What do our body and our automobile have in common?  Our body and our car have very complex operating systems that we take for granted and infrequently think about unless something goes wrong. 

Years ago, you may have learned to drive a car with a manual gearshift, which was located either in the steering column or in the floor of the car.  You learned deliberate motions to move the gears through each position.  Most cars today have gears that shift automatically while driving and you are not even aware of these movements. 

In Many ways, our body functions like a car with an automatic gear shift.  Every second, the human body automatically performs millions of vital functions, without us even being aware that it is occurring.

The brain, the master controller of the body, sends messages to all parts of the body through the nerve system.  These millions of detailed processes are ordered and controlled by the brain.  A critical element in this communication system is the spinal cord, which is housed within the spinal canal.  This canal has many openings in the vertebrae through which the spinal cord and its membranes pass to all parts of the body.  The vertebrae protect the delicate nerve system.  This system is a miraculous network of inborn intelligence and it enables the body to heal itself and regulate itself, as long as there is no interruption in the system.  However, stress and strains of daily living can cause the spinal vertebrae to misalign and cause an interruption of the communication process.

We seldom think about the complex and automatic operation of our bodies or our cars unless there is a problem.  When we have car trouble, we take our car to a car mechanic to fix the problem because cars cannot heal themselves.  Similarly, when our bodies express symptoms and we feel sick, we often take over-the-counter medications or we go to a health care provider who may prescribe medications.  However, we may forget the first step in restoring health is to locate the cause of the problem.  Remember, the body is capable of healing itself, as long as there is no interference with its inborn intelligence.  The next step toward health is to correct the cause of the problem. 

This leads us directly to chiropractic, the only healthcare system focusing on the correction of misaligned spinal vertebrae that interfere with the body’s communication system.  When these misalignments are corrected, the body’s inborn intelligence can function properly again.  This restores the body’s natural ability to heal and regulate itself, without the need for medications. 

For over 114 years, chiropractors have empowered people to understand that every function of the body is controlled and directed through the nerve system. 

In this blog, I will share with you a wealth of valuable information that is guaranteed to address many of your concerns and answer pressing questions.  It will absolutely provide you with all of the tools necessary to empower you to make the best health choices for you and your family and guide you on a path to “optimal health.”

“Every dream starts with a burning desire: a passion to change something, to make a difference. ”

“You are never given a wish without the power to make it come true.  You may have to work for it, however.”
-Richard Bach

“It’s OK to dream big if you are willing to take enough action to make it happen.”
-Lollie Mc Lain 

What is your BIG dream?  Most of us have dreams but are not willing to do what it takes to make them become reality.  If you are willing to work hard, here are some tips to help make your dreams come true.

Desire … Every dream starts with a burning desire: a passion to change something, to make a difference.

Decision … Add to desire the decision that failure is not an option.

Determination … You will always encounter obstacles on the way to your dreams.  Determination keeps you moving forward in spite of setbacks, discouragement and all kinds of difficulties.

Responsibility … This means the ability to respond.  It also means that you are the one in charge of making it happen.  There is no room for “It’s not my fault” or “I tried.”

Resources … Use the resources around you.  Ask for advice.  Ask for help.  There are people in your life who have either done what you are doing or who are in the middle of doing it.  Ask them how they did it.  Use your resources.

Enthusiasm … The people who are living their dreams are usually lots of fun to be around.  One reason is because they bring such passion and enthusiasm to what they do.  Work becomes fun.  The really wonderful side effect is that enthusiasm gives you a great deal of energy.

Energy … An absolutely necessary ingredient to living out your dreams is lots of energy.  Often the only difference between those who live their dreams and those who don’t is that “dream catchers” keep on going while “dream droppers” get tired and quit.

Attitude … You must have the attitude that nothing will stop you no matter what.  You’ve got to live the Japanese proverb: “Fall down eight times, get up nine.”

