For in-depth diet and exercise information, check out my free ebook (available as a downloadable PDF or readable online):
The Total Solution For The Weight Loss Impaired
View “Why Can’t I Lose Weight, Part1”
View “Why Can’t I Lose Weight, Part 2”
Stay tuned to my natural remedies blog for more weight loss tips.
For in-depth diet and exercise information, check out my free ebook (available as a downloadable PDF or readable online):
The Total Solution For The Weight Loss Impaired
View “Why Can’t I Lose Weight, Part1”
Stay tuned to my natural remedies blog for more free weight loss information.
For in-depth diet and exercise information, check out my free ebook (available as a downloadable PDF or readable online):
The Total Solution For The Weight Loss Impaired
View “Why Can’t I Lose Weight, Part 2”
View “Why Can’t I Lose Weight, Part 3”
View “Why Can’t I Lose Weight, Part 4”
View “Why Can’t I Lose Weight, Part 5”
View “Why Can’t I Lose Weight, Part 6”
View “Why Can’t I Lose Weight, Part 7”
Stay tuned to my natural remedies blog for more free weight loss information.
There is a common error in thinking when it comes to healthcare that is so common, it’s nearly universal in the U.S. and other industrialized countries. In my opinion, it is this one error in the way we tend to approach healthcare that has produced our incredibly expensive, yet remarkably ineffective healthcare system. And while this error in thinking is most prevalent in conventional medicine, it is also quite common in alternative medicine, and diminishes the effectiveness of natural treatments just as much as it does the effectiveness of drugs and surgery.
So what is this error in thinking? It’s the approach that treatment is directed at alleviating a health condition or set of symptoms. Now, this way of thinking is so ingrained in our culture, you’re probably wondering what I’m talking about. “Of course treatment is directed at alleviating a health condition! What else would treatment be for?” you may be thinking.
I submit that a FAR more effective approach to healthcare is to treat the PERSON, not the condition or symptoms. What I mean by this is that I often get questions from patients and from email along the lines of “What should I take for [insert condition or symptom here]?”. The problem with that question is that it only looks at the condition or symptom in isolation. There may be other symptoms or conditions present that would alter my answer to that question. For example, if someone is on blood-thinning medication, I generally recommend that they not take ANYTHING (drug, herb, or nutrient) for ANY condition while they are taking that medication.
From another standpoint, anytime we seek to treat a condition or set of symptoms, there is a tendency to make certain assumptions that may or may not be true. For instance I had a patient contact me to find out what I could do to help the stress fractures in her spine. She had been to a few different orthopedists who all diagnosed her and attempted to treat her for stress fractures, with no results. Since she was getting tired of the pain, when a friend suggested she consult with me, she was more than willing to get another opinion. Now, if I had simply assumed that her diagnosis was correct when she called my office, I would not have even scheduled an appointment for her. There’s not a whole lot I can do for stress fractures, they simply have to heal over time. But I asked a few questions. This was a young, otherwise healthy patient and she had been in constant pain for over a year. Stress fractures should have healed up in that span of time, unless she had some kind of metabolic bone disease that was reducing her bone density. I told her that a bone density test would be in order. She had already had one a couple of months before and it was normal. At this point, I didnt know what was causing this person’s pain, but I was pretty sure it was NOT stress fractures. So I agreed to see her. I could see on her X-rays what the orthopedists had diagnosed as stress fractures, and to be fair, they weren’t stress fractures but looked very much the same as stress fractures. But the patient’s pain was not anywhere near where the supposed stress fractures were! What was causing her pain was a congenital anomaly in the lower spine that in essence was an extra joint that had become jammed and inflamed. We got the joint working properly and the pain went away within a few treatments. If I hadn’t taken the time to look beyond the pre-established diagnosis, I would not have even taken the case.
Now, I’m not immune to this faulty thinking either. I’ve made some incorrect assumptions in my career and I’ve treated the (wrong) condition rather than treating the whole picture that every patient is. I know all too well how easy it is to get caught up in incorrect assumptions. I do the best I can to remain flexible in my thinking and to consider the big picture and to remain open to other possibilities.
The point I’m trying to make here is that healthcare providers and people who are attempting to treat their own issues need to be careful when applying treatment to a condition. Commonly I see patients who are taking multiple remedies that they have read or heard are good for whatever condition they are suffering from and what they don’t realize is that they are overdosing themselves and ultimately doing harm to other body systems. At the very least they may be simply taking redundant remedies and spending a lot more money than they need to be.
