My official policy on all vaccines, both for adults and for children, has always been that I want you to make the decision whether or not to vaccinate, as opposed to letting our government or a bureaucrat or a corporation making the decision for you.  Education.  In 1986 largely due to the campaigning of one person, Barbara Fischer, and ironically supported by vaccine manufacturers, congress passed a law called the Vaccine Compensation Act.  This act was designed to do two things.  First, protect the companies that manufacture vaccines from the law suits that were being filed for wrongful death and personal injury at the time.  Second, to give the parents of vaccine injured or killed children a legal pathway to some sort of legal compensation for their medical bills and emotional grief.  This act has paid out well more than $1.5 billion thus far ($2 billion by some accounting) of taxpayer money to compensate parents for vaccine injury and protect manufacturers.  A knee-jerk reaction might be to not protect manufacturers with tax money, but I would advise against this line of thought.  Vaccination is an imperfect science that most certainly provides a necessary yet potentially dangerous product, even if I question the means by which this product is forced upon us and our young children.  And if vaccine makers had been made to pay this $1.5 billion they would have long ago gone out of business and there would be no one left to do this job.  Having said all of that, more than ever you need information with which to make good decisions on the issue of vaccination.  This article is about the flu shot.

            Let me explain flu shot basics.  Continuously all over the world there are groups of epidemiologists that collect mucus and sputum to analyze which strains of flu viruses are most active during the “flu season.”  Our Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is perhaps the most famous of these gathering organizations.  From all of this data they make an educate guess as to the two most likely strains that will run through America during winter.  This information is given to the manufacturers and they produce the flu vaccine with the careful oversight of the FDA. 

            There are 2 flu vaccines.  The most common is the dreaded flu shot of dead viral particles, made by several companies.  Then there is the lesser used nasal spray of live viral particles called FluMist.  The attached ingredients sheet shows what is in each of these different products. 

            Last year Professor Osterholm, Ph.D. looked back through all the literature on flu vaccines since 1967 and came to some interesting conclusions:

1)      Out of 5707 articles only 31 met their stringent qualification criteria.

2)      Those 31 articles covered only 12 flu seasons.

3)      Of those 12 flu seasons the flu shot proved to work in only 8 on them.

4)      The overall efficacy in these 12 seasons was 59%.  That means that the shot didn’t work in 41% of the population.

5)      The flu shot was NOT proven to be effective in children 2-7 years or adults 65 and older.

6)      Regarding the FluMist, it was 83% effective in children 6 months to 7 years. 

7)      Vaccines can provide moderate protection…, but such protection is greatly reduced or absent in some seasons.

Whether you get the flu shot or not, this in an interesting study that will hopefully encourage you to do your own research before you roll up your sleeve next year. 

            How would you do high school if you could do it over again?  I doubt very much if you would WANT to do high school over again, but if you had to how would you do it?  If you have been divorced how would you do that whole thing over if you could?  What would you do different if you could raise your kids again?  What about your last vacation?  What changes would you make to that?  How about last night’s dinner?  Too much salt?  Overcooked?  From the big to the small we are supposed to live life, look back on life, learn from the experience, and modify life from what we have learned so that we can do it better the next time, if there is a next time.  Sometimes there is a next time, such as a meal or a vacation, or a kid, or even a spouse.  And sometimes there is no next time, no second chance. 

            Ever since the movie, “The Bucket List” came out with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, I have heard people speaking of their own personal bucket lists.  As you know these are things that they really want to do before they die.  Or another way of looking at it is that these are things that they think when they are in their final days or hours, they will look back on and regret not doing if they never got around to it.  These are things that they just know, when they are about done in this life, that if they could do life over again, they would definitely do them.              I don’t have a bucket list.  Nothing against the idea of them, but I don’t understand the need.  If I did make a bucket list it would be very small indeed.  The thing that I want to do before I die, the thing that I will regret not doing if I don’t, is to maintain my health and mobility until my last day.  The way I look at it is that if I am healthy and if I am mobile, then I will do all the things I can do, and what I can do I will do, and that will be enough for me. To look at it from one other direction, if you look at your own bucket list there is one requirement, that you be healthy and mobile.  Without those two things, then most of your list is unachievable.  In the movie, Morgan Freeman’s character had cancer and a short time to live.  He was sick.  But he was just healthy enough and mobile enough to jump out of a plane and drive a racecar. 

