“I’m Mad as Hell and Won’t Take it Anymore!!”

The quote is from the 1976 movie, Network. But is should be about how patients feel about our health care system.

Latest news: In Vitro fertilization, which patients tell me costs $30,000+ per attempt is 8% effective. 8%? How much hope can you give a couple with those odds?

Tylenol is considered a staple of the family’s arsenal for their children, safe for most.  Read below – it’s not (especially for teens).  And its in many products including cold medicines, cough syrups and other pain and fever relief products.

Latest news: A huge study published in England conducted on 330,000 teens in 50 countries gives the increased risks with Tylenol (acetominophen) usage. MODERATE usage is considered ONCE PER YEAR, HEAVY is ONCE PER MONTH.  (Do you know anyone using more than once per month?)

For “heavy” use the risks for teens increase as follows:

• 151% increased risk of asthma
• 118% increased risk of allergies
• 87% increase risk of eczema

MORAL: Don’t trust our health care system.  Its taken decades to find out that Tylenol is not safe even in low doses, especially for teens. What else are we doing that has awful side effects over the long-term?  Think before putting ANY chemicals in your body.

Mother’s Day Caring

I was reflecting on the dedication of Mothers, to their children, to their community – their selflessness.

They can’t be stopped.  If they think their child needs something (including lifting a car off a child) mothers do what needs to be done often to their own detriment.  They are unmoved by what others might say; they do what they feel is right.   They stay up all night with sick children, for days or weeks on end.  They have the strength and the compassion to raise our next generations.

No matter your political belief, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.) started from the outrage of a mother.

I’m asking my patients, and those that know about natural health and healing to be inspired by mothers, to share natural health and healing with others,  and to bring them into the community…  because its right, because it can and does save lives and save from suffering.

We do not need to look very far at friends, family and neighbors to see sickness.  Its often too late to say “you should have” to someone with diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure or a new scary diagnosis.

Those of us in the natural health community, my patients included need to step up, to step out and firmly (like a Mother does) instruct those we care about to make changes:

• clean water
• improved nutrition
• better mental attitude
• more physical activity
• and a healthy nervous system – Chiropractic care

In my office I probably sound like a broken record, but I compete with the news and advertising to get my patients’ attention.  Its too late if their body’s deteriorate to the point of a chronic disease, if their genetics can’t cope, if the have given up on the expectation of healing.

Risk rejection, risk someone saying “no” – it takes time to realize that there are not magic pills – all medicine has side-effects, that cutting out pieces of the body is not the design and that it can heal with the right help.  Be inspired by mothers and do what is right for those you care about.

Birth Trauma Is Killing Us – Not then, now!

Natural Birth… Unnaturally

I was at a Chiropractic seminar this weekend where the leader posed the question as to why our nation is so sick, why so many of us are so sick.  Why has aging become a curse? We were reminded of birth trauma in our standard vaginal deliveries. Here is an animation of the “normal” process:  link

• note the normal rotation of the head
• note the way the shoulders are delivered naturally

In our seminar several video clips were presented courtesy of International Pediatric Chiropractic Association.  The women were in what is the typical hospital birthing position, supine, laying down – known to slow the delivery process and close up the birth canal. Some, maybe all, were numbed from the waist down unable to participate fully.

The audience were Chiropractors, staff and spouses – many squirmed when the doctors pulled strongly on the baby’s head, sometimes with forceps, not letting it rotate in the normal process of delivery. There was significant force both pushing the head down and pulling the neck up to release the shoulders.

I looked online for a video link for you.  They are not easy to be found and frankly, disturbing to watch.  As described this is not a natural process of nature but a forceful extraction of our newborn children!

Lifetime Effects

If there is trauma at delivery, if babies necks, brainstem and spinal cords are injured at birth, ILLNESS is almost guaranteed.  The injured tissues will deteriorate over time, growth and development affected and illness perpetuated.  Do we not have record levels of autism?  Of ADD, ADHD and other child disorders?  Is no our society ill with W.H.O rating our health not even in the top 20 as a nation though we spend the most of any nation on health care.

Perhaps our “routine” delivery methods are a factor.  Not the only factor, but one of many.

