Alterations of Sympathetic Vascular Tone in Arteries

We are jumping into a very complex and in-depth discussion of something that may be a little confusing so I will try to go slow and not go off on a tangent. As we start the most important thing we need to talk about is a little bit of the anatomy and how the body works. I'm sure you know that tone and texture of the inside of your arteries and vein are very important. The veins are on the lower pressure side and the arteries are on the high pressure side. The veins are very distensible so they can act to store large amounts of blood in a time of relaxation and contract and push the blood into the arterial side when the heart needs to increase cardiac output. The arteries are relaxed or constricted  based certain physiological needs to that tissue. If a tissue needs more blood it constricts arteries to other areas that do not need blood at that certain time. Hormones also play important roll in this system as well, hormones like cortisol causes an activation of the sympathetic system. When the sympathetic are active under either hormonal or neural control the arteries increases their muscle tone to slow the blood flow from organs which are not used in a period of distress or intense activity. This is how the system should work properly.

The way this system works in a lot of people is problematic, first people are stressed, stress causes the release of cortisol, the release of cortisol causes the increase of the sympathetic nerve system systemically. The activation of the sympathetic nervous system causes a decrease of lumen diameter, thus increasing overall blood pressure. You see how this is a slippery slope of how the body works. I will say that arterial lumen pressure is inversely proportional to diameter, meaning as the lumen gets small pressure goes up. There are two ways the body can increase blood pressure, increase the cardiac output, and decrease artery diameter. The only way the heart can increase cardiac output or work is to do two things, first increase the force of contraction of the ventricles and increase the amount of blood pumped by the ventricles. So if you are always running on your sympathetic system invariably you will have a higher blood pressure, but how do we fix this?

With the sympathetic nervous system on overall you must break the brain-body communication so to speak we must reboot the system but how? How about we preform something that going to overload the whole system to restart, something call afferent barrage, now I'm using afferent barrage very loosely. When I use this term it is in the context of applying numerous sensory stimuli to a certain area in the body. It's possible to reset the system from sensory input. When spinal manipulation is applied to a segment, it's creating many synaptic connection, which could reset the system, of course more evidence is needed to fully valid the effectiveness. The afferent input could in turn lower the force of heart contraction, reduce the amount of blood pumped for contraction, and dilate the arterial lumen. There have been studies that show spinal manipulation could decrease blood pressure but they have some decrease of bias. However, it's exciting to see the possibility of an external stimuli causing a sympathetic change.            

Obesity Is Now A Disease

Obesity has now been classified as a disease according to American Medical Association. Despite your opinion of the now classified disease it will overall help people who could not afford meal replacement are behavioral counseling to help them lose weight. This also brings up another good point though, if it's now classified as a disease are insurances carriers going to start paying for the services rendered? Many people whom are obese also lack insurance coverage, so classifying it as a disease to be able to treat it to have insurance carriers pay for it can also moot. Then next aspect is why do medical doctor now want to treat this condition is it truly to help people or another code to bill to maximize profits. That last question to ask is why is a preventable condition such as obesity now a disease, a condition with can be totally preventable with education and training of the lifestyle? The thought that obesity is not a disease but rather a consequence of a lifestyle exemplified by overeating and inactivity is equal in thought to make the claim that lung cancer is not a disease due to the fact it was brought about by people who smoke cigarettes.  

Why Everyone Should Use Chiropractic

Chiropractic is a discipline of the healing art and not just an adjustment, while adjustments are the cornerstone of care there is literal hundreds of different treatment protocols that could help. The protocols recommended will be based on what the condition is, the experience of the doctor to treat that condition, and what kind of treatment that the patient is looking for. The most important aspect of chiropractic is that they will try to find the solution to your problem inside instead of using drugs and surgery as an option. It was been found that chiropractic care as a whole is much more cost effective than traditional medicine and also has higher patient satisfaction. With these two points it should be a no brainer that all musculoskeletal pain and functional problems should go to a chiropractor to be triaged first. However most people don't choose this method, why? I have concluded that people have been bombarded with medical propaganda from ads from medical devises to medication.