Action … You can have all the above ingredients in full and still not get anywhere.  You have to do something about your dreams every day.  You have to take action, sometimes a little bit each day, sometimes a lot.

Momentum … If you put the above nine tips into action, you will build a momentum that is virtually unstoppable.  Momentum carries you through the low and weary times, and makes the obstacles that were once huge boulders, mere pebbles in your path.

There Are Few Things In Life As Satisfying As Living Out Your Dreams … Get Started On Yours!

 Stand Up STRAIGHT… Please Don’t SLOUCH… Your Posture is the Window to Your Health

Posture is one of the most overlooked keys to best health and performance. Good posture not only improves fitness, thinking ability, emotional state and general vitality, it can actually help reverse the aging process, not just cosmetically, but functionally.

It’s Time to Get the Facts STRAIGHT…

Just as proper attention to teeth can prevent problems later in life, proper attention to the development of PERFECT POSTURE will prevent deterioration of your health in the future.

Corrective chiropractic care insures good posture by aligning your spine so the muscles, joints and ligaments can work as nature intended. Good posture contributes to the normal functioning of the nerve system and affects the ability of your body’s organs to function at peak efficiency. For many years, I have committed to directing people to the awareness that proper spinal alignment (Subluxation Free) is the MOST IMPORTANT factor affecting perfect posture and maximum health and vitality.

Almost everyone can avoid or reverse the problems caused by poor posture at any age. There is no greater miracle in nature than the body’s ability to heal and correct itself. Balancing postural distortions and reducing structural stress through chiropractic adjustments releases the power within you. The result is healing energy that strengthens and normalizes your immune and nerve systems, all of which helps to increase your personal power.

Life around my house is about to change.  I am having some major renovations done to my old house and I have to move out of it for the work to be done.  This, much to my chagrin, involves planning, packing, and moving heavy items.  Ordinarily there would be no big deal about a move, but I happen to have a vested interest in my lower back and have injured it before.  Maybe that is why I have seen so many people in the past couple of weeks with disc troubles – I needed a not so gentle reminder of how it all feels.  There is a lot to know about disc bulges and how to treat them.  I hope you find it useful.

First of all, there is a major difference in a disc bulge and a disc rupture.  About 80% of the walking population has a lumbar disc bulge.  Most of them are asymptomatic and those who have them don’t even know it.  The disc material is very tough and cartilaginous.  If a disc is healthy it provides shock absorption and cushioning for the vertebrae, or spinal bones.  As a result of normal wear and tear, the outer coating, or annulus, of a disc dries out and develops cracks.  The soft inner material of the disc, the nucleus, might leak out through these cracks and this creates what is commonly referred to as a bulging disc.  If it is irritated enough, the disc material will put pressure on the nerve roots which exit the spinal cord through tiny holes at the rear of the area occupied by the disc. This results in annoying and sometimes severe pain. Often the pain is not in the lower back, but is in the buttocks, hip, back of the thigh or calf, or even in the foot. This pain is following the path of the sciatic nerve, which is the most commonly irritated nerve when a disc is bulging.   Sometimes the pain is very difficult to free yourself from if it isn’t treated soon enough.  Chiropractors are experts in this field, and there are many wonderful conservative techniques available to us to treat this problem.  Ask your chiropractor about flexion/distraction techniques, which are specifically for decompressing bulging discs.  If you can get this type of treatment early enough, you might be able to avoid further damage to the disc and thereby avoid surgical treatment.

In the case of a disc rupture, portions of the disc material are actually outside the annular fibers of the disc itself.  In some cases, fragments of the disc erupt into the spinal canal, and this is the cause of nerve root compression.  Disc rupture is more serious than a disc bulge, and should be treated accordingly.  Conservative treatment of a disc injury should reap results in as little as two to three weeks.  If serious symptoms persist, other treatment should be sought.

