Sydenham's Chorea

Sydenham’s Chorea is considered an autoimmune disease initiated by an infection settling in the brain. Any time a “bug” gets lodged in body tissues, the immune system becomes very interested in those hiding places and begins attacking those tissues. This can be a big problem! When it happens to the heart, your own body protective cells begin destroying heart tissue and suddenly you have “heart disease.” With Sydenham’s Chorea, mostly seen in children, the damaged area of the brain controls muscle activity. As a result, a child will begin to show extra activity in the face, body and arms like a slow writhing or twitching movement. Most of the time, the symptoms clear on their own after a few months, but should we wonder if there is other damage to sensitive nerve tissue.

What we know about the immune system is that it is not so much an isolated system as it is an alliance among all the systems of the body. It involves nerve, skin, bone, digestion, endocrine, blood, elimination and even respiratory events to function at its best. We need our thymus gland (endocrine) to produce lymphocytes, our spleen and liver (lymphatic, elimination and blood) for antibodies. We need our long bones for producing blood that carries nourishing oxygen and nutrients to all body tissues. We need our nerves to control and coordinate all the functions of our bodies that keep us alive!

Where the NUCCA procedure helps is to restore blood flow to the brain, (there is ongoing research about that interesting fact), and to set up conditions favorable for long-term healing in all the systems of the body. Many patients report fewer sick days, no more asthma attacks, no more seasonal illnesses. One NUCCA patient with Multiple Sclerosis (a condition characterized by deterioration of brain cell tissue) has shown improvements in her neurologic tests after one year. It’s a slow process of restoring normal function as the nerve system rebuilds, but as the immune alliance rebuilds, we see autoimmune disorders recede. For complex conditions like Sydenham’s Chorea, upper cervical care is a fundamental contributor to care.

Why School Shootings - A Common Link

This article is actually written by Dr. Tim O'Shea, and has his characteristic precision-research stamp and his inherent sharp tone of judgement. It's not even an advertisement for his practice, which is based on chiropractic procedures. I would like to share this with my Rockford, IL readers (and every one of my well-read followers). it has nothing to do with the NUCCA procedure that we use, but everything to do with uncovering underlying problems that prevent full development of the individual. So, please resist the urge to turn off, and read on...

As media has been predictably instructing us how to respond, and exactly what we should feel regarding the inconceivable tragedy, de-sensitization is setting in. It’s inescapable. That coping mechanism is selected into human DNA, a gift of evolution.
De-sensitization is how we deal with bad news - take it in, process it, file it away. The worse the horror, the faster the processing. The unthinkable cannot be thought of for long. The big game’s coming on, and The Hobbit just came out, and it's Christmas …
Adaptation.
If you gauge your life by media, like most people, this story’s kick is already fading away - taking its place on the endless list of tragedies we shove to that dark corner in the back of our minds so we can get on with our daily existence.
Another month or so and it will be over. But what have we missed?
Organized media was on it from the start, did you see that – what’s our angle here? The google and FB ads on the right hand column sold out fast – nothing sells like blood in the streets. WR Hearst 101. And what’s the spin to be? Taking the cue from their loudest constituents, the interests that must be served first, the PR firms worked overtime to be proactive to shield the guilty. Immediately.
The Potomac think tanks had this one hammered out by the next day. What is to be our target for retribution, whom will we blame, we the Protectors of the people? How can our agenda best be furthered by this event? Keep it simple now – no abstractions. What did all the shooters have in common? Quick, now – don’t think about it. What was it? Right – guns! So that’s going to be the focus of our collective outrage and retaliation – gun laws. Perfect – people can understand something like that - the shooters all fired guns.
So then, let the debates begin – the party lines be drawn, the intellectuals, the NRA, the defenders of the Constitution, the automatic vs. conventional weapons smokescreen, who should be armed at school, who should be armed at home, and with what… Bring in Time and Newsweek and the New York Times, prep the TV newsreaders, and the unlettered lower element 'commentators' on the national programs, fire up the blogs … let’s hear from everybody.
Everybody, that is, except for one – one voice must be silent. To one voice we will give no air time, no column inches, - we don’t want to hear from this voice at all.
And who might that be?
It’s the voice saying these new events aren’t fundamentally about guns. Americans have had tons of guns, since the time of Columbus, the Pilgrims, the patriots, today’s brave hunters in their designer togs from Outdoor World – everyone’s always been armed to the teeth in this country. So that’s not new at all.
What else is there? What is it that has changed? Well, the One Voice is looking at another common thread in this cohort of sick monsters, besides guns. So let’s look at the shooter list and do our homework and make a chart and do some cross checking and really try to find the other common denominator in the majority of the incidents.
The first remarkable thing we see by comparing the historical lists of shooters is that they’re all different! Every list is different - check it out! Looks as though this recent phenomenon of the lone madman running amuck with automatic weapons in public is much more frequent than we are led to believe. It’s not like a dozen incidents in the last 20 years – looks like it’s closer to 100.
For example how many people even know about the Oregon mall shooting 3 days before Newtown? Just a footnote now – only 2 murdered. So the first fact that’s being largely overlooked is how common this type of maniacal behavior really is.
We haven’t seen one recent piece in any medium where they’re claiming to have a comprehensive list of recent shooting incidents. There have been so many in recent years that if there are just a few victims, it’s hardly even front page news any more. And the lists are all different - some don't count them unless there's at least 3 or 4 dead, or some other variable. So the lists are much shorter than how many wacko shooters actually are out there killing people they don't know.

