As an old guy, I am very careful not to fall.  After all, I don’t want to break a hip right?  You probably don’t like to fall either.  But what about when you were a kid?  As a kid you fall thousands of times while you learn to do all the things that a kid does, walk, run, climb, ride, skip, skate, board, ski, slide, etc.  As an adult you learn that falling is bad and so as you age you generally stop sliding, climbing, skiing, boarding, skating, skipping, riding, and running, or at least some of these.  You might still walk but most adults sadly try to minimize that too.  It is true that kids don’t have bad backs but they have hundreds more subluxation events than you or I do as adults.  And in fact it is during these years that the subluxation process begins to take hold of their spinal/neurological development.  So, it just makes sense that kids need to be checked for subluxation.  I wish I had been when I was a kid.  Perhaps I wouldn’t have the disc herniations and some of the health issues I have had as an old guy.  Perhaps I wouldn’t have some of the pains I have endured.  And although I am reasonably healthy, perhaps I would be healthier.  I wish.   

This article is not to beat the dead horse that if you have kids you should bring them in.  You know my very firm stance on that.  This article is for the parent to learn how to check their own kids, or for you to give to parents you care about so that they can check their kids.  This method works well for the 6ish and over crowd.  The younger ones are harder and usually need the experienced chiropractor’s approach.  But go ahead and try.

Step 1: Have your child take off her shoes and shirt (For the sake of brevity, I will use a female).  Put your hands on her hips.  Note if one hip is higher.  Do the same for the shoulders.  Note if the spine appears curved or twisted in any way.  Anything less than perfect alignment indicates subluxation.

Step 2: Have your child lie face down with her head straight.  Have her tuck her chin to her chest to open the neck bones.  Using your finger or thumb, press next to her spine from top to bottom on the left and right sides.  Use moderate force similar to how I examine you.  If she says ouch or flinches at any point she probably has subluxation.

Step 3:  With her chin tucked like before, press right on the spine on the little bumps from bottom to top.  Again, if she says ouch she probably has subluxation. 

That’s it.  Let me know what you find.  A child is most likely to have subluxation in the neck first.  84% are subluxated at birth.  The low back comes later.  While kids don’t have bad backs like you and I, our subluxations began when we were kids and if our parents knew what you know, we surely wouldn’t have the backs we have today.  

            It’s really quite funny who we choose to view as an authority figure, who we listen to and take advice from.  There is a funny little incident that occurred a year or so ago that demonstrated this.  I had a patient with Fibromyalgia (FMS).  I related to her a study that found that taking a certain sugar 3-times per day provided significant relief in 66% of FMS patients in the study.  A year or so later Dr. Oz said the same thing on his nationally syndicated TV program and she started taking the sugar after he reinforced my earlier recommendation.  And then a couple of weeks ago Dr. Oz struck again.  I have been promoting the virtues of a blood test called C - reactive protein for almost 10 years.  Few doctors order it but to me it is the most vital test you can have done to evaluate your overall health.  So a couple of weeks ago Dr. Oz said that c-reactive protein is the most important blood test you can have.  Now it’s official.  So what is this C - reactive protein test and why do most medical doctors not measure it and why does Dr. Oz now agree with me that it is so important? 

The test is the most sensitive measure of inflammation in your body.  Inflammation are chemicals that are carried everywhere in your body that are produced during an infection, an injury, or because of arthritis.  If you have a cut or a sprain or an abscess, or a bladder infection or gum disease, or just plain old arthritis, these will cause your c-reactive protein to increase.  The test is an easy way to get a reading on your inflammation.  This is important because research is now concluding that increased levels of inflammation is perhaps the single largest predictor of a variety of diseases, including the two largest killers, heart disease and cancer.  You will see more and more of this discussion in the coming years. 

As a doctor of chiropractic I could order these tests but most chiropractic patients don’t want to go to a blood lab as part of their work-up.  But it would be a good idea none-the-less.  Most medical doctors don’t order it because there is no good drug to bring down your c-reactive protein if it is high.  It is a lifestyle problem and most (but not all) M.D.’s don’t take the time to really discuss lifestyle that much.  They write prescriptions. 

Dr. Oz agrees that it is so important because he does talk about lifestyle on his program.  To really lower your c-reactive protein you need to make sure you don’t have chronic infections, including gum disease, you need to maintain your weight, to exercise, to eat well, and to take supplements.  These are things that I talk about, especially in my articles week after week.