            Health and mobility are a big topic, too big for the next paragraph.  This article is not about preaching how to stay healthy or maintain mobility.  It is not about the do’s and don’ts of health and mobility.  It is about planting the seed in your mind that the biggest regret that people have in their last days, the thing that they wish they could do all over again, is to have taken better care of their body.  The composer Eubie Blake at the age of 96 said, “If I had known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself.  He was blessed with wonderful genes that programmed for a long life.  Our maximum lifespan is determined by our genes.  Our actions throughout life will determine by how much this maximum will be shortened.  And how we take care of our joints in general, and our spine in particular, will absolutely determine our mobility.  Some people get a second chance to do health and mobility over again.  Most don’t.  For most of us once health and mobility are gone they are gone for good.  Start today!

            But doc, I want more than a planted seed.  I want a list.  OK.  Here’s one: 1) Put good stuff in it.  2) Move it.  3) Stretch it (spine in particular).  4) Adjust it.  5) Be thankful.  ) Be humble.  7) Love.

            PAIN is a motivator.  PAIN is an indicator.  PAIN gives direction.  PAIN is absolutely necessary to a healthy body.  But PAIN is a very poor measure.  Interpretation of pain varies greatly from person to person.  It is subject to our own individual pain thresholds and pain tolerances.  You should always use pain as a guide.  But you should never use it as a measure.  Let me give you an example or two.

            Before I do that let me refresh your memory about TSV (Total Subluxation Value).  This  is that number that I use as a measure of spinal subluxation.  It is by no means the only measure of subluxation that chiropractors use, but it is easy to measure, accurate, and reproducible.  In scientific circles it would be called sensitive but not specific.  The TSV can vary from a low of zero to a high of 304.  It is a measurement of the health of the spine.  The smaller it is the better the spine works.  Like golf scores, bigger is badder. 

            Now let us pretend that we have two different patients, Patient Low and Patient High.  Patient Low has a lower pain threshold than Patient High.  This is not to say that Patient Low is weaker or lesser than Patient High in any way.  This is just the genetic programming of our two patients.  We all have our strengths and weakness, and when it comes to our genes we can accept no more credit for our strengths than we can take blame for our weaknesses.  They just are. 

            Both of our patients have headaches on a daily basis along with neck and upper back pain.  They have a history of recurring lower back pain and have had sciatica too.  In other words, when it comes to their pain, they are exact twins.  But when it comes to their TSV Patient Low measures 60 while Patient High is 120.  THEY HAVE THE SAME AMOUNT OF PAIN BUT CLEARLY PATIENT HIGH HAS A SICKER SPINE.  It takes more damage for him to feel it.  Even though these two patients are made up, I see this kind of thing all the time. 

            The conclusion has to be that the TSV is a measure of spinal damage, while the amount of pain is a measure of the patient’s genetic threshold for pain.  TSV is cause.   Pain is effect.    Should we treat the cause or the effect, the subluxation or the pain?  This is the basic question dogging chiropractic and medicine.  Drugs treat effects and chiropractic treats cause. 

            Let’s go back to our patients.  After observing thousands of patients over my 26 years I have concluded that in the absence of complicating factors (see article #100) that most people will feel much better and be reasonably stable once their TSV is reduced by half.  Patient Low needs to get to 30 from 60.  Patient High to 60 from 120.  Think about that, this means that Patient High will feel good at the exact same TSV (60) that Patient Low was at when he/she first came to my office!  This is pain threshold at work.

            The only logical process once at the half-way point is reached is to continue to try to reduce the TSV to as low as possible, but that is a different discussion for a different article involving Reconstructive Care. 

            If your only goal is to treat the effect and you don’t care about cause and you don’t care about side-effects, take a drug.  Drugs will numb better than an adjustment.  But if you care about cause then there can be only one conclusion, forget about the effect – the pain – and focus on the TSV (and any complicating factors), so we can truly measure the health of your spine. 

Thanksgiving 1999  - (left sided picture below)
               The picture below on the left was taken with one of my sisters at 240# and red raced with rosacea, a skin disorder.  I also had borderline hypertension.  6 months later I would pass out while driving my family on vacation and end up in the hospital (That’s story by itself).  While a cause was never found, I took this event as a warning to me to be a better example for my patients and my family.  Although my job was health, I did not practice what I preached.  My liquid intake was only coffee, soda, and wine.  Water was rare.  I ate too much.  I did not exercise.  I did not get adjusted often enough.  I walked with a limp due to pain.  I had nearly killed my family that Memorial weekend!  I needed to change!!

So, I decided to change.  One item at a time.Slowly and deliberately.  And that change goes on today.