Alternative A – birthing differently.

I knew what to expect in the videos shown at the seminar.   My kids are teens now but we had ours under water in a birthing center.  Mid-wives and doulas should be considered for uncomplicated pregnancies.

Alternative B – checking our children

Chiropractic care from birth can help correct the injuries of childhood -birth, through the estimated 2000 falls learning to walk, bicycle accidents, learning to drive accidents and all the other trauma of youth.  Find a Chiropractic that is kid friendly ESPECIALLY if your child’s birth was not gentle i.e. in a hospital style environment.

Birth Defects Linked to UTI Antibiotics

For most of us the health of our children is one, if not the most important things in our lives.  I know I see the most distraught patients when family members are ill.   Sometimes they can do something about it, take family to doctors.

But birth defects is something that no one can do much about except perhaps repairable defects like cleft palate.  The recent research findings published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine report brain, heart, limb and cleft palate deformities from commonly used medications for urinary tract infections (UTI). Here is the article:

Birth Defects and UTI antibiotics article

While there is questions about the exact connections to the medicine and the  suggestion that more research is needed there is an underlying moral to the story:

• medicines can do injury to the fetus
• sometimes it take decades to be determined
• less foreign substances in the body are better even if prescribed
• natural treatments are available. Seek them out first.

For UTI common alternative treatments include:

1. Increase water intake
2. Add a tablespoon of cranberry concentrate to 8oz of water to acidify the urine.  The benzoic acid in cranberries is not converted to a sugar like citric or other acids.
3. take acidophilus to support the natural bacteria that keep the pH balance protective in the urinary tract
4. decrease refined sugar intake.  Some women become pre-diabetic with pregnancy and sugar spills over in the urine making it an easy place for bacteria to breed.

This topic hits home.  My brother is two years younger than I and brain-damaged at or before birth.

-Dr. Miller

Note:  Discuss any treatments with your doctors.

Ear Infections and Kids

Ear Infections: bad new for many parents and lots of suffering for kids.  Overuse of antibiotics has produced resistant bacteria and health disorders in children.

Chiropractic is an option: and offers an improvement to the immune system that parents may not have thought about.  Check out the video clip:

Motion Sickness Solutions

My daughter has severe motion sickness when she was in a car seat. Trips took forever because we stopped to let her take a breather or drove real slow.  Boats were the same, particular motor cruisers. Sailboats were fine. I went on a family boating trip with my aunt and we had to put her ashore for a few hours she was suffering so.

For my daughter we tried whatever we could think of including Dramamine (an over the counter medicine), Seabands (accupressure bands on the wrist) which for our daughter did not do the trick.

The ONLY things that help her were homeopathic remedies by the Boiron company though we did try other companies too.  The have a little motion sickness kit but the one that was most effective was Tabacum 30.

Whether you believe in the homeopathy or not you should try it.  Its the only thing that worked for our daughter and doesn’t do you harm (or make you drowsy).

My experience in practice has found that there can be more issues than just the one remedy:

• some people have balance and dizziness issues made worse with travel. Chiropractic helps them.
• some need food in their system before travel; always a theory of mine and I’ve been feeding myself too regularly over the years!
• some need Dramamine before travel or it does not help them
• some are helped by SeaBands

Whatever the solution, try those mentioned above and make sure whoever is driving, steering, skippering takes into consideration those suffering from seasickness.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Flu Shot or Not?

Firstly, what is the objective?  To help the immune system. Before we attempt to help the immune system, shouldn’t we know how it works at least, at least an overview.  And then think through if it can be helped?

Here is a link from howstuffworks.com about how the immune system works: immune system.  Make sure you have some time – there are several pages and by the time you are done reading I think you’ll be impressed if not amazed.

A place to start is that if there is NO immune system (e.g. dead) our body is dissolved by nature’s clean-up team (fungus, bacteria, flies, bugs etc) and is stripped bare within two weeks to be just bones.  That’s the very worst case scenario 🙂

But it gives us a real grasp of what our immune systems are dealing with 24/7.  A host of invaders are poised, at a second’s notice to set up shop.  One professor told me in Chiropractic school that a bacteria could duplicate every 20 minutes (not that they all remain living). He said if you start with one today, there could be 6,000,000 24 hours later.