The best way to avoid serious injury to your lower back and discs is to act as if you have a disc bulge already since about 80% of us do.  Always bend with your legs when you pick up anything.  Bending at the waist, even to pick up something that is not heavy, puts increased pressure and strain on the discs of your lower back.  The large muscles of your legs are better equipped to handle heavy lifting than the layers of smaller muscles in your lower back.  Pull objects closer to your body before you try to pick them up, as leaning and lifting simultaneously are a deadly combination for discs.  Stretch your lower back every morning before you get out of bed.  There is no substitute for limber, warmed muscles when you call on them to work for you.  Getting out of bed is a big request when your body has been at rest all night long, and your lower back knows it.  Another simple way to keep your lower back healthy is to tighten the muscles in your abdomen.  If there is too much weight out front with no musculature to support it, the lower back is under strain any time you are bearing weight, which is any time you aren’t lying down.  Any time you are doing any heavy lifting or carrying heavy objects for an extended period of time, use common sense.  Know the limits of your body and when you feel pain, stop.  Working through the pain is not a smart way to handle a lower back that is sending you signals.  After a period of activity, ice it down and rest.

The hard part about taking care of the discs of your lower back is to remember all of this sage advice.  I will put myself to the test this very weekend.  Treat your body well.

In our Monday lunch staff meetings I usually make my best attempts to be inspirational or motivational but when we return from a seminar I always bring some tidbits home and share them with our staff so they can learn as we do about various topics.  This past weekend we attended the Spring Conference of the Georgia Chiropractic Association in Savannah and were reminded of some valuable facts that were part of the subject matter in our Monday staff meeting this week.  We were talking at the conference with many other chiropractors from all over Georgia and vendors from around the country.  We all agree that the body heals much better and more quickly if the spine is adjusted and nerve interference is removed and maintained but there are some conditions that people do not heal from no matter how many times they get adjusted.  Other intervention is necessary and we heard from a former professor of ours about the role the digestive system plays in the body’s overall ability to heal.  I know this does not sound as much fun to learn about as perhaps the secret to enlightenment or the latest techniques to get the best beach body but the health of your digestive system is paramount.

People suffer from many obscure conditions that can be traced to the malfunction of the gastro-intestinal system, or the gut.  The GI system plays vital roles in the operation of our bodies.  It digests food, absorbs nutrients that are converted to energy, transports small particles which are attached to carrier proteins across the lining of the gut into the bloodstream, acts as a major player in the chemical detoxification of the body, and acts as a defender against various infections because it contains many antibodies and other disease-fighting chemicals.  As long as the gut is performing its duties properly our bodies hardly know it is there.  Sometimes, however, the intestinal lining becomes hyper- permeable and allows particles that do not belong there to cross into the bloodstream.  Large particles of bacteria, partially digested food and toxins leak into the body. 

This is a major cause of improper healing.  It also is responsible for many cases of fibromyalgia and food allergies.    The gut is what allows the body to absorb nutrients and convert food to fuel.  If these functions are not working well the entire body is unhealthy.  Sometimes doctors might diagnose irritable bowel syndrome if symptoms of excessive gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, abdominal pain and indigestion are present.  While IBS might certainly be going on, the leaky gut problem is likely occurring as well.  When food particles leak from a hyper-permeable intestinal lining, the body assumes that these are foreign particles since they are not normally found in the bloodstream.  The body then develops antibodies that leak across the membranes and are similar to antigens on our own tissues.  The antibodies which are made to attack them actually begin to attack our own tissues and autoimmune disorders often develop.  Many diseases, according to Dr. Paul Goldberg, a leading authority on leaky gut and how to heal it, are direct descendants of leaky gut syndrome.  He traces rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, thyroiditis, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis and other diseases to serious complications within the digestive system. 

