The Healthy Back

Chiropractic: Common Misperceptions   Part 2

Last week we looked at some of the common misperceptions about chiropractic – here’s some more.

Chiropractors are not “real” doctors

This statement is true if you believe that only medical doctors are doctors.  We certainly aren’t medical doctors and have chosen not to be.  When I decided to enter chiropractic school, I chose to enter a healing art that concentrated on the spine and everything attached to that spine.  I chose a field of study that looked for the structural causes of health conditions and how a patient’s condition could be corrected rather than entering a field of medicine, which in many cases, chose to cover up symptoms through the use of medication.

When you think about it, since the spine includes the spinal cord, which is an integral part of the central nervous system, intimately connected to the brain and instrumental in controlling every organ, cell and tissue in the body, chiropractic is so much more than just the safest, most effective treatment for a sore back or a headache. 

Chiropractors are not allowed to use drugs or perform surgery.

While this statement is true legally, I refer to the last question for an answer.  When chiropractors enter chiropractic school, they choose to enter a healing art that does not use medication or surgery as its treatment choice.  So, it’s not a matter of no allowed to; it’s a matter of don’t want to.

Why do I have to keep coming, the pain is gone!

This goes back to the concept of threshold level of pain.  With treatment, your pain level is soon reduced or gone.  In many cases, if treatment is stopped at that time, the bulk of the condition is still looming behind the scenes, so to speak, below the water line (threshold level of pain). Once normal activity is resumed and normal daily stresses occur, the pain will re-appear.  That is why I re-examine patients from time to time to determine where they are in care, and to have a better indication as to what is needed.

I came to you for a few months, was satisfied with the results and decided to stop care.  Now a few months later or more, my pain has returned.  I really don’t want to get started all over again and I don’t want to have to come in over a long time.

This happens from time to time.  Please understand something. I recommend the treatment that YOUR condition requires.  The best thing I can tell you is that IF it has been a long time since treatment ended, let’s say 6 months to a year, there‘s a good chance at least a brief examination is needed to determine if the condition is the same or different than before.  In many cases, the same amount of treatment is NOT needed.  If you make it clear what your goals are, I will customize your treatment to give you what you need. I will however, recommend what your condition needs, not necessarily what you want to hear.  It’s then up to you to decide what you want.  Please don’t be intimidated by me or my recommendations.  As corny as it sounds, I want to help you to the degree you want help.  It’s your body and health after all!!

Something else you need to know is this.  Back conditions nearly always recur.  When we look at the current research it appears more and more that back pain is almost always a cumulative injury (unless you’re in a bad accident, fall from a plane, or are literally hit by a bus) and because we are creatures of habit, we keep doing the same things over and over and over.  While our symptoms wax and wane, the underlying condition doesn’t go away.  This means that once our back is injured, it can heal, but it is not cured.  I think people get frustrated and are disappointed because they expect a 100% cure, when there isn’t one.  As a chiropractor my job is facilitate your healing to its optimum level and help you maintain it, so you can remain symptom free, or at least have better control over your episodes, rather than having them control you.

CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

Need to find the Perfect Present for someone special?  Give the gift of health!  Gift Certificates are available in the office. 

Holiday Hours are:

Christmas Eve, Dec 24 – Open til Noon

Closed from Noon Saturday, December 24 until Tuesday, January 3, 2012.  Book your New Year Adjustment for the first week in January and start the year right!

 Dr. McCallum’s office is located upstairs in the Bay SevenOaks, 32900 South Fraser Way, Abbotsford, BC.  Call 604-864-8232 to book an appointment.  We love helping people regain and maintain their good health.

At McCallum Chiropractic we are always looking to enhance your health through easy, effective choices.  Choose Chiropractic.

Our office (inside the Bay) can be viewed on our CanPages site: www.canpages.ca/page/BC/abbotsford/mccallum-chiropractic-at-the-bay/4270514.html

Winter Weather is Here

Good health isn’t just about exercise, nutrition or what medication you might take.  It also involves survival sometimes!  Here in BC, while we have the mildest winter weather in the country in the lower mainland, we have real Canadian winter weather everywhere else – compounded by mountains.  That means changeable conditions, a lot of corners and curves, ice, black ice, poor visibility, fog – you name it – we’ve got it.

Here are the recommended items to keep in your car in case of winter emergencies:

A winter survival kit for your car is a must, and here are a handful of recommendations from the Canadian Automobile Association:

1. An ice scraper, a snow brush and a snow shovel
2. Sand, salt or kitty litter, as well as a tow rope or chain, to help manoeuvre your car out of a ditch or off an icy patch.
3. Road flares or warning lights
4. Blanket, extra footwear and winter gloves
5. Reflective safety triangles or pylons
6. Candle, waterproof matches and a small tin.  Not only does a candle help light the care in the dark, but it also generates heat.  Of you can opt for a flashlight and batteries – but they don’t generate heat.
7. Non-perishable food, like energy bars or candy bars.  Canadian Tire, for example sells an emergency meal kit that includes 10 pouches of water and 24 food bars.
8. Extra windshield washer fluid
9. Battery-jumper cables
10. A first-aid kit
11. Toilet paper

 Your hope is always to never have to use any of the above.