Given those numbers it a wonder we are alive at all. If you remember War of the Worlds (both the book by H.G. Wells and the movie by Spielberg: movie site) the microbes on earth took out the alien attackers.

Our immunity is always learning what is foreign, what the body needs to defend against.  It gets off to a good start in utero with the mother’s immune system protecting, then with breast milk that confers immunity.  There is a thymus gland to help children develop their immune systems for the first five years and childhood diseases that exercise it with fevers and more learning as to what is threatening in our environment.

That’s the setup but it’s not stable.   The bacteria mutate, but our bodies adapt too.  Some immune systems don’t keep up sadly and there is death of the weakest.  Some immune systems get derailed and attack themselves (auto immune diseases) or allow replication out of control (cancer).

The Chiropractic or alternative care perspective is this: The immune system is critically important in the body.  All parts must be working for longevity.  Things you can do to optimize it:

1. Have an optimal nerve system in control – Chiropractic care
2. Amplify the nerve system – good attitude, balanced lifestyle, optimism, keep the mind active
3. Put the good in -Balanced nutrition short on preservatives and processing, long in Omega fatty acids, anti-oxidants and vitamins
4. Hydrate with good water (read my previous blog)
5. Stay active  – get the body moving any way you want, but keep it moving,
6. Satisfaction – Find meaning in life
7. Keep the bad stuff out – medicines, (including vaccinations), surgeries etc

Which brings us back to flu shots.  Some perspectives are covered well by Michelle Malkin in her blog.  The facts from the AMA suggest that even though seniors are getting their flu shots there is no difference in flu deaths.

I have some logical questions:

• If the flu mutates every 6-8 weeks, by the time its in production, the flu going around is different from the one in the vaccine?
• and even if it works in 6-8 weeks there is another variant that the body must defend against?
• people tell me they get sick after the flu shot – does that make sense?
• and I question philosophically whether you can improve the immune system with manmade substances?

Do I suggest flu shots. Not for me, or my family.

I let patients make up their mind after going over the kind of information supplied above. I hope my patients will at least add in some of the things that support the immune system and understand if they get the flu, their body is learning what to be prepared for.  That is how the immune system works.

Midwives vs. Doctors – where should babies be born?

Babies, particularly the survival of babies is an emotional issue.

To bring some cool to the matter, to shift away from rhetoric, let’s see how we are doing as a country, how well do we deliver babies in the U.S. We can use a hard statistic, infant mortality (number of deaths per 1,000 births).  My reading finds there is a difference in the definitions from country to country so the numbers could be skewed.  My Dad use to say “figures can lie and liars can figure”. Even so, if we give the U.S. bean counters some leeway we rate 33rd or 46th depending on the source using the he 2006 revision of the United Nations World Population Prospects report, for the period 2005-2010, and the CIA World Factbook, last updated on April 2, 2009.

33rd? 46th? For the country that spends by far the most on health care per person of any nation.  There are at least 30 countries where mothers have a better chance of their newborn surviving.  Expectant mothers should think about that.

If that is the case shouldn’t we mimic more of what the other countries are doing, the 30 at least that are above us?  At first glance we know they are using less doctors, less intervention and more mid-wifery.  Its up to our U.S. experts to identify those differences and surely get us in the top 10.

Now some might say “we don’t have nationalized health care,” or  “there are some folks up in the hill country we can’t get to”. I’ll give you that but the U.S. is 33rd and 46th!.  We have a long, long way to go.

From the Chiropractic perspective I was taught that in the standard, lay down in the hospital delivery, the OB may pull with over 100lbs of force on a newborn’s neck to extract the baby from the birth canal. Forces of this magnitude elongate and injure the tissues of the neck.  Because the mother is supine, gravity cannot help the process. Laying down to deliver closes the birth canal rather than opening it.  I often see upper cervical malformation and misalignments that suggest birth trauma and years later contributes to chronic disease process.

