Thursday, March 21, 2013

Rockford Chiropractor - NUCCA Electronics

The expose button on my X-Ray machine was shorting out and giving me bad films. So I decided to fix it.
I got the buttons from the manufacturer (great guys at GTR Labs), and opened up the control panel. This is what it looks like inside.
There's just a little circuit board with nine screws holding it.

1st Step - remove the nine screws. Simple, you graduated from 8th grade, what could be so hard about it?
Then remove the two ribbons attached to the circuit board. They have plastic connectors that wiggle out easily.

You can see here the expose button, the blue button, reflected in the mirror, and on this side, the four prongs of that button poking through the circuit board. These are soldered on. It's not like your atlas, which can get bumped out of position.




















This is soldering braid for soaking up the old solder. This part takes patience, just like the healing process, in which we set things right and then wait for the healing process to ensue. You also need a steady hand, just like when we adjust the atlas, there is a very small tolerance for error.



You may need to set the soldering iron on all four prongs, getting them hot enough so the little bit of solder still in the hole melts enough to wiggle the entire button loose. Then it takes about 30 seconds to solder the new button on.

Then you set the board back into the plastic housing, replace the nine screws and the connectors to the two ribbons, replace the back of the control panel, and setting it up, you test it.
The new button works fine with a nice little spring in it. No shorting out!
You can be your own electronics repairman now. Go ahead, what could be so hard about it? You graduated from 8th grade! Just remember, you cannot be your own NUCCA doctor. You have to get checked to be sure the "Status of the Atlas" is good. If it's not, you're going to "short out."

So what's more fun, electronics or correcting the imbalanced spine? Well, with electronics, you replace the part and release your machine into "wellness."
 With correcting the imbalanced spine, you get to see a smile grow from inside a person as they heal. If there are lots of levels of health problems, it may take some time, and nobody likes a complainer. But releasing a person's life into wellness touches many, many lives. That's a satisfying thought.
1st Step Chiropractic, the 1st Step to take in Wellness Care.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Rockford Chiropractor - GERD and Asthma



I recently saw an article pointing out that there can be a relationship between the two conditions, asthma and gastro esophageal reflux disease. Let’s look at those conditions. GERD happens when the muscle (the cardiac sphincter) which closes off the esophagus from your stomach, fails to do its job. When this happens over a period of time, the backflow of stomach acid irritates the lining of the esophagus and creates conditions favorable for altered cell behavior. In order to protect you from the effects of this acid, the lining actually thickens as the cells change. It’s called “Barrett’s esophagus,” and can lead to cancer. Sometimes, the acid can enter your airways and lungs, contributing to asthma attacks.

Asthma is a condition that involves the failure of the body to process inflammatory events in the lining of the lungs. This lining is responsible for “passing gas;” receiving oxygen for the blood and getting rid of carbon dioxide residue left over from your energy production needs. If that lining swells up, the transfer cannot happen.

Some studies apparently support the idea that controlling the GERD symptoms alone can improve asthma symptoms. But let’s look at the biology of it.

Since all the information your body needs starts as a signal in the head, do you think making sure those signals can get through from your head could help both conditions?
If the nerve system controls and coordinates all the systems of the body, do you think a person having both conditions suggests that the nerve system is not doing its job?
Are there actual nerves that are supposed to be telling the cardiac sphincter how to work? Is the nerve system capable of managing inflammation in tissues when all the nerves are getting good signals from the brain?
I hope you answered yes to all those questions.

Besides NUCCA (and we have seen complete reversal of Barrett’s esophagus and asthma in this office), are there other things sufferers can do to help themselves?

Cut back on citrus foods, tomatoes, caffeine, alcohol and chocolate, eat smaller meals, lose weight, avoid smoking, and I hear the word on the street is to take over the counter drugs, but you didn’t hear that from me.