There are startling facts that we see to suggest that natural healthcare is the way to go first. First if medicine is the way to heal people than why are we as a society not the healthiest population in the world since we consume fifty percent of the worldwide medication? Yet, we are the thirty third healthiest country. The countries above us use the hard facts of healthy diet, lots of exercise, and natural healthcare first. The fact of the matter is if you go to a chiropractor first for lower back pain you only go to surgery 1.5 percent of the time, but if you go to a medical doctor you go to surgery 42 percent of the time and most likely get medicated one hundred percent of the time. I will also point out that the failure rate for back surgery is above fifty percent as well. If you want to do the healthy and smart thing choose chiropractic first. Remember true health lies within and not from a pill.        

Why Are Exercises So Important In Our Plano Chiropractic Office?

 We offer a wide range of exercises in our Plano Chiropractic office and the reason is quite simple, to get the patient better quicker. We know that Chiropractic is the most effective and safest healthcare delivery system for musculoskeletal pain in the world, but we can still make it better. There are tons of evidence to suggest that Chiropractic care is effective in helping spine pain and there is also evidence that suggest Chiropractic in combination with exercise is the most effective. Patients are paying us their hard earned money and we owe it to them to do the most effective treatment to get them healthy quicker. Not only will the patient start to feel better but overall they will be stronger and have more endurance. Once we get the pain subdued and the spine moving properly it is the best time to usher in the strengthening phase of treatment. If you know someone who want to get the best out of their treatment we are here to help.   

Do You Really Understand Your Medication?

Do you know the effects of your medication and why you are taking it? Many people don't and they are not explained the risks or benefits of the medication from their doctor. Better yet does the doctor understand the medication he/she is prescribing to you. Has your doctor done extensive research on the medication or is he/she only going by what the pharmaceutical companies are telling him/her? Are the pharmaceutical companies being truthful in what they are telling a doctor? Do the pharmaceutical companies care about you getting better or keeping you sick? They are in a business and that business is making money. Americans are a very small portion of the world population but we take fifty percent of the drugs, why?

In this day and age it is very important to understand how big pharm has ushered their evil head into main street. Big pharm has been caught red handed, bribing doctor, withholding evidence, withhold risk, and misleading the public in what their drugs do and don't do. The pharmaceutical companies have been fined billions of dollars for misrepresenting drugs and hiding risk and outcome. They have literally been fined billions of dollars in just one lawsuit and they chalk this up to the cost of doing business. Thousands of people of have died because of pharmaceutical companies are not telling the truth. People dying and countless lawsuits is just the cost of doing business to them. They are a business they do not care if you live, die, get better or stay sick, as long as you are buying their drug and they are making money off you.

This example caught my eye and I felt like I needed to share it, while of course drugs are very important I am against the way drugs are used in this county, all to the benefit of a company and at the expense of the general public. Merck recently paid a law suit in the amount of $688 million dollars for withholding evidence about one of their cholesterol drugs named Vytorin. They did a study called the Enhanced study which was a double blind randomized control trail in which they were testing if Vytorin decreased the risk of atherosclerosis by decreasing thickness of the carotid artery. It was found in 2006, that indeed Vytorin did not reduce the risk of atherosclerosis but actually worsen the carotid artery thus increase the risk of atherosclerosis and heart disease. So in essence the drug was actually making patients more likely to have a heart attack. The drug did lower cholesterol but did not stop atherosclerosis which is why you want your cholesterol to be low in the first place.

So with Merck knowing that their drug was an epic failure and did harm to a certain extend, do you know who they told? Nobody! This was keep quiet while Merck made over 5 billion dollars from 2006-2008 off this drug. Once the release of this information in 2008 that their drug was a failure and did not work doctors continued to prescribe it, either not caring or not knowing (which is worst), making Merck in 2012 4.4 billion dollars from Vytorin. It needs to be noted that statin drugs (cholesterol lowering drugs) which include Vytorin and other drugs have never been shown to decrease atherosclerosis, or decrease the risk of stoke and heart attacks. Cholesterol-lowering medications have never been shown to prevent a heart attack.  The only benefit these drugs have shown to do is to lower the risk of mortality by about 1% in patients who have already had a cardiovascular event. So why are we taking these drugs. Lowering your cholesterol does not equal lower risk of cardiovascular events.

Please be leery of what you are prescribed and question who has your best interest in mind. Remember the best medicine on earth is eating right, exercising and talking care of your body. Your Plano Chiropractors at Twisted Spine and Joint Center want to help you achieve your health and wellness goals whatever they may be. Yours in great health!         

Why Get Chiropractic When I Can Take Drugs?