For our children my wife and I elected to have our children in water at a birthing center.  She did the delivering of course!  The potentially frightening process occurred in dimmed light, in body temperature water, without medication and with my wife in charge guided by staff for what we hoped would be the optimal environment for delivery. This is one of many alternative combinations to the standard hospital delivery including a home birth.

Apparently we chose one of the better options.  Researchers in the English health care system,  the National Health Service,  supported the water birthing option and it is now available in 300 hospitals.  (England is above us in infant mortality at 22 and 32 using the same sources quoted above).

A planned home birth is found to be as safe as the standard hospital process according to latest Canadian research: “Planned home birth seen as safe alternative to hospital birth” (CMAJ 2009;181:377-383).  I and they used the word “planned” and I support the planning because complications can happen fast.  That is in part why we opted for a facility with a doctor available and a hospital down the street.

I like the comments I found on Newsvine, a news blog: …Hospitals are for sick people, Pregnancy is a condition of health (posted 9/11 by Vulcan One – here is the page link).

Some People Think I’m Nuts

It’s true.  People think I have a loose screw because I try to avoid doctors, medicine and surgery like the plague.  It is not a possible consideration for them that our health care methods could be improved upon.

My first reaction to a health challenge is NOT to go to a physician.  Many of my patients think similarly mind you, but the other 99% of the population don’t think that way.  For those of us that choose the different path they call it “Alternative and Complimentary” care.  And that’s what it is: Alternative to the status quo and complimenting medicine if you ever have to go that route.

Now this is not a head in the sand, “I’m not going to Doctors anytime, ever!”  attitude.   Rather it’s a “What are all the ways I can help the body help itself FIRST before I put something foreign into it or chop part of it out.”  Also, there is a preventative element.  What can the things we do to avoid being sick?  And unfortunately, it still happens.

And it’s the way I was raised by a rebellious Chiropractic father.  I have not know the other way.

“What if you get sick?”  Good point.  What if I get sick?  Or my kids?  Before we go there a little review; I have missed five days of practice in 25 years.  I don’t get sick.  And if I do or my family does, we first try natural remedies including Chiropractic care.   But there is also chicken soup, dressing warm, lots of liquids, plenty of rest.  Grandma’s remedies that work a lot of the time and have for centuries.  We do meditation and exercise and think positively.

But the caveat for all natural health is the limitations of healing.  And there are limits.

Going to the doctor is our societal norm… but not in my house.  For example we understand fever is a normal response to infection, and that pain is also part of process of life, to be intrepreted, dealt with and put up with for a time, not to be eliminated with medications that dissolve the digestive tract or stronger medications that are addicting.  Sadly, I have seen patients on 50 Vicodin a day, on $2000 of prescription pain killers a month that started on a one pill at a time pain reduction program.

When my family gets sick we might ask, “Why? Overtired? Stressed? Not eating right? or how long as it been since you’ve been checked at my office?”  We try to teach the kids responsible behavior for healthy living. Try is the key words. There are two teens in my house.

I do teach our kids (and my patients) signs when the body is not coping.   One patient called after hours and said “I fell off the curb and hurt both ankles, do I need to go to the ER?”  I asked some questions and found out she could not bear weight on either ankle, both were swollen and black and blue and getting worse.   The ER said both were fractured.

And there are limits for all conditions, not just falls off the curbs.  Our pre-diabetic patients battle their hA1c levels, our blood pressure patients work on diet, exercise and de-stressing.  Not all succeed 100% but many prolong the need or amount of medicine.  A significant number get off all medicines.  Many delay a surgeries and have the opportunity for newer and safer technology.

Some say “there is a place for alternative treatment when other things don’t work”.  I say there is a place for modern medicine when alternative care does not work.  More people need to try  the alternatives.

-Dr. Miller

Babies and Chiropractic? Can it help?

A colleague Pete had a new baby.  It could not turn its head left and was crying all the time.  It could only nurse from the right side so Pete’s wife Sandy was developing mastitis on the other breast.  Pete and I suspected neck trauma occurred to the baby from a difficult delivery.  I had some training on how to adjust a baby that was 10 days old, but was not confident of one squirming and screaming in obvious discomfort.  My colleague had even less experience and his wife was looking at both of us with a “FIX MY BABY” glare, her eye brows pinched tightly.  She related that at the one week checkup the baby has lost weight.