Stick to the main roads.  Short-cuts in the winter aren’t a good idea – remember what happened to the Tremblay’s last year in the States.  Main roads will always have plows and emergency vehicles patrolling to make sure the road and everyone is safe.

If you have to drive in the mountains, get snow tires or chains.  All Season tires don’t have the same traction as snow tires and there really isn’t any reason to endanger yourself or others driving over – say – the Coquihalla in all season tires.  I do a lot of driving in the lower mainland, and I personally hate it when it snows because I have snow tires and nearly no one else does.  It’s just scary trying to get around everyone and not knowing if they are going to start sliding backward down that hill, or skid out at the intersection, or not be able to stop.  Part of staying healthy is using your head to make smart decisions – so if you won’t die if you don’t make it to that meeting, or the store, or whatever, don’t go. Stay where you are and be safe. 

At McCallum Chiropractic we are always looking to enhance your health through easy, effective choices.  Choose Chiropractic.

Dr. McCallum’s office is located upstairs in the Bay SevenOaks, 32900 South Fraser Way, Abbotsford, BC.  Call 604-864-8232 to book an appointment.  We love helping people regain and maintain their good health.

If any of your friends have questions about chiropractic or our office, refer them to our CanPages (Yellow pages online) site for more information about us. www.canpages.ca/page/BC/abbotsford/mccallum-chiropractic-at-the-bay/4270514.html

Small Amounts of Exercise for Daily Neck and Shoulder Pain

 Just a quick note to let you know that I’ll be in Toronto for Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College Meetings and the Research Symposium October 27 – 30.

Those of you who know me or who have seen me for treatment know that I like to give a little homework.  The exercises I give are simple, easy and not time consuming at all.  I know they work – if you do them.  Now some scientific research is backing me up.  It shows that even a tiny amount of exercise can make a BIG difference to how you respond to treatment and how your neck and shoulders feel all the time.  You just have to do it.

I belong to Research Review Service (RRS).  This is a great service that posts reviews (hence the name) about papers published in the peer-reviewed scientific health journals.  RRS looks at journals that cover all aspects of health, not just chiropractic publications. A synopsis is provided and there are links to the full article if you need more detail.

The article referenced for the study I mentioned above is by Andersen LL, et al and was published in Pain 2011; 152(2): 440 – 6.

Here’s what it says.

In the general population, the one year prevalence of neck and shoulder pain is about 30 – 50%, with between 7-22% women and 5-16% of men reporting chronic neck pain overall.  Although cause is not definitively identified or measured, most experts would agree that computer use and sedentary posture in most work environments certainly don’t help.  Although not as costly or disabling as low back pain, problems in this area can become chronic and bothersome, potentially affecting productivity and quality of life.

As a chiropractor I know that chiropractic care is an effective treatment for this kind of non-specific mechanical neck, upper back and shoulder pain.  Scientific evidence shows that chiropractic care is one of the only effective ways to treat these conditions. One of the other effective ways is exercise, but the combination of these two is the most effective treatment.

The problem is always compliance.  Exercise programs only work if the patients actually do the exercises and compliance for complex routines is terrible.  This paper looked at simple, short exercise routines to see if they made a difference.  And they did!

The study used resistance exercises and I usually use ranges of motion, so I think I’ll add some resistance to my recommendations from now on.  Here’s what happened in the study.

Three treatment groups were formed according to scientific protocol for studies.  Two groups were given exercises to do.  One of the exercise groups had a 12 minute routine and the other had a 2 minute routine.  The third group is the control and they didn’t have to do anything.  In scientific studies you always have a control group to make sure that what you are doing is actually doing something, and that the condition isn’t just resolving on its own over time.

The two exercise groups were roughly equal in their compliance.  Both groups did their exercises on average 3.2 – 3.3 of the 5 intended sessions per week.

Both exercise groups increased their strength and decreased their pain.  Interestingly, the increase did not significantly differ between the 2 or 12 minute groups.

This study shows that even a small amount of exercise (about 2 minutes / day) can result in reduced pain and tenderness and increased strength in adults with neck and shoulder pain.

When such a small effort can make such a big difference, it makes you wonder why you don’t do the exercises I give you!  But don’t worry.  I’m not here to discourage you.  I’ll just keep reminding you and when you see the difference remembering and doing the exercises makes, you’ll want to do them!

