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#125 The Big 5

5/1/2014

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For those of you who have known me for some time you have likely heard me talking about my mother, my personal muse of health.  She is 95 years old and physically amazingly healthy, perhaps the proof of which is that the only medication she takes is OTC analgesics for her worn out joints.  She has exercised every day, taken vitamins, carefully watched her diet and weight, and tried everything else she could find in her reading of the magazine, Prevention, which she has subscribed to since the 1960’s.  I do remember on the 4th of July when I was 12 her appendix ruptured, necessitating an emergency appendectomy and a tense few days to make sure that the infection did not spread too far.  This proved to me that even the healthiest among us get sick.  You can’t prevent everything.  And although we all get sick, I feel I have a responsibility to myself, my family, my children, my grandchildren, and to my patients to be as much like my mom as I can be when it comes to prevention.  And in particular prevention of what I might call the top 5, the things that are most likely to kill or disable you.

            To start, let’s look at the 4 largest causes of death in order: 1) Heart Disease, 2) Cancer, 3) Medical Practice (I’m not making this up), 4) Diabetes.  And the condition that causes more disability than any other: 5) Degenerative Disease of the Spine.  When it comes to time and money spent to help to prevent any condition that will eventually lead to your death or disability, the above are the top 5 for most of us to focus on.  They are my focus, and as such, I am simply going to list what I do.

-          Aerobic exercise – Get the heart rate to target rate for 45 minutes 3 times per week.  This helps with all conditions above but, depending upon the type of exercise, can increase the rate of spinal degeneration.  So caution.  I walk/hike which poses reasonably minimal risk to the spine and other joint structures.

-          Weight management – If you are losing weight through diet weigh yourself weekly.  If you are losing weight through exercise, weigh yourself monthly and measure your waist weekly.  If you are in weight maintenance mode, weigh yourself 2-3 times per week.  This helps with all above conditions.

-          Drink 64 ounces of water per day – This helps with all conditions.

-          Take natural anti-inflammatories and anti-oxidants – Substances such as turmeric, omega 3 fatty acids, krill oil, vitamin D3, and vitamin E help to reduce your overall levels of inflammation and oxidative risk.  This helps with all conditions above.

-          Stretching/flexibility exercise – The Lindwall Disc Pump Exercises, yoga, and general stretching help to maintain joint flexibility of the spine and other joints, pumping the cartilage with food, water, and oxygen.  This helps with condition 3 and 5 in particular.  For more information, read my article #56 - LITERATURE REVIEW of “Chiropractic Influence on Oxidative Stress and DNA Repair.”

-          Spinal adjustments – On a weekly basis to reduce inflammation, scar tissue, and nerve stress, as well as to increase motion.  This helps with all the top 5 due to the causal relationship between inflammation, nerve stress, and all disease. 

If you do other things, please share them with me.  If you don’t, pick one or two and go for it.   

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    Dr. Rick

    After writing an article per week for a year, I just kept going.  These are most of my collection.  They are written with my existing patients in mind, so some stuff may seem odd or unusual, but would make perfect sense to those who know chiropractic and who know me.  Enjoy and share!  For my personal blog visit: 

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Yolanda wrote:
     
     I used to suffer severe headaches and migraines on a daily basis, usually all day.  I managed to work in an office because I had to.  When I went home at the end of the day I would often close the shades and go to bed.  I could not plan weekend events because I simply never knew how I was going to feel tomorrow.  If there were a special event such as a birthday or wedding, I would begin to medicate myself two weeks in advance to give myself the best chance of making the event.
     Friends and fellow church-goers had been trying to get me to see Dr. Rick for some time before I finally gave in.  Looking back, I don’t know why I waited.  Within a month, I was headache free.  I couldn’t remember what it was like to not feel pain.  I could do whatever I wanted and not live in fear of the headache.  This was a miracle for me, but the story does not end here.
     An opportunity came up for us to adopt a newborn baby girl not long after I began chiropractic care.  This baby was particularly important to me and my husband because her mother is a relative.  Tragically, her mother was also a drug user and did drugs during her pregnancy.  If we could not adopt the baby she would have been put into the foster system since the biological mother was incapable of raising her.
     To keep a long story short, we did adopt her and she is doing fantastically.  There is no sign of any effect of the drugs on her as of yet, and with God’s help, there never will be.  We think that is because of the vast amounts of love and attention she gets from us, her real mommy and daddy.
     What does this have to do with chiropractic?  The reality is that without chiropractic, I would still be nearly an invalid with headaches.  I COULD NOT HAVE TAKEN CARE OF AN INFANT OR RAISED A YOUNG CHILD.  THEREFORE, SHE WOULD NOT HAVE ANY OF THE OPPORTUNITIES IN LIFE THAT MY HUSBAND AND I WILL BE ABLE TO PROVIDE FOR HER.  MY DAUGHTER’S LIFE IS POSSIBLE BECAUSE SOMEBODY MADE ME GO TO A CHIROPRACTOR. 
     You need to tell everyone you know what you know about chiropractic.  Who knows who’s life you will change too.
Andrew's mother, Barbara, wrote:

     Hello, My name is Andrew and I am a happy, healthy one year old.  But I wasn’t so happy or healthy when I first met Dr. Rick a few months ago.  I had been having problems with my ears for four months, I couldn’t sleep at night and I was miserable.  We’d been to the doctor lots of times but nothing was helping.  In fact, all the medicines the doctor had tried seemed to make me worse instead of better!  Both the regular doctor and the Ear-Nose and Throat doctor said that if the antibiotics didn’t work, then they’d just have to put tubes in.  Now my Mom and dad weren’t about to let them do surgery on me, especially since they had been reading and learned that tubes can cause more problems than they solve.  My mom and dad did a lot of praying.  Then my mom heard that sometimes babies who have a traumatic birth like mine have ear trouble.  You see when I was born they used a vacuum extractor and forceps to pull me out.  I guess all that yanking on my head, hurt my neck.  She also heard that chiropractic care can be the answer.  Now she was skeptical because she couldn’t imagine a chiropractor helping ear infections!?!  But at that point she was willing to try anything!!  Happily, a few weeks of adjustments and my ears were all cleared up.  In addition, I no longer had a stiff neck or shoulders and my whole personality was happier.  I have to tell all babies who have ear troubles, don’t let them give you tubes until you at least try chiropractic care first.  After all, it can’t hurt and if you’re like me, you could be perfectly well with no drugs and no surgery.  In my family, we thank God for Dr. Rick, because I feel better, my mom and dad are happier and sometimes, I even sleep through the night.