Thanksgiving 2012 - (right sided picture below)
               On the right is me, my wife Diana, and my grandson Jackson, exactly 13 years later and more than 50# lighter.  I move without pain.  My rosacea is essentially gone.Blood pressure perfect. Although grayer, I feel far younger than I did in 1999. 

                Since that picture above was taken in 1999 I have done the following to improve my health, my mobility, and my longevity:I drink water as my primary liquid source.  I take several supplements (multiple vitamin/mineral, omega 3, vitamin D3, glucosamine, turmeric, and others).  I exercise regularly.  I have lost over 50#(that’s about 6 gallons) of fat, and kept it off.  I took my time to do the weight loss, over 10 years.  I stopped drinking all alcohol.  I severely limit soda intake.  I do my spinal stretches almost daily.  I GET ADJUSTED EVERY WEEK.

                I have made a commitment to my health for myself, my family, and for my patients.  I hope I am living up to that commitment and that you will be a better example of health to those you love.  There is nothing quite as good as being healthy or quite as bad as being sick.  My hope in this article is to help to motivate you to do something that took me far too long to do.  After all, sometimes when we get sick we never get better.  I got lucky and I listened.  Will you?

            I was asked recently if I had any New Year’s resolutions.  Resolutions are typically related to something regarding health, or personal relations, or a job, or money.  I think that most often they surround issues of losing weight or exercising more.  But in my humble opinion making resolutions because of the time of year is too often a recipe for failure, not for success.  And when it comes to your health failure means a reduction in quality of life and/or an earlier death.  You MUST set yourself up for success, and this article is about just how to do that, how to set up your health resolutions, whatever they may be, for success.  In fact this formula might work for any resolution.  You be the judge.

1)      Pick a resolution that is important to you.  If you choose something because someone else told you to, you will fail.  It must be something that you want, and you have to want it enough that you are willing to alter your life-style to accomplish it.

2)      Pick a resolution that you can manage.  If you weigh 300 pounds resolving to run the L.A. Marathon might be a stretch.  But resolving to lose 100 pounds might be manageable, and 50# would be even better. 

3)      Set a goal.  For example, if your resolution is to exercise more, then you need to set a specific goal.  Perhaps it is to get your heart up to the target rate for 45 minutes 3 times per week (a very good goal by the way).  Again, make sure it is a goal that you can eventually manage.  And as always, once you reach a goal you can make a new one. 

4)      Have a plan.  Whether you are trying to lose weight, exercise more, get healthier, eat better, you must have a concrete plan.  What are you going to do to lose weight?  What exercise are you going to do?  What are you going to change to get healthier?  How are you going to eat better?

5)      Follow the plan.

6)      AND THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP:  Dr. Rick’s Rule of Ones!!! 

Whatever your resolution, whatever your goal, whatever your plan, whatever “it” is that you have resolved to do, YOU MUST NEVER LET ONE WEEK GO BY WITHOUT DOING “IT” ONE TIME = RULE OF ONES.

            If you are like me you will have weeks where you get busy.  You might be sick.  You might be injured.  Work will run late.  The kids need new shoes.  The sun is in your eyes.  There is a hole in your glove.  You will have weeks where life will just not allow you to succeed.  But that does not mean you have to fail.  If you go one full week without doing “it”, going two is even easier.  Once you have gone two weeks you will have for all intents and purposes failed.  Whether you apply the Rule of Ones to taking vitamins, changing your diet, losing weight, or doing your favorite exercise, you cannot fail.

            Keep in mind doing “it” once a week will not lead to success.  “It” must be done daily or 3 or 4 or 5 times a week depending upon what “it” we are talking about.  But the Rule of Ones will absolutely prevent failure.  As trite as it might seem the biggest way to succeed is simply not to fail.  Resolve to never fail by using the Rule of Ones on all life’s resolutions.  Good luck!!!        

            When it comes to your health you have 2 primary enemies, INFLAMMATION and SCAR TISSUE.  The image above is one I found on the internet that shows scar tissue in action.  This particular picture is of the intestines.  The mass of tissue you are looking at is not supposed to be there.  It is 100% scar tissue, which is also called collagen, which is a protein that is the ONLY protein that your body uses to repair damaged tissue.  All repair work in every organ is done with this stuff.  All of it.  And it is the same stuff that heals a cut or a gash.  It is a sticky protein that connects damaged tissues together.  The major problem is that it is just what you see, a non-elastic glop of tissue that by its very presence will forever damage the function of whatever area of the body you find it in.  And the more of it you have the worse it is.  If it’s in your heart you have cardiomyopathy.  If it’s in your lungs, pleurisy.  If it’s in the stomach, a healed ulcer.  In an artery, atherosclerosis.  Brain, epilepsy.  Last but not least, what if it is in a joint?  What if it’s in your spine?