We need to take a broader view and consider the person as a whole, not simply the condition or bothersome symptoms he or she wants to alleviate.
If you’ve been considering seeing a chiropractor, there are some things you need to know to be able to find the right doctor for you. There are many different philosophies, styles of practice, and techniques in chiropractic, and it helps to have a basic understanding of what these are so you’ll know what to look for.
While there are as many philosophies in chiropractic as there are chiropractors, there are two basic types. The first philosophical type is the “straight”, which is the basic philosophy that the practice of chiropractic is simply to detect and correct “subluxations” of the spine only. This type of chiropractor typically only does spinal adjustments (sometimes called spinal manipulation) as his or her sole treatment modality. This may be an excellent approach to many cases, but patients with problems outside the spine and/or who are looking for more direct attention to symptomatic areas may find the straight chiropractic philosophy to be off-putting.
The second major philosophical type of chiropractor is the “mixer”. Mixers view chiropractic as a broader type of practice and will usually include other types of treatment beyond spinal adjustments, such as electrical therapy, ultrasound, massage, exercise, nutrition, acupuncture, etc..
Styles of practice vary greatly as well, and it is usually helpful to choose a chiropractor whose style of practice matches your particular needs at the time. For example, some chiropractors primarily see personal injury and/or worker’s compensation cases and frequently work in cooperation with attorneys. Others may specialize in sports injuries. Still others may run family practices and possibly even pediatric practices. Others, like myself may have “holistic” or “integrative” practices that utilize nutrition, acupuncture, herbal remedies, and other “natural” treatment methods and work with both musculoskeletal and organ-based health problems (whereas most chiropractors focus solely on musculoskeletal problems).
The majority of chiropractors still take assignment on health insurance claims, but a growing number do not. It is a good idea to find out about a doctor’s payment policies and approximate costs of care before your first visit. Don’t automatically assume though that a doctor who takes your insurance will be less expensive than one you must pay out of pocket for care. Different techniques, different levels of experience, and the amount of time and attention the doctor spends on each visit can result in dramatic differences in the total cost and duration of care for the same patient.
For example, one patient I saw recently had been to another doctor for 12 visits without getting any relief before coming (back) to see me. She had been to me before, but considered me to be “expensive” because I charged considerably more per visit and I didn’t take insurance. So, she went to a doctor who did take her insurance, went 12 times, each time paying her $20 co-pay. That meant that she had spent a total of $240 out of pocket (plus the cost of the gas she burned driving to and from 12 office visits) and had not improved signficantly. After just one visit with me (at $100 with no insurance coverage) she was symptom-free. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about which was a better deal.
Most chiropractors provide relatively brief treatments. In most cases, your actual contact time with the doctor is 10 minutes or less (in some extreme cases, it may be less than one minute – literally!). Many will provide additional therapy done by either a machine or possibly a massage therapist, but total treatment time is usually less than 30 minutes. Holistic chiropractors like myself typically spend more time with each patient and will usually incorporate more than one type of treatment per visit to get a synergistic effect.
Regardless of the philosophy and practice style of the chiropractor, the vast majority employ some type of spinal manipulation on most visits. Spinal manipulation can be performed via many different methods, ranging from very gentle instrument-assisted techniques like Activator or Pro-Adjuster, to more traditional manual methods that typically produce the joint “cracking” noise that many people associate with chiropractic. I myself use several techniques that span the spectrum of forcefulness. For overall healthy individuals, in my opinion, the manual techniques are usually more effective and efficient, but low-force techniques are still very beneficial and are more appropriate for those patients who are too fragile or too fearful for manual adjustments.
Many chiropractors also offer massage therapy in their practices, and massage can be an excellent adjunct to chiropractic treatment. If you are interested in massage therapy, you may wish to try to find a chiropractor who offers this service. Likewise, a small but growing number of chiropractors utilize acupuncture, nutrition, herbal remedies, etc., and all of these additional services have value for certain patients. It is a good idea to ask around to find a chiropractor who offers a wide variety of services if you are looking for a more comprehensive healthcare provider rather than simply a doctor for treatment of an acute musculoskeletal injury.
I think the best way to find the right chiropractor for you is through word of mouth. Ask your friends, family, coworkers, and other healthcare providers for recommendations. This is far more reliable than choosing at random from the yellow pages or from your insurance provider manual. Again, don’t be too quick to dismiss a recommendation simply because the doctor does not take your insurance. You may find that you can get much better service, much better results, and at an overall lower cost with a doctor who is not on your insurance than with a doctor who is.