But there’s a chiropractic twist to this C - reactive protein.  Chiropractic adjustments over a period of time through Reconstructive Care lower the inflammation levels in your spine from 70-95% and spinal inflammation is probably the largest reservoir of inflammation in your body, inflammation that goes everywhere, that leads to disease.  So to maximally lower your c-reactive protein, not only do you need to clean up your lifestyle, but you should be as subluxation free as possible. 

Research tells us that folks with a c-reactive protein less than .5 rarely have heart attacks.  A value of 1-3 is considered normal.  My last test was .6.  Not too bad.  Have yours tested next time you talk to your M.D.

            If you ask most people how they get sick the words “caught” or “give” will usually be in the sentence in some form.  “I caught it from the kids.”  “My wife was nice enough to give it to me.”  Communicable diseases like the flu are generally thought to be passed from one person to another by coughing or touching, and especially during the colder times of the year.  It seems like random chance.  Don’t get near me.  I hope I don’t catch that.  Did you wash your hands?  Cover your mouth when you cough.  The truth is that we all carry the germs in our bodies all the time, year in, year out, in some quantity.  They lie in wait for the perfect internal conditions to occur, when they can take advantage of the host to grow and party.  In some ways germs are like rats.  While rats don’t make the public dumping grounds, you are sure to find them living and thriving there.  This explanation helps us to understand why only certain people get sick and others don’t.  And it certainly lets me understand why I got sick this past week.

            The last time I had a fever of any significance was before I opened this office in 1991, so over 20 years ago.  As many of you know since 2000 I have dedicated myself to those things that I preach: weekly chiropractic adjustments, weight management, regular exercise, water consumption, diet, supplements, and what I call “Just one more thing.”  These lifestyle decisions have done nothing but benefit my health and, hopefully, prolong my life.  Most recently an addition to my lifestyle has been an attempt to lower my fat consumption.  This has come directly out of my wife’s membership in Weight Watchers such that her diet has resulting in me losing nearly 20 pounds.  No complaints!

            Well, this illness began on a Saturday night while visiting my son in Arizona and the fever hit its full pace by Sunday afternoon.  That night we went to a restaurant called the Heart Attack Grill.  It sounded like a fun place to go to just once.  I had a ½ pound fat-laden hamburger with two slices of fat-laden cheese with French fries that were deep fried in animal lard.  I topped all this off with a 16 oz. glass bottle of Coke (sugar is another product I don’t consume much of).  After this stress to my body we went back to the hotel where we went in the Jacuzzi which was very nice.  While in the Jacuzzi I took a dip in the pool to cool off before returning to the hot water.  Any one of the above would not be a significant stress to my body, but the sum total of the high fat, high sugar meal, and abrupt and extreme temperature changes was just enough to weaken my immune system and allow the germs that were already present in my body to have a foothold and begin to multiply.  I felt odd within an hour of the Jacuzzi, fatigue for the drive home on Sunday, and 102 degree fever for Easter dinner. 

            I contend that I did not catch the flu, but I created the environment for the flu virus that was already there to get a foothold.  I created the dump and the rats moved in.

            I am looking at the cover of the magazine Reminisce for June/July 2008.  The background is an orange sunburst pattern with a photograph harkening to times past with a Ford Model T parked on the grass in front of a field of lilac flowers covering rolling hills.  There is the hint of a large tree in the upper right corner.  The Ford is unique compared to our modern cars in some many ways including what we would think of as a bike horn mounted on the driver’s side and a crank starter over the Oregon antique vehicle license plate.  We are led to reminisce about our youth, earlier times, simpler times, slower times, times when the world was bigger, more peaceful, when you could just lie on the green grass propped up against your Model T and take the time to smell the lilacs.  A time when all things were just…well…more wonderful.

            So I was reminiscing about the past and I came up with a few things not only from my past, but perhaps from yours as well.  Things that pull me back and make me wish that 2011 were but a dream.  And then there are some wonderful gems from past generations that we can all appreciate, that make us take a moment and sigh a collective, “Ahh!”