Range of Motion Exercises for your Neck

These are the positions for stretching your neck.  Take each position to the end where you feel some resistance and hold it for 15 seconds. Don’t forget to do lateral bending and rotation to the right and left.  Even if you only do this exercise once a day you will notice a BIG difference in decreased pain and increased movement in about 2 weeks.  But don’t stop then – keep doing it for the rest of your life so you can feel good all the time.

These are easy resistance exercises for your neck that don’t require any equipment.  Again, take the position to the end point of your ability and then press with the resistance hand until you feel some resistance.  The point isn’t to injure yourself, but to create tension and encourage strength.

This is the exercise they did for the study using a theraband.  Theraband is a length of rubber banding. You can get handles and other accessories for it, but you don’t need to. It can be found at some pharmacies, sport supply stores, gyms, etc.  Get a piece that is long enough for you to stand on the centre and wrap around both your hands securely with your arms hanging down.  Then lift your arms up to shoulder height with your elbows slightly bent.  Hold until it feels like you can’t hold it any more and relax.  Do this for two minutes.

When you need chiropractic adjustments Abbotsford is the place to be.  Dr. Dorothea McCallum provides General Chiropractic Care for people of all ages, Pre and Perinatal care for Moms and babies – Webster Technique Certified, Wellness Care and Coaching – Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner (CCWP), Custom Corrective Orthotics.

We are as close as the CanPages online. Please feel free to refer your family and friends using this link:

 www.canpages.ca/page/BC/abbotsford/mccallum-chiropractic-at-the-bay/4270514.html

PREVIOUS BACK INJURY AND DISC DEGENERATION

Disc degeneration gets blamed for a lot of back pain.  How and why disc degeneration happens is not well understood.  One thing that seems to have a bearing on whether or not you develop disc degeneration is if you’ve had a previous back injury.

In a study by Hancock et al the effect of injury on lumbar disc degeneration was studied in monozygotic (identical) twins.  Don’t worry; no twins were harmed in conducting the study!  Rather the researchers were able to find enough identical twins who had different injuries to their spines.  In other words, one of the twins was healthy without any back injury and the other had a low back injury, or one twin had a facet type of injury and the other had sciatic symptoms. 

The researchers compared disc degeneration between 37 male identical twin pairs who reported different individual previous injury/trauma to their lumbar spines. By the way, this is a very small sample size for any kind of scientific study. Disc degeneration was assessed using disc height and disc signal intensity on advanced imaging such as CT scans and MRI’s. Disc signal intensity is a technical term that has to do with how they enhance the CT or MRI image to show different kinds of tissues better.  So, a particular enhancement might show bony changes better, while a different enhancement will show soft tissues such as disc, ligament, muscle or nerve better.

Results:

Disc degeneration did not differ between twins who report previous back injury and their uninjured twins.  This finding was consistent for both disc height and disc signal intensity.  There was also no evidence that a greater period since an injury resulted in greater twin difference in disc degeneration

Comments:

This study suggests that back injury based on what patients remember and report is not an important predictor of future disc degeneration.  In recent years, beliefs regarding what causes disc degeneration have changed dramatically.  It was previously thought that the primary determinants of disc generation included age, gender, cigarette smoking, exposure to vehicular vibration (ie sitting in a car or truck or heavy equipment for long periods) and in particular, occupational physical loading  (repeated heavy lifting at work). More recently it has been demonstrated that most of these factors have at most a relatively minor influence in disc degeneration.  In fact, routine loading may actually have some benefits for the lumbar discs in terms of slowing dessication or drying out of the tissue.  Even though genetic factors seem to be the most consistent influence in disc degeneration, there is still much to be learned.

Now that you’ve read all this, I’d like to make note of a couple things about this study. 

First of all, there is no clear or direct correlation between disc degeneration and back pain.  It is entirely possible to have a severely degenerated spine with lots of decreased disc height and disc degeneration and to have no pain in the back at all.  It is also possible to have a spine that looks healthy on x-ray and that shows no disc degeneration and to have a lot of pain.  Pain seems to be associated more with inflammation when it is acute, and with aberrant nerve signals in chronic cases where pain pathways have been changed and become more sensitive and “hardwired”.  In chronic cases the tissue has healed and there is no inflammation, but innocuous movements or events set off the pain response.

Secondly, we know that trauma and lack of movement or too much movement in any joint cause bony changes.  We see this in people who’ve experienced a whiplash type of injury.  When a joint is kept from moving, either by a cast or splinting or muscle spasm, calcium begins to leave the bone and osteoporotic changes start occurring within 72 hours of the immobilization.   This is why chiropractors hate cervical collars and supports that don’t allow full movement.  Obviously if a bone is broken it needs to be stabilized, but when you restrict movement in the back or insist on resting until you feel better, you will suffer long term consequences.  The other thing that happens with abnormal movement is that new bone is formed along the edges of increased force.  These look like spikes and bony protrusions on x-rays (so they look like they would be painful) and are usually called degenerative joint changes.  Like disc degeneration, this kind of deterioration doesn’t hurt unless it is inflamed, but it is an indicator that something is wrong with movement.  Over a long period of time this aberrant movement can cause discs to weaken and degenerate.

