Do You Suffer from Dizziness and Balance Issues? Try Chiropractic!

As people get older, often they develop dizziness and problems with balance. In fact, “Some research shows that as many as 30% of older adults experience these symptoms.”[1] As you can imagine, these issues can lead to falls, which can then result in much greater injuries and health problems.

A recent study looked back at data from the 2008 National Health Interview Survey, particularly focusing on the people who suffered from dizziness and balance issues. They found that:

• “Only 4.7% of patients visited a chiropractor for assistance, but they had the highest success rate: these individuals, ‘were very likely to report that it had helped.’
• 84% of patients sought help from a general physician, but the success rate for treatment was the lowest in this group.
• ‘For those respondents aged 65 years and older, and for those reporting the cause of their balance and dizziness were trauma or neurological or musculoskeletal issues,’ the success rate [with chiropractic care] was even higher.”[2]

The authors of the study believe that most of these problems in the older population are a result of neck dysfunction, or “cervicogenic dizziness,” which also occurs often after an injury or car accident.[3] Chiropractic care, as usual when dealing with neck pain, can help relieve symptoms like dizziness and treat their underlying causes. Chiropractic is a particularly beneficial form of treatment for older patients because they do not face the risks associated with taking medications or having surgery, but anyone, no matter how young, suffering from dizziness or balance issues is encouraged to seek chiropractic care!

Working to restore GOD’s perfect design in you!

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[1] Melton M. “Chiropractic Care Beneficial for Dizziness and Balance Issues.” ChrioNexus, September 14, 2015. http://www.chironexus.net/2015/09/chiropractic-care-beneficial-for-dizziness-and-balance-issues/; Ndetan H, Hawk C, Sekhon VK, Chiusano M. “The role of chiropractic care in the treatment of dizziness or balance disorders: analysis of National Health Interview Survey data.” Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine. September 11, 2015. Pii: 2156587215604974.

[2] Id.

[3] Id. 

Recent Studies Show Growing Belief in Chiropractic Care

An article recently published in The New York Times tells the story of a woman (the author) who grew up hearing that chiropractors were an “unscientific cult”—mainly from her father, a surgeon.[1] After hurting her tailbone in a spin class, she visits a chiropractor for the first time in her life and ends up finding out—from a doctor, at the chiropractor’s urging to have her bone density checked—that she has osteoporosis. While the story the author tells about her trip to the chiropractor isn’t a particularly flattering one (his office is full of hidden fees and her pain is not relieved for a couple of weeks regardless of treatment), she does share some positive findings about chiropractic care.

According to The American Chiropractic Association’s estimate, there will be 80,000 chiropractors in the U.S. by 2020, with about 3,000 new practitioners graduating from chiropractic colleges yearly.[2] As far back as 2007, more than 18 million Americans had been treated with spinal manipulation, and that number has only grown in the past eight years.[3] This rapid growth is likely a result of the fact that chiropractic has been proven to work and people are spreading the news!

A report recently conducted by Gallup-Palmer (a chiropractic college) sought to find out what the public thinks about chiropractic care—and its findings were extremely positive! According to the report, 57% of adults in the U.S. are likely to visit a chiropractor for back or neck pain, and in 2014, 33.6 million Americans sought chiropractic care.[4]

The report also found that more than half of all U.S. adults have visited a doctor of chiropractic in the past, and “more than a quarter of them would choose chiropractic care first for back or neck pain.”[5] This is a very promising finding, especially in light of our country’s growing abuse of prescription drugs and painkillers.

Though attitudes on the use and efficacy of chiropractic are largely positive for those who were questioned in this report, one unfortunate conclusion Gallup-Palmer came to was that there’s a general “lack of knowledge about health insurance coverage for chiropractic care and sensitivity toward costs may be preventing some adults in the United States from using chiropractic services.”[6] As most of us know, dealing with insurance companies is hardly something to look forward to, and if people don’t know for sure what’s covered by their policy, they may not take the time to seek out that information. As a result, they may end up going to a physician since they know they’ll be reimbursed for their office visit.

