Chiropractic Tips for overcoming Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS)

Millions of women are affected each and every month from symptoms of PMS – premenstrual syndrome – and other related menstrual health issues. Unfortunately, many women believe it’s normal to live with the pain, bloating, nausea, and headaches that can accompany PMS. The stress, discomfort, and inability to function comfortably do not have to be accepted as a natural part of life. There are several ways to treat these symptoms, one of which is through a preventative wellness based approach using Chiropractic care.

Spinal nerves affect all parts of the body, including those responsible for the menstrual cycle and menopause. Women who are affected by PMS may have subluxations or dysfunction in the nerves of the lower back or lumbar spine. The lumbar nerves support the uterus and ovaries and when those nerves are irritated, the pain and discomfort are felt in the female reproductive organs.

Doctors of chiropractic help maintain a healthy relationship between nerves and the female reproductive organs by opening the nerve supply from the spine. Chiropractors correct the vertebral subluxations that can lead to reduced function and symptoms of PMS. Some of the problems experienced during PMS and menopause can even be eliminated with regular visits to a chiropractor.

For years, women have been using over-the-counter medication to alleviate the symptoms and ease the pain endured during PMS and menopause. Receiving chiropractic spinal adjustments can decrease these symptoms using a healthy, natural, and holistic approach.

Here are a few helpful tips on how you can reduce the symptoms of PMS

• Research has proven that you can reduce up to almost half of all symptoms (including mood swings, depression, and menstrual cramps) of PMS by simply consuming 1200 mg of calcium daily.

• One of the best ways to reduce PMS is through regular exercise. Not only does exercise reduce, or sometimes eliminate premenstrual syndrome, it also is an excellent way to reduce stress and lower your risk of diseases including heart disease and cancer.

• Women who experience premenstrual breast tenderness can reduce or eliminate this symptom by taking 600 IU of Vitamin E daily.

• Dietary changes that may help reduce the symptoms of PMS include following a low-fat vegetarian diet, and/ or reducing your intake of refined sugar, salt, red meat, alcohol, and caffeine.

• Women who crave sugar during the days they experience premenstrual symptoms often find relief by supplementing their diet with 300 to 500 mg of magnesium. Magnesium also may help reduce breast tenderness.

• Alternative treatments that may be helpful include taking about 1500 mg of Primrose oil daily, or using natural progesterone cream (amount varies by product).

Remember, a healthy spine and nervous system are essential for the health of not only the female reproductive system, but for overall health and wellness. It is vital that women have routine spinal check-ups from a doctor of chiropractic

Is Sinus Pressure and Watering, Itching Eyes Keeping You From Enjoying the Outdoors?

Early diagnosis has become one of the most fundamental precepts of modern medicine. It goes something like this: The best way to keep people healthy is to find out if they have (pick one) heart disease, autism, glaucoma, diabetes, vascular problems, osteoporosis or, of course, cancer — early. And the way to find these conditions early is through screening.

It is a precept that resonates with the intuition of the general public: obviously it’s better to catch and deal with problems as soon as possible. A study published with much fanfare in The New England Journal of Medicine last week contained what researchers called the best evidence yet that colonoscopies reduce deaths from colon cancer.

Recently, however, there have been rumblings within the medical profession that suggest that the enthusiasm for early diagnosis may be waning. Most prominent are recommendations against prostate cancer screening for healthy men and for reducing the frequency of breast and cervical cancer screening. Some experts even cautioned against the recent colonoscopy results, pointing out that the study participants were probably much healthier than the general population, which would make them less likely to die of colon cancer. In addition there is a concern about too much detection and treatment of early diabetes, a growing appreciation that autism has been too broadly defined and skepticism toward new guidelines for universal cholesterol screening of children.

The basic strategy behind early diagnosis is to encourage the well to get examined — to determine if they are not, in fact, sick. But is looking hard for things to be wrong a good way to promote health? The truth is, the fastest way to get heart disease, autism, glaucoma, diabetes, vascular problems, osteoporosis or cancer ... is to be screened for it. In other words, the problem is overdiagnosis and overtreatment.