This is a question I'm sure many patient have on a day to day basis. The sad truth is many people are brainwashed or convinced that health comes in a pill or drug. They are led to believe this by the pharmaceutical companies and then by their doctor who usually only prescribes a drug. The fact is health does not come in a pill it never has and never will. True health only comes from one place and that's from within. No pill or doctor can heal you, the only one to heal you is yourself. The body has this form of innate intelligence, which is responsible for the vitality of one's self. The only thing we can you as doctors is listen to the innate intelligence and facilitate the body to heal and function properly.

It may be easier to take a pill to get rid of symptoms, but the truth is health is not easy or hard it just is. Giving yourself a foreign compound to quell the symptoms, or the voice your body tells your brain is the exact opposite of healthy. The body is trying to tell the brain something, but why and what? The body tell the brain things all the time, I'm hungry, I'm tried, I'm thirsty, I've got to go to the bathroom. Why would we try to stop the body from communicating with the brain? Can you image if we cut off the communication from our body trying to tell our brain our daily necessary functions? We would die!

Pain seems to be the only acceptable body-brain communication which can be circumvented, but then again why? Pain is your body telling the brain there is a problem it's important to feel pain, it's a normal function on how you judge health. We need to be in touch with our body all the time, severing the communication is not only unhealthy but very dangerous as well. Over 125,000 people die from drug overdoes and drug interactions a every single year by a doctor they think has their best interest. I am not against drugs at all, what I am against is the overutilization of drugs. The United States is only five percent of the world population, yet we consume fifty percent of all the drugs in the world and are one of the unhealthiest populations on earth.

Choosing chiropractic and/or alternative healthcare provides may not be the fancy or easy way, but it's right way. Start with the least invasive treatment first and progress up from there. Chiropractors use a safe, healthy, and effective approached to treating very common problems with our population, such as musculoskeletal pain. Chiropractic will take time it's not an overnight process, the body did not get damaged overnight so it won't be fixed overnight. The best thing about chiropractic is the feeling that you get when your body healed itself with the help of a chiropractor and you did not have to take any side-effect laden or habit forming schedule 2 narcotics. If you have a lower back problem imaging taking a pill and dying from it, something as simple as lower back pain can get you addicted to a drug and kill you. Choose chiropractic and choose health, your body will thank you for it.      

What Is The "Crack" During A Chiropractic Adjustment?

This is a common question I get from patients from time to time, they never really seem to understand how it works. I have heard answers such as "are the bones breaking" or "are you snapping my head off". Of course at this point of practicing I've told patient the cause of the "crack" before they guess that answers themselves, trying to be proactive. The "crack" noise is something that is actually very minor, it is nothing more than gases escaping from the joint capsule. The gas, which is nitrogen, must escape the joint during a chiropractic adjustment, the gas that leaves the joint capsule leaves the joint as an audible pop. So while the "pop" or "crack" sounds scary it's nothing more than a natural process of gas escaping a joint. The quick motion of the adjustment creates a negative pressure inside the joint and takes nitrogen out of solution in the form of a gas. It's important to note that not all joints make an audible click during an adjustment and you also don't need the audible click to have adjustment confirmation. The adjustment is a feedback from how the bones move as sensed by the chiropractor delivering the adjustment. This is also independent of a wellness adjustment or an adjustment treating a certain condition.     

Tell Me About Gluten, I Keep Hearing About It

Well the good news is if you're not familiar with gluten you probably don't have a severe food sensitivity to it. You perhaps may know of someone who has problems or you yourself may have gastrointestinal issues that are not severe enough where you have sought a doctor before. I will provide info for you to know what gluten is, what are the symptoms associated with gluten and how to find if you have a sensitivity to it.

Gluten to put it simple is just a protein in wheat, anything that has wheat in it also has gluten in it. A protein is a long chain of amino acids arranged in a certain order and folded a certain way that is only specific to the DNA of that organism. These proteins have many functions and are very abundant and essential for life functions. The way the immune system is made in our body is to find anything the body labels as foreign, even if you know it's not foreign the body does not know this. Once the body sees a foreign objects it starts to attacked it, the body usually looks for proteins while it's on patrol, and gluten just happens to be a protein.