In truth, many insurance plans are now acknowledging the benefits of chiropractic and are finally reimbursing patients for basic chiropractic care. Some companies like Google and Cisco even offer chiropractic services for their employees, which is understandably “a coveted employee perk.”[7]

It’s important to remember, however, that even if chiropractic care isn’t covered by your insurance company, in the long-run it can be a much more cost effective treatment option than traditional and “riskier…approaches to pain, such as prescription drugs and surgery.”[8] It is great to read reports and studies like Gallup-Palmer’s and see how people are rethinking chiropractic care, but it’s also crucial for those of us who have benefited from chiropractic to spread the word to others. It’s our responsibility to encourage people’s understanding that this type of treatment, though perhaps not traditional, is beneficial, positive, and ultimately less expensive.

Perhaps best of all for the future of chiropractic is the fact that increasing numbers of physicians agree that chiropractic care is beneficial. As Dr. Alan Hilibrand, a spokesman for the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, astutely stated, “At least as far as low-back pain is involved, it poses very little risk, and there are a lot of real advantages to it in this world of more and more medicine, and more and more opiate addiction.”[9] (Emphasis added.) When even insurance companies and physicians who have little to gain from promoting chiropractic are coming to terms with the fact that it produces real, measurable results and gets patients out of pain, it’s a great day for chiropractors everywhere.

Gallup-Palmer’s survey will be repeated for the next two years, and possibly after that as well. If you’re interested in the full report or in reading more information, you can find it here: http://www.palmer.edu/gallup-report/

Working to restore GOD’s perfect design in you!

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[1] Ellison K. “Chiropractic Care Grows, and Gains Acceptance.” The New York Times online, October 5, 2015. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/05/chiropractic-care-grows-and-gains-acceptance/?_r=0

[2] Id.

[3] Id.; American Chiropractic Association (ACA) Press Release, “New Report Finds Majority of U.S. Adults Likely to Visit a Chiropractic Physician.” ACAToday.org, September 8, 2015. http://www.acatoday.org/press_css.cfm?CID=5741

[4] American Chiropractic Association (ACA) Press Release, “New Report Finds Majority of U.S. Adults Likely to Visit a Chiropractic Physician.” ACAToday.org, September 8, 2015. http://www.acatoday.org/press_css.cfm?CID=5741

[5] Id.

[6] Id.

[7] Id.

[8] Id.

[9] Id.

Research Shows Why Breastfeeding is Best

Past research has shown that the delivery mode (C-section versus vaginal delivery) of infants affects their microbiota, or the microscopic living organisms in their bodies. But recent studies have now connected breastfeeding to the “development of adult-like microbiota” in infants as well.[1]

One study conducted on 98 Swedish infants found that babies born through C-section had gut bacteria that differed from their mothers much more greatly than the gut bacteria found in babies that were born vaginally.[2] Even more important than the delivery mode, however, was whether the infants’ mothers breast- or bottle-fed them.

Another study concluded that “breastfeeding promotes the growth of beneficial lactic acid bacteria in the baby’s gut flora, which are beneficial to the development of the child’s immune system,” and this bacteria can impact children significantly for up to three years.[3] Breastfeeding encourages slower, healthier growth of children and leads to “a slightly lower incidence of obesity, allergies, diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease later in life.”[4]

Babies are born without bacteria in their gut, and the early life decisions parents can make regarding their baby’s delivery mode and whether or not the mother will breastfeed can make the difference between providing their baby with healthy versus unhealthy bacteria. While there are instances in which vaginal birth and breastfeeding aren’t possible, whenever they are an option, these study findings show why they should be the preferred choice of parents. Delivering a baby vaginally and breastfeeding that baby encourages a healthy start for the baby’s immune and digestive system, which is something we can all agree is ideal!

Working to restore GOD’s perfect design in you!

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[1] Today’s Practitioner. “Cessation of Breastmilk Alters Infant Microbiome.” Todayspractitioner.com, May 27, 2015; Backhed F, et al. “The infant gut microbiome: New studies on its origins and how it’s knocked out of balance.” Cell Press, May 13, 2015; Bergstrom A, Skov T, et al. “Intestinal Microbiota during Early Life: A Longitudinal, Explorative Study of a Large Cohort of Danish Infants.” Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Vol. 80, No. 9.