Screening the apparently healthy potentially saves a few lives (although the National Cancer Institute couldn’t find any evidence for this in its recent large studies of prostate and ovarian cancer screening). But it definitely drags many others into the system needlessly — into needless appointments, needless tests, needless drugs and needless operations (not to mention all the accompanying needless insurance forms).

This process doesn’t promote health; it promotes disease. People suffer from more anxiety about their health, from drug side effects, from complications of surgery. A few die. And remember: these people felt fine when they entered the health care system.

It wasn’t always like this. In the past, doctors made diagnoses and initiated therapy only in patients who were experiencing problems. Of course, we still do that today. But increasingly we also operate under the early diagnosis precept: seeking diagnosis and initiating therapy in people who are not experiencing problems. That’s a huge change in approach, from one that focused on the sick to one that focuses on the well.

Think about it this way: in the past, you went to the doctor because you had a problem and you wanted to learn what to do about it. Now you go to the doctor because you want to stay well and you learn instead that you have a problem.

How did we get here? Or perhaps, more to the point: Who is to blame? One answer is the health care industry: By turning people into patients, screening makes a lot of money for pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and doctors. The chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society once pointed out that his hospital could make around $5,000 from each free prostate cancer screening, thanks to the ensuing biopsies, treatments and follow-up care.

A more glib response to the question of blame is: Richard Nixon. It was Nixon who said, “we need to work out a system that includes a greater emphasis on preventive care.” Preventive care was central to his administration’s promotion of health maintenance organizations and the war on cancer. But because the promotion of genuine health — largely dependent upon a healthy diet, exercise and not smoking — did not fit well in the biomedical culture, preventive care was transformed into a high-tech search for early disease.

Some doctors have long recognized that the approach is a distraction for the medical community. It’s easier to transform people into new patients than it is to treat the truly sick. It’s easier to develop new ways of testing than it is to develop better treatments. And it’s a lot easier to measure how many healthy people get tested than it is to determine how well doctors manage the chronically ill.

But the precept of early diagnosis was too intuitive, too appealing, too hard to challenge and too easy to support. The rumblings show that that’s beginning to change.

Let me be clear: early diagnosis is not always wrong. Doctors would rather see patients early in the course of their heart attack than wait until they develop low blood pressure and an irregular heartbeat. And we’d rather see women with small breast lumps than wait until they develop large breast masses. The question is how often and how far we should get ahead of symptoms.

For years now, people have been encouraged to look to medical care as the way to make them healthy. But that’s your job — you can’t contract that out. Chiropractors might be able to help, but so might an author of a good cookbook, a personal trainer, a cleric or a good friend. We would all be better off if the medical system got a little closer to its original mission of helping sick patients and treating injuries and trauma. They need to focus on educating patients about how to make their bodies healthy not just diagnosing illness and treating the symptoms.We need to adopt the health philosophy of Vitalism. What are we doing on a daily or weekly basis to make our bodies healthier and move away from the philosophy of Big Pharma which promotes what medication to take on a daily or weekly basis to mask our symptoms.

Guess which has more salt: bread or chips?

Bread, rolls and deli meats are the top contributors of sodium to the average person's diet, according to a report released Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

In the ongoing public health campaign to get people to cut back on sodium, foods such as chips, popcorn and pretzels have unfairly shouldered a heavy burden of blame.

As it turns out, we should have declared war on the sandwich.

Bread, rolls and deli meats are the top contributors of sodium to the average person's diet, according to a report released Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Bread and rolls account for more than 7 per cent of daily sodium consumption, while cold cuts and cured meats amount to about 5 per cent.

The report also found that almost two-thirds of sodium consumed comes from processed food purchased in stores, while 25 per cent comes from restaurant meals. The rest is added by consumers with a salt shaker.