Thirdly, if you don’t have movement and rest for your spine, you will have degenerated discs.  This is a simple principle of physiology. Spinal discs have no blood supply, but rely on rest and movement for nutrition and waste management to the living cells embedded in the cartilage matrix of the disc.  During sleep, nutrient rich tissue fluids from the adjacent vertebral bones seep into the disc providing food for the cells.  This is called imbibition.  During the day, movement squeezes the waste products of cell metabolism out of the discs to be carried away. Injury can cause a decrease in movement in the spine so it is likely that some degenerative changes can occur, but it looks like some people are more susceptible to disc degeneration than others.

This study looked at trauma and recalled injury as a cause of disc degeneration, but probably the biggest contributor is every day bad posture.  So, stand up straight, sit straight and keep your spine healthier with regular movement.  One way to maintain smooth, healthy movement is with regular visits to your chiropractor.  Just like you go to the dentist to make sure your teeth are healthy, regular maintenance care for your spine keeps your back and body healthier.

Dr. Dorothea McCallum is an Abbotsford back pain relief doctor who looks at so much more.  Your back is connected to every organ, cell and tissue in your body by the nervous system. Find out how chiropractic can help you live a longer, fuller life.

Back pain can be related to your feet and how you walk.  Come into the office for a Footmaxx orthotics gait scan and see how custom orthotics may help your chronic pain.

Want more information about the office.  Visit Canpages for an online tour.

http://www.canpages.ca/page/BC/abbotsford/mccallum-chiropractic-at-the-bay/4270514.html

SLEEP, BABY, SLEEP!

You spend about one third of your life asleep so getting the most out of it is important.  Here are some quick tips to wake up refreshed.

-Choose a mattress that adapts to your body shape but is firm enough to support your back.

When shopping for a bed, take your pillow and your partner and plan on taking a nap in the store!  How else will you be able to tell if the mattress will be right for you unless you spend some time on it?  Pretty much all mattresses feel good in the store when you only lay on them for a minute or two, so plan on spending a bit more time so you can really tell how you’re going to like it.

-Use a supportive pillow and sleep on your back or side to keep your head and neck in line with your spine.

There are a lot of really great pillows on the market.  You just have to remember that the pillow you sleep on may not be the same one that looks nice as a fluffy decorating accessory. Here again, you might have to try out a few pillows until you find the one that is just right for you. I personally like water pillows.  The Chiro/Medi Flow brand is like a mini waterbed for your head!  It fits into regular pillow cases and can be emptied and washed.  It has a special treatment in the water compartment that keeps the water from getting swampy and the seals are effective.  The pillow conforms to your shape, filling in the gaps between your back, shoulder or head so you are less likely to wake with a stiff neck.  Many of my patient who had chronic headaches, stopped having them when they switched to water pillows.

-Go to bed at the same time every night, even on weekends.

Consistency pays off if you want better sleep.

-Avoid caffeine, heavy meals, alcohol and vigorous exercise for at least two hours before going to bed.

-A bedtime ritual such as reading or listening to calming music can also help.

Just like with little children, ritual, consistent patterns at bed time are soothing and prepare your mind and body to rest.

Sleep is a time for your body to heal and restore itself.  Good sleep helps your spinal health because when you’re lying down and sleeping is when the discs in your back are nourished and “plumped” up.  The cells buried in the matrix of connective tissue in your discs depend on this rest for nourishment, so if you don’t sleep and you don’t sleep long enough, you are essentially starving your discs.  This can lead to tissue breakdown and eventually could lead to disc herniation.  So give your back a rest. 

Sweet Dreams!

For more tips from Canada’s Chiropractors, visit: www.chatelaine.com/backhealth

Have a friend or family member who would benefit from chiropractic, but who seems reluctant to take your good advice?  Send them on a virtual tour of our office at

http://www.canpages.ca/page/BC/abbotsford/mccallum-chiropractic-at-the-bay/4270514.html.

Note:  Dr. McCallum will be starting late on Saturday, August 27.  The office will be open at 10:30 instead of 9:30.  See you then!

If you’re looking for a holistic chiropractor Abbotsford is the place to look!  Dr. Dorothea McCallum has been practicing drug free, surgery free, hands on chiropractic for over 20 years. Dr. Dorothea McCallum provides General Chiropractic Care for people of all ages, Pre and Perinatal care for Moms and babies – Webster Technique Certified, Wellness Care and Coaching – Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner (CCWP) and Custom Corrective Orthotics.