Often overuse of different medications, especially antibiotics, can be attributed to an unhealthy gastrointestinal system.  Excessive antibiotic usage results in high presence of yeast in the body and yeast secretes a number of enzymes which ultimately break down proteins.  The intestinal membranes are partially proteins and these enzymes can actually break down the membranes and their linings.  This results in leaky gut syndrome and there we are again with all of the unhealthy particles being released into our bloodstreams. 

People are obsessed with their outward appearance and making sure the body appears to be healthy on the surface.  We should be granting equal time to assuring the health of our organs and tissues for longevity.  It is no secret that our food supply is mineral-depleted due to over-planting and over-processing of the end products.  If we are not supplementing our diets with vitamins and minerals that are readily absorbable into our systems, we are missing the proverbial boat.  If we are not supplying our digestive systems with proper support to add back healthy intestinal flora and plenty of the right kinds of fiber to assure adequate transit time of our food through our systems, we are costing ourselves the health we could ultimately have.  Ask your health professionals to provide you with information on the proper nutritional path for you to follow to internal as well as external physical health.  While tests for leaky gut are not often performed they are available.  Sometimes just by process of elimination and testing probiotic supplements you can find relatively simple solutions to some extremely complicated physical issues.  Don’t wait until your health fails before you look for solutions to protect it.  Treat your body well.

What a year 2004 has been!  Life has taught me a few new lessons in the past twelve months and I am anxiously awaiting the lessons in store for me in 2005.  Last year at about this time I wrote a column about the importance of goal setting in mapping out the way you want your life to go in the coming year and beyond.  Overwhelming response to that column made me promise to bring it to you again.  It is time once again to examine with objectivity the past twelve months and see how it went.  Did you reach the goals you set last year, or were they wishes that never came true?  Are you better off this year than last in some areas, or are things the same as they always were or worse?  If the latter is the case for you, most often you have only yourself to hold responsible.  There is no reason for anyone not to make life go right.  A few simple but not necessarily easy steps can make it happen for you.

A ritual for me at the beginning of the New Year is that of the burning bowl ceremony.  It is a ceremony in which I write down areas of my life that are not exactly as I would like them to be and burn the paper in a large fireproof bowl as a symbolic release of the negativity in my life.  You might consider the burning bowl ceremony as culling old junk that is no longer working and making room for a whole new outlook. It is a sort of spiritual house cleaning.  This is then followed by a very detailed goal-setting session in which every single aspect of my life personally and professionally is designed to build my ideal scene.  I write everything down and make specific positive affirming statements out of every goal.  For example, instead of saying, “I want to take more leisure time for myself” as a goal, my statement might look something like, “I take at least one long weekend out of town every other month.”  Instead of saying, “I want to exercise more,” I might say, “I work out in the gym for at least 45 minutes 5 times a week.”  The word “try” is eliminated from this process.  As Yoda said, there is no “try”.  You either do or you don’t do.  The statements are written as if they have already happened and I am reading facts in retrospect.  Several sheets of paper are filled with statements like this one then I fold it and place it in an envelope addressed to myself and put it in a file to read at the end of that  year.

Last year our entire office staff decided to join in the burning bowl ceremony and see what happened.  We sat together and I acted as narrator, reading suggested areas of life that might need clearing then we all burned the papers.  After that we spent about two hours writing affirming statements, placed them in envelopes addressed to ourselves and sealed them.  I returned the envelopes to the staff members in the second week of December for everyone to read and see how it went.  Out of the then seven staff members four of us had accomplished at least seventy five percent of what we wanted to do last year.  We had not spent the entire year obsessing about what we wanted to do, but by making positive affirming statements the year before we had made up our minds about how our year would go.  Everyone was astonished that the accomplishments were made without a regular reminder of what the goals originally were.  In fact, most of the staff had forgotten about the envelopes completely until they were returned for the year-end checkup.  Our plan for the burning bowl ceremony this year will put us into the first week of January before we put everything in writing but that is all right.  As long as you get to it early in the year (at least in the first week or two in January) the purpose is not lost.    