            I remember not more than 15 or so years ago (that’s a 7 million in tech years) driving home after work, listening to my favorite radio station when there was a sudden beeping at my waist.  I pulled the pager from my belt and looked at the flashing red light for an indication of who was calling me.  Oh, wait, they haven’t invented a way of knowing who is beeping me yet.  Then the dance begins.  Find the next off ramp, the next gas station or convenience store, the next pay phone.  My daughter is bleeding to death.  My house is afire.  A gunman is holding the family for ransom.  I call the service. Wrong number?!  What a waste of time.  I love my smart phone. 

            For this week’s article I will review research that was published in 2005 by the Camgen Corporation in Canada, the Chiropractic Leadership Alliance in New Jersey, Biomedical Diagnostic Research LLC in Ohio, and the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology of Tumor Immunology at the University Of Lund, Sweden.

            Chiropractors have long talked about wellness and the relationship between the spine, the nerve system, and your overall health.  And while talking about it we have promoted the other more tangible benefits of chiropractic care, namely symptom relief and the slowing of spinal degenerative changes.  As you know my practice offers three forms of chiropractic care, Initial Intensive Care for symptom relief, Reconstructive Care for slowing degeneration, and Wellness Care for…Wellness??  So what is wellness?  How do we measure it?  In a past article I defined wellness as active participation by you in behaviors that are intended to improve your health and prevent disease.  I made the argument that while health is passive and temporary, wellness on the other hand is an active process that you are involved with on a daily basis (exercise, vitamins, diet, water, etc.)  But how does chiropractic change body chemistry to promote wellness?  How does it help to prevent disease?    

            Researchers from the above organizations measured blood thiol levels in 21 short-term chiropractic patients, in 25 long-term chiropractic patients, and in 30 control subjects.  Briefly, thiols are chemicals in the blood that are an important measure of health.  The higher they are, the more well you are.  In other words, high thiol levels reduce genetic mutation, reduce the chance of disease, improve your health, and prolong your life.  It is a major laboratory method used today to measure your potential health.  And there happens to be one activity that you can participate in that increases thiol levels greater than anything else you can do.  Chiropractic care.

            Lowest levels of thiol were found in subjects that had active pain/disease (105nM).  Higher levels were found in healthy asymptomatic non-chiropractic subjects (124nM).  And the highest levels were found in long-term chiropractic subjects (146nM).  They further found that it takes about 2 years of chiropractic care just to increase the levels from the 105 to the control level of 124, and then years more to reach the high plateau of 146. 

            This is why we measure Intensive Care in weeks, Reconstructive Care in months, and Wellness Care in years.  

            Although there are many types of pain and hundreds of sources of pain within the human body, they all serve the same purpose, to tell the brain that there is something wrong and to pay attention to it.  It is much like the oil warning lamp on your car’s dashboard.  It’s telling you that there is something wrong and you had better look into its cause very soon.  In the case of your car there might be a leak somewhere which would give you three options;  find and fix the leak, add oil to the engine, or place a piece of black tape over that annoying lamp on the dashboard.  So let’s look at these three options in the context of your body.

            Of all the lessons I am trying to convey here perhaps the most important is for you to understand that in general pain is not an early warning system.  Rather, it is a late warning system that something is wrong within your body.  Obvious examples of this are heart disease and cancer, both of which can be going on for months, years or even decades before there are any symptoms of any kind.  Another example is the wear and tear kind of arthritis that each of us will feel by the time we are 40 or 50s.  Studies and clinical observation tell us that by the time we feel the pain of arthritis that there has been active degeneration in those joints for decades.  X-rays most often even look normal in those early stages of arthritis since x-rays are a relatively insensitive tool for this kind of diagnosis, believe it or not.    

            So what is pain?  It is the late warning system that once active you have no choice but to pay attention to.  You must find the cause of the oil warning light and fix it.  Don’t just add oil or put tape on the light.  In the context of this office, it means finding the subluxation and fixing it as close to 100% as is possible which involves both Initial Intensive and Reconstructive Care. 

            “But I don’t have pain,” some argue.  Remember, it’s a late warning system.  We can find the subluxation and fix it before the pain begins.  This is called Reconstructive Care only.  These people skip the Initial Intensive Care.  We actually do get new patients who have no pain, that want to see if they have subluxation and then have it fixed before it causes the pain that will inevitably come.  Just like it’s always better to identify the cancer or heart disease before there are symptoms, just like it’s better to find the oil leak before the warning lamp lights up, it is the same for subluxation. 

            So the lesson is to fix the cause of the pain once you have it and better yet, fix it before it causes any pain in the first place.   

