Chinese Medicine tips for Holiday season

17 Dec 2014 Your Overall Health , ,

The holiday season that starts from Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and ends with the New Year.

A common holiday feast condition is indigestion – full and burning sensation, upper abdominal pain, bloating or nausea.

In Chinese medicine, indigestion is known as food stagnation. Symptoms include a lack of appetite and a bloating feeling in the stomach. The treatment principle for food stagnation is to open and move qi in the stomach so our digestive and elimination function can work optimally. Bao He Wan is a great herb formula for this.

The main function of Bao He Wan is to harmonize the stomach and reduce food stagnation. Here are the herbs in the formula:
Hawthorn Fruit
Massa Fermentata
Radish Seeds
Tangerine Peel
Pinellia Rhizome
Hoelen
Forsythia Fruit

Hawthorn fruit is excellent for reducing stagnation from meat and fatty food. Radish seed is good to bring qi downward. Orange/Tangerine Peel is great to clear stagnation and regulate qi. Hoelen is best known to reduce dampness and tonify the spleen channel. Forsythia fruit can reduce heat from food stagnation.

You’ve probably heard this before – the average weight gain during the holiday season is one pound. That is one pound that stays and accumulates year after year. While Bao He Wan works for indigestion, it won’t help to lose the weight gained over time. Balancing our diet, managing stress and exercise are still the sure way to maintain our health.

Coffee Body Scrub

17 Dec 2014 Recipes & Home Remedies

2 Cups coarsely ground coffee

½ cup raw sugar or sea salt

2-3 tablespoons massage oil (we like a local blend called Cramp ease)

Mix all ingredients together. Take a hot shower or bath to open pores. Using Wide Circular motions, rub the coffee exfoliant onto your skin with strong even pressure. Shower off and pat skin dry and apply a thin layer of your favorite lotion or follow with olive or coconut oil.

Recipes courtesy of www.safecosmetics.org/

Massage During Pregnancy and Beyond

17 Dec 2014 Women & Pregnancy , ,

Adding to the Peace of the World
Did you know that anthropological studies show that the majority of the world’s most peaceful cultures, use touch prominently during pregnancy and early childhood?

Bodywork, including therapeutic massage, can have a tremendously soothing effect – physically, mentally and emotionally. In pregnancy, this is true for mothers and their babies.

Alleviating Concerns
Each trimester brings its own set of thrills and challenges.  While some women are concerned about the contraindications of massage during pregnancy, barring any health concerns expressed by their doctor, or midwife, massage can be very beneficial during each stage of the process.  Certified therapists are aware of the appropriate precautions to take, and can be valuable partners to aid in providing comfort and support.

Indications That You May Need a Massage

1. Are you dealing with increased stress?
2. Do you having trouble sleeping?
3. Are you having some fluid retention?
4. Are you experiencing pain in your lower back and hips?
5. Do you have increased pain in your shoulders and neck?

Some Benefits of Pre-Natal & Post-Partum Massage

• Counters the negative effects of stress
• Provides increased oxytocin production and feelings of well-being
• Increases immunological functioning
• Can reduce maternal blood pressure, heart and respiratory rates
• Can reduce labor time and discomfort
• Increases uterine blood supply to enhance fetal health
• Feels good!
If you are experiencing any of the above-noted indications, and are looking for some of the benefits, give us a call!  We hope to see you soon!

5 Tips to Stop the panic of the holidays

17 Dec 2014 Tips & Tricks, Your Overall Health , ,

When the holidays are here we have too many parties and social errands to run, we can get overwhelmed. Anxiety or panic attacks can happen to all of us and will generally feel like your heart is racing, you can’t catch your breath, dizziness or lightheadedness, sometimes narrowing vision and sudden fatigue. If you know one is coming or you are only experiencing one or two of the symptoms, we suggest the following tips for both stopping an attack and preventing one.