If you haven’t already done your own version of the burning bowl ceremony, it is not too late.  Take the time to clear out the things in your life that are holding you back then write out exactly what you want things to be like for your life this time next year.  You will be amazed at how much of your plan will come to fruition just by your planting positive seeds on fertile soil then leaving them to germinate as you support a positive environment in your life.  I have a written guide for this on file if you need help getting started.  Feel free to e-mail or call me and I will get the guidelines for the process to you.  I have done this for 7 years now, and the results are overwhelming.  I can say without reserve that my life is markedly better today than it was when I lived it without planning for it to go the way I wanted it to.  Make this the year of growth and change for you.  You can allow negativity in your environment to suck you in and give you excuses not to produce or you can be a beacon of hope for those around you as you flourish and prosper in the face of adversity.  The choice is yours.  Treat your body and your spirit well.  Happy New Year.

An extremely biased, relatively insignificant study was published last week in the journal Neurology about how neck manipulations are supposed to increase the risk of strokes in some people.  The article was in the Macon paper, and a friend asked if I had seen it.  I had not, and asked him what it said.  He told me, and I brushed it off as nothing.  Chiropractors are accustomed to defending our work, and I assumed that everyone already knows that.  Three patients of ours, however, saw the article too and asked if I would explain what it was about and how chiropractic is safe.  I don’t love writing defensively, but I will attempt to shed more accurate light on the whole issue of the bias against chiropractors and the truth about neck manipulations.

Chiropractors offer drug-free, cost-effective conservative care that assures nervous system health.  It is exceptionally effective for lower back troubles, neck troubles, and headaches in addition.  According to Dr. Terry Rondberg, president of the World Chiropractic Alliance, “Millions of people are turning to chiropractic for their health and wellness care.  That’s millions of dollars that won’t go for risky medical treatment or expensive drugs.  The medical and drug industries have a strong incentive to scare people away from chiropractic.”  A person can be seen in my office for an entire year for about the same amount as it costs for a single MRI.  Natural remedies that can do as effective a job as many pharmaceuticals are cheap and offer no built-in profit for big conglomerates.  It is all about money.  In 1990 in Wilk vs. AMA, the American Medical Association was found guilty of conspiring with other medical organizations in a “lengthy, systematic, successful, and unlawful boycott” designed to eliminate chiropractic as a competitor.  Since the AMA cannot directly launch an all-out assault on chiropractors anymore, the assault comes in the form of media exaggeration of a comparatively small issue.  The media has an interest because, according to Dr. Rondberg, “Drug companies and other medical firms spend more than 3 billion dollars yearly to fill newspaper and magazine pages, saturate radio and television airwaves, and blanket the Internet with ads.”

 The paper published last week involved 51 stroke victims who had had neck manipulations in the same time frame as their strokes occurred.  This could mean the same week, day, or month.  “Just because there was a temporal relationship between the events does not mean that one caused the other,” said chiropractic researcher Dr. Christopher Kent.  The media also failed to distinguish the difference between neck manipulations and chiropractic adjustments.  Some of the manipulations performed by medical doctors, physiotherapists, and osteopaths were incorrectly blamed on chiropractors.  Numerous prior studies, some involving thousands of patients, directly contradict the findings of the study which was published last week.  In fact, chiropractors have the lowest malpractice premiums in the healthcare profession.  This is an indication of the safety of chiropractic procedures.  If it were so unsafe, the premiums would be outrageous to protect the public from all of the risk.  According to the April, 1998 Journal of the American Medical Association, medical treatment and drug errors account for more than 100,000 deaths per year with another 350,000 adverse drug interactions, many of which are fatal, in nursing homes. This is why many medical doctors are leaving practice, limiting their practices, or eliminating surgical procedures. Malpractice insurance rates are correlated with the amount of risk a practitioner poses to the public.