Do I Need Vitamins? (or Not)

Last week we talked about some of the reasons why supplements are not always a worthwhile investment.  One thing I forgot to mention is that because most supplements are hard for the body to use because of missing co-factors is that most of them are eliminated in the urine.  So, you end up with pretty expensive pee.  If you over-supplement and the body can’t eliminate the nutrient easily, you can also end up with kidney stones or other deposits that cause trouble of their own.  People who’ve just started taking supplements often report feeling a LOT better, but it’s usually because they’ve been so deficient that the body hungrily absorbs what it can, but when it can’t process the amounts and it can’t balance the supplement with all the other things it needs, you lose that good feeling and most people stop.

There are some nutrients that you do need to supplement with.  These are things that are very difficult to get in most modern food in adequate amounts – either because we can’t eat enough calories to get them given our activity levels, or because of production methods and processing they do not exist in the food where they used to come from.  The following are things you need to supplement:

1. Omega 3 Essential Fatty Acids.  There are three fatty acids that are necessary in a human’s diet:  Omega 3, 6 and 9.  Omega 6 and 9 are over-abundant in a modern North American’s diet, but Omega 3 is hard to get – even though you will see it added to all kinds of food in the grocery store – don’t fall for it – most amounts are too small to make any kind of difference. Omega 3 is needed for the immune system and for mediating the inflammatory response, as well as for proper structure and function of the nervous system.  You need to take at least two tsps of good Omega 3 oil per day.  Innate Choice is an excellent oil from clean, natural sources, it’s been microfiltered so there’s no mercury in it and it hasn’t been over processed. If you take this oil every day, nearly every aspect of your health will improve.  Make sure that everyone in your family is taking it too.

2. Vitamin D.  This is not an essential nutrient in lots of other places, but in Canada because of our Northern latitudes and the resulting angle of the sun’s rays and especially on the “Wet Coast” of BC where it is overcast and dark for long stretches of time, we are sunlight deprived.  Also, because of increased skin cancer risks, people have become afraid to get sun exposure, so we don’t produce enough Vitamin D.  We need Vitamin D for many things, but one of the most important is Calcium absorption and retention in our bones, and for the nervous system and our affect.  Affect is how we feel.  Feel lousy?  Feel like you need a vacation in Hawaii?  You’re right, but what you actually really need is Vitamin D.  There are some great Vitamin D products on the market right now.  I have one where all you have to do is put a little tiny drop on your finger and lick it  Done!  It even tastes good.

3. Probiotics.  These are the bugs that live in our intestine.  They digest almost all the vegetable matter we eat.  If we don’t eat a lot of vegetable matter, they die and yeast and less friendly bacteria take over.  We end up bloated, constipated, sick all the time because we catch everything that is going around, we gain weight in the wrong places (that’s everywhere, by the way), we have really smelly farts, we get indigestion, our skin gets bad, we burp, we get crabby, we get diarrhea and we smell bad.  Do I need to go on?  Innate Choice makes a good probiotic supplement, and if you don’t want to order it off the internet, you can get Garden of Life, Primal Defense at the Health Food store.  Eating a live culture yoghurt is an option, but remember that you are eating a dairy product and usually these have sugar in them (which defeats the purpose of the probiotic) and the probiotics in it are really good for cows.  People do better with dirt based probiotics which are in the ones I’ve recommended.

The moral of this story is – eat food.  Not fake food.  Not processed food.  With every piece of food you put in your mouth and chew, ask yourself if this is providing your body with the materials it needs to build you –  and will it poison you in any way?  Only swallow if the answers are the right answers.

If you’re looking for a holistic chiropractor Abbotsford is the place to look!  Dr. Dorothea McCallum has been practicing drug free, surgery free, hands on chiropractic for over 20 years. Dr. Dorothea McCallum provides General Chiropractic Care for people of all ages, Pre and Perinatal care for Moms and babies – Webster Technique Certified, Wellness Care and Coaching – Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner (CCWP) and Custom Corrective Orthotics

Do I Need Vitamins?

People often come into the office all excited about taking a new supplement that’s really helping with some symptoms they have.  Often they’re puzzled with my lack of enthusiasm.  It’s hard, though, to condense years of learning about nutrition and its role in health into the short time we have together in the office.  Because it’s pretty impossible to teach this kind of thing in an office visit or two, I’ve run classes on nutrition – but they’re not well attended.  The problem always is that no one really wants to know how to eat for optimum health – what they want is a formula that will allow them to lose weight, get all the nutrients they need without cooking or planning meals and they want to keep eating the way they always have.