[2] Backhed F, et al. “The infant gut microbiome: New studies on its origins and how it’s knocked out of balance.” Cell Press, May 13, 2015

[3] Today’s Practitioner. “Breastfeeding & Intestinal Microbiota in Infants.” Todayspractitioner.com, August 14, 2014; Bergstrom A, Skov T, et al. “Intestinal Microbiota during Early Life: A Longitudinal, Explorative Study of a Large Cohort of Danish Infants.” Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Vol. 80, No. 9.

[4] Id.

Polio – Has it Really Been Defeated?

In 1954, Jonas Salk created an injectable vaccine for polio. By 1955, millions of children in the U.S. were being treated with this vaccine. Many people believe Salk’s vaccine was the heroic vanquisher of polio, but the truth is much more complicated.

What you might not know is that in 1954 (yes, the same year Salk produced his vaccine), the American government actually redefined polio. Before that time, “the patient had to exhibit paralytic symptoms for only 24 hours,” and “laboratory confirmation and the presence of residual paralysis were not required,” while after the redefinition took place, “the patient had to exhibit paralytic symptoms for at least 60 days after the onset of the disease…This change in definition meant that in 1955 we started reporting a new disease, namely, paralytic poliomyelitis with a longer lasting paralysis.”[1]

Suddenly, with these new parameters in mind, the fact that reported cases of polio in the U.S. went from 52,879 in 1952 to 28,985 in 1955 isn’t quite so impressive.[2] Instead, it’s important for us to realize that the polio vaccine wasn’t the true cause of the decreased number of reports; it was simply an administrative choice on the part of the U.S. government.

Even now, India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has reported 18,000 cases of Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP)—which is “Clinically indistinguishable from polio paralysis but twice as deadly”[3]—since January 2015.[4] Although India has been declared “polio-free,” it is experiencing a major increase in non-polio AFP. Doctors have suggested that public health officials look into “the influence of strain shifts of enteropathogens induced by the [polio] vaccine given practically every month.”[5]

And India isn’t alone; though not as many have been reported in the U.S., there are instances of NPAFP occurring here as well. Just last year, there were five reported cases at USC and Stanford of “sudden paralysis of one or more limbs in children ages two to 16—all fully vaccinated against polio—and the California Department of Health began investigating 20 more similar cases.”[6] Just as in India, we have yet to get any answers from our government health officials about this dramatic increase in paralysis in children.

Working to Restore God’s Perfect Design in You!

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[1] James W. Immunization: The Reality Behind the Myth, Volume 3. 1985. p. 36.

[2] The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. “U.S. Polio Cases: 1952-1962.” The History of Vaccines.

[3] Vashisht N, Puliyel J. “Polio programme: let us declare victory and move on.” Indian Journal of Medical Ethics 2012 9(2): 114-117.

[4] “Cases reported from Uttar Pradesh in section of media are of AFP (Acute Flaccid Paralysis), not Polio.” Business Standard June 20, 2015.

² “Govt. says cases reported from UP are of Acute Flaccid Paralysis, not polio.” NetIndian News Network June 20, 2015.

[5] Vashisht N, Puliyel J. “Polio programme: let us declare victory and move on.” Indian Journal of Medical Ethics 2012 9(2): 114-117.

[6] Maron DF. “Is a Wave of Poliolike Symptoms in California Cause for Alarm?” Scientific American Feb. 24, 2014.

Anti-Vaccine Doctor Won’t Be Silenced

After the recent Disneyland measles outbreak, an Arizona cardiologist named Dr. Jack Wolfson voiced his concerns about the potential dangers of vaccines. Following his statements, 38 complaints were filed against Dr. Wolfson by the vaccine industry, not to mention the death threats and threats of violence he received.