THE OTHER COMMON DENOMINATOR
So step back, don’t try to prove anything, just look at the data, forget what your editor is expecting - what is the pattern here? Go wherever the data may lead, de-focus, find the hidden link … That old time investigative journalism spirit from days gone by…
Wait a minute – can it be? A history of prescription drug use? The psychoactive brand - what about that for a hypothesis? Let's tale a look.
Verboten in mainstream to mention drugs, but the independent media are lining up very solidly behind this idea - the sources whose editors don’t have the boot of the drug cartels at their throats - the writers who are not told what to conclude before they even begin their research. Still an upstream swim though, since orthodox news has already defused that suggestion, primarily by blacking it out.
THE PSYCH DRUG HYPOTHESIS
This new social phenomenon - mass shootings - is now well established in American culture. Hearing the beginning of the newest murder story, we now have learned to have certain expectations, right off the bat.
So, if the number of guns hasn't changed much, what other drastic new trend have we seen in this same time frame that might suddenly cause an entire demographic to start a wave of formulaic yet random killings, with suicide a frequent adjunct?
Only one event even comes close to checking all the boxes here: psychotropic drug use. All the SSRI inhibitors, all the methylphenidate derivatives, the whole pharmacopeia of children’s ‘behavior’ drugs have antisocial, violent and suicidal behaviors as clearly stated possible ‘side effects.’ This is not in dispute. Check your PDR.
DEFINITION
“A psychotropic drug is a chemical substance that crosses the blood-brain barrier and acts primarily on the central nervous system by affecting brain function.” [1]
Rather than reading today's regurgitated FB or Wiki swill to learn about the extent and dangers of psych drugs, an actual resource would be Robert Whitaker's comprehensive book: Anatomy of an Epidemic. [5] It is a masterful review of the literature.
So before we look at a few of the popular shooter lists, let's just view some real statistics on psych drugs in recent years, to consider a possible connection with this novel murderous artform.
FACTS YOU WON'T SEE IN STANDARD MEDIA:
By 2009, 300 million prescriptions per year for psych drugs in the US. [4]
In 1987, before Prozac, one American in 184 had some mental illness disability.
In 2010, 4 million Americans are on permanent disability for psych disorders [5]
Today one American in 5 has a prescription for a psych drug. (Whitaker) [5]
In 2005, it was 1 in 10. [6]
1987: 1 in 250 children taking an antidepressant.
Today: 1 in 23 children taking an antidepressant [5]
In 1987 ADHD was invented. BY 1991, already 1 million diagnosed.
By 2010, children diagnosed with "ADD/ADHD" on meds: 6 million [1, 2]
ADHD is now officially recognized as a lifelong disorder. [6]
After 20 years of prescribing antidepressants to children, today 1 in 15 Americans enters adulthood with a serious mental illness. [5] p221
By 2010, we spent over $25 billion a year on antipsychotics, antidepressants, and Ritalin clones.Today over a million kids are bipolar. Psych drugs are the biggest cause. [5]
84% of children diagnosed bipolar have a history of psych drug use.
No evidence whatsoever that psych drugs fix 'chemical imbalance' -- more evidence that the drugs cause them. That has always been a marketing term rather than a scientific one. Doctors who use this term are unfamiliar with their own history. - Whitaker p 76 [5]
A common side effect of all psych drugs: depersonalization [5] Perhaps the single most common factor with the shooters. They don't see the victims - or themselves -as people.]
For 82% of antidepressants, JAMA says placebos work just as well [8]
In children, antidepressants cause tendencies toward violence and suicide, as well as a host of other psych disorders.
Best studies: 11% - 62% of children prescribed antidepressants develop psychosis, like bipolar and ADHD. Whitaker [5] p 214 First the drugs, then the disorder.
In the military, the use of psychiatric medications had increased 76 percent from 2001 - 2009
At least one in six service members is on some form of psychiatric drug. [3]
Today psych drugs are a $40 billion per year business [5] p290