People get enthusiastic about their supplements and diet plans because they see this as a quick start and hope that once they reach a goal, or start to feel better they can go back to what they did before; but eating for good health is a lifelong, lifestyle change.  That doesn’t mean that it has to be awful or that you have to give up everything you really like, or even that you have to feel deprived all the time.

The biggest barrier to eating properly for optimum health is actually in your head.  Part of the problem is that most people don’t know anything about food except that they like it and that it tastes good and they like feeling full.  That you can actually choose foods based on what your body needs in order to function properly and still accomplish the above things is not something that most people even think about.  And if they do, they think that supplementing one or two nutrients that they hear about on television, or read about in a magazine or saw on Dr. Oz will do the trick.

Food is more complicated than that – and a whole lot simpler.  What do I mean?  Well, when you pull foods apart and start taking the “nutrients” out and taking them as supplements, you’ve just removed the nutrient from context and made your body work harder.  Now your body has to identify what the “nutrient” is, where it’s supposed to go and what it’s supposed to go with.  Since it doesn’t come with the co-factors it needs to do its job right, the body has to try to match it up with the co-factor, and if that co-factor can’t be found, the “nutrient” can’t be used and is eliminated.

If you leave the “nutrients” in the food and eat the food, your body has a much better chance of being able to use the nutrient appropriately. In whole foods – like vegetables and fruits, everything you need to be able to use the nutrients is already included. 

Another problem with supplements is the amounts.  Your body knows what it needs, but a vitamin pill contains what fits neatly into a pill that can easily be swallowed.  The amounts in pills have nothing to do with what your body needs. You take a multi-vitamin thinking that you’re covering your bases and getting everything you need because you might not be eating really well – right?  Actually, multi-vitamins contain a list of vitamins in no particular balance with each other and some of them contain vitamins and/or minerals that compete with each other for absorption (so neither gets absorbed).  If you want to get lots of vitamins and minerals in meaningful amounts with co-factors, I advise you to get a juicer or better yet a Vitamix.  Make juice or pulps from vegetables and add some fruit for flavor.  Not as convenient as a vitamin pill, but way better for you.

I know you think you feel better when you start taking vitamins, but it’s because you’ve been deficient and your body is so happy to finally get some of what it needs that it improves.  But once it starts getting tired of sorting out what it needs and having to eliminate the rest, you’ll stop taking your supplements and they’ll just get dusty in the cupboard.

Next week, I’m going to talk about the supplements you DO actually need, so stay tuned!

Hope you’re having a great summer.  Remember to send your friends to the Canpages for a glimpse of our office.

If you’re looking for a holistic chiropractor Abbotsford is the place to look!  Dr. Dorothea McCallum has been practicing drug free, surgery free, hands on chiropractic for over 20 years. Dr. Dorothea McCallum provides General Chiropractic Care for people of all ages, Pre and Perinatal care for Moms and babies – Webster Technique Certified, Wellness Care and Coaching – Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner (CCWP) and Custom Corrective Orthotics

Note:

The office is closed over the Canada Day Long Weekend, Thursday, June 30 until Tuesday, July 5.  Dr. McCallum is taking a short vacation!  Please phone if you need an appointment when I am back, and we’ll book you as soon as possible.

Not All Milk is Created Equal

Last week I was writing about Bakerview Ecodairy:

Back to the cows.  As we were touring the dairy, some of the cows came over to say “hello” and give us “kisses”.  My, cows have long tongues.  Since they are not tied up, they can stroll around and one of the places they stroll to is the Automatic Cow Brush.  Since they’re not outside, they don’t have any nice bushes to go and rub up against, so there is the Cow Brush.  They just stand underneath it and it turns on and twirls around and moves up and down along their bodies giving them a nice massage and keeping them very clean.  They are the cleanest cows I’ve ever seen.

This isn’t the coolest part though.  Milking is entirely automatic and is done in the cow milking robot.  When a cow is ready to be milked (she decides – it takes two days to train a cow to know what to do) she mozies over to the milker and walks in.  The computer determines if she is indeed ready (sometimes a cow tries to get milked when she’s not ready because she gets a treat), the machine tests each teat for mastitis (infection) and then washes the teats individually, attaches the milking machine and milks the cow. If the cow has an infection the cow is milked (they obviously have to be) and that milk is rerouted to a different tank and the lines are sterilized for the next cow.

This place is like a cow spa.

Bakerview EcoDairy has their milk processed at a nearby organic dairy.  They do not sell skim milk because they believe that some fat is needed for the milk to be really healthy, (I agree).  If you take the tour (I highly recommend it) you get to try a sample of milk at the grocery store also on the grounds.  They give you a glass of 2% that is about as thick as whipping cream and tastes richer than whole milk from any commercial dairy.  The yoghurt is divine.  Don’t worry about the fat content – its healthy omega 3 rich fat, important for your cell health, nervous system, and the anti-inflammatory systems in your body. 