  1. Stop and slow your breathing, focusing on the exhalation of breath more than the inhalation. This can be done easier when sitting up very straight(but can be done standing in a check out line if necessary)
  2. Change your own current atmosphere: examples – leave a store, drink a cold glass of water, focus on a joke or on something unique and odd to you. All of these examples are changing your mental atmosphere even if you can’t change your current environment.
  3. Don’t avoid trigger situations entirely; simply lessen the time of exposure so that you don’t create a greater fear response in the future to certain settings.
  4. Keep a journal and figure out what is triggering your anxiety. Writing during an attack has actually been shown to be calming and you can write on anything you choose.
  5. Suck on a peppermint. The act of sucking on something like a mint or candy is a soothing response in humans and does release good hormones. In this busy season, carry your favorite mint to keep the stress down.

Gluten Free Chocolate Ginger Cookie

20 Nov 2014 Recipes & Home Remedies

Ingredients (makes 2 dozen)

– 1/2 – 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips or 1/4″ chocolate chunks

– 1 1/2 cups brown rice flour

– 1/2 cup potato flour

– 1/4 cup tapioca flour

– 1/8 tsp xanthan gum

– 1 1/4 tsp ground ginger

– 1 tsp ground cinnamon

– 1/4 tsp ground cloves

– 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

– 1 Tbsp cocoa powder

– 8 Tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter or Earth Balance

– 1 Tbsp freshly grated ginger

– 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed

– 1/2 cup unsulfured molasses

– 1 tsp baking soda

– 1/4 cup granulated sugar

 

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper to prevent overcooking the cookie bottoms.  Heat oven to 325 degrees.

In a medium bowl, mix together flours, xanthan gum, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and cocoa powder.

With an electric mixer in a separate bowl; beat together butter and grated ginger until whitened, about 4 minutes.  Add brown sugar; beat until combined.  Add molasses; beat until combined.

In a small bowl, dissolve baking soda in 1 1/2 teaspoons boiling water.  Beat half of flour mixture into butter mixture.  Beat in baking soda mixture, then add the remaining half of flour mixture.  Mix in chocolate.  Turn dough out onto a large piece of waxed paper.  Pat or roll dough out to about 1 inch thick; wrap dough with waxed paper.  Refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours.

Pour granulated sugar into bowl.  Roll dough into 1 1/2 inch balls, dip in granulated sugar.  Place balls on parchment lined baking sheets, sugared side up.  Bake until the top surface cracks slightly, about 10-12 minutes.  Let cool 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

Jade Windscreen tincture for your immunity boost!

20 Nov 2014 Your Overall Health ,

Catch colds, allergic rhinitis or flu easily?

There is a famous Chinese formula called Jade Windscreen (Yu Ping Feng San) which can enhance the natural line of defense to ward off sickness. In this formula which consists of: Astragalus, White Atractylodes, Ledebouriella, we often ask patients to take the tincture who have recurrent colds. Although it is effective in treating this problem, it does take one month before any effect is demonstrated. When taking Jade Screen regularly, less severe colds occur.

In Chinese classical formula texts, Jade Windscreen can protect against invasion by exterior pathogens by strengthening your defense qi. It is commonly used to treat spontaneous sweating and increased susceptibility to invasion of exterior pathogens due to a deficiency. This formula uses a large dose of Radix Astragali (Huang Qi) to strengthen the body’s defense mechanism. There is also research which shows modified Jade Windscreen can be used for end-stage cancer patients who frequently suffer from idiopathic sweating and loss of appetite and the results are effective.

Overall, Jade Windscreen is a remarkable formula that can boost the immune system in various ways and it is recognized for its applications beyond prevention of colds and treatments on asthma and side effects of cancer treatments.

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Benefits of Probiotics

20 Nov 2014 Your Overall Health

When taking care of our gut, (which is our bodies gatekeeper) we have to look at the bacteria that live there and their specific job and functions.

The gut has about 100 trillion bacteria in the body.
10 bacteria to every 1 human body cell (kind of important huh?)
So how do we make sure that you take care of your gut flora even if you are already taking probiotics?

