Pain-Free Travel Tips

For many people with back pain or neck pain, the prospect of a long trip can be daunting.  The seat in cars, airplanes, buses, and trains aren’t always the most comfortable and sitting still for an extended time can in and of itself aggravate painful areas in the back and neck.  The following tips are offered to help reduce or avoid overall back pain and discomfort while traveling. Lift Luggage in Stages. Back strain often occurs near the end of one’s range of motion when lifting a heavy item.  For this reason, experts recommend moving slowly when lifting a heavy piece of luggage and breaking the action into smaller parts whenever possible.  For example, when lifting a bag into an overhead bin, it can first be lifted to the top of the seat, then into the bin in a separate motion.  Similarly, loading a suitcase in the trunk of a car can be broken into steps, such as lifting it first to a chair or stepstool, then lifting it into the trunk.  Other important lifting tips include:

Bend at the knees and use leg muscles rather than back muscles to lift

Avoid twisting the low back while lifting; instead, pivot with the feet;

Carry heavy items as close to the body as possible;

Distribute weigh evenly on each side of the body;

If carrying one shoulder bag, switch sides often to avoid stressing one side of the back.

Bring Your Own Back Support

Seats in cars, trains, planes etc. often don’t provide the right type of support for the lower back and/or neck. A lumbar support pillow can be used to make your seat more comfortable and support your lower back.  If you don’t have one or forget to bring it, a jacket, sweater or blanket rolled up can also provide support for the inward curve of the low back.  This is often particularly important if traveling coach class on a long flight, as many airplane eats lack low back support.  In this case, an airplane pillow or blanket placed between the seat and low back can work well.  An inflatable travel pillow that fits around the neck can help avoid neck strain by providing head support while resting or sleeping in a sitting position during travel.

Support Your Feet

Proper support for the low back also requires bottom-up leverage from your feet.  If your feet are not placed on a firm surface while sitting, additional stress is transferred to your low back.  Therefore, if your seat is too high, try to rest your feet on a footrest (or something that can act as a footrest) to keep your knees at a right angle and avoid stressing the low back.  While driving, resting both feet on the floor provides more support for your lower back than if one foots is on the gas, so you may consider using cruise control for longer drives.

Move as Much as Possible

The spine is designed to move. Sitting in one position for extended periods of time stiffens the back muscles, which can put stress on the spine.  Get up and stretch and move around frequently – every 20 to 30 minutes if possible – to move your core body muscles.  Importantly, movement stimulates blood flow and blood brings important nutrients and oxygen to th4e structures of the back which helps prevent soft tissues in the low back from stiffening and aching after sitting for a long time.  Even 10 seconds of movement and stretching is better than sitting still.  Movement also helps prevent blood clots from forming in the leg (called deep vein thrombosis), which is one of the most dangerous risks of sitting sill for long periods.

Quick and Easy Pain Relief

If back pain does flare up while you’re traveling, one of the fastest ways to get relief is applying a cold pack or alternating ice and heat.  When traveling, materials such as ice and hot packs are usually easily accessible and affordable.  For example, you can fill any type of plastic bag with ice and apply to the painful area such as placing a small bag of ice between your low back and he seatback while you’re driving or sitting in a plane or train.  There are also disposable, portable hot packs that heat up after you open them, so you can bring them on your travels and open and apply them as needed.  Commercial heat wraps are available that wrap around the middle of the body and incorporate heating units in the low back area of the band.  Such types of heat wraps last for several hours, making them ideal to provide back comfort during lengthy travel.  However, too much heat can add to selling and therefore, alternating ice and heat for 10-15 minutes each, and avoiding prolonged heat is best. 

Article written by: Ron S. Miller, PT

How Modern Agricultural Practices Are Jeopardizing Our Health

How Modern Agricultural Practices Are Jeopardizing Our Health
By Dr. Richard Drucker

