The Chiropractic Pain Pill?

Have you ever gone to the chiropractor and after the first adjustment felt a little worse. In some cases, felt a lot worse. This may sound a little weird but my response is almost always, "Great!". Why do I want people to feel worse you may ask? Don't get me wrong, I do not like seeing my patients suffer. As a matter of fact I do not like seeing anyone suffer.

The body is a very simple, while at the same time complex, logical mechanism that responds in a very logical manner IF you understand what is happening. Exercise is a very good comparison. Have you ever decided to start and exercise routine? You get excited, jump in with both feet and really over do it. The next day you have a hard time getting out of bed and walking across the room. Your muscles are responding to the new stress placed on them and are going through their normal natural healing cycle.

Getting back to feeling worse after the first adjustment. Before the adjustment, your body was working in a distorted position that it had adapted to over a very long period of time. Soft tissues (ligaments, tendons, muscles) have all adapted to accommodate this new position. For a period of time your body can handle this distortion. Eventually this abnormal position causes inflammation, muscle tension, nerve distortion/irritation (subluxation) which changes the body even more. The result of the previous mentioned usually leads people to the office to take care of the problem. The "problem" is the distorted position in which the body is working and the result of that is pain.

Granted, everyone wants to be pain free. I hate pain as much as the next person and want it gone as quickly as possible. But, looking beyond the pain to what is causing the problem is the key. When the abnormal body is returned back to the "normal" position a lot of change happens. For example, certain muscles, ligaments, and tendons stretch, other muscles spasm to move the structures and hold them in place; joints work in a different manner than they had previously been. For some people this change can be dramatic. What I see is the longer they have been dealing with this problem the more change their body has to make.

Just like exercising, when your body gets use to the new stresses it no longer gets sore. It has adapted. The same is true with your body. When your body adapts to the correct way of working it now has a chance to heal the damaged areas and not just mask the symptoms temporarily. Time is key. It took a long time for your body to get in the shape it is in, it will not go away quickly.

Exciting Research Happening in NUCCA

Years of clinical evidence suggest that the atlas vertebra misalignment may be related to a negative impact on human nervous system function resulting in chronic health symptoms, conditions and diseases affecting a decrease of quality of life. Within the chiropractic profession, investigation and validation of the mechanisms involved in supporting theories on spinal misalignments are lacking and long overdue.

It has long been suspected that upper cervical spinal misalignments result in altered cerebral blood flow. Correction of the misalignment may produce a ‘normalization’ of blood flow and a reversal of related patient reported conditions (Scott R et al. 1-8). Accuracy and validity in noninvasive measurement of cerebral blood flow has been limited due to technology.

A new method using Phase Contrast Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Angiography (PC MRA) now exists that significantly increases accurate valid measurements. Using PC MRA, cerebral arterial and venous blood can be measured in almost every vessel in the brain with an added ability to measure cerebrospinal fluid flow and determine Intra-cranial Pressure (ICP).

It has been proposed to measure all these parameters using PC MRA before and after a NUCCA correction of the atlas misalignment. From these proposed pilot investigations, evidence of mechanisms detrimental to the central nervous system may be discovered.

Changes in cerebral blood flow have been demonstrated by medical research to be connected to a number of medically diagnosed conditions and diseases. With the appropriate tools now available, the effect of the NUCCA atlas correction procedure on cerebral blood flow can be accurately evaluated.

Research Goals

The desired outcome of the blood flow investigations is two fold. Most significant is to discover neural mechanisms involved for two specific conditions involving a large population of our society: migraine headaches and hypertension. The second outcome will attract interest within the scientific community for further investigation of these mechanisms and the funding required to conduct the Gold Standard, Controlled Clinical Research Trials required for validation.

Two studies, each involving ten medically diagnosed patients with Stage I hypertension and ten medically diagnosed patients with migraine headaches are planned. Mechanisms already suspected in migraine headaches and hypertension may be related to in the brain stem nuclei, a critical area that may be involved in the atlas misalignment.

Measurable changes in cerebral blood and cerebrospinal fluid flow may substantiate a neural homeostatic mechanism affected by atlas misalignment in the brain stem nuclei. This research will lay the foundation for further research into the effect of the atlas misalignment on the central nervous system.

For more information visit: www.ucrf.org

Do you feel lost?

Many times in life we all feel a little lost. Almost everyday I speak with someone who is currently dealing with feeling “lost”. They have tried everything. They went to their MD, who sent them to another MD to run tests. The tests return negative but are given a prescription anyway in the hopes it will work. Then they see a physical therapist 3x/week for 6-8 weeks while still taking the prescription their MD gave them. They go back to their MD stretched and stronger, on a prescription, and still has not gotten anywhere. They are sent to another MD who runs the same tests yet guess on another prescription and give something else to balance the effects of the first prescription.

Does this sound familiar?

