The simplest answer is yes, and it might even be essential. When I started my practice 11 years ago one of my first patients presented with severe pain in her neck. As a flight attendant, she would only be able to take one trip or so out a month because the pain was just unmanageable.

When the pain became so severe that she was genuinely unable to work, she had a spinal fusion surgery in her neck. The back surgery took her pain down to what she considered a manageable level of 2-4, but the pain never completely went away. I was invited to give a lecture at a nearby Curves, and that's where we met! She scheduled an appointment and, after a thorough exam, I determined that I could help her.

After just a few treatments, which included adjustments to her entire spine, neck, and the segments above and below her fusion, she was pain-free. Once pain-free she returned to her globetrotting job as a flight attendant working full time. It may be essential to get adjusted after spinal surgery be...

I ran across this blog after a deep discussion with Erin about educating our kids. While our children are a few years away from formal education, (TJ is 22 months, and Lilly is nine months), we've been hit with friends asking things like, "when are you starting preschool" and "are you planning on holding them back."

Like our other parenting avenues, we thought we'd be relaxed! Who knew that we needed to apply to the best school when we saw the first sonogram? We certainly didn't. Most of our friends have older kids, so we have seen the perils and pitfalls of massively overextended little ones, everything from 3 sports and extracurricular school activities, not to mention the incredible the amount of homework elementary students have nowadays. Just try to mash up all the homework and science fair projects with this busy extracurricular schedule. I can feel my hair turning gray thinking about it!

There's so much to learn about being a working adult while climbing trees as a youth. The ...

"True healthcare reform starts in your kitchen, not in Washington"
~Anonymous

In what some would consider a government shutdown based on healthcare reform, I'd say this quote was pretty timely! I'm not going to get on a large soapbox with this one today, but the Affordable Care Act (ACA) can not save us from runaway health care cost. Neither can billions of dollars spent on medical research, and, honestly, if you think the massive "food" companies like Archer-Daniels-Midland, Cargill, ConAgra, and Monsanto are looking out for your health then you are seriously naive.

Your health starts with the vote you make with your checkbook by buying local and organic GMO-free foods. When you have an 8 in 10 chance of getting diabetes, or a 50/50 chance of dying from a heart attack, both of which have high prevention rates when consuming a proper diet, the obvious conclusion is that changing our diets is the only way to stand any chance of real health reform in this country.

Food, family, ac...

This is such a big issue, and with all the great marketing behind Atkins, I understand the confusion. On the surface they appear to be the same "diet," however, when you look deeper they are entirely different!

Both have their foundations as the modern diet is fundamentally flawed, and that protein and fats should make up the largest part of your diet. To better understand each one let's first take a look at Atkins.

Dr. Atkins, a cardiologist, based his diet on his finding in practice that most heart and health problems stemmed from our diets. He proposed a radical idea that fat was healthy and we needed to completely reset our physiology away from the high starch and sugar diet that most Americans still eat. While most people never really got past the part of the plan that said eat meat, there were 2 phases to his original plan.

The phases boiled down to basically, phase 1 meat, phase 2 addition of cheeses and nuts, then maintenance which meant adding in acceptable vegetables. It i...

Type 1 vs Type 2: Different Diseases, Same Problem

Diabetes—both Type 1 and Type 2—reflects one fundamental problem: your body can't regulate blood glucose properly. The mechanisms differ, but the outcome is the same: chronically elevated blood sugar damages blood vessels, nerves, kidneys, eyes, and cardiovascular tissue.

Type 1 Diabetes (Insulin-Dependent) typically develops when an environmental trigger (viral infection, gut permeability, dietary protein mimicry) combines with genetic predisposition to create an autoimmune attack on pancreatic beta cells. These cells, located in the islets of Langerhans, produce insulin. When they're destroyed, insulin production stops. Type 1 diabetics require exogenous insulin for survival.

Type 2 Diabetes (Non-Insulin Dependent) is metabolic dysfunction, not autoimmune disease. Your pancreas produces insulin—often too much—but your cells have become insulin resistant. They're saturated with glucose and refuse to accept more. The pancreas respon...

THE MAN IN THE ARENA

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt

This is an excerpt from Theodore Roosevelt's 1910 speech, "A Citizen of the Republic." This is just one section of the 35-page speech that he gave at the University of Paris. I was first exposed to th...

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the gras...

"A wise man ought to realize that health is his most valuable possession." - Hippocrates    

It is a sad statement of modern society when many of man's "most valuable" possessions are his house or car, which can be taken away in an instant! 

If a man has his health he can rebuild his house or buy a new car.  It's also sad that we usually provide the normal regular maintenance to our cars, (that we will usually sell or junk within 5 years), but we fail to maintain the bodies we will keep for 70, 80 or even 100 years!

Hippocrates was a Greek physician and philosopher and has the honor of being called the Father of Medicine.  Honestly, it is with good reason that the medical profession must take a Hippocratic oath, I just wish they read it once in a while! 

Hippocrates was an amazing man, surviving 20 years of being jailed!  He was the first person to say that diseases were of environmental factors such as diet and how the person lived, not curses from the gods.

Hippocrates has tru...

So, I can't say that I am a fan of Kevin Trudeau, but I can say that I'm a fan of the concept behind this. 

When I see new patients and we cover the reasons that brought them into my office there's inevitable shock when, after using Applied Kinesiology, we discover the root of their functional problem. 

This is not saying the problem is pathological in nature, simply it's a breakdown of your natural ability to heal.  When we get in touch with our bodies and make every inch of them sing in harmony, as the body was intended to do, our body feels good! 

A chiropractic adjustment can alleviate quite a bit of issues, but marrying chiropractic with Applied Kinesiology really let's the body talk to us.  Many people that see me have been living with pain, less energy, truly deciding this is a way of life for them.  When we get in touch with the underlying problem(s) they feel good!  The body is amazing.  It's designed to heal itself; when you remove the obstacles impairing nature the body w...

If you're like me, you’ve probably spent the past two weekends glued to your TV and computer watching football and tracking your fantasy football teams. (And, if you're like me, you've watched your fantasy teams get shellacked two weeks in a row!)

You've probably heard or read about the focus at all levels of football to diminish the occurrence of concussions. The question is: Why do concussions matter so much? The actual medical name for a concussion is Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. This brain injury term is a much scarier and much more accurate way of describing what a concussion is.

The brain is three pound of fat and protein, it's encased in the rigid bony skull, and the dura attaches it to the skull. The brain is also cushioned and surrounded in the skull by cerebral spinal fluid that acts a lot like a liquid airbag around your brain. The primary proposed etiology of a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury is that the jolt to the head is hard enough that the brain will strike, or come clos...