One final tip… If you can’t get a recommendation from a friend, and you have to resort to using the yellow pages or your insurance provider list, check out the yellow pages and look for a doctor who has a listing only – no display ad. Why? Because if the doctor is not advertising, there’s a good chance that he or she gets most of his or her new business from referrals – which is a good sign. Ultimately you may need to try a few (or perhaps even several) doctors before you find one who is the right fit for you and what you’re looking for. But finding the right doctor is usually well-worth the effort.
For more information, check out my previous blog posts on this subject:
I have been at a continuing education seminar this weekend and one topic that came up was the issue of people who come in to the offices of healthcare practitioners who have researched natural health and remedies extensively on their own and have already self-prescribed many remedies that they take on a regular basis. I and others at this seminar have had the experience of dealing with patients who are taking 10, 15, sometimes even 20 or more supplements/remedies.
Oftentimes, people read an article or find something online that says that this vitamin or that herb is wonderfully healthy or “good” for a certain condition that may be a concern for that person, and rather than trying something new in place of something they were already taking, they simply add the new product to their list of stuff to take. While I am less concerned by the patient who takes 20 different supplements each day than the people I see who take 20 prescription drugs per day (this is not an exaggeration – I have seen patients who take this much medication), taking that many supplements is definitely not ideal and can be detrimental in the long run.
While natural remedies are, on the whole, much safer than medications, you can certainly overdose on certain nutrients, and herbs, particularly when you are simultaneously taking several products that have similar biochemical effects. And even if you don’t technically overdose on any one thing, simply pumping more products into your system can place an undue load on the body in terms of processing high quantities of nutrients. After all, the body is designed to get it’s nutrition from food, not from concentrated nutrient sources, so it can only handle a certain amount of any given nutrient at one time and convert it into what it needs. Very rarely is a nutrient used in exactly the same form in which it is ingested – the body converts it into a number of other things for use in various functions. Such conversions are limited by the presence of other nutrients and the speed of various chemical reactions. At best, an excessive intake of nutrients is wasteful (the body will typically eliminate what it can’t use right away), and at worst, it is unhealthy (for example, excessive Vitamin A intake can damage the liver).
While it is certainly good to be informed about your own health and about ways you can help yourself, I recommend that you avail yourself of the advice that experienced holistic/integrative health care providers can provide. This will help you to narrow down the supplements/remedies you take to just what you really need, which will not only help you to stay healthy, but will also save you a considerable amount of money in the long-run.
Stay tuned to my blog for more about a healthy lifestyle.
A common thing I hear from both my patients and from people in general is that they are trying to lose weight to get healthier. Of course, for many “get healthier” is code for “look better and be more attractive”, but that’s a whole different issue. Most people are under the impression that being overweight is causing their arthritis, their high blood pressure, their diabetes, and a host of other health problems. Many doctors reinforce this concept and may say things like, “Mr. Jones, you simly MUST lose weight to get that blood pressure of yours under control”. But is being overweight the CAUSE of health problems, or is it just another SYMPTOM?
Yes, numerous research studies have shown an association between being overweight/obese and having other health problems. But an association simply means that they are commonly seen together. It does not prove that one causes the other.
Think about it for a minute, do ALL overweight people have high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.? I can tell you that from 15 years of experience as a health care provider, the answer is “No”. Let’s look at the opposite side of the coin. Do normal weight or skinny people EVER get high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.? The answer is absolutely “Yes”. So, obviously, being overweight in and of itself is NOT the cause of high blood pressure, diabetes, and other conditions commonly associated with being overweight.
In fact, as I mentioned before, being overweight or obese is actually just another symptom of some other underlying problem. Now, that problem may be physical or emotional, or some combination of he two. It may even be a conscious choice for some people who, for one reason or another, prefer being overweight.
For the purposes of this article, I won’t be discussing emotional and personal choice reasons for someone being overweight any further, but I wanted to acknowledge those factors.
The physical causes of being overweight usually come down to the interactions and balances of various hormones. Most people who are overweight due to physical causes will have one or more of four basic underlying problems. These can be categorized as the thyroid pattern, the adrenal pattern, the liver pattern, and the estrogen pattern. These basic patterns were first described by Dr. Eric Berg. Dr. Berg references the last pattern as the “Ovary” pattern, but I have found that it is primarily related to excess estrogen, and it can occur in males (who have no ovaries, but do have some estrogen), so I feel it is more correct to refer to it as the estrogen pattern (with all due respect to Dr. Berg). More information is available on these patterns on other posts on this blog, and more will be added in the future. For this article though, I simply want to make you aware of these basic patterns.