1st Step Chiropractic, S.C., The first step to take in Wellness care. 815-398-4500

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Rockford Chiropractor - Helping Earaches

One of the most frightening moments in my life occurred when my daughter wound up in the hospital after an earache became meningitis. One could say raising children is exercise for the soul - we get to learn to pray! Since that time, my vigilance regarding earaches and ear infections has increased exponentially.
But I want to share with you how we take care of earaches now.
In addition to daily prayer for guidance and protection, the role of the NUCCA doctor is to make sure the atlas subluxation complex is absent. How do we know it is present in the first place?
Since the nerves running the plumbing in the ear pass very closely to the edge of the atlas, and since those same nerves are dependent on adequate signals and nutrition coming from their origins, we want to have a way to monitor those nerves so they can do their job. Using our favorite tools, we "see" into the nerves to find out how well they are doing the job. There may be an infection in the sinus that is producing a normal response of swelling and mucous flow, but if the plumbing is not draining that excess, we're in trouble.
Finding abnormal nerve flow, we adjust on the appropriate vector (established with xray study). If there is not an immediate beneficial response, find the better vector through xray analysis.
The NUCCA procedure is very demanding simply because the brain and spinal cord are very demanding.
The fun part is when the ear ache vanishes!
There might be other things to manage - like diet and rest. But if we can ensure the nerve system is properly functioning, the hard part is done.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Rockford Chiropractor - Spinal Care Tutorial

The first NUCCA adjustment I ever did was on a 3 year old child who was not yet crawling. She was under care with an occupational therapist and a physical therapist. I adjusted her, and within a week, she was crawling and back on her normal developmental milestones. That was the first "WOW" experience for me.
The second was when I adjusted my wife (finally). She had been under different types of chiropractic care for years and still had the same low back pain that went out frequently.
In any chiropractic procedure, just like in weather forecasting, there are "indicators" that tell the observer what is going on. So with my wife, on a weekly basis, the indicators showed her spine was out of balance. She would be adjusted, but in a few days, all the indicators were back. After her first NUCCA adjustment, all the indicators, and I mean ALL, vanished forever. Now her back doesn't go out and she doesn't wind up on the floor. When she loses her adjustment (loses her spinal balance) I am able to catch it before everything collapses.
So when we use the NUCCA procedure to correct the imbalanced spine (from the top of the neck), we want to remember that the entire spine and pelvis are being positively affected. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I would not be doing this work if it did not have such a global effect on health and the spine.

(And yes, there are a handful of patients (out of the last 2000) who have had compound twists in the pelvis who I have had to refer to other chiropractors for specialized care of a different sort)

Whole spine work with the NUCCA procedure - 1st Step Chiropractic, S.C. 815-398-4500

Rockford Chiropractor - Rebuilding Broken Health

I've been seeing articles about how doctors can do a better job by getting training in "neuromusculoskeletal medicine" and how doctors can do better by training in "neurodevelopmental" procedures. After reading some, I realized that it's just a fancy way of describing what we already do at 1st Step Chiropractic, S.C.

The development of the nerve system, and all the tissues it controls, begins with conception. At the beginning of the third week of the developing embryo, the nerve system is identifiable. At the end of the third week the circulatory system is the next to be identified. All else follows.

When we correct the atlas subluxation complex with the NUCCA procedure, we are beginning again at the beginning of life, re-establishing the central nerve system and its communication with body tissues. We see cut and damaged nerves regenerate - a function of axoplasmic flow and transport, and perhaps some other things we could simply call "the healing process." We also see children who have fallen off the normal developmental milestones get back on them and begin crawling, talking, walking again. It's all about the central nerve system and its managing of nerve development, nerve control of muscle, nerve managing of skeletal bone function. That's why patients report less illness, better sleep, less pain, more mobility, spending less on prescription drugs, and higher quality of life.

1st Step Chiropractic, S.C., where we concentrate already on neurodevelopmental and neuromusculoskeletal procedures to restore normal function.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

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.



Tuesday, January 1, 2013

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.