            I was about six years old at the time living in Anaheim in the house I grew up in until I was 16.  I had two sisters, 11 and 13 years older than me.  It was like having three moms, until one day when the neighbor lady came to the door with the youngest of my sisters on her arm.  It turns out that the neighbor saw my sister pull up in her car and stagger out of it.  Trying to help, she gave my sister her shoulder and guided her to the door.  I thanked our neighbor for her help and helped my sister to the couch.  She laid down and put a lunch bag on the coffee table and fell asleep.  I looked in the bag and saw an inch or so layer of pills and capsules, of a variety of colors.  This was my first experience with drug addiction.  I would later learn that my sister was addicted to a variety of drugs, including heroine.  Tough love eventually forced my parents to kick her out of the house.  She eventually found God, cleaned up, and made up with the family.  But her boyfriend, and then husband, and then father of her child, would not be so lucky.  While he did clean up for a time, even become a pastor of his own church, sadly he eventually slid back and overdosed, leaving my nephew without a dad.  I can still see those pills in my mind. 

            Fast forward 25 years.  I am now in practice here in Fontana.  This is before I had our computer so I gave classes on Wednesday nights for patients and their guests.  I remember an elderly woman telling her story to the audience.  Her husband some years before had gone to his medical doctor for his annual physical.  All went well and he was declared to be healthy.  The very next day he had a heart attack and died.  It was a dismal failure for the probing eyes of the annual medical examination. 

            Finally, contrast this with my home experience.  Every day of my childhood I observed my mother, now 93, taking great care to watch her and our diets.  She would literally exercise each and every day, including running, walking, yoga, aerobics, dance, etc.  She watched her weight fiercely.  And she would take over 30 supplements per day, with a dose in the morning and one at night.  She subscribed to Prevention Magazine and shared some of its content with me.  I never saw her take a medication with two exceptions.  First, after her appendix ruptured she had to take pain medications and antibiotics for a time.  Second, as she got into her 80’s she began taking Advil for arthritis.  And it was through her that I first learned of chiropractic.    She has taught me what a life without medicine looks like.   

            I hate drugs.  I abhor medicine.  I love chiropractic.  And I so enjoy seeing you take care of yourself to create a life for you and your family to avoid medicine and embrace chiropractic wellness care.   

            Just the other day I was describing how the nerve system works to a patient by dividing it into its two basic parts.  The first part is the part that carries messages from your brain to your body to command your muscles to move.  And then it carries sensory messages back to your brain to tell you what your body feels.  This is called your somatic nervous system and isn’t part of this tale.  The second part is the part that carries messages from your brain to your internal organs to coordinate their actions moment by moment.  This is called your autonomic nervous system and is the subject of this tale.  Now the autonomic system is further divided into two parts and this is where it gets interesting.  The first part (the parasympathetic) comes directly out of your skull through a small hole, completely bypassing the spine, and then divides billions of times to communicate with every cell in the body.  The parasympathetic is not generally affected by subluxation.  But the second part of the autonomic system (the sympathetic), comes out of the skull where the spine attaches to it thereby passing down the spinal column exiting between each and every spinal bone through small holes called foramen.  OK, this is where the anatomy lesson ends and I pose this question, what if this second part of the autonomic system didn’t come through the spine but just snuck out of a hole in your head like the first part?  Answer, first, I wouldn’t have as much work.  And second, you would be healthier.  Huh?

            You know I keep talking about wellness wellness wellness.  Without the fact that the sympathetic nerves pass through the spine there would be no such thing as chiropractic wellness care.  It works like this; The sympathetics control your organs, the sympathetics pass through the spine, the subluxation damages the spine, the spine damages the sympathetics, and then your body doesn’t work as good.  Wellness care corrects the subluxation, the spine is less damaged, the sympathetics work better, your body is healthier or more well.  Wellness care. 

            I’m not criticizing God’s design, but if the sympathetics never met the spine, then subluxation could not damage organ function at all, zero, nada, nil.  Sure I would still have a job doing intensive care for back pain, muscle spasm, sciatica, headaches and the like.  Sure I would still do reconstructive care to slow down and stop spinal degeneration.  But there would be no such thing or need for wellness care.  Like I said, if the sympathetic just came through a hole in your head I would have less work and you would be healthier.  So, why did God make our bodies this way then?  Simple, He loves chiropractors.  He’s always been a fan of healing by the touch of a hand, hasn’t He? 