            Remember the 5 parts or components of subluxation?  Two of those parts are scar tissue in the joints and scar tissue in the muscles.  And both of these come from inflammation.  The way it works is this.  You have an injury to the spine or perhaps just chronic postural stress.  This causes varying amounts of inflammation in the joints, tissues, and muscles in that area of the spine.  The inflammation always brings in scar tissue to the area to heal the injured tissues.  The scar tissue forms by patching the damaged ligaments, tendons, or muscles.  This patch of collagen (like the photo) reduces the motion of the ligament, tendon, or muscle.  This causes blood congestion leading to more inflammation leading to more scar tissue, and over and over again.  This is how spinal degeneration or arthritis starts.  Eventually, the discs dehydrate, crack, and tear leading to disc degeneration and herniation.  The gliding joints of the spine begin to send pain messages to the brain and when all of this mess crosses over your own personal pain threshold, it hurts.  And we have the leading cause of disability.    

            At the same time the inflammation has spread throughout the entire body damaging other tissues.  Body inflammation has been shown to cause heart disease, cancer, asthma, and a variety of other chronic diseases.  This is why you are seeing dental commercials talk about gum disease associated with increased risk of heart.  It’s all about inflammation and scar tissue.

            When it comes to your spine, this is why we do what we do here in this office.  I give you the stretching movements for you to work the scar tissue in the ligaments and pump the discs.  We use the tool of deep tissue massage to break down the scar tissue in the muscles.  And the adjustments are to break up the scar tissue in the spinal joints that have built up so much you can’t ever just stretch them back to normal function.  And to measure all of this we use the range of motion, the TSV, and the x-rays, and then MRI or other imaging when the damage is bad enough.  

            Are you the kind of person that likes to sit and contemplate why things are the way they are?  Why are we here?  What is our purpose?  That kind of stuff.  Or, are you the kind of person that doesn’t care so much as to the why’s, but is more interested in the what’s, in doing stuff, in measuring the universe, in delving into the mysteries of the cell, the molecule, the atom, building things, tearing them down.  Or, finally, would you just rather spend the day drawing or painting or sculpting what you feel, what you see, what is?  Or like so many others you might be a mix of all three.  But for the sake of this article pick one that you connect most with… the philosopher, the scientist, or the artist.  Which are you? 

            Personally, I love philosophy.  The deep secrets of why this universe is here, why we are here, why I am here, what is happiness, what happens when we are done with this life… and so on.  I spend a great deal of time studying and thinking about these types of things.  My wife and son-in-law are psychologists, which is a profession that encompasses this kind of thinking.  And as a result we talk about related topics every day. 

            And, I have a degree in biological science, not to mention my doctoral degree.  I am trained in science and observation.  I have had many many classes in the sciences, physics, math, chemistry, physiology, pathology, etc.  I am a scientist by education.  And my daughter and son have their degrees in biochemistry and biomedicine.  So we talk hard science all the time.

            But day to day, I consider myself an artist most of all.  Not the type of artist that you might think of at first.  I can’t write music or lyrics.  I can’t sculpt or paint or draw.  I don’t understand poetry at all.  Rather I am an artist that uses a very unusual medium to express my work.  My easel is this office, my palate my hands, and the canvas is your spine.  Please read on as I talk very briefly about the art of the chiropractic adjustment.

            Chiropractic has a very well developed philosophy that involves 33 very specific principles that I use every day to guide my actions and decisions.  The science of the subluxation you hear about from me all the time.  I use terms like time, life and gravity, or total subluxation value, or spinal degeneration to communicate the science of spinal damage to you.  But at the end of the day all the philosophy and science won’t get you better.  That is all just talk.  To get you better we need the art of chiropractic, the adjustment. 

            I am an expert in more than 200 ways to adjust your spine.  I have to be just as adept at doing this left or right handed.  And I can also adjust every other joint in the human body with the exception of the sutures of the skull.  I have to know when to and when not to do each adjustment.  I have to choose the right bone and the right direction.  You need to be in the right position.  I need to be in the right position.  How much thrust?  What speed?  How deep?  Did it work?  The 90 year old great grandmother will need something very different from the 300 pound line-backer, and the newborn baby will have its very own set of needs.  How is the adjustment different in the 9 month pregnant woman?  Every movement I make has a purpose.  And, like every art, it is only something that can be mastered by doing it over and over again.