This brings me back to the concept of losing weight to get healthy. In actuality, most people would do better to focus on getting healthy to lose weight. For example, someone with a liver pattern will typically have an extremely difficult time losing weight because their excess weight is largely in the form of water retention. You can’t exercise away water retention and while diet is important to help the liver pattern, the wrong diet can actually make things worse. Specifically, a high-protein program like the Atkins diet will almost always make someone with the liver pattern GAIN weight. It will also tend to give them elevated cholesterol and triglyceride levels and increase their blood pressure. This is not to say that the Atkins diet is a bad diet. It’s just completely wrong for someone with the liver pattern.
Diet isn’t the only factor though that determines whether someone becomes healthy enough to lose weight. Exercise is another big factor. For example, the best type of exercise for someone with the thyroid pattern (high intensity, short duration exercise) would be the worst type of exercise for someone with the adrenal pattern.
When you know what to look for, the body will give you signs to tell you what’s wrong and what needs to be done to restore balance and health. Once balance and health are restored, losing weight becomes a much easier process.
Stay tuned to my natural remedies blog for more on getting healthy to lose weight.
In my practice, I utilize both trigger point therapy and various types of acupuncture stimulation. Many times patients will ask me what the difference is between trigger points and acupuncture points, and it is a difficult question to answer because in my experience they are often located in the same place and may actually be the same thing, but the different ways of treating them often address different functional aspects.
A recent study comparing trigger points and acupuncture points done at the Jacksonville, Florida branch of the Mayo Clinic had similar conclusions. An article about the study posted on MayoClinic.org states, “Ancient acupuncture and modern myofascial pain therapy each focus on hundreds of similar points on the body to treat pain, although they do it differently…”. Chronic pain specialist, Dr. Peter Dorsher is quoted as saying, “…this study shows that in the treatment of pain disorders, acupuncture and myofascial techniques are fundamentally similar, and this is good news for anyone looking for relief.”
With further study, more may be revealed about the exact nature of trigger points and acupuncture points and it may become more clear how they differ (if at all). Until then, it is good to know that various methods of treating them appear to be effective, and such treatments can be of great benefit to those suffering from chronic pain.
Stay tuned to my blog for updates on acupuncture and trigger point therapy.
An extract from a species of fern plant is proving to provide sun and skin cancer protection when used either topically or orally. Polypodium leucotomos (say that ten times fast!) – which from here on out, I’ll be calling “PL” for short, is a Central American plant that has been used for centuries to treat tumors, skin disases, and sunburn.
Modern research has discovered that oral ingestion of this fern not only decreases the skin’s sensitivity to the sun’s ultraviolet rays and reduce the tendency to get sunburned, but also helps maintain special immune cells in the skin that fight cancer, AND inhibits collagen-destroying enzymes that contribute to skin aging.
“PL” contains strong antioxidants, but it also appears to have a much greater affinity for the skin than most antioxidants. In addition, “PL” extracts appear to act as an ultraviolet absorbing material that blocks UV radiation.
Even better, studies indicate that this oral “sunscreen” works quickly – a single 500 – 750 mg dose of “PL” provides moderate protection against the sun’s rays that same day! It should be noted that the amount of UV protection from “PL”, while significant, is not enough by itself to prevent sunburn from prolonged, intense sun exposure. Studies suggest that it increases the skin’s resistance to sun damage by three to seven times what is normal for a given individual (in topical sunscreen terms, that would be an SPF of 3 to 7). So, by itself, “PL” is not likely to keep you from getting burned on a day at the beach. It will; however, give you extra protection when combined with a topical sunscreen, and because it inhibits collagen-destroying enzymes, it will also help protect your skin’s elasticity and youthfulness.
“PL” will be of particular benefit for those who are unusually fair-skinned, and/or are on medication that increases ultraviolet sensitivity. In fact, the sun protection it provides is probably enough to protect such individuals for casual sun exposure, such as when having to walk across a parking lot to get to one’s car, and other short sun exposures that occur in the course of normal daily activities. For such individuals, a daily dose of “PL” will provide a much more convenient form of sun protection than having to take the time to apply topical sunscreen. And at a retail cost for most “PL” supplements of about $1.00 per day, it’s a relatively cost-effective form of sun protection as compared to topical sunscreens too.
Polypodium leucotomos is not yet widely available, so if you are interested in using it but have trouble finding it locally, feel free to contact me for assistance.
Stay tuned to my natural remedies blog for more healthy lifestyle tips.