Take probiotics: Fermented foods like Kombocha, kimchi and raw sauerkraut as well as in pill form are best. Yogurt is not always the best as many people have trouble-processing dairy.

Avoid Fatty foods: Research done on mice showed that fatty foods can damage the lining of the gut as well as increase the population of some un-friendly bacteria.

Eat probiotics: These are non digestible carbohydrates that are found in onions, garlic, leeks, artichokes, asparagus and chicory root as well as some whole grains.

Control your stress: Stress has been shown to change your gut flora make up which leads to inflammation and a higher population of negative bacteria.

Control Candida/Bacteria: If your gut is out of balance you can take herbs, prescribed by a natural practitioner that will kill yeast and negative bacteria without damaging your healthy flora.

Common cause of leaky gut is ingesting foods that a person is allergic to- what comes first the leaky gut or allergies?

20 Nov 2014 Your Overall Health

What Causes Leaky Gut?

Some experts will state that the most common cause of leaky gut is ingesting foods that a person is allergic to. So what comes first the leaky gut or allergies? We just don’t know yet!

What is Leaky Gut?

This is a condition where partially digested foods, toxins or bacteria pass through the normally tight knit wall of the small intestine into the bloodstream. The body then scans the larger than normal particles of food, bacteria or toxin and creates an autoimmune response to what it deems as foreign matter.

What is the body’s reaction to a Leaky Gut?

The intestinal wall has a series of microvilli that have tiny hairs on them that sense the food and will absorb nutrients and move them through intracellular epithelial cells of the small intestine. That is the normal healthy route. When there is a leaky gut, there is disruption of the tight junctions between epithelial cells or transcellular entry through the epithelial cells themselves. The body then has a release of Lipopolysaccharides (damage of the epithelial membrane), actomyosin (epithelial cell damage tissue), Occludin/Zonulin (tight junctions between cells) each of these go through to the blood stream which looks at them with your immune system called the T-Cells. They are not supposed to be in the blood stream so the T-Cells send out anti-bodies against your own cellular tissue.

The antibodies cause your own body to respond with inflammation, allergic reactions and a whole host of unpleasant symptoms.

What are the symptoms of Leaky Gut?

The list is vast and we are now seeing even more correlations to immunological issues. Many of the conditions we deem as auto-immune may have a huge impact on how well our gut or intestines function. For example, some brain diseases like Alzheimer’s are found to have a high association with Leaky gut, in which one’s own body starts attacking the brain leading to degeneration. This can occur throughout the body systems.

  • Nutritional deficiencies
  • Allergies
  • Anxiety and Depression
  • Impaired Immune Function
  • Recurrent Candida infections
  • Impaired memory
  • Moodiness or irritability
  • Bloating or Flatulence
  • Fuzzy cognition and poor concentration/fatiguing easily while doing brain related tasks
  • Headaches
  • Fatigue
  • Skin rashes
  • Constipation or diarrhea

How do you determine if a person has a Leaky Gut Syndrome?

Testing is done to determine if a patient has leaky gut, by a blood serum test through a lab company that specializes in immunologic testing. The test is a basic screen for leaky gut and will test for the following:

  • Actomyosin IgA – Epithelial cell damage (intestinal wall cells)
  • Occludin/Zonulin IgG/IgA/IgM – Tight junction damage to the walls of the intestine
  • Lippopolysaccharides IgG/IgA/ IgM – Permeability and dysbiosis or bacteria leaking into the blood stream through the intestine wall

If further testing is needed to determine if certain foods like gluten or nuts are the immune reactors, then these can be tested as well to see if the brain is also being affected.

How do you Treat Leaky Gut?

Treatment depends on what the doctor determines is the main cause of the leaky gut. Here are all the possibilities and the most likely treatment actions.