When you hear the phrase health and wellness, what images come to mind? Exercise, nutrition, fruits and
vegetables, supplements? What about dirt? Does that come to mind?
That's right, dirt. Soil is the primary factor in nutrition because much of our food comes from the earth. The
human body is composed literally of earth, if you think about it. The minerals that are essential to how the
body functions are connected directly to the state of our soil. If an element is missing from our soil, it will
be missing from the foods we eat; hence, from our bodies. Unfortunately, that is the reality these days.
Much of the Earth's soil is depleted, and depleted soil doesn't produce healthy, nutrient- and mineral-rich
plants. Moreover, crops produced in depleted soil are more prone to invasion by insects, viruses, fungi, etc.
Insects and infectious organisms get rid of unhealthy vegetation and don't typically attack truly healthy
plants.
The Perils of Modern, Inorganic Farming
Much of the modern world is now aware that our industrialized methods of
farming have not only depleted the soil, but also have created a cycle that
requires pesticides to protect the unhealthy crops grown on depleted soil.
The commercial applications of agriculture have depleted the soil of
precious, organically complexed trace minerals and hindered the ability of
plants to utilize those elements. That means our food is nutritionally
deficient right from the source. Our food is then refined and processed,
which further degrades its nutritional value!
Who suffers? We all do. More than 30 organically complexed trace minerals
are necessary to produce healthy, nutrient-rich crops, yet most current
farming methods routinely put back only three to five of them. And that's only a part of the problem.
Inorganic (synthetic/dead/toxic), ammonium-based fertilizers, along with herbicides and pesticides, kill
precious microorganisms in the soil that are essential to the creation of organic mineral complexes. We
have used up the available trace minerals in our soil and destroyed the means of replenishing these soilbased
microorganisms.
Is there a consensus among health care professionals that depleted soil is a nutritional concern? While
some diehards believe you can avoid supplements if you eat a "balanced diet," it's a verified fact that most
of our livestock feeds contain nutritional supplements. Without supplemental nutrients being added to the
feed, far too many animals were getting ill. What does that tell you? Grain doesn't possess enough
nutrients to keep the livestock healthy. If our livestock can't stay healthy eating our modern crops, how can
we?
Prior to the 1930s, farmers fertilized their crops with organic substances. Unfortunately, modern, economicbased
agriculture has virtually replaced all the critical organic complexes with inorganic (synthetic/toxic)
fertilizers, which cause toxicity in water runoff and further imbalance the delicate nature of our soil. In the
1930s, when farmers began to add inorganic fertilizers to the soil, it was presumed that biological
organisms could assimilate minerals in any form. Unfortunately, this is not the case. We are now
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discovering inorganic minerals can't be assimilated easily by plants; they must first be combined with
organically complex matter before they can be used. No wonder our food is less and less nutritious. No
wonder it lacks taste, and no wonder modern farmers have to apply more and more toxic pesticides,
herbicides and chemicals every year just to get their crops to market.
Organic vs. Inorganic Trace Minerals
Let's look at a similar dilemma. The human body is intended to derive minerals from organic complexes
supplied in the foods we eat. Unfortunately, these critical, disease-preventing, organic nutrients aren't
present when our food is grown in depleted soil. And, just like the farmer who has attempted to alter the
soil with inorganic toxic chemicals and fertilizers, we have tried to add inorganic trace minerals to our diet
in the form of colloidal supplements, with even worse potential consequences. It's important to reiterate
that most trace minerals are not recognized, absorbed or utilized by living tissue unless they're carried in
organic complexes.
Even the best inorganic trace minerals (e.g., coral,
colloidal and/or ionic) are extremely large and
insoluble, with high atomic weights and large sizes
ranging from 1-100 nm. These molecules are giant
compared to organically complexed minerals, and might
be rejected at the cellular level due to their synthetic
composition, size or weight. Moreover, they eventually
might accumulate in the body, as they are stored in
extracellular spaces, outside the cell's interstitial fluid
and fatty tissue. Over the course of time, this can lead
to severe toxicity and disease.
How different are organically complexed minerals compared to colloidal minerals? Organically complexed
trace minerals are definitively different in that they are naturally chelated - ultra tiny - and they have ultralow
molecular weight. They are approximately 50 to 100 times smaller and much lighter in weight. They are
physically small enough that they easily can be carried into the cells of our bodies. They are bound by
carbon (living matter) and have innumerous health benefits, aiding in both intracellular and extracellular
detoxification. Thus, when trace minerals are combined with organic matter, they become an enriching
meal of living minerals rather than a toxic plate of inert, dead rocks.
The function of organic trace minerals is to be systemic catalysts. They are activators - intracellular "spark
plugs." They either "kick off" or "speed up" much of the chemistry that goes on in our bodies. Without trace
minerals, there is no life. They specifically are responsible for carrying much of our nutrition, glycogens,
glucose, etc., to our cells.
Most scientists would agree we need three basic ingredients to sustain life: water, oxygen and organically
complexed (carbon-based/living) trace minerals. Not even vitamins or enzymes can perform without trace
minerals. When trace minerals are insufficient, numerous processes either slow down or come to a halt until
the mineral banks can be replenished. Knowing this, it's easy to see why both plants and humans are
becoming increasingly susceptible to disease. It's also easy to understand what Linus Pauling, (twice
awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine) meant when he categorically explained to the 74th Congress of the
United States, "Every ailment, every sickness and every disease can be traced back to an organic tracemineral
deficiency." It has become alarmingly evident that we are severely deficient in one of the most
basic components necessary to sustain health - organically complexed trace minerals.
In a way, the problem with depleted soil is similar to the problems of using
antibiotics. Antibiotics kill the harmful bacteria that are making us sick, but they kill the friendly flora in the
intestinal tract at the same time. Antibiotics appear to cure the infection, but in reality, long-term use might
weaken the immune system, making us more likely to suffer from future illnesses. Similarly, as the "good"
microorganisms in the soil are wiped out, the vegetation loses its ability to gain the proper balance of
minerals from the soil. The end result: Our bodies take on these deficient foods and become impaired and
imbalanced.
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Potential Solutions
If our soil and crops lack essential minerals, we need to supplement our
diets to achieve true wellness. All biological organisms (including humans)
require organically complexed trace minerals in order to maintain health
and prevent disease. Decades ago, if we had only protected and nourished
our soil from hazardous and toxic chemicals, these critical organic
complexes would naturally be in the foods we eat today. Unfortunately,
they are not.
But will any old multivitamin off the shelves of our grocery or drug store do
the trick? The short answer is no. Much like our soil, most supplements available on the market today are
full of synthetic chemical nutrients instead of the organic nutrients our bodies need.
How do we get these complexes back into the soil, and what can we do in the meantime to replenish the
organic trace minerals in our bodies? A piece of the answer to both questions lies in a substance called
fulvic acid. Fulvic acid (not to be confused with folic acid) is the end result of repetitive plant decomposition,
and is the first biological step in changing inorganic trace minerals into organically complexed, soluble trace
minerals that can be used by both plants and animals.
Fulvic acid is produced as plant matter decays over long periods of time and utilized in trace amounts by
microorganisms in the soil. The process takes hundreds of years and can't be duplicated in the laboratory.
Fulvic acid has an extremely small (ultra-chelated), low molecular weight that might beneficially modify
many essential biochemical, electrochemical and metabolic processes, and yet, the greater scientific
community still is largely unaware of its role.
Further research might show that fulvic acid can be used to resuscitate some of our soil and possibly our
food sources and bodies. Until this can be accomplished, high-quality supplements remain our best defense
against food devoid of life-sustaining, organically complexed minerals and nutrients.
Richard Drucker, ND, is a licensed naturopath performing concentrated research and work in the natural
health and nutraceutical fields for more than 20 years.
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Chiropractic Adjustments and the Immune System