I do not want to appear to be anti-medical.  I am not.  I do get frustrated when my profession is misrepresented.  We are highly skilled, well-trained doctors.  We know when something is out of our scope of practice, and when to refer to someone who knows more than we do about one condition or another.  The first part of our oath as doctors is, “First, do no harm.”  We also remember that the word “doctor” in Latin means “teacher”.  We take the time to teach our patients about their conditions rather than dictate to them their treatments.  We have tests which are specifically for determining a patient’s risk of having a cerebrovascular incident, or stroke.  We have specialized cervical techniques which target specific areas of the spine and were developed to reduce patients’ risk.  I know that chiropractic won’t heal everything from skin cancer to hemorrhoids, but I also know that if my nervous system is free of interference caused by vertebral subluxations my body has a greater chance of healing and recovering from a host of ailments.  I love what I do.  I love those that I serve, and by the grace of God I will continue to defend the merits of chiropractic until my job on this earth is done.  Treat your body well.

The time of year is coming when many children will have stuffy noses, coughs, and a number of them will have fevers to accompany their discomfort.  Often parents panic when their children get fevers and they rush to do whatever they can to bring the fever down.  Is it always a good idea to bring a fever down?  Are there benefits to leaving an elevated temperature elevated?

These questions were also on the mind of Dr. Michael Crocetti, director of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland, who authored a study to investigate problems associated with bringing down fevers prematurely.  The study questioned 340 healthcare providers, including parents and grandparents, about their practices when their children had fevers.  The study indicated that 14 percent of parents gave acetaminophen (Tylenol) and 44 percent gave ibuprofen (Advil) at rates that were too frequent.  If the bottle suggested that the medication be administered every 4 hours, most parents gave it every 3 hours.  Ibuprofen is supposed to be administered no more frequently than every 6 hours, but parents often gave it every 4 or 5 hours.  It seems that caregivers panic when children’s fevers go up even slightly, and they rush to medicate them to bring their temperatures down to a more acceptable (to the parents) range.  The problem with the too-frequent dosing of children is that the children then are potentially at risk of toxicity from the medication.  Parents’ tendency to overreact to fevers most likely results from the fact that in the past fevers accompanied illnesses that were life-threatening, but today that is no longer necessarily true, according to Dr. Crocetti.   He says that parental practices need to catch up to medical science.

There are benefits to elevated body temperature, as strange as that might sound.  It was hard for me to break the thought patterns of my own upbringing when I went to chiropractic school, but when I actually started to study the body and how it works to preserve its own health, my interest piqued.  The body was designed to be a self-healing, self-regulating organism, and raising temperature is one of the body’s mechanisms for doing that.  Normal body temperature is the optimum temperature for the survival of some microbial invaders, so when they are detected by the body in any form, the body’s core will heat up to just a few degrees above normal and sustain that temperature for a long enough period of time to kill its enemy.  If the temperature is brought down prematurely, the infection might even be allowed to thrive in the body rather than die as it would have if it were left to be handled naturally by the body.  The body also uses fever to turn on the immune system.  It stimulates the inflammatory response which sends a myriad of antibodies all through the system to help protect the area of invasion from microbes and viruses.  In fact, according to Paula Elbert, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics at Mount Sinai Medical Center, “taking away a fever might even hamper the induction of the immune system to do its job…the fever can have a positive function.”

Rather than being a sign of sickness, having a fever is actually a sign that the body is working properly.  The problem with fever for most is that having one causes body aches and general discomfort.  Some guidelines suggested by pediatric researchers for the appropriate points at which to be concerned about fever are: 1) If a child is younger than 8 weeks old and has a temperature above 100.4 degrees, 2) If a skin rash accompanies the fever, and 3) If the child’s core temperature is above 102.2 degrees.  Otherwise, it is all right to let the fever do its job and fight infection naturally.  Lowering a fever will not make the process of healing the infection happen any faster.  As I stated earlier, it might even prolong the illness.  The only real effect of decreasing the body temperature will be that of easing the discomfort of body aches and generally feeling cruddy that come with fever.  If you can just ride out the unpleasant feelings, the body will usually regulate fever and kill any invaders without medicating faster than it will if the temperature is brought down.