  1. Micro-Flora – this will need to be replaced and boosted to enhance immunity and heal the gut. Lactobacilli are mostly in the upper small intestine and bifidobacteria live in the lower small and large intestine.
    Treatment will be a specific Probiotic that has a large number of organisms and is very diverse to see the whole intestinal tract.
  2. Detoxification – this will be a treatment to kill the unhealthy flora in the intestine and can be tested by a stool sample or just treat to make sure that you are cleaned out.
    The Treatment will be herbs that kill candida, bacteria and other negative microflora but will not kill beneficial microflora so that you have a restored balance to your gut.
  3. Enzymes – This will be something to make sure you are breaking down food completely so that while the gut is healing large particles are not being transported into the blood stream causing immune reactions.
    Treatment is Digestive Enzymes usually taken at meals to help break down foods and your doctor will help you select the correct one for your system.
  4. Gut Healing – This is also similar to amino acids that are especially made for the gut, so that healing will occur and won’t leak – causing autoimmune type reactions.
    Treatment is usually a Glutamine powder that may contain some other herbs to help you. Your doctor will help you select the correct type so that you can gain the most benefit.

Diet Changes – Your doctor will want the end goal to be using your food as medicine and this may mean doing an Elimination diet and then slowly re-introducing foods. The purpose is so you can see what causes a reaction in your body and what doesn’t. If you are unable to do this with diet, your doctor may order a comprehensive food allergy panel that tests 190 foods to determine what causes you to have an immune reaction.

This is a basic treatment outline and there are many variations based on history and test results. Make sure your doctor is qualified and ready to handle your specific case, and you can help this process by giving a detailed intake form and history when you meet with your doctor.

Baby Mal-position (Breech) and Correction with Chiropractic

14 Oct 2014 Women & Pregnancy , , , , , , , , ,

What is Baby Mal-Position?

It’s when the baby’s head position isn’t engaging with the pelvis, by either turning around in a way or tipping asymmetrically so that birth and labor are not optimally positioned. OB/GYN’s and Midwives will typically notice and classify a baby as Mal-Positioned somewhere between weeks 32-37. This may seem late but prior to these weeks, the baby will be moving into different positions often and it doesn’t matter up until the end of pregnancy because the baby is small enough in comparison to the uterus and so has plenty of room to move.

What are the different Mal-Positions?

Breech – buttock down
Complete Breech –baby is sitting cross legged on the cervix
Footling Breech – is butt down with one foot on the cervix
Knee Breech – is one or both knees on the cervix (most rare)
Frank Breech – is baby folded up with the buttock on the cervix and feet up by the head
Transverse position
Posterior position – babies nose pointing toward mom’s belly button.
Oblique position
Extended baby head
Asynclitic position with baby head tilted to one side or the other causing the cervix not to open evenly.

What are some of the Causes of Baby Mal-Position?

Stress, Anxiety or Fear
Pelvic Mis-alignment – especially the tail bone
Bad Posture
Trauma even minor bumps and bangs
Tense Uterus due to muscle or any of the above issues

A patient may present with only one of the problems or she may have a combination of several causes leading to a baby in a less than optimal position.

How do you treat Mal-Position?

Chiropractic (Webster Technique)
Acupuncture or Acupressure
Positive Attitude
Pelvic tilts
Turning position exercises on my favorite Website: spinningbabies.com
Water Walking for 30 minutes daily
External Version (last resort – very uncomfortable and not a very good success rate)

What is Webster Technique?

A technique that is performed by chiropractors to align the sacrum, the pelvis and a series of very specific muscles. The doctor’s in our office use their hands, a tool and muscle release to restore normal pelvic alignment so it allows the baby to turn when normal neuro-biomechanics are restored to mom’s body. Literature has shown that normal neuro-biomechanics allow for achieving optimal fetal-uterine position will reduce the likelihood of dystocia (difficult labor). The procedure usually takes 4 office visits to our Chiropractor. If baby isn’t turning by visit number 3, we add simultaneous acupuncture treatments. While most visits take usually 4 treatments, we have seen stubborn little ones take up to 8 visits; so please realize your baby and your body may not follow the typical guidelines. The success rate for Webster is fairly high and our doctor’s have a low fail rate. When Webster does fail it is usually due to cord position, and if baby were to turn – it would put their life in danger. So sometimes a procedure needs to fail so that we have a healthy happy baby and this is our primary goal.