SHOOTER LISTS
With these statistics as background, let's take a look at a few of the many, many lists turning up everywhere. They're all different, with different criteria, different findings. All that's certain is that the total number of psychotic shooting rampages has been vastly under-reported.
Protection of the drug industry is evidenced by the refusal by any government agency to investigate a link between drug use and the shootings. They are ignoring the very clear warnings both from the manufacturers and from every international regulatory body that these behavior drugs can cause violent and suicidal personality changes.

1. Mother Jones list: A Guide to Mass Shootings in America [9] 62 murders since 1982. But if it's 3 or less murders per shooting, it doesn't count.
2. CCHR List: School Shooters Under the Influence of Psychiatric Drugs [10]
Documents evidence of 109 wounded, 58 killed from recent shootings involving psychotropic drugs. 11,000 reports to FDA of violence resulting from these drugs between 2004 -2011, representing less than 10% of actual incidents. 300 homicides.
3. The Real Lesson of Columbine: Psychiatric Drugs Induce Violence [11]
This article has a list of 13 shootings between 1998 and 2008, all at schools, all shooters on behavior drugs.
This article specifically shows the role of 2 SSRI drugs - Zoloft and Luvor - in the Columbine shootings of 2000.
Ann Tracy, author of Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? recounts the effects of these 2 drugs according to the manufacturer: violence, aggression, suicide, homicide, etc. [12]
The Real Lesson of Columbine presents a long list of 13 shooters and the drugs they were taking, despite the standard practice of sealing the medical records in these cases.
Why would medical records be sealed? The victims and the shooters don't need to be protected. Who is it that needs the protection?
Simple: the drug companies.
Even such a source as shallow as the pop movie Bowling for Columbine points out how the cover-story explanation ultimately given for that shooting never made sense, and that there was no real investigation why it happened at all. And why the media blackout in the direction of behavior drugs?