When the body notices a foreign invader (gluten) it tries to eliminate it by causing inflammation. The inflammation process is a recruitment of a whole bunch of chemicals and cells to that area. The cells try to eat and digest the invader and label it as foreign for future memory and the chemicals are markers to call more friends to take care of the job. The inflammation in most cases is usually felt by pain, although noticeable inflammation is not present all the time. So technically, your body can be inflamed and you don't even know it. This chronic, unknown inflammation takes a toll on the body and it's starts to work less than optimal. When people have a severe problem with gluten that is called Celiac disease. According to the Mayo Clinic Celiac disease can cause abdominal pain and diarrhea. Eventually, the decreased absorption of nutrients (malabsorption) that occurs with celiac disease can cause vitamin deficiencies that deprive your brain, peripheral nervous system, bones, liver and other organs of vital nourishment.

If you have Celiac disease you usually know it based on the symptoms or if you have these symptoms learned how to manage it. The other problems are the unnoticed effects of having a food allergy to gluten which as I stated above can cause chronic inflammation which in turn causes havoc on the body. Some of the symptoms of chronic inflammation are fatigue, muscle soreness, being lethargic, sleeping problems, and digestive issues. If you have these symptoms it could be a good idea to get a food sensitivity test, this test can tell you if your body has an inflammation response to certain foods.

If you do have a problem with gluten and it needs to be eliminated from your diet it's not a huge deal. It does mean you should not eat traditional pastas, pizzas, cookies, and other wheat products. Since Celiac disease has been to the forefront a little more they are starting to make foods that are gluten free to make your life without gluten an easier one. If you have questions about how to get food sensitivity test visit our website by clicking on food sensitivity test link.     

Chiropractic Treatment For Functional Leg Length Discrepancy

A functional leg length discrepancy is when one leg upon measurement seems to be longer than the other when it's not anatomically longer, meaning one just appears to be longer. While measuring is going to yield the same results, radiographs may show a pelvis discrepancy in the iliac crest or greater trochanters. This discrepancy can be attributed to a possible issue within the lower back or sacroiliac joint. When the lower back and sacroiliac joints are not functioning properly it changes the way the tissues response creating an "asymmetry" in the spinal muscles. If the muscles in the spine are either tight (hypertonic) or loose (hypotonic) then the certain structures can be elevated or depressed leading to an appearance of a longer leg. Radiographs will show this and it can be explain to the patient.

If a functional leg length is present and remains for a long period of time without being treated by a chiropractic major issue can arise. Of course lower back and sacroiliac pain will be present but also any joint in the legs can be effected due to a disruption of normal biomechanics. If a joint is holding more weight than the other joint it is going to fail and become inflamed quicker, then a patient will start to favor the sore joint which will then cause the other joint on the other leg, due to compensation, to have aberrant biomechanics and that starts to turn into a long process when now both joints hurt. Long term effects of improper mechanics wear on the overall strength and stability of the lumber spine leading to possible disc herniation or injuries with minimal force compared to a normally functioning spine.

Chiropractic treatment rendered can help, the first step is to correct the muscle to make them more pliable so one side is not completely spasmodic due to the long standing effects. Then after taking careful radiographic measurements you can adjust the sacroiliac joint in their respective position. One side should be done in a posterior inferior direction while the other should be in a posterior superior direction. This chiropractic adjusting can be done in a prone position with chiropractic drops. After a course of treatment there should be a new resting alignment, this could be observed with radiographs or measurements on the patient's body. Once the new resting alignment is observed to satisfactory of the patient and the chiropractor, corrective and strengthen exercises can be done to hold the alignment and possibly help preventing future injury due to weakness. As always wellness care can and should be recommended for maintaining gains and prevent possible future reoccurrence. If you are having back pain and want to see if chiropractic can help you visit our website or our Plano Chiropractic office.          

Why Is Chiropractic Treatment For More Than One Visit?

This is a great question for someone which is unfamiliar with chiropractic care. I always tell a patient that care is a process and a treatment protocol meaning there are different steps involved. If you go to a medical doctor and get a prescription for a course of treatment such as an antibiotic, do you really think you would be better from one pill? No, of course not, the doctor would say take every pill, that is their course of treatment, as a multiple number of visits is a course of treatment from a chiropractor. The course of treatment is a word used in the healing arts, the difference is a medical doctor gives pills as a course of treatment and a chiropractor gives adjustments and therapies. It is just as unreasonable to think that one adjustment is going to cure your neck pain or low back pain forever, as it may help slightly for a temporary time it is a long term fix, just like one pill of antibiotic is not a long term fix for an infection.