How do I prevent a mal-positioned baby?

Literature does state that proper pelvic alignment throughout pregnancy does significantly correlate with a decrease in dystocia (difficult labor), mal-position and stress on the baby’s body. Women while pregnant have a greater chance of sacral mis-alignment and neuro-biomechanical issues due to the change in hormones, rapid weight gain and postural changes. Seeing a chiropractor periodically throughout a pregnancy is recommended for both mom’s and babies health. Massage can also be a tool used to maintain correct muscle movement and prevent undue stress on baby or mom. In our office, we recommend the following adjustment schedule broken down by week. This can by modified anytime if back or pelvic pain develops because they are signals that a neuro-biomechanical issue is occurring. We want to correct this before we have a stressed or mal-positioned baby. During pregnancy, exercise regularly, walking, swimming or yoga can all help maintain a healthy pelvis and help with labor as well as keeping baby in a good position while In utero.

Adjustments:

Week 10-14 (or sooner if pain develops)
Week 18-21
Week 23-26
Week 29-32
Week 38
Week 39
Week 40 a day after due date.
(And always schedule an appointment for Acupuncture a couple days after your due date so they can naturally start encouraging labor.)
Is chiropractic care safe for pregnant women?

Chiropractic care is safe for most pregnant women. Here is a list of the exceptions. If you are already under chiropractic care, please inform your Chiropractor immediately if:

Contraindications to adjusting may include vaginal bleeding, ruptured amniotic membranes, cramping, sudden onset of pelvic pain, premature labor, placenta previa (not always a contraindication), placenta abruption, ectopic pregnancy, and moderate to severe toxemia.

Below are some References:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2647084/

http://americanpregnancy.org/pregnancy-health/chiropractic-care-during-pregnancy/

http://www.webmd.com/balance/alternative-therapies-in-pregnancy

7 Ways to Make your Workday Happier

14 Oct 2014 Tips & Tricks , , ,
  1. Find Meaning in what you do.
    Most jobs have a meaningful and helpful side to them. A story of three stone workers was told and one stated he was making a living, one said he was doing the best job he could and the third said he was building a Cathedral. There is a high purpose in all jobs so find yours.
  2. Personalize your workspace or environment.
    Most jobs have a desk where pictures and plants are allowed, but if you don’t have a desk maybe you have a locker you can personalize. Remember to not only have the picture of the family but a fun item that reminds you to do a good job, ex: a wizard hat to remind you to work wonders.
  3. If you are seated most of the day, take a walk.
    If you are at a desk, getting up at least one time an hour can have huge health benefits and if you get too absorbed in what you do, you should drink water constantly. This makes you have to go to the bathroom more. The bathroom is a great way to force you to take a break.
  4. Get to know your coworkers.
    By investing in other people, your work environment will not only be for work, but you will find a work family and home and not feel like a cog in the machine. Seeing real people at the job you do makes your job significantly more fulfilling.
  5. Make the most of your commute.
    75 percent of commuters travel alone for an average of 50 minutes a day. This can be a great time to call family or old friends you haven’t caught up with in awhile. By hearing about others and visiting, you will forget the work and commute stress. Audiobooks can be a great use of time making you smarter and more educated or just giving you a good laugh.
  6. Challenge yourself.
    You may not have the most important job, but if you feel bored or unappreciated, try setting goals for yourself and it will boost your performance. Measuring your own success is the most fulfilling thing.
  7. See the Light.
    If you work in a dark office or warehouse, bring a full spectrum bulb in and put it in a inexpensive desk lamp. Turning it on for just 1 hour a day can significantly boost your mood and production. Taking a walk at lunch or eating outside, even if it is cold can also get much needed mood boosting rays.
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