This is the same whitewash and misdirection seen across the board in all the shootings. Talk about horror, talk about blood, talk about guns, talk about God's will, just don't mention drugs.
Ever wonder why so many of the shootings took place at schools? In list 3 above all were at schools. And all were on psych drugs.
How about this hypothesis:
The manufacturers admit that these drugs steal the user’s humanity. Depersonalization. In the case of the child, it is his childhood that has been stolen. In the case of ADD, parents often talk about the child ‘disappearing’ after a few weeks of drugs. Part of the dehumanizing effect is the loss of the ability to empathize – the user can do longer imagine another’s pain or humanity. Witnesses often describe the shooters as cold, detached, emotionless – shooting people carries no more emotional burden than shooting squirrels in a field.
With this same loss of personal value towards themselves, suicide is not such a burden, not a big stretch at all.
That's just a few of the lists, but the pattern is very clear. Of course they all had guns - that's why they were shootings. But then what? What other factor, new on the scene in the last few years, can be found in almost every case?
Except of course, the ones where they SEALED THE MEDICAL RECORDS.

REFERENCES
1. DEFENSE HEALTH BOARD--PSYCHOTROPIC MEDICATION WORK GROUP
http://www.govexec.com/pdfs/092711bb1.pdf
2. Facts and Statistics -- Children and Adults Against Drugging America
http://www.chaada.org/Page3.html
3. Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) 2010 Military Times
http://www.govexec.com/pdfs/092711bb1.pdf
4. Herman, S Psychiatric drugs: a booming business
www.ngpharma.com/article/psychiatric-drugs-a-booming-business/
5. Whitaker R Anatomy of an Epidemic”: The hidden damage of psychiatric drugs Crown 2010.
6. Wang, S Psychiatric Drug Use Spreads
Wall St J 18 Nov 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203503204577040431792673066.html
7. Lipinski, J Review and Interview with Robert Whitaker
Apr 2010 Salon
www.salon.com/2010/04/28/interview_whitaker_anatomy_of_an_epidemic
8. Jay, C Antidepressant Drug Effects and Depression Severity
JAMA 2010 January 6, 2010
9. Follman M A Guide to Mass Shootings in America
www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map
10. School Shooters Under the Influence of Psychiatric Drugs
http://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/
11. The Real Lesson of Columbine
http://psychiatricfraud.org/2011/04/the-real-lesson-of-columbine-psychiatric-drugs-induce-violence/
12. Tracy, A Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? 2011.

Rockford Chiropractor - Asthma Solutions

Nice story of one patient regaining health. But the temptation here...well, you read it and see what you think...
"I have been asthmatic for most of my life. My latest allergist had me on 6 meds for my allergies - trees, pollen, grasses, mold, pets, etc, you name it. This summer was my best year ever since I began NUCCA care with Dr. Schalow in June! I have cut out over half of my allergy meds. I'm down to only 1 tablet and 2 inhalers. I feel great and breathe much freer now. I also have so much more energy and strength. My allergist is jealous but glad to see that I haven't changed in my test scores in over a year - despite taking less meds. If this is me after 6 months, let's see how a full year goes!"

So are you convinced that we've got "the Pill" for asthma yet? I hope not, because we don't.
No sirreee!
What we DO have is a procedure that sets into motion the process required for the body to get back to normal function. It's called the NUCCA procedure and it takes a lot of work to do right, but for those interested in putting the work in, wow, can we see success! So it doesn't matter what condition you have, if your central nerve system is hung up on something, get checked for the atlas subluxation complex, and watch what happens when we reduce that! 815-398-4500

Rockford Chiropractor - The Healing Process

The nerve system develops 1st among body systems. We can observe that at the beginning of the third week of the developing embryo. As it develops, it grows from the head to the tail.
When you are startled, your nerve system reacts in an orderly progression beginning with the head, contractions flowing down the body.
When we want to make any changes, therefore, we begin with the head so normal physiology can be enhanced and itself support the changes we seek.
Most people receiving the NUCCA correction do not feel any changes at first, but within hours to weeks, the changes become noticable. Those changes may come across as joint pain, muscle aches, severe fatigue (like what you get after a good workout), or even a runny nose!
But since people usually come in to gain relief from symptoms, here is how you know things are heading in the right direction;
You hold your correction (can't get better if your brain doesn't stay in control of the process)
Pain moves from further out in the body to closer into the spine, centering on one point and usually then moving up the spine. (like if you have leg pain, it recedes to the back, and then up the back)
Old injuries are felt briefly again, sometimes even years after they first happened.
These concepts are known as Hering's Law of the Cure (Constantine Hering, a really smart doc who lived in the 1800's)
At 1st Step Chiropractic, we intitiate the healing process by resolving the disconnect between the head and neck. Then we just need to be sure things remain corrected. Other modalities may help you to feel better, but you lose the long-term benefit seen with the NUCCA correction.
Remember to ask, "What's the Status of the Atlas?"