We see this almost everyday in our office. I feel it is sad. Many people have been going round and round in an effort to find help. They are trying to find a path back to health. I wish I kept track of the amount of people who said after they started care, “I wish I would have found you sooner!”, or “Why didn’t someone tell me about this before?”.

If you feel lost, call us. Schedule a no-charge consult. We will tell you if we can help, at the same time if we feel we cannot help we will tell you that as well and send you in different direction.

Dr. Stan Dombroski
Balanced Health Chiropractic Center.

Awake during surgery!

A very disturbing article was just released by the Associated Press stating a recent study finds 30,000 people a year wake during surgery! Click in the link to read the entire article…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23597612/wid/11915773

I am always amazed how quickly some people jump right to surgery. It is as though they are wearing their surgery total as a badge on their sleeve. To wake up, feel and hear all that happens during surgery while all the time being paralyzed, unable to speak or move is terrifying. To add to the pain and terror of suffering through a surgery awake, now you have to deal with the pain and discomfort of the healing process of the surgery. To go through that without a guarantee that the surgery is going to “correct” the problem in the first place should really cause you to seriously consider all alternatives

Autism linked to Vaccines!

Finally. The government has finally conceded the point that vaccines can and DO cause autism. Click or copy and paste into your browser the link below to read the article.

http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/press022808.php

This is something practitioners and believers of true health have been preaching for years. Much of the time it has fallen on deaf ears. As the old saying goes, “with time the truth be told.” Unfortunately, many suffer before the point is accepted. Please send this link to your family and friends. Let them read the facts and truths to make their own decision about these poisons being injected at will to our children. Let them know they have a choice without condemnation. Let the decision should be theirs and not someone else.

NUCCA chiropractor lowers blood pressure

Here is a link to a study from Dr. Marshall Dickholtz in Chicago demonstrating how a NUCCA spinal correction can lower blood pressure equivalent to 2 blood pressure medications. It makes sense when we understand that the body works properly when interference is removed and it can communicate with itself from the inside out as it was designed. Click on the link below to see the news report.

http://video.nbc5.com/player/?id=221389

Is your spine out of balance?

February 20, 2008 on 1:02 am | In Uncategorized | No Comments

Many people ask me “How can I be out of alignment and still feel good?”. We get that question or something quite similar very often. Often we are out of balance or subluxated from the day we are born.

Our body is an amazing thing. It is very good at adapting to a situation/condition to survive. Kids will express this as things such as colic, asthma, ear infections (all of which have cleared up by correcting their spine in our office), etc… Adults can have very similar issues but it will be called back pain, headaches, asthma, etc… If it gets bad enough it is given a different name; disc bulge/herniation, migraines, carpal tunnel, etc…

As you see, all through our lives we can suffer from the same subluxation, just given a different as as we get older. To get back to the original question about being out of alignment and feeling good, when I am asked that by my patients I like to reference our dentists. They did a wonderful job educating people to take care of their teeth and having regular dental visits to prevent cavities. Well, do you know someone who has had a cavity and didn’t know it. Of course! Mostly all of us have had a cavity at one time or another, some more than others. We all know what happens if we do not get it taken care of right away. We end up in a lot of pain, need lots of dental work and have to pay a lot of money. Before the pain started we had the cavity and it took a trip to our dentist to find it before it got bad.

The same is true for subluxations in chiropractic. We may be out of balance but adapting to that position. At the time we may feel fine but our bodies are slowly breaking down. Essentially, we are rotting from the inside out. If it gets bad enough we will start to have symptoms, but only if it has been there long enough. Just like the dentist being the only person to be able to find a cavity before it starts causing pain, a chiropractor is the only person to be able to find a subluxation, “spinal cavity” before it starts causing pain or problems. Have you visited your chiropractor lately? It may be time for a spinal check up.

Next time well talk about the question, “Is it true that once you go to a chiropractor you have to keep going?”.

Flu vaccine: friend or foe?

I’ve been saying for years the best way to catch the flu is to get the flu vaccine. Granted, the theory of vaccination is a plausible idea but has not lived up to its expectations of eradication of disease. Another article published in popular media today is just more evidence supporting what many “alternative” practitioners have believed for years.

Flu season, and vaccine, looking worse
AP - 22 minutes ago

ATLANTA - The flu season is getting worse, and U.S. health officials say it’s partly because the flu vaccine doesn’t protect against most of the spreading flu bugs. The flu shot is a good match for only about 40 percent of this year’s flu viruses, officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.

* Video: Shot Not Preventing Many Flu Viruses WJZ 13 Baltimore
Here is the link to the entire article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080216/ap_on_he_me/flu_season;_ylt=Ak8J0Tug6l06XaVb3WzRFxas0NUE

The last line of the article states, “This represents a real increase in resistance,”. The question I have, is it really an increase of resistance of the “bug” or is it a decrease in the body’s ability to defend itself? Stress (physical, emotional), trauma (accidents, injuries), toxins (food preservatives, vaccine toxicity/preservatives, environmental factors) all decrease the body’s ability to defend itself.

- Dr Stan