It doesn’t take much to figure out that industry officials felt threatened by his honest declarations. As the Health Ranger Mike Adams put it, “The idea here is that if enough punishment and aggression is directed against some doctors who speak out on the issue of vaccine side effects, then all the other doctors who may be witnessing these damaging effects of vaccines will decide to stay silent.”[1]

Upon reviewing the complaints against Dr. Wolfson, the Arizona Osteopathic Medical Board decided that he was acceptably and legally expressing his free speech rights by speaking up against vaccines. He continues his practice and is trusted and respected by his patients—many of them new patients who came to him when they realized he’d tell the truth about issues that could impact their health.

The most fundamental rule that healthcare students are taught is, “First, do no harm.” It is a doctor’s job to consider the harm that any intervention—including vaccines—might cause their patients. While we all want to believe that medical professionals have our best interests at heart, they are human and can certainly be swayed into offering “treatments” or “cures” that actually do more harm than good. Because of this, it is also our responsibility to educate ourselves and remember not to blindly follow any medical advice. The more you know, the better medical decisions you can make for yourself and your family.

Working to Restore God’s Perfect Design in You!

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[1] Adams M. “Anti-vaccine witch hunt FAIL: Dr. Jack Wolfson cleared of all charges for exercising his free speech rights on the issue of vaccine risks and the stupidity of blind medical obedience.” Natural News online, July 20, 2015.

What Are GMO's?

Chances are, you’ve heard plenty of buzz about GMO’s or GE foods, but do you really know what they are? This post will give you a quick and easy explanation of GMO’s, as well as their risks and benefits.

First, GMO stands for “genetically modified organism,” while GE stands for “genetically engineered.” These foods and organisms are created “when the DNA of different species is fused to form a type of plant or food that does not exist in nature or is not created by traditional cross-breeding.”[1]

As you can probably tell from that definition alone, this usually occurs in a lab; the creation of GMO’s is not at all a natural process. In past years, farmers may have used traditional breeding to mate one animal with a different animal of the same species to create a new variety of the animal, or do the same thing with a plant by hybridizing different seeds. But they wouldn’t have done anything close to what scientists are doing today; now, impossible traits that would never occur in nature are being spliced together, such as fish genes being put into tomatoes, mouse DNA being put into pig embryos, and the gene that triggers poison in scorpion tails being added to cabbages to prevent caterpillars from causing damage.

If you’re wondering what the benefits are, you’ll be disappointed to learn that they are solely economic. These GMO’s are created to “either tolerate direct application of herbicides and/or have the ability to produce their own pesticides.”[2] They’ve been made harder to kill but still don’t yield any more, are no more tolerant of drought, nor do they provide any other health or nutrition benefits to consumers.

Not only are GMO’s unnatural, but they also pose serious environmental concerns. Since they are essentially created to withstand large amounts of poison, they can easily contaminate other nearby crops and can even pollute nearby streams, causing issues with aquatic life. Insects that actually help crops may also be harmed, and more herbicide-resistant weeds (“super weeds”) are evolving as a result of genetic engineering.

There are no requirements in the U.S. for GMO’s to be labeled as such, and up to 80% of processed foods today may contain them—isn’t that a scary thought? In many nations all across the world, significant restrictions and even bans have been placed on GMO’s because they haven’t been proven to be safe. “In Europe,” for example, “over 175 regions and over 4500 municipalities have declared themselves GM-free zones. And in 2009, Germany along with France, Hungary, Italy, Greece, Austria, Poland and Romanio banned Monsanto’s MON 810 GM corn because of its documented dangers to biodiversity and human health.”[3] Shouldn’t we follow their example?

If you’d like to learn more on this topic, check out the videos at the links below:

http://www.drfranklipman.com/video-on-gmo-foods/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7Id9caYw-Y

And be sure to check back in two weeks for my next blog post on what Pope Francis has to say about GMOs.

Working to Restore God’s Perfect Design in You!

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[1] “Bee Cave Chiropractor on GMOs: Back to the Basics.” Corrective Chiropractic, July 13, 2015. < http://www.correctivechiropractic.net/gmosbacktothebasics/>

[2] Id.

[3] Id.

Pope Francis’s Important Call to Action

On June 18, 2015, Pope Francis published a detailed Encyclical letter (a letter addressed to bishops and others who are in communion with the Holy See) regarding the degradation of our natural environment—more specifically, the genetically engineered foods that appear more and more commonly in our daily diet.