What's With Medicare?

The unsettling news from the Medicare people (congress...the argument over the budget...) is that reimbursements are going down. For the NUCCA chiropractor, that means the mandated charge for an adjustment (the only payable service in the Medicare program for the chiropractic office) is sinking way, way below most doc's break-even point.
Some docs at this point are going to simply jump ship and have a big goodbye party for their patients who are medicare beneficiaries. But that's not why I got into this work.
Upper cervical chiropractic is all about taking care of people.
It's about restoring the potential for health, opening up the channels of communication between the brain and the body (something all vertebrates depend upon). On a personal level, it's about Rosalie getting off her pain medications, it's about Mary's getting rid of her chronic asthma, it's about my 86 year-old father-in-law getting his legs back under him. It's even about living more fully in retirement!
So as the insurance landscape becomes different (sometimes it feels like a river of pirahnas), we are holding our attention focused on delivering the best in upper cervical chiropractic care, and other types of care as individuals require, to the best of our ability.
1st Step Chiropractic, S.C. Rockford, IL 815-398-4500

Rockford IL Chiropractor: The Upper Cervical Adjustment

Ever wonder about the upper cervical adjustment? "Kissing Cousins" to the NUCCA procedure is the Atlas Orthogonal procedure, which uses a table-mounted adjusting stylus. It is easier to see how the force is transferred through the metal stylus with this procedure (Law of the Conservation of Energy), but the NUCCA adjustment is the same physics, just with the hands.
We prefer the hand adjustment at 1st Step Chiropractic, due to the fact that we can control the forces even more through kinesthetic sense - just like playing the violin! 815-398-4500
4519 Highcrest Rd. Rockford IL 61107

Rockford Chiropractor - Helping Nutrition

When the nip in the November air piques our awareness
of the upcoming holiday season, many of us have mixed
reactions to the anticipated festivities. While it’s great to
gather with friends and family we may not see throughout
the year, the gastronomic indulgences that these gatherings
include can wreak havoc on even the healthiest diets.

What is the best way to sustain and nourish our bodies, regardless of the season?
Believe it or not, healthy nutrition begins with an aligned spine. Your brain controls all the organs involved in the digestion of food and the absorption of important nutrients
to make your body function. Diligently eating the most
nutritious food may be of great value, but only if your body
can process and use what it is getting. So the first logical
step to good nutrition is to get checked regularly, to make
sure that you are in alignment and the internal communication
highway is clear of obstacles.

The next important factor for good nutrition is healthy food choices. You’ve undoubtedly heard the expression“garbage in, garbage out.” This is especially true with our
diets. It is unreasonable to expect our bodies to function
properly if we don’t nourish them properly. Daily we need
vitamins, minerals, healthy fats, proteins, and fiber for the
multitude of actions that take place in our body. A lack of
these essential nutrients can lead to dysfunction, prolonged
dysfunction can lead to disease. Sometimes illness can be
the result of an unidentified food intolerance. Identifying
and eliminating the offending food can make the difference
between a great day and just getting through the day. I had
a mother bring her ADD-diagnosed child to me for upper
cervical work, but I found she was only suffering from a
food allergy - her atlas was perfect!   Concerns about nutrition? Remember to ask, "What's the Status of the Atlas!" But then be sure to have a thorough nutrition evaluation.