This year at Matthews Chiropractic Center I’ve become a new parent. As a parent, I am acutely aware of the desire to make our children feel well ASAP. I am also cautious of everything that I give to my child to eat, drink and feel better. Readers to this space will remember an early September 2008 posting recommending alternative methods of relieving cough and cold in children under 2 years old (“Choose the spoonful of sugar, but not the medicine”). In that posting I highlighted the FDA’s recommendation to avoid use of OTC cough and cold remedies for children under 2 year of age.

Recent news recommends avoiding over-the-counter cough and cold remedies for children until 4 years of age. The Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA) is an industry group representing the manufacturers and distributors of over-the-counter (OTC) medicines and nutritional supplements. On October 7, 2008, the CHPA announced that leading manufacturers are “voluntarily transitioning the labeling on oral OTC pediatric cough and cold medicines to state “do not use” in children under four years of age.”

If you are still using these remedies in question, please be very careful to follow your pediatrician’s instructions, measure doses correctly, and keep track of when doses are given. To learn about an alternative to OTC cough and cold medications, see the earlier article Choose the spoonful of sugar, but not the medicine.

In our ongoing effort to make our services more accessible, I am happy to announce that Matthews Chiropractic Center is now a participating provider for WellPath, Coventry National Network, and First Health Network. If you have health insurance through one of these carriers, we are happy to provide in-network chiropractic services at Matthews Chiropractic Center.

Matthews Chiropractic Center is in network with health plans from the following carriers:

• Aetna
• Blue Cross Blue Shield
• Cigna Healthcare
• Coventry National Network
• First Health Network
• GHI
• Great-West Healthcare
• HealthCare Savings
• Humana Health Care
• Kanawha HealthCare Solutions
• MedCost
• Medicare
• MultiPlan
• Private Healthcare Systems (PHCS)
• UNI-CARE
• United Healthcare
• WellPath

Matthews Chiropractic Center wants you to stay well. With the upcoming cold season creeping closer you need to be at your best so your downtime is little and recovery swift. We welcome October and the spreading of National Chiropractic Month!

Staying Well is Staying in Flow

Chiropractic is an alternative health discipline which aims to remove interruptions to the flow of normal nerve transmission. The spinal cord is the main pathway for nerve messages to and from the brain. These signals allow our brain to perceive sensations, control our heart, lungs, and other organs and allow us to direct movements of our body. The nerve branches, which bring signals to all parts of the body, exit the spinal cord through holes on either side of the vertebral column. Each of the 26 bones of the vertebral column are separated by discs, which form joints with the vertebrae above and below. These joints are what connect the spine and give it flexibility. The vertebral column also surrounds and protects the spinal cord.

Inhibiting Your Wellness

Should a vertebra move out of alignment, say from trauma, emotional stress or another cause, it is likely that the nerve signals will be compromised. The chiropractic profession believes that this compromise negatively impacts the ability of nerves to carry messages and therefore a person’s health. Likewise, emotional stress, muscle tension, and poor ergonomics can stress the body/spine and also reduce the transmission of normal nerve messages. Chiropractic medicine is based on the belief that the body has an innate ability to heal itself. Chiropractors work to remove impediments to spinal motion and normal nerve transmission to aid the body in self-healing. Chiropractors primarily use adjustments to improve spinal motion. In this way, patients can be relieved of back, neck or joint pain, and headaches without drugs or surgery.

Recognizing Your Health through Chiropractic Care

National Chiropractic Month is a consolidation of two previous observances: Correct Posture Month and Spinal Health Month. Since good posture and proper ergonomics helps to eliminate stress on the body and spine, training to improve and maintain good posture is one of the things I usually stress during treatment. Considering how integral posture and spinal health are to chiropractic, it is very fitting that these endeavors be recognized this month. Poor ergonomics and lack of joint motion today could be the cause of your back pain or headache tomorrow… Call to make an appointment and have your spine checked today!

Many patients have asked if there is anything that they can do to help reduce or control chronic pain. Aside from regular chiropractic treatment to ensure that the spine and nervous system are functioning properly and daily exercise, our diets are one of the strongest contributors to our well-being. Much attention has been paid to trendy diets and super foods, but I will try to keep things simple.

Finding the Right Things to Eat

It seems almost everyday we hear about foods that we shouldn’t eat. Many of the foods in our diet are considered pro-inflammatory. This means that they increase the body’s level of inflammation and set off a cascade of reactions that predispose us to pain and sickness. So, of course there are foods to avoid. Chief offenders are processed and fatty foods. Steer clear of labels with ingredients that include anything “partially hydrogenated.” Try to avoid cakes, cookies, crackers, chips, fried foods, shortening, snack foods, and oils made from corn, cottonseed, sunflower, safflower, soybeans and peanuts.

Whether the discomfort is in your neck, shoulders, low back, knees, or elsewhere trying to incorporate anti-inflammatory foods into your diet can be beneficial. As a general rule, eating fish, grass-fed meats, fruits and vegetables should be the staples in a healthy diet (READ: eat more of these). Here I have assembled a few recipes which feature foods that can help to reduce the body’s overall level of inflammation (avoiding the bad foods is good too).

Breakfast Shake

• Frozen blueberries, cherries, raspberries, strawberries &/or bananas
• Water
• Whey and soy protein
• Glutamine (an amino acid)
• Soaked pumpkin seeds, cashews, almonds, walnuts (softened & drained)
• 3 Tablespoons of fresh ground flax
• Organic coconut oil

Start with water and protein powders (follow manufacturer’s instructions). Incorporate flax, coconut oil and glutamine, then add berries and nuts (any or all) to taste. Blend ingredients until smooth. Vary your recipe to taste.

Anti-inflammatory Salad

1. Chopped raw onions, red bell peppers, avocado - place in a bowl
2. Add organic extra virgin olive oil, organic balsamic vinegar, mustard, spices (ginger, turmeric, garlic, sea salt)
3. Add mixed greens - blend with previous ingredients
4. Sautee chicken, fish or meat and mix with vegetables
5. Hint: to keep calories low, DON’T cook protein with oil; saute in water or the natural oil/juices of the protein.

OOOSS Juice

• Use high quality, heat retaining, stainless steel 2-3 gallon pot
• Boil 1 gallon of water; add 1/2 pound of sliced ginger; lightly boil for 5 minutes; turn off and keep off
• Add 2-6 organic green tea bags, steep for 30-60 minutes, then remove
• After 4-12 hours, strain out ginger, place juice in glass jar and cool in refrigerator; reheat or drink cold

You can drink the ginger root and green tea straight or dilute with water. If you need to sweeten, add a small amount of fruit juice (100% apple juice for example). *Sweeten with 100% JUICE ONLY; nothing with high fructose corn syrup, added sugar or artificial sweeteners.

We hope you find some of these beneficial and useful to your life. If you have some recipes to share with us please let us know in our comments! We’re always looking for new great treats to pass along to our patients and friends.

At Matthews Chiropractic Center we like to provide as much information as we can for our patients and others who might be facing similar challenges and have common questions. A recent examination of literature indicates that the use of hormone pills in women who are healthy and experiencing symptoms of menopause seems safe. This review is a summary of beneficial findings from an October 2007 Scientific American article and feedback from a November 2005 workshop supported by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and published at PubMed Central on August 16, 2006.
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