It’s started, many of my patients are coughing, sneezing and more thanks to any number of seasonal illnesses.  If you’d like to avoid it altogether, and frankly who wouldn’t, you’ll need an immune system that’s in top shape.  But how do you shape up your immune system?  A healthy diet is a great way to contribute to this. And while many people are aware of that—regardless of how well they comply-- fewer know how the body’s immune system is impacted by another biological network: the nervous system.  The primary nexus point of your nervous system is found at your spine.  It’s the foundation of the traditional chiropractic care I provide, but what does it have to do with getting sick or being able to fight off illness?

The alignment of your spine can play a big role in the way your body communicates across systems, including your immune system.  If your spine is misaligned, or if subluxations are present, the result can be a lack of immune defense, like when you become susceptible to the flu, or an improper immune response, as is the case with many allergies.  While it’s not very hard to tell if you’re coming down with a bad cold or if hay fever is taking its toll, you can’t always tell if the root cause is a subluxation. While fundamental to health, misalignments and subluxations may not be something you may be able to feel directly.  If you’re masking your symptoms with medicine, you’re only silencing your body’s immune response.  To alleviate your symptoms, you must correct your immune response by realigning your body so it can function at its best.

This is accomplished through tried and true, natural chiropractic adjustments. When the spine is in proper alignment the complex communication that occurs throughout your body’s networks is restored, and when that happens, your body can heal innately and defend against illness.  So before you consider a flu shot or restock your medicine cabinet in preparation for cold, flu and allergy season, try a spinal adjustment as your best line of defense, as well as the most efficient, non-invasive and natural method for enabling your body to do what it should do best: heal and thrive.        

-          Dr. David B. Thomson B.Sc. D.C.