CDC experts set out to analyze the top contributors of sodium to the American diet in order to help figure out where sodium reduction efforts could be most effective.

They determined that 10 foods, including bread, pizza, poultry (often injected with a sodium solution, according to the CDC), soup and pasta are responsible for nearly half of all sodium consumption. Number 10 on the list are savoury snacks, such as potato chips and pretzels, which account for only about 3 per cent of the sodium adults consume each day.

"Excess sodium increases blood pressure, which is a major risk factor for both heart disease and stroke as well as other health problems," said Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC, in a briefing with the media. "Reducing the sodium content of the 10 leading sodium sources by just 25 per cent would lower total dietary sodium by more than 10 per cent and prevent an estimated 28,000 deaths per year."

The average American consumes about 3,400 milligrams of sodium a day, more than double the recommended amount of 1,500 milligrams and far above the maximum recommended amount of 2,300 milligrams, above which the risk of health problems starts to rise.

While salty snacks, such as potato chips, contribute to high sodium levels, health experts say the seemingly innocuous foods we consume larger amounts of on a daily basis, such as soups, sauces, bread and cereal, are the real issue.

Despite a national report from a federally-appointed working group that called for maximum limits on salt added to foods sold in America, little has been done to address the problem of excessive sodium intake.

Yoni Freedhoff, an expert on nutrition issues and medical director of the New York University , said there's no doubt high amounts of sodium consumption is a clear indication something is wrong with our diets.

But he wonders if sodium is the real villain, or if health problems result from regularly consuming processed foods with artificial ingredients and preservatives that also happen to contain plenty of salt.

"I think what we really need to be looking at is the quality of our diets as a whole," Dr. Freedhoff said. "I do wonder whether the bigger deal is to start buying foods without labels,...transforming raw ingredients into dinner."

Dr. Frieden at the CDC also highlighted the importance of consuming more fruits and vegetables in order to cut back on salt and improve overall health. But he also noted how difficult it can be for consumers to stick to low-sodium plans, given that even seemingly healthy foods, such as breakfast cereals, can pack a punch in terms of salt content. He urged consumers to read labels, compare brands and choose companies that have the least-salty products.

"I think the key here is to find lower-sodium options of the foods you love," Dr. Frieden said.

The top 10 sources of sodium in the average person's diet, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

• Bread and rolls
• Cold cuts and cured meats
• Pizza
• Poultry (often injected with a sodium solution, according to the CDC)
• Soups
• Cheeseburgers and other prepared sandwiches
• Cheese
• Pasta dishes (such as spaghetti with meat sauce)
• Meat dishes (such as meat loaf with tomato sauce)
• Snacks (such as chips, pretzels and popcorn)

Use Chiropractic Care to Enhance Your Brain Function


Chiropractic care enhancing brain function!?  Not a common reference right?  Well, believe it or not chiropractic care is one of the most effective ways to enhance your brain function.  In order to understand how this is so, we must briefly discuss Chiropractic care and its effect on the Nervous System.  

The Chiropractic effect on human performance, especially aiding in the healing process is widely misunderstood.  Chiropractors are one of the few health care professionals that directly alter Nervous System function, without the use of drugs or other artificial interventions.  We work with the innate ability of the Nervous System to heal and repair the body.  So why is this so important?  

The Nervous System, divided into the Central Nervous System and Peripheral Nervous System, controls and moderates all human function.  This complex system is the control center for your thoughts, motivations, focus, sensations, movements, and posture, just to name a few.  Any changes in this system could be detrimental to your health.  So, how can you tell if your nervous system is functioning well?  

Changes in Nervous System function could manifest in 4 common ways.  

1. Changes in Sensation -     Pain, Tingling, Numbness, Dizziness, and Vertigo
2. Changes in Movement -   Balance/Coordination issues and Tremors (resting or intention)
3. Changes in Thoughts -  Depression, OCD, ADHD, and Anxiety
4. Changes in Posture -  Slouched posture, Scoliosis, and Flexed posture from Stroke