The Bakerview EcoDairy operation has a grocery store where they sell locally sources foods.  There are vegetables, grass fed meats, their own eggs, local cheeses, a deli with sandwiches and other treats.  They also have a picnic area where you can bring your family and enjoy the amazing scenery and a great lunch.

The Bakerview EcoDairy is a non-profit BC society with four mandates:

1. To create a platform for advances in agri-technology and promote agritourism
2. To provide opportunities for education of dairy farming practices and products.
3. To focus on green energy  conservation and nutrient management
4. To offer a fun and experiential learning environment for the public.

A portion of gate revenues is used to support scientific research and education in agriculture.

We are blessed to live in one of the world’s most beautiful places and where they produce some of the world’s finest foods.  Bakerview EcoDairy is just one of the places on the Circle Farm Tour in the Fraser Valley where you can see how your food is produced and buy right from the people who put care and love into producing it for you.

These are just a couple of suggestions for you and your family to visit this summer.

If you have any other questions about nutrition and how to achieve better health by being pure and sufficient by eating real food, remember Dr. McCallum is a Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner.  Please send your questions, and we can answer them for you here on the blog.

Remember, you can refer your friends to the office – Every Body needs chiropractic.  Just go to Canpages online directory to see a short video about the office.

In the Abbotsford chiropractic office of Dr. Dorothea McCallum, you’ll enjoy expert care that goes beyond sore backs and headaches.

Some Myths About Weight for Women II

Lifting weights defeats the purpose if my goal is weight loss.

Lifting weights and building muscle actually fast tracks weight loss results. Women often want to put off strength training until they’ve lost a few pounds, when actually picking up a dumbbell or barbell will help those pounds off even faster!  The more muscle we have built the more our resting metabolic rate (RMR) increases.  That’s why the common saying “Muscle burns more calories than fat” is true.  As you increase your lean muscle mass your body becomes a more efficient fat burner – even when you are not exercising but at rest.  For every pound of lean muscle mass you build, you burn 35 – 50 calories per day.  It creates efficiency.

Building muscle means I can’t eat carbs or fat

A healthy rule of thumb for making changes to our lifestyle is balance.  Making sure you get a balance of protein, fat and carbohydrates is key to staying healthy.  Just losing weight and being thin, does not mean you are healthier. Muscle is active tissue and needs nutrients from all sources to be able to function at its best.  What is important to remember about carbohydrates is that vegetables are carbohydrates.  They are complex, full of fibre, vitamins and minerals and a whole host of nutrients and are extremely healthy. The Carbohydrates to watch out for are the simple ones that break down into simple sugars and increase your glycemic index, leading to diabetes and heart disease.  These carbohydrates are found in grains and white foods (including milk but excluding cauliflower).

Contrary to what you see in advertising and what has become a kind of urban myth, all fats are not bad.  We need fat to have healthy nervous and immune systems, but we need good fat.  Good fat comes from vegetable sources, and grass fed meat and non-carnivorous fish sources.  When a fat occurs naturally in a food, it should be left there.  Since food processors started taking the fats out of foods and marketing such foods as “healthier” the population has become fatter and fatter.  Fat provides flavor, a good “mouth feel”, and stimulates the satiety centres in the gut and brain. Therefore you are likely to eat less. Plus, when food is processed and the fat removed, it doesn’t taste very good, so sugar and salt are added to make it more appealing.  Fat free and “lite” food is a lot less healthy than whole food and is more likely to lead you to eat more of it, to develop diabetes and heart disease and get fatter.

My motto is that the less you mess with your food the better.  Buy and eat as close to the source as possible.  It’s a lot more trouble being sick than it is having fun sourcing, cooking and eating good food that is good for you.

If I don’t work out my muscle will turn to fat.

This is anatomically IMPOSSIBLE! If you don’t brush your teeth, they won’t turn into hair!  Fat and muscle are two completely different tissues.  You can take charge and change the size of the fat cells in your body through regular fitness and proper nutrition and you can build muscle and keep it up through consistent workouts but your muscle cells cannot be converted into fat cells.

Another thing you may not know  - except for damage and injury, you cannot change the number of your muscle and fat cells once you are out of infancy.  Therefore, when you gain weight, all you are doing is expanding the size of the fat cells you have by storing more and more fat in them.  When your muscles become larger and harder due to working out, you have merely increased the strength and bulk of the cells you already have, you are not growing new muscle cells.

If you think about this for a moment, it is a really good reason not to overfeed your babies.  Babies can increase their cell numbers, and if you overfeed them, you are setting your children up for a lifetime of battling their weight. Don’t be concerned if your infant is not in the top percentile for weight for their age.  You want your baby to be in the middle.  A top percentile baby is a fat baby who may have a fat future.