            How do we know that the good things we do will increase our health?  How can we measure health?  We know that we cannot use how we feel to determine how we are.  As an example, most people diagnosed with cancer and heart disease, both of which take months to years to decades to develop, do not have symptoms until the later stages of the disease.  Also, we cannot use the annual physical either to determine our health.  At best a physical will find disease in an earlier state than if we wait until we have symptoms.  But a physical cannot find very early stage disease when it is not bad enough or big enough to show up on the standard testing done at a physical.  It would be neat if the technology existed to look into the future to see what health issues we were going to have in our lifetime.  Then we could change our health habits and then look again to see what these new health habits have prevented.  Marty McFly kind of did that in Back To The Future, but alas we don’t have his time-travelling DeLorean.  So what do we do?

            To be completely honest the answer lies in faith.  I have faith that wearing my seat belt will reduce my risk of injury because studies prove it does.  I have faith that taking certain supplements will reduce my risk of disease because studies prove they do.  I have faith that aerobic exercise will reduce my risk of disease because studies prove it does.  You see how this goes.  If our health is important enough to us (and for some people it is not) and we have scientific proof of the benefits of this or that, then we decide to incorporate this or that into our life because we have faith that it will help to improve our health in the future, to prevent disease, to decrease our reliance upon medicine, and to improve the quality and quantity of our future lives.  This is faith in the science.

            One of the most important factors in disease and aging is DNA damage or mutation.  There are chemicals that our bodies make and that we breathe, eat and drink that cause mutation.  These mutations then accelerate aging and cause diseases of all kinds, including cancer.  One of the most studied blood markers or chemicals of the ability to prevent and repair mutation is a chemical called thiol.  It is called your first-line antioxidant.  The more thiol you have the better.  A 2005 study done in part by the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology of Tumor Immunology in Sweden found that long-term chiropractic care (2years and up) increases thiol to significantly higher levels than control subjects that do not get chiropractic care, regardless of diet and supplement usage.  This study, combined with a previous study solidify that correcting subluxation on the long-term can have a profound effect on your future health.  This is wellness care.   

So like with vitamins, diet, and exercise, my faith in the science mandates that I get adjusted regularly throughout my lifetime.  Quantity and quality of life count.

            Do you like taking drugs?  The legal ones I mean??  None of us like taking drugs but how many of us live a lifestyle that can minimize our future need for drugs?  Look at your elderly family members.  They don’t like taking drugs either but most take several just to get by.  Your time is coming.  So what are you going to do about it?  What can you do about it?  I learned my lesson while in the hospital at the age of 39.  At what age will you learn yours?  I hope today.

            Life is fragile and all of us will see it end at some point.  But most of us want to postpone that moment as long as possible and all of us would like for the time we have here to be as healthy as possible.  And the healthier you are the less likely that you will need to see a medical doctor and if you don’t need to see a medical doctor then you don’t need to take drugs.  And remember from Article #5, the practice of medicine kills more people than everything except heart disease and cancer.  There are a bunch of things that each of us can do to reduce our chance of needing medical care and you know most of them.  Hopefully you are doing some of them.  But what role does subluxation play in this equation? 

            Published in the Medical Times, Dr. Henry Winsor, M.D. did cadaver studies on 75 humans and 22 cats.  No, I don’t know why he included cats.  In those cadavers he found 221 diseased organs.  Of the 221 diseased organs, 212 of them had their nerve supply coming from areas of the spine with the greatest misalignment (96%).  This means two things.  First, when you die you are going to have at least 2 diseased organs.  Lovely.  Second, that there is a correlation between misalignment of the spine (subluxation) and disease.  This is known as the neurological basis of disease or somato-visceral disease. 

            A study published in Topics of Clinical Chiropractic studied 414 geriatric patients living in the same community.  Of the 414, 23 were chiropractic users.  When comparing the chiropractic to the non-chiropractic patients they found that the chiropractic users rated their health better, had fewer chronic conditions, less or no arthritis, greater mobility, could exercise more regularly, less nursing home needs, and much fewer hospitalizations.  The exact results are available on the information tree by our check out counter. 

            These are just two studies that demonstrate that being subluxation-free lessens your need for medication and medical care in general.  So if you don’t like taking drugs, chiropractic is a good place to start.