While the Pope praised scientific advancements that have been made, he also accurately stated, “our immense technological development has not been accompanied by a development in human responsibility, values and conscience.”[1] Simply put, we have not evolved to think about whether or not we are using scientific possibilities in an ethical, healthy way that takes our planet into account as well.

Think about pesticides and insecticides, for example. As genetically modified foods contain pesticides in their very makeup, they are engineered to stand up to “regular” pesticides. As a result, the stronger weeds that survive end up thriving, creating a need for super-powered pesticides or a dousing of the usual chemicals. Understandably, this overload of poison is not only harmful to animals and insects, but also to people breathing the air around the crops and, of course, ingesting the pesticides in their food.

Pope Francis discussed the issue of GMOs not only from a religious standpoint but also with regard to ecological and economical concerns. For instance, the expanding the use of genetically engineered crops

“destroy[s] the complex network of ecosystems, diminishing the diversity of production and affecting regional economies, now and in the future…In various countries, we see an expansion of oligopolies for the production of cereals and other products needed for their cultivation. This dependency would be aggravated were the production of infertile seeds to be considered; the effect would be to force farmers to purchase them from larger producers.”[2]

It is well past time that corporations started thinking less about profits and more about the health and wellbeing of their customers and of the earth. But it’s also our responsibility as consumers to demand better.

Representative Mike Pompeo has recently “reintroduced a bill (HR 1599) that would preempt states’ rights to enact GMO labeling laws, keep consumers in the dark about what’s in their food, and create an unwieldy, and unnecessary, federal scheme for voluntary labeling of non-GMO foods.”[3] Make your opinion on this bill known by following the link below and signing a petition against it:

http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/50865/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=13738

And, if you’d like to read more of Pope Francis’s Encyclical Letter, you can access it here:

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2015/images/06/18/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si_en.pdf

Working to Restore God's Perfect Design in You! 

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[1] “Encyclical letter laudato si’ of the Holy Father Francis on care for our common home.” June 18, 2015. Vatican Press. http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2015/images/06/18/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si_en.pdf

[2] Id.

[3] “TAKE ACTION: Tell your representative: Don’t support H.R. 1599, big food’s bill to kill GMO labeling laws!” Organic Consumers Association 2015. http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/50865/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=13738

What Do the Side Effects of Drugs Really Mean?

If you’ve ever taken a pill or other form of medicine, chances are that you’ve noticed the long list of potential side effects on the label. It’s time to start thinking about drugs in a new way: as substances that you body recognizes as poison.

Did you know that your liver produces more than 500 chemicals daily? These chemicals are in place to aid your digestion, act as hormones, clean your blood, and do 497 other important tasks in your body. Amazing, right? But the delicate balance that your liver and other organs create is thrown out of whack when you introduce toxic foreign chemicals, because every poison you put into your body must be processed by the liver.

If you’ve ever had a hangover, you know how horrible your body feels when you introduce alcohol, a poison, to it. The same effects can result from drugs, whether illicit or prescribed. When you take a drug, you are hoping for effects of some kind—you just want the good to outweigh the bad. Unfortunately, there are always bad effects.

All of your body’s systems are interconnected, so think of it this way: when you take a drug to target one area or problem, it’s like attempting to put one drop of food coloring into the corner of a glass of water and expecting it to stay there and not to spread.

God created our bodies with everything we need to function already included: painkillers, blood pressure and cholesterol regulators, healing agents, and more. It’s our job to take care of these processes by incorporating exercise, good nutrition, and a properly functioning nervous system into our lives. So, the next time you’re tempted to pop a pill to temporarily fix a health issue you’re experiencing, try alternative methods to boost your immune system, such as a chiropractic adjustment, proper nutrition, and rest—you just might be surprised by how effective they are!

Working to restore God’s perfect design in you!