Notice:

Dr. McCallum will be in Toronto for CMCC’s Convocation and Board Retreat next week.  The office will be closed on Thursday , June 16 and Saturday, June 18, reopening on Monday, June 20th at the regular time,  9:30. 

Deb will be here to answer the phone and take care of you on Thursday and Friday.  If you get the answering machine, please leave a message so we can call you back and book your appointment.

Thank you for sending people to this blog and to our office. When people hear you talk about how you’ve been helped by chiropractic they’re more likely to try it themselves.  Chiropractic is safe, drug free and one of the most effective pain reliefs without dangerous side effects.  Even better, it gets to the cause of the pain and fixes it.  If you want help referring people, send them to the online yellow pages to look at our short slide show.  They can see what the office looks like and all the information about how to get ahold of us is there. 

At McCallum Chiropractic we are always looking to enhance your health through easy, effective choices.  Choose Chiropractic.

Did you know that chiropractors effectively treat conditions related to the jaw, also known as the Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ)?  Symptoms from TMJ dysfunction can include jaw pain, upper neck pain, ringing in the ears (tinnitus), vertigo (dizziness), hearing loss, headaches and sinus congestion.  Problems with the TMJ can lead to uneven wear on the teeth and because of pain, poor chewing habits and impaired digestion.

Another symptom of TMJ is bruxing and grinding, although this is a bit of a chicken and egg situation because bruxing and grinding the teeth during sleep can also lead to TMJ problems.

So what’s the solution?  Many people get night guards from their dentist.  These are certainly effective for protecting teeth surfaces from erosion and there are some new devices that appear to be better at keeping the person from biting down hard all night and creating muscle spasm.  I’ve heard of people getting prolotherapy injections in the TMJ and a lot of other therapies aimed at treating the pain generated when the jaw doesn’t line up and work right.

But wouldn’t it be great if you could get your jaw realigned, the muscles to relax and work right so that you don’t have any pain?  Well, you can.  See your chiropractor.

Chiropractors have training on how to treat the joint mechanics of the jaw, as well as the muscular component of the problem.  Plus, they have a tool in their technique toolbox that no one else has. 

The jaw is one of the most important joints in the body and of all the joints in the body it is imperative that it work right as soon as you are born.  You need it for sucking; you will die if you can’t suck and therefore eat.  The first secondary curve you develop in your spine is in your neck and this is so you can lift your head and find some dinner. The upper cervical part of your spine ties into your jaw with nerve connections, muscular connections and other connective tissue structures.  When your neck is a wreck, your jaw will be too.  So, one of the most important things that your chiropractor does is check your neck first.

Many times, I’ve checked a person’s jaw, and then adjusted their neck.  When I check the jaw after the adjustment, without touching the jaw, I find it has corrected and is no longer restricted, or the restriction and dysfunction is decreased.  How neat is that? 

When the problem is chronic more care is often needed, but TMJ adjustments are comfortable and have a profound effect almost immediately.  I use low force technique and the most uncomfortable part of the procedure is assessing the problem and working the muscles.  When they get tight, the face can hurt and can be quite sensitive, so there might be some eye watering as we work on the trigger-points, but the results are worth it.

Often, when a person has had a TMJ problem for a while, and we treat their upper neck and the jaw, they notice that their headaches disappear. 

People with TMJ dysfunction almost always have at least one otologic (related to the ear) complaint.  This can be ear pain, like a feeling of fullness, stabbing or aching, tinnitus which is a ringing in the ear or a pulsing sound, vertigo or dizziness  and even hearing loss.  Once the upper neck is adjusted and the TMJ corrected these symptoms often disappear.

This is a situation where if a practitioner didn’t understand the symptom patterns, physiology, pathology, neurology and joint mechanics of the head and neck, they might treat the ear only and the person would get no relief and might even be harmed by inappropriate testing and treatment.

I always believe that it is best to start with the most non-invasive treatment.  So if you or anyone you know has headaches, jaw pain, ear pain, dizziness, ringing in the ears, facial pain or any of the other symptoms associated with TMJ, recommend a chiropractic treatment first.  As a chiropractor, I can assess if it is something that a chiropractor can help or if it needs other care.

The worst thing that can happen with chiropractic care is that we can’t fix your jaw pain – but you will have a healthier neck and back !

Other News

Sometimes when I talk to people about sending their friends or family in they tell me that people are reluctant to come because they don’t know what will happen to them or what a chiropractic office is like.  If you want help sending people to the office send them to:

http://www.canpages.ca/page/BC/abbotsford/mccallum-chiropractic-at-the-bay/4270514.html

This is our online yellow pages listing. It’s a short video showing the office and has a short explanation of what we do here.

At McCallum Chiropractic we are always looking to enhance your health through easy, effective choices.  Choose Chiropractic.