            So as I am writing my 101st article in this series, you might have figured out that I enjoy the art of writing, but my real body of artistic work has been in the approximately 1.5 million adjustments I have made so far, and counting.  As usual, thank you for reading my stuff.

            When I was in college I worked as a cook in a few dinner-house restaurants.  Due to my busy school schedule I would often close the kitchen on Saturday night and open it for brunch the next morning on limited sleep.  On occasion I would not hear my alarm blaring in my ear and would get out of bed AFTER I was supposed to be at work, which was a 30 minutes drive!  That was a complicating factor.  More recently my staff member, Corie, gave birth about 2 months prematurely to her beautiful daughter, Shelby.  That Corie had pre-eclampsia was a complicating factor that lead to the early birth of Shelby which was a complicating factor that lead to nearly 2 months of neonatal intensive care for her, and all of this was a complicating factor to me on the day she delivered when we suddenly had no one to work the front desk in the afternoon.  I hate complicating factors, but they happen all of the time and sometimes they significantly impact your chiropractic results, and this fact can be very important for you to understand.

            Let’s break down spinal damage, or subluxation, into 2 parts.  The first part is function or how your spine works.  The second part is structure or how your spine looks.  Both can cause pain when they get bad enough, and both can be present in your spine without any pain at all.  But think of it this way, when I examine your spine in the exam room and report to you what your range of motion is and what your total subluxation value (TSV) is those are measures of the function of your spine…how it works.  The higher your range of motion and the lower your TSV the better your spine is functioning.  Makes sense right? 

            And the better your spine functions the longer it’s going to last, right?  And the longer it lasts the better it will look on x-ray and MRI, right?  So when I see something on the x-ray or the MRI then the only conclusion can be that the subluxation has been there long enough or is severe enough to cause the damage to the structure that we are looking at; things like disc degeneration, disc herniation, bone spurs, joint arthritis.  And, therefore, the more damage we see to the structure the longer or more severe the subluxation must be, right?  Therefore, anytime we see any of these signs of spinal structural damage they are, by definition, COMPLICATING FACTORS.  And if they are complicating factors, what do they complicate?

            The way it works is this; let’s say you have a TSV of 100 and you have no complicating factors.  Then the goal of Initial Intensive Care (IIC) is to reduce the 100 to 50 and the goal of Reconstructive Care (RC) is to reduce the 50 to 0 (or as close as possible).  If you have NO complicating factors all of this will occur in a certain period of time, say a month or two for IIC and 6-9 months for RC.  But if you DO have complicating factors then:

1)      It will take longer to get the TSV lower.

2)      The TSV will not go as low.

3)      You are more likely to have residual pain/discomfort even with a low TSV.

4)      You are more likely to need other treatments, including drugs and surgery, but I still make it my job to minimize this possibility.

5)       The more severe the complicating factors the more severe the complicating effects.

With all of this said, there can be two conclusions.  First, complicating factors are bad.  Second, get your TSV as low as possible earlier in life before the complicating factors set in.  This actually is the best way to prevent the complications in the first place.  Thanks for reading.       

            If you are reading this as a current chiropractic patient it should all make very good sense to you.  You might at the end think to yourself, “Yeah, of course.  I do that.”  But the real target is everybody else you know.  I would really like for you to take this, make copies, give them out to strangers and friends alike, hang out in the mall and annoy passersby by giving them a copy.  Spread the word.  And the word is CHIROPRACTISTRY.  Chiropractistry is a word I just made up.  It is made from combining CHIROPRACtic with denTISTRY.  Since I made it up I get to define it.  It is the specific application of chiropractic care in the early diagnosis of spinal disorders and in prevention; taking care of little things before they become big ones.  We all get that you are supposed to see a dentist to help prevent tooth and gum problems or at least to find things while they are small so that you can prevent them from becoming big.  We have been told that our whole lives.  Whether we actually do it or not is another matter.  But my profession has done a poor job in driving home the same point to you, that the BEST way to use chiropractic is in the prevention of spinal disorders and in early diagnosis so that you can prevent little problems from becoming big problems, CHIROPRACTISTRY. 