How Medical Students View Chiropractic

In October 2014, a study was conducted to assess how medical students perceived chiropractic and how their views changed—if at all—after a one-hour educational course. The study group used a 52-item survey and formed a study group of students in their third year of medical school. They tended to believe that chiropractic was not safe or effective and overall had negative views of the practice. The majority of the students didn’t make any effort to learn about chiropractic outside of their school curriculum. However, 81.0% of them thought that interprofessional education between medical doctors and chiropractors was important and were interested in learning more about chiropractic.

After the 1-hour intervention, the attitudes of the medical students improved. The focus group (made up of 6 medical students) wanted the opportunity to shadow a chiropractor and receive feedback from the chiropractor and his or her patients. They also reported “a lack of exposure to chiropractic in the formal curriculum,” though they had heard negative comments from faculty members during informal lectures or small groups.

Though the focus group students agreed that the 1-hour course was useful and educational for them, they believed that it came too late in their academic career; it would’ve been more effective in changing their opinions if they were exposed to chiropractic from the beginning of medical school. According to the researchers, “[their] findings suggest that an educational session is able to improve the attitudes and knowledge of medical students towards chiropractic immediately after the session. However, a number of concerns are held by medical students that should be addressed in a broader scale to facilitate greater understanding of chiropractic.”

As you can see from these findings, it was largely their lack of exposure to chiropractic in medical school that made the students so reticent to recommend or be confident in the results of chiropractic care. It’s important that this practice changes and medical students are taught about the benefits and proven results of chiropractic before entering their professional careers. If they are, medical doctors and chiropractors can work together in a more collaborative, respectful way.

If you’re interested in reading further about the study, you can access the article at the following link:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4211583/

Working to restore God’s perfect design in you!

I’d like to share with you a recent article that appeared in the Thousand Oaks Acorn and featured my oldest daughter, Julia! She broke the Newbury Park Track Club record in the girls’ shot put and then broke her own record soon after. Needless to say, I’m very proud of her. To read the article, visit the following link:

http://www.toacorn.com/news/2015-04-09/Sports/Taking_her_best_shot.html

Working to Restore God's Perfect Design in You!

Chiropractic Adjustments for Your Child

Did you know that your child encounters physical trauma and spinal subluxation at birth? Did you know that children fall down an average of 1,500 times while learning to walk? What better way to ensure that your child’s spine is on the right track as he or she grows than scheduling a chiropractic adjustment?

You may be intimidated by the idea of having your child adjusted and getting regular chiropractic check-ups. But rest assured, a child’s adjustment is very different from yours. They are lighter, take less time, and are generally less serious issues since any subluxations we may encounter haven’t existed for very long.

Children can benefit from chiropractic care in various ways: it boosts their immune system, identifies and even corrects scoliosis, helps prevent ear infections, and ensures that subluxations don’t go ignored and cause more problems down the road.

I personally adjusted all of my children 20 minutes after they were born. The picture to the right is my son at two weeks old, holding up his own head. This is an act that children don’t typically achieve until they’re 4-6 months old. This is just one piece of evidence that chiropractic adjustments for children are beneficial from the very beginning of their lives!

At Living Well Family Chiropractic, we’re happy to schedule appointments for your whole family when you’re in the office for your own appointment or give us a call. We know your child is important to you, so don’t wait to get them chiropractic care—start today and set them up for life!

Working to restore God’s perfect design in you!

How Educated is Your Chiropractor?

Many people believe that Chiropractic Doctors (D.C.’s) are not as well educated as and/or don’t undergo training as rigorous as medical doctors (M.D.’s). This couldn’t be further from the truth! In reality, both Chiropractic Doctoral programs and medical schools require 60-90 credit hours, while that number is constantly increasing for D.C.’s.

Take a closer look at the class hours spent in various medical subjects by both D.C.’s and M.D.'s:[1]

Even after all the education D.C.’s receive in school (a whopping 4,485 hours!) and in clinics, they are required to pursue 24 hours of continuing education per year—including seminars and lectures—if they want to maintain their license. Many of us complete even more hours than required in order to stay up-to-date on the most recent chiropractic methods and findings.

D.C.’s like those at Living Well Family Chiropractic spend countless hours of their own time reading and doing research that doesn’t count towards continuing education hours. It’s important for us to learn all there is to know in the study of chiropractic care, and since it’s a subject that is constantly evolving and becoming better understood, there’s always more to learn.