The steps or phases to chiropractic treatment usually fall under three sections and they all vary on progress of the patient and the severity of the condition. The first step is the acute or relief phase, this is the phase where the doctor works on getting the patient out of pain and decreasing their inflammation. The next phase is the healing or correction phase, this the phase where the doctor works on the patient to restore function to their spine and getting their tissues to heal properly. The last phase is the health or strengthening phase which is where the doctor works with the patient to get them back where they were prior to the problem and strengthen and stabilizes the tissues. The last phase which is optional but we highly recommend is the wellness or maintenance phase, in this phase the patient takes responsibility for their health by getting regular check-ups to make sure their spine is staying health and there are no problems.
 

Why Should I Get Wellness Care?

Wellness care is a very important lifestyle choice that many people like to make. Weather the choice for wellness care came out of a serious past injury or an athlete just to be at top physical shape, it really doesn't matter.  What does matter is that you made a choice to take care of your body and decided to be proactive with your health and life. In my experience the people who receive wellness care are adamant about being well. In our country there has been a large paradigm shift (albeit we would like it larger) towards taking care of your body before problems arise and keeping it healthy.

Recent evidence suggest that visiting a chiropractor and having a chiropractor as your primary doctor would yield better results in the form of saving money and probably increasing your overall health and wellness. This can be due to fact that chiropractors are in trend with the paradigm shift of wellness, where an allopathic doctor would have you visit her/him when there is a problem a chiropractor would have you visit when there is possibly no problems and try to keep problems from arising. We have found that it's easier and more cost effective to keep you healthy than to neglect your health and try to get you out of a hole to restore your health again.

I always like to quote Thomas Edison whom was a great thinker, innovator and forward mover, he said "The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease." Even Thomas Edison long ago saw how healthcare should be ran, he saw that the doctors of the future will be so knowledgeable that they will prevent people from getting sick and medicine will not be needed, now we are not there yet but we are moving there.

The reason why wellness care is effective is because you are putting yourself in front of a highly trained professional more often than not. When you do not get regular check-ups, problems can manifest without you even knowing they are there until it's late and if they are neglected you're ushered back into the old model trying to dig your health out of a hole. Within the wellness model the doctor can find issues with your body that you did not know were present, the doctor can find these issues, treat them and/or refer appropriately to take care of the problem(s) quickly and before it to late. You have only one life to life and health is the greatest wealth.

    

I Have Headaches! What Can I Do?

Headaches seem to be an ever occurring problem with a large number of people. First let's just start and stay headaches are not a normal thing. Many people pass off headaches like it's not a big deal, the problem is headaches could be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to other issues. There are many different types of headaches and many different cause. The causes range from hormone imbalance to high blood pressure. For our sake we will be talking about cervicogenic headaches because it fits our audience perfectly. Cervicogenic headaches are a very common type of headache which arises from the cervical spine in origin. Cervicogenic headaches can arise from irritated facets, tight muscles, sore joint, and nerve impingement.

The pain from these headaches can be mild to severe, they can last from a few minutes to hours, day, or weeks on end. They can come on gradually or happen spontaneously and they can leave the same way with treatment. There is one common theme though, if you have headaches arising from your cervical spine you definitely a cervical spine problem. Pain and other symptoms are the last thing to show up when there is cervical dysfunction, the good thing is they are also the first thing to go away. The important thing is that chiropractic treatment can help with the headaches from the above mentioned symptoms.  After the headaches are gone it's very important to correct the spinal dysfunction that caused the symptoms and then usher to wellness care to make sure the cervical dysfunction can be quelled as needed.

We Are Back To Talk About Chiropractic & Wellness!

After a long hiatus Living Healthy 24/7 is back and we will be talking about chiropractic and everything wellness. It's going to be a lot of information and it's also be fun in the upcoming weeks. We are going to be trying to hit it hard so try to keep with us and check back frequently.

We also have some other sites that are putting out a lot of good content, I suggest everybody to check it out if they are interested, they will be hyperlinked. If you have any direct question we would love to help you out check out our main site for more info that can answer your questions, click here.

We decided to change direction to appeal to our audience a little more, we were asked to speak about chiropractic more. Ask and ye shall receive, we always want appeal to our audience so if there is ever a specific topic you want us to write on we will try to do our best to make it possible. Enjoy our future content and stay tuned!

Dr. Phil on Chiropractic

Great information on Dr. Phil about the benefits of chiropractic and how it works