Does Texas Have A Vaccine Exemption?

Welcome to this Thursday version of my Wednesday Q & A, sorry I didn't get this up yesterday, but I felt this was an important question that I didn't want overshadowing by our great ADHD webinar last night.

I was shocked when I got this question from a patient not too long ago.  They showed me a letter they received from the Plano Independent School District, that stated:

“Dear Plano ISD parent, I want to make you aware of some additional immunizations that will be required for the 2014 school year The changes will amend 25 Texas Administrative Code, Chapter 97, Subchapter B, 97.61; 97.63-97.72.  Following are immunizations that will be affected:

Meningococcal Vaccine
One dose requirements for seventh – twelfth-grade entry
Varicella Vaccine
Two dose requirements for kindergarten – fifth and seventh – twelfth
grade entry
Tdap Vaccine (Tetanus and diphtheria toxoids and acellular pertussis)
Booster dose required for seventh grade
MMR Vaccine (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella)
Two dose require
...

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Paleo Peach Barbecue Short Ribs

This was absolutely delicious! I love short ribs but they are best when cooked low and slow.  I normally smoke them for about 3-4 hours at 190-200 with a great dry rub.  But it has been so cold here in Dallas this winter that there is no way I am going to go out and fire up the smoker.  Like I said, I was really craving a good short rib. So I found a recipe from Abel James where he braised the short ribs in the slow cooker with a paleo peach barbecue sauce.  So I thought I could take that up a notch and throw that together from scratch.  Like I said this was absolutely fabulous, the peach really came through from the sauce.  The only problem is that there weren’t any leftovers.

Short Ribs

  • 3 lbs Beef short ribs
  • 1 Orange Peeled and halved
  • ½ Onion, Diced
  • 1-tablespoon ghee
  • Salt and pepper

Paleo Barbecue Sauce

  • 1/3 cup Coconut sugar
  • 1/3 cup honey
  • ½ cup apple cider vinegar
  • 2 Peaches Diced and pitted
  • 1 medium onion diced
  • 1 tbs butter or ghee
  • ¼ cup Smoked Paprika
  • 2 tbs garl
  • ...
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Can Chiropractic Help with Autism Spectrum Disorders?

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Honestly, the simplest answer is yes.  Chiropractic helps autism, research, has shown to help with many neurological imbalances in children with autism1.  While every case of autism is different, there is a set of core symptoms that have to be there for the diagnosis of autism.  These include problems with social skills, empathy, communication, and a lack of flexible behavior. However, the level of disability and the combination of symptoms varies tremendously for each person.  In fact, two kids with the same diagnosis may look and act completely different when it comes to their behaviors and abilities.

Neurologically speaking, most of these behaviors are related to an area of the brain called the prefrontal cortex.  This is the part of the brain that helps with impulse control and is related to ADD/ADHD, Tourette’s syndrome and OCD, which all can be included with the imbalanced neurology associated with autism spectrum disorders. The simplest analogy I have for this is that their ner...

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Kalua Pork Shoulder

A few weeks ago we were able to go a dinner/ launch party for Michelle Tam and Nom Nom Paleo’s new cookbook.  So we have tried some of her recipes.  One of the most interesting recipes we found was the Kalua Pork Shoulder for the crockpot.  It is one of the most flexible meals we have ever cooked.  You can use it on lettuce leaves, mix it into omelets or use it on a salad.  A word of caution be careful with the salt, and you will probably have to do some planning on the timing of this one, but it was so worth the time and effort!

  • 5 lbs. Boston Butt Roast
  • 3 slices bacon
  • 1 1/2 Tablespoons Red Hawaiian Coarse Sea Salt
  • 5 peeled garlic cloves

  1. Use 1/3 of a teaspoon of fine salt or 3/4 of a teaspoon of medium or coarse salt per pound of meat. 
  2. I minced the cloves of garlic and rubbed them over pork roast. 
  3. Then coated it with the proper amount of salt. 
  4. Then we lined the bottom of the slow cooker with the bacon. 
  5. Then placed the roast skin side up on top of the bacon.  Set th
  6. ...
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The Top 10 Reasons You are Not Losing Weight

I see this all the time.  We're now four weeks into the New Year, and you've been exercising more than you have in a long time.  You're skipping the drive-thru's and being strict about your diet.  However, when you're stepping on the scale, the numbers aren't budging in the direction that you need them to. So why are you not losing weight?  Here are the top 10 reasons you are not losing weight:

  1. You haven't chosen the right diet
    With the thousands, if not millions, of potential diets out there, it's so easy to get overwhelmed and confused.  When choosing a 'diet', you need to make sure it revolves around real food, and not the processed homogenized crap served from a drive thru window or inner isles of a grocery store.  Protein meal replacement weight-loss shakes also are not real food.   The best clinical results I have seen in my office are from the ancestral based diets like the paleo or primal diets.
  2. You're not drinking enough water
    You need to be drinking at least ½ your body wei
  3. ...
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Cauliflower Crust Pizza

I’ll admit that I have been craving pizza lately.  This Cauliflower Crust Pizza was an amazing replacement for the pizza dough.  I love how the cauliflower picked up the flavor the herbs.  It satisfied my cravings for the pizza.  The next time we make this I am going to try flipping the dough during the baking process to get the bottom a bit crisper.  The crust even held up as a leftover meal!  I was impressed by this Cauliflower Crust Pizza.