We look forward to helping you reach and maintain your personal health goals through chiropractic, and we hope that this post on the Chiropractic Doctorate makes you feel more confident in our abilities to do so.

Working to restore God’s perfect design in you!

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[1] Backtochiropractic.net

X-Ray Safety

People are often concerned about the dose of radiation they receive during x-rays. However, it’s very important to realize that the amount of useful information gained from these x-rays greatly outweighs any risks. Radiographic (x-ray) imaging is, at this point, the only valid and proven method to determine abnormal spinal alignment and degeneration.

You may be surprised to learn that there is a growing field of study/belief (known as Radiation Hormesis) that claims that medical x-rays may actually have health benefits. For further reading on the topic, check out the footnoted references in this blog post.[1]

Americans, on average, are annually exposed to natural background radiation of about 3 mSv. To put things in perspective, a chest x-ray emits 0.1 mSv and a whole body CT scan emits 10 mSv. 10 mSv equates to about 46 cervical x-ray series or 8 lumbar x-ray series (the type we do at Living Well Family Chiropractic). As you can see from these numbers, the x-rays we take in our office to evaluate your spine expose you to very minimal amounts of radiation, even compared to natural radiation in your daily environment.

X-rays are extremely important in providing us with a working diagnosis of your spine’s condition and helping us decide what type of treatment is needed. At your Report of Findings visit, and after all follow-up x-rays are taken, I will show you the difference between a normal spinal alignment and your own. With these comparisons, you’ll be able to see for yourself the measurable results we’ve achieved—and when you do, you will certainly realize that the health benefits of x-ray technology overshadow any small potential risks.

Working to Restore God's Perfect Design in You!

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[1] Kauffman JM. “Diagnostic Radiation: Are the risks exaggerated?” J Amer Phys Surg 2003; 8(2): 54-55.

Cohen BL. “Test of the linear-no threshold theory of radiation carcinogenesis for inhaled radon decay products.” Health Physics 1995; 68(2): 157-174.

Cohen BL. “The cancer risk from low level radiation: a review of recent evidence.” Med Sent 2000; 5: 128-131.

Cohen BL. “Cancer risk from low-level radiation.” AJR 2002; 179(5): 1137-43.

Cohen BL. “Catalog of risks extended and updated.” Health Physics 1991; 61(3): 317-335.

Walker JS. “Permissible dose: A history of radiation protection in the 20^th century.” Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, Berkeley, 2000.

Harrison DE, Harrison DD, Hass JW. “Structural rehabilitation of the cervical spine.” Evanston WY: Harrison CBP? Seminars, Inc., 2002.

Harrison DE, Harrison DD, Haas JW, Betz J, Oakley PA. “CBP? Structural rehabilitation of the lumbar spine.” Evanston, WY: Harrison CBP? Seminars, Inc., 2005.

Regano LJ, Sutton RA. “Radiation dose reduction in diagnosis X-ray procedures.” Phys Med Biol 1992; 37(9): 1773-1788.

Luckey TD. “Radiation Hormesis.” Boca Raton: CRC Press, 1991; 5: 228-230.

Luckey TD. “Nurture with ionizing radiation: a provocative hypothesis.” Nutrition Cancer 1999; 34(1): 1-11.

Sherwood T. “100 years’ observation of risks from radiation for British male radiologists.” Lancet 2001; 358: 604.

Stokes IAF, Bevins TM, Lunn RA. “Back surface curvature and measurement of lumbar spinal motion.” Spine 1987; 12: 355-361.

Johnson GM. “The correlation between surface measurement of head and neck posture and the anatomic position of the upper cervical vertebrae.” Spine 1998; 23: 921-927.

Refshauge KM, Goodsell M, Lee M. “The relationship between surface contour and vertebral body measures of upper spine curvature.” Spine 1994; 19: 2180-2185.

Mosner EA, Bryan JM, Stull MA, Shippee R. “A comparison of actual and apparent lumbar lordosis in black and white adult females.” Spine 1989; 14: 310-331.