            Let’s look at this another way.  You are a chiropractic patient.  Most likely you came to see me due to some pain somewhere in your body.  Most likely you have been helped by my treatment.  Most likely you are in Reconstructive or Wellness Care, and if you are not, then you are in Initial Intensive Care soon to choose whether you want to do Reconstructive Care.  Allow me to continue.  Most likely you are human.  90% of humans will suffer back problems.  The biggest cause of health care dollar spending by humans is on back pain (yes, more than cancer and heart disease).  The largest cause of disability in humans is back problems such as arthritis, disc degeneration, and disc herniation.  Most likely you know a human who is disabled due to back problems.  And certainly you know other humans besides yourself that have suffered back pain.  And finally, all joint degeneration in the human body is permanent.  Conclusion:  back problems are an endemic part of being a human.  As is tooth decay.  And just like in tooth decay, or gum disease, or for that matter cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and a myriad of other human afflictions, prevention is the best treatment.      

            If you can use brushing, flossing, and regular dentist visits to help prevent tooth decay, doesn’t it make sense that you might be able to use some sort of tools combined with regular chiropractic care to help prevent spine decay?  Or, if the treatment you are using right now helps to reduce or eliminate the pain you came to me for, if you had started the treatment before you had the pain could we have prevented the pain in the first place?  The answer to both the above questions is yes, of course. 

            We have the ability in most cases to diagnose spinal problems (subluxation) while they are still little problems, before they hurt, before they degenerate, before they disable, before they are permanent.  But since my profession has not spread the word as well as the dental profession, it is up to me and it is up to you.  I make it easy.  Just give a copy of this article to a friend or loved one along with a referral card.  Tell them your story.  And be an example.  And as always, thank you for reading this.  

           When I named this article I thought of the bagels that you can get at Starbucks or Panera that are called “Everything Bagels.”  I guess the presumption is that these are all in one bagels that contain everything.  While they in fact do not contain everything they are full of goodies and they are still very tasty.  So in this article I will attempt to give you “everything” you need to know about your spine and fill the page full of goodies.  But of course it won’t really have everything which is why all my other articles are on the blog above.  Read on.  

            Subluxation of the spine is joint damage, stress and strain that has healed wrong.  It often begins while we are in the uterus due to constraint.  It can also begin during the birth process as we are tugged, twisted, and pulled out, either naturally or through C-Section, or even perhaps with forceps or a vacuum extractor.  Then we begin a life in gravity falling all the time while we learn to crawl, walk, run, climb, ride, slide, skate, ski, and board.  We play sports, some of which are designed specifically to hurt us such as football or wrestling or fighting.  We get in car crashes.  We sit too long, work at the computer too long, play x-box too long, stand too long, lift too much or wrong, and the list goes on and on and on.  In short, our spine is subject to damage from before we are born until the day we die by “Time, Life, and Gravity.”

            Subluxation will always exhibit five parts: 1) Abnormal motion, 2) Nerve stress, 3) Muscle Spasm/Atrophy, 4) Inflammation, 5) Degeneration of the spine.  As your chiropractor I examine you for some or all of these parts and quantify them for later comparison.  From that examination we get three important numbers to monitor your progress: 1) Range of Motion, 2) Total Subluxation Value, 3) Phase of Subluxation Degeneration.

            Subluxation will always result in the following three effects: 1) Pain – When the level of inflammation or degeneration gets to a certain threshold (different for every person), there will be pain.  This can be when you are newborn, or maybe not until you are very old, but it happens in over 90% of humans. 2) Spinal Degeneration/wear and tear/arthritis (you pick the term as they all mean the same thing).  The damaged joints will wear out faster than normal aging.  This damage is always permanent.  3) Damage to overall health/increased risk of disease/decreased quality of life.  And this health effect is due to two things, stress to the communication system of the nerves, and inflammation from subluxation spreading everywhere within your body.

            Treatment involves three tools:  1) Stretching exercises – these are to take the joints in your spine to their extreme end of motion every day to help pump nutrients from the vertebrae into the discs and cartilage.  2) Chiropractic adjustments – these are to break the scar tissue and spinal habit patterns to get the joints moving that you could not stretch into moving no matter how often or how many times you stretch.  3)  Deep tissue massage – to break scar tissue in the muscles to allow the adjustments and the stretches to work better and last longer.

            Just as there are three effects of subluxation, there are three benefits to a healthier spine:  1) You will have less pain or no pain both now and in the future.  2)  The joints of your spine will wear out more slowly or perhaps stop wearing out altogether.  3)  Your overall health will be greater since there is less nerve system stress and less inflammation throughout your body.

            It just makes sense and best of all, it works.  Thanks for reading.  I hope you enjoy and I especially hope you SHARE.