“It is going to take a real concerted effort on behalf of pediatricians and other healthcare providers to help parents understand what fever is and how to handle it,” according to Dr. Crocetti.  This week’s column is my share of the effort to let parents know that rushing to lower fever is not always such a great idea. Use these guidelines, pay attention to the body’s signals, and be much healthier in the process.  Treat your body and those of your children well.

We can all tell that autumn is here.  Fall festivals abound, football is in full swing, Halloween decorations are out, the stores are already filling displays with Christmas decorations, and people are complaining that their joints ache.  What do achy joints and autumn have in common?  It depends on who you ask.  There has been for eons a theory that changes in the weather cause joints to ache more than usual.  One client of mine said to me this morning as it was raining, “Y’all might as well forget about a lunch break today.  The weather is changing, and the parking lot is filling up!”  Is there any truth to the weather change/joint pain connection?

In 400 B.C., Hippocrates made the first known correlation with changes in the weather and an increase in joint pain.  A theory that has stood the test of time is hard to dispute, but some researchers have tried.  Dr. Amos Tversky, a Stanford University psychologist, says that people’s enduring belief that their arthritis pain is intensified by changes in the weather is a myth.  He claims that human nature in all of us wants to find and follow patterns whether they actually exist or not.  He says that it is his job to de-bug human intuition, and he has found that we humans are good at pattern generation and are very good at forming hypotheses.  We just aren’t, in his summation, very good at testing our hypotheses. 

Other people, however, are more convinced that joint pain is indeed affected by the changes in the weather.  Dr. Frank Arnett, a rheumatologist (a doctor who specializes in the study and treatment of joints and joint disorders) from the University of Texas at Houston, says that the correlation definitely exists.  He says that the notion of weather changes and joint pain going hand-in-hand is real and that it goes even further than just arthritis.  He says that in his experience people with fractures that have healed can tell when the weather is going to change.  It is hard to argue with the many people who report that they can actually predict the changes in the weather, and Dr. Arnett refuses to.

From a standpoint of weather, the reason that many people feel more pain during periods of weather change can be explained by the fact that weather changes are associated with changes in barometric pressure.  Barometric pressure is the pressure that air exerts on all objects. It is called barometric pressure because the instrument which is used to measure the pressure is called a barometer. Most often meteorologists are talking about air pressure on the ground when discussing barometric pressure. If an area of low pressure exists, clouds and precipitation can be expected.  Dry places like Arizona have states of predominately high pressure which brings to them warm climates with low humidity and very little rainy wet weather.  This is why many people who suffer from severe arthritic conditions might even move to drier warm climates to avoid the ebb and flow of barometric pressure changes. 

Pressure makes fluid levels rise and fall.  Most of our joints are surrounded by fluid-filled capsules, so when pressure rises or falls it causes the pressure in our joints to rise and fall as well.  Those who suffer from osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis feel the pain of pressure changes in a heightened sense because their joints are already inflamed and the pressure change just irritates them further.  Motion tends to lubricate joints, so it is helpful for sufferers to get moving as difficult as that might seem.  This is an area in which your chiropractor can be of tremendous service.  Chiropractors manipulate stuck, achy joints and the motion helps relieve the pressure inside the joint capsules.  If the pressure inside the joints is relieved so is the intense sensation of pain in most cases. 

Is there a definite connection between joint pain and weather changes?  I would have to say that I have been amazed at the accuracy with which some of my own clients can predict the weather.  You, however, can judge for yourself.  Treat your body well.