I went over to their apartment in Asuza.  Pete greeted me outside the door and blocked my attempt to enter despite blaring summer heat that made me crave cool water and ample air conditioning. “The place is a mess. We’ve been up nonstop for days. We are at each other’s throats.  Please help.”  Pete head slumped forward, his shoulder drooped as the despair and fatigue settled in.  I waltzed in putting on a good face and wanting to make a difference.  Inside my stomach was doing the highland fling.   But I knew the medical option for that baby could be to cut the neck muscles.

I tried to feel the neck of the baby as Sandy held it close trying to sooth it.  Intermittently it would arch back like the whole back was in spasm.  It was screaming but between breaths I caught a relaxed neck under my fingers for a fraction of a second.  My poking gently was making the baby scream more but I could feel one side of his neck was in spasm.   I searched for the pea size contact that I would have to adjust.   I started to sweat.  Its one thing to recognize there is a problem, to confirm there is a problem.  Its another to fix it,  with a ten day old baby.  The room had an air conditioner humming in the wall but with kids going in and out it could not keep up.  Honestly it could never have kept me cool,  I would have been sweating in winter.

A group of young observers were collecting in the living room lined up against the wall watching, the baby’s older siblings, as they gathered their friends from the neighboring apartments.  Each time another kid entered the apartment the screen door slammed, the baby jumped and wailed louder.  “Stop slamming the door dammit!,” Pete yelled.  The baby screamed, Sandy began to sob.

“The baby will continue to scream more and more as I set this up because it will be restrained for a moment, and it hurts.   Pete, you will need to help hold the baby still.  The baby is only going to feel this,” I explained, putting my index finger up in the air. I walked around the room poking each family member and observer on the arm.  “That’s all it is, but it should be enough to unlock the top vertebra.”

With a quiet prayer with myself, I directed Pete to position the baby laying across its Sandy’s lap.  The older children looked on as I directed Sandy to place the baby on its side carefully, its arm between the mother’s legs.  “Pull him to you,” I encouraged Sandy, “make him feel secure.  Hold his arm between your legs.”  Pete used one hand to hold the squirming pelvis still, the other hand holding the top of the head.  He leaned forward and gave Sandy a peck on her forehead. “It will be OK honey,  I know it will.”  Sandy sniffled.

I positioned myself above the baby.  My index finger against a firm resistance I interpreted to be the top segment of the spine, still cartilaginous at that age.  The wails were piercing as the baby protested.  I took a deep breath and positioned my feet going through the 22 steps I knew to set up the small thrust.  Tears were running down Sandy’s face. “Is it safe?” she asked.

“This is how I take care of my own babies,” I confirmed. “My father taught me.”   The room’s voices became quiet.  The air conditioner hummed. I adjusted between screams; a thrust of perhaps 1/4 inch.  The baby wailed louder, Pete and Sandy sucked in air.  The kids murmured to each other.  I wiped my brow with back of my hand.

The baby was screaming on Sandy’s lab. Everyone frozen in position.  “Pick up the baby,” I encouraged.  Sandy held him close soothing his wails down to a whine, his head still turned right.  For some reason Pete walked behind Sandy and as if in slow motion, the baby arched back from Sandy, and followed Pete with his all the way left.

“Did you see that? Did you see that?” Sandy exclaimed. Pete nodded. I nodded and got up to leave. “Enough already with the heat,” I thought.

Sandy hugged the baby closer. “Thank you so so so much.”  Pete saw me off and gave me a hug.  As I looked back at the apartment the kids were each feeling each other’s necks.

Pete called each day with an update. Within 48 hours the baby was nursing off each breast, sleeping for 3-4 hours at a stretch and acting like a healthy baby.  The next check-up there was weight gain.

When babies systems are not working the way they were designed, consider  Chiropractic  from someone with experience.   Chiropractic can help babies.

-Dr. Miller

Names and locations have been changed to protect the innocent – me! – Dr. M