with pyrethrin containing anti-flea shampoo during the months prior to delivery.

Of course these findings only demonstrates a correlation, they do not prove a cause. Pyrethrins are naturally occurring compounds that are derived from Chrysanthemums. Pyrethroids are the synthetic version. They are both neurotoxins that over excite nerve cells and cause death in insects. Be careful if you use them. While they are toxic to pest insects, they are also toxic to fish and tadpoles and beneficial insects like bees. But, because they work well and are low in toxicity to humans, birds and mammals they are have largely replaced other pesticides like organophosphones for flea control.

They rapidly break down outdoors in sunlight, which is another favorable quality of pyrethrins. But, they can persist indoors on floors and carpets and on the coats of indoor pets treated with pyrethrin containing flea shampoos. This increases human exposure to this chemical and could explain why household pyrethrin use is correlated to increased findings of autism spectrum disorder.

What to do?

Of course, no one wants to suffer a flea infestation or see ones pets suffering. There are natural alternatives to pyrethrins. One such alternative is to kill the fleas before they get in the house. This can be accomplished by using beneficial nematodes. These are microscopic little round worms that feed off of fleas, grubs, cutworms and other garden pests.

Mr. Julian Biller of the Master Gardener program of the Buncombe County Cooperative Extension says that they are available through the Internet, “If you Google ‘beneficial nematodes’ you will be amazed at how many places there are where you can order them online.” He also said that they were available locally from Asheville Agricultural Systems, 45 Banks Ave., 253-4112. They will order them fresh because they are live organisms that must be kept refrigerated until used.

Be sure to follow the recommended procedures for best results. The outdoor conditions must be right. As opposed to just spraying a lot of chemicals around, one will need to take a little more care when applying nematodes to the lawn and garden.

Also, check the pet’s bedding. Most fleas are hiding in the pets environment. For each flea one finds in the fur there may be 30 fleas in your home. Keep the bedding clean

Be careful of “natural” flea treatments. They may be natural but harmful to your pet. D'Limonene, a derivative of natural citrus peels and found in many natural anti-flea products, can be highly toxic to cats. Other essential oils may cause problems especially to cats. There are some reports that cats’ systems are unable to break the oils down properly. Other reports, however, say that the purity of the oils is the problem. If one uses any product that causes persistent scratching, red or irritated skin or hair loss, discontinue the treatment and wash the effected area with soap to remove any remaining oils. If problems persist see your veterinarian.

For further advice on natural alternatives for flea control check out the following web site:
http://www.eartheasy.com/article_natural_flea_control.htm

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[1] 7th Annual International Meeting for Autism Research: Oral Presentation 113.4; Invited Educational Symposium 140.5. May 15-17, 2008.

I was interested in the knowing just how many people die from the flu each year. So I went to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website to find out. I picked a recent year, 2006-2007 just to get an idea. In that year, according to the CDC, there were 9 flu related deaths in the 2006-2007 flu season in children ages 3 months to 14 years. These of course are not just statistics. These are nine personal tragedies for the families involved.

It then occurred to me to wonder just how many children during the same time may have died from vaccination itself rather than from the disease that it was supposed to prevent? Fortunately, the United States Government has set up a reporting system for people who after receiving an inoculation experience an “adverse” effect. Death of course being the most adverse effect possible one would suppose. When one visits the VAERS website they have one agree that he understands that this is a passive reporting system before access to the data is granted. They provide this caveat:


Fine.

I entered the parameters of children less than six months to 17 years old who reported death as the adverse event related to receiving a flu vaccination. I queried the database and retrieved this report:

VAERS Results Form

http://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/datarequest/D8

Age	Serious	Count	Percent (of 108)
< 6 Months	Serious	81	75.00%
	Total	81	75.00%
6-11 Months	Serious	16	14.81%
	Total	16	14.81%
1-2 Years	Serious	10	9.26%
	Total	10	9.26%
6-17 Years	Serious	3	2.78%
	Total	3	2.78%
Total		Suppressed	Suppressed

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This chart shows that in 2007 there were 108 VAERS reported deaths following a flu shot. Now, lets say half of the reports were wrong. Lets say only 54 teenagers and children (75% were younger than 6 months) died from the vaccine. Another problem with trying to compare data is that one set of data is for 2006-2007 and the other is for 2007. So let’s say that half of those deaths were for the first part of 2007. That would still be 27. Being very conservative with the reported figures, that would mean that it one would be 3 times more likely to die from the flu shot as from the flu itself. All other things being equal, I think that I will take my chances with the flu and not risk death or paralysis from a vaccine.