Cauliflower crust:

  • 1 medium head cauliflower (2 lbs of florets)
  • 1 tbs. coconut flour
  • 1 tbs garlic powder
  • 2 tbs thyme
  • 2 tbs tarragon
  • 1 tbs onion powder
  • 1 tbs salt
  • 1 tbs pepper
  • 2 tbs oregano
  • 3 whole eggs beaten
  • 2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese
  • ½ cup of grated Parmesan cheese

Toppings:

  • 6 ounces of tomato sauce
  • 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
  • 8-10 slices of pepperoni
  • 3 slices of prosciutto torn apart
  • 1 cup cherry tomatoes, quartered
  • ¼ cup Parmesan cheese
  • 6 ounces mozzarella sliced

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 425
  2. ...
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Are There Natural Treatments for ADD?

I hate labels. Whether it be ones we put on ourselves or ones that we let other people define us by, they are ridiculous.   The diagnosis of ADD / ADHD is just another label that is being put on our children at alarming rates.  Conservatively, CDC estimates about 3.5 million or 9% of our school-aged children are being prescribed some form of medication for ADD/ADHD.  This is a terrifying epidemic bordering on the pandemic, especially when you consider the French only diagnose and label about .5% of their school-aged children.  The main reason for this difference is the criteria for diagnosis.  It’s not that the French have ridiculously restrictive symptoms with complex tests to be diagnosed, they just look at the cause of the disease.

What is ADD / ADHD?Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder in the US are classified as a neurological disorder where the patient or child has learning, focus, and attention problems with no underlying pathological cause.  In...

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Paleo Garlic Mayo Baked Cod

I have to admit; I don’t like mayo, not even a little bit.  Years ago a patient was talking about baking a piece of fish covered in mayo.  The thought of it grossed me out. 

Well, I had mayo leftover from the paleo approved sides post so I thought I would finally give it a try.  This was a quick paleo garlic mayo baked cod that I whipped together one afternoon for lunch.  The paleo mayo I made with Macadamia nut oil, so it had a great nutty flavor.  That nutty flavor added a great taste to the cod.  While I am still not a fan of mayo as a side, it did an excellent job of keeping the cod moist and tender!  The great part was that the kids loved it for lunch!  You can also add a crust to the Mayo by turning the broiler on and moving the cod closer to the broiler for about 3-5 min.

  • 4 Cod filets
  • Pepper and Salt to taste
  • 5 cloves Garlic minced and turned into paste
  • 2/3 cup Paleo Mayonnaise
  • ½ Tbs Butter
  1. Preheat oven to 400 F. 
  2. Place Cod on a buttered baking dish.
  3. To prepare th
  4. ...
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The Road to Good Health...

There are so many ways that intestine health is important, especially considering that 80% of our immune system is in our intestines.  Autoimmune diseases are now such a common and devastating problem, and they are strongly linked to unhealthy, 'leaky' guts.  These occur when your immune system becomes hypersensitive to a protein or foreign compound because it sees that substance way too often.  The problem comes when you have increased intestinal permeability (leaky gut), you absorb too big of proteins, and these proteins look a lot like your tissue.  So your immune system starts attacking.  This would be a great thing except for the fact that it is attacking you!

Here is the best analogy I have come up with for an autoimmune disease.  Think of how annoyed you get when you see that in-law or relative that just gets on your nerves.  If they are around enough, then you start to get inflamed, irritated and might just take it out of family members that you like.  So basically your immune...

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US News Gave the Paleo Diet a Low Rating - Is it Legit?

US News has recently rated the Paleo diet low on its list of healthy and acceptable diets.  I get so upset reading articles about how bad eating a Paleo diet is for you.  It's always backed up by misinformation, misrepresentation, and blatant attempts to protect their advertisers.  I’m not saying the editors or panel polled were unduly influenced.  However, how can it be that Weight Watchers was rated as one of the best overall diets for weight loss, but something that encourages you to eat whole, unprocessed food, can be the worst?  I also find it a coincidence that Weight Watchers has an advertisement on every page of US News’ diet section, which makes it even harder for me to take this 'study' seriously.

So let's look at these so-called flaws they've found with the Paleo diet.

Will you lose weight?

US News Stated: “No way to tell. Paleo diets haven’t yet drawn the attention of many researchers.”

This is a ridiculous statement! No way to tell?   Seriously, if you own a scale, and...

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