Many changes have been swirling around us in the world lately.  I have finally turned off my television because there is too much bad news out there and not nearly enough stories of hope and the promise of stronger rebound.  A couple of days ago I was talking to one of the members of our staff and explaining that adversity is not always the pit of doom that it seems at first glance.  I have fallen more than once from what I thought was the ultimate position in life for me and each time I have bounced back higher than I was before.  Sometimes people have to hit the ground hard before they can be prepared for the higher levels of blessings available to them when rebound occurs.  Although there has been complete devastation in New Orleans and the surrounding areas, rest assured the people there will be given even more than they had before.  The city will be restored more beautifully and the levee system will be forged so that this type of disaster can be avoided in the future.  On a recent trip to New York this was proven.  Go there and visit the site of the World Trade Center, formerly known as Ground Zero.  The people of New York are changing the name in preparation for new, more magnificent buildings to represent hope and steadfast belief in the strength of the human spirit.  The people of New York are warm and welcoming of visitors and are happy to see us Southerners enjoying their beautiful city.  The tragic events of September 11, 2001 served as a huge wake-up call for New York, and there is a palpable difference in people there.  Of course nothing will be the same as before for people recovering from any type of disaster, but renewal brings with it the promise of something better. 

I spent a large part of my life resisting change.  I finally learned, however, that change is inevitable and the true test of emotional maturity is how one reacts to change.  In writing recently about managing stress I realized that one of the best ways to reduce life’s stresses is to be the cause of change rather than always being the buffer for the effects of it.  In learning in my own life to be the cause of change I have come to embrace it and to grow at a faster rate as the result of it.  If being in a comfort zone all the time is what we expect from life, certain stagnation will follow.  No growth can occur when everything remains the same.  Stagnation breeds complacency and complacency opens the doors for us to be blindsided.

I receive the newsletter from my church in Savannah each month, and a recent issue contains a parable that I am borrowing for my column this week.  The story is told of a young woman whose complaints to her mother were that she could not go on because her life was so full of problems.  She said she was tired of struggling.  Her mother took her to the kitchen, filled three pots with water, and put them on a high fire to boil.  In one she placed a carrot, in one and egg, and in one some ground coffee beans.  After the pots boiled for a short time the mother fished out the carrot and placed it on the drain board, then the egg, and finally she ladled out the coffee into a cup.  The mother then explained that each of these things had experienced the same stress (boiling water), yet each reacted differently.

The carrot was initially strong and firm.  However, after being subjected to the boiling water it became soft and weak.  The egg had been fragile.  Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior.  After sitting in the boiling water, its inside became hardened.  The ground coffee beans were unique.  After they were in the boiling water they actually changed the water rather than succumbing to the effects of the water and allowing it to change them.  Straining the ground coffee beans left water flavored with delicious coffee and the ground beans were still intact. 

”You can choose which you want to be like,” she told her daughter.  “Adversity knocks on your door.  How do you respond?  Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?”

In dealing with the various outside influences that disrupt the smooth flow of our lives, it truly is our choice how we respond to them.   Internal stress is often the result of feeling out of control of our circumstances.  If we focus on being in control and at cause rather than at effect, we can all flourish and prosper in the face of adversity.

Will you be the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity becomes weak and wilts?  Will you be the egg that starts with a fluid spirit and soft heart but with exposure to the heat becomes stiff and hardened?  Or will you be like the ground coffee beans?  The crushed beans actually change the hot water (the very circumstances that brought trauma).  It is only with the hot water that the beans release the true gifts of their aroma and flavor.

Like everyone else, I have made some difficult choices in my life.  It might have been easier for me to take a quiet job where I would blend in with everyone else, but something drives me to be a voice for change and to help others to make a significant difference in their daily experiences.  I could have been a general practitioner in the medical field and been accepted by everyone just because of my title, but I chose the “red headed stepchild” (my apologies to the lovely redheads out there) of the health care providers.  It is sometimes difficult being a chiropractor and having always to defend my position but I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.  There is nothing better than changing the water for me.  Treat your spirit well.