High Blood Pressure

High blood pressure affects about 1 in 3 adults in the United States. It is sometimes called a silent killer because it may have no outward symptoms for years. In most cases, the underlying cause of hypertension is unknown. Internally, it can quietly damage the heart, lungs, blood vessels, brain, and kidneys.
Did you know A Chicago-area study of 50 individuals with a misaligned Atlas vertebra (located high in the neck) and high blood pressure showed that after a one-time specialized chiropractic adjustment, blood pressure decreased significantly? The decrease was equal to taking two blood-pressure drugs at once.
Who do you know that could benefit from this information? Please share this with someone you know and care about and help them Live Better...Live Longer!

Why we check children at birth. (Graphic)

I get asked often why would a chiropractor check a newborn baby at birth and I usually try to explain in detail on why. I decided that a picture is worth a thousand words so here is why:

Need I say more!

Find out why chiropractic adds years to life and life to years.

Live Better...Live Longer!
Dr. Paul

Breastfeeding, convenience, the developmental process and Chiropractic

Paula and I had the pleasure of meeting with Meghan Garcia-Salas of Village Lactation Services yesterday to to learn more about how she helps her clients. She started a support group called Bosom Babies to help mothers learn about and promote the benefits of breastfeeding.

What was interesting about our conversation is that many mothers are going back to the natural way of feeding a baby with breast milk but are using a bottle instead of the mother to baby bond. I applaud mothers for going natural versus giving their baby formula but they are missing some of the major benefits of this natural bonding process when they put breast milk in a bottle.

The breastfeeding process helps both mother and child develop. When a child initially latches on to the mother the bonding process begins but so does the natural transmission of moms immunity to the baby. There is also an emotional connection that is established. As the baby continues to latch on there is an internal pressure created that helps bring the natural skull bones back into proper position. The supporting structures of the head and neck are strengthened. The jaw muscles are developed and the list goes on....

For the mother who is breastfeeding this process helps restore the natural hormonal balance and brings mom physically and emotionally back to a pre pregnancy state.

The mother-baby bonding is so important and can't be replaced by the convenience of bottle feeding. Many moms dont realize that when they stock up on breast milk they are not taking into consideration several important factors. One important factor is that by reducing the frequency of feeding times you reduce the demand put on the body to produce more breast milk. Less demand equals less supply.

The other important factor is that mom is feeding the baby from one moment in time of her life versus various times in her life. Throughout the day a mother has daily changes in her environmental exposure and nutritional intake. One moment she is inside the next she is outside. If mom is not hungry and chooses not to eat the baby will want to feed more often for shorter periods of time and will be fussy. What mom eats for breakfast will be transferred to the breast milk after the breakfast has been digested. So if she always stocks up in the morning she will only be feeding the baby what she had for dinner the night before. Variety is the spice of life and also pertains to the babies development.

The last thing we talked about was that there are many mothers who have difficulty in breastfeeding their baby and they don't know why. Sometimes the baby favors a certain side and will not want to stay latched on for long, they may have also have digestion issues. For the breastfeeding mom it may be that they can't find a comfortable position to sit or lay in.

In the majority of cases these problems were created at the birth process. Whether the baby was delivered naturally or with the use forceps, vacuum extraction, cesarean or breech delivery tiny spinal misalignment's occur in the babies spine that create structural and functional problems. For the mothers the same problems could have occurred throughout there life and then show up when they attempt to breastfeed the baby.

It is for these reasons that we promote to the pregnant moms the importance of making sure that baby and mom are checked within the first days of delivery to help avoid present and future problems. Remember everything is a process and is there for a reason.

For more information on the amazing benefits of breastfeeding or for a support group please contact www.villagelactationservices.com To help make sure you and your baby start off in the right direction please contact our office and well be glad to help.

Live Better...Live Longer!
Dr. Paul Blumsack

From near death and back: A Chiropractic patients story.

In 1986 I was on top of the world. I had just won the All  Navy Weightlifting Championships and had set a national drug free record in the bench press.  My full time job became to lift weights and compete and I loved it. I attended college at night and did a number of exhibitions and talks in the community. I had minor celebrity status both in the Naval community and in my city and it was great.

Shortly after returning from a competition tour I began having some sinus headaches and my training started to plateau a bit-I had kept a training journal since I started lifting in 1978 and tracked my progress very carefully. The headaches were not bad--just annoying and so I went to the Navy dispensary and was given some medications. The meds worked like magic, except they gave me severe diarrhea. I went back to the doctor and was given additional drugs to stop that. That went away, but then I experienced severe dehydration and was admitted to the hospital. After many tests, I walked out with 3 more prescriptions. 

My health rapidly begin to spiral downward and soon I was spending my days at the hospital going from one doctor to the next. Within a month I was taking 18 drugs a day--which amounted to about 80 individual pills. I quickly become homebound and disabled--unable to work, drive a car or really do much of anything. The only food I could keep down was applesauce and sometimes apple cobbler---Most nights, I would get a blanket and a pillow and just sleep with the pillow on the toilet because the dry heaves would begin around 1am and would last until sun-up. On good nights, the heaves were 4 minutes apart, on bad nights they were two minutes apart.  I went from a solid 220lbs to around 165-I looked like death warmed over.

This went on for over a year and most of it is still a blur. I had to have someone drive me anytime I needed to see the doctor. Fortunately I had good friends in this regard. I saw all kinds of doctors--was even seen by one of President Reagans doctor at Bethesda. None really had an answer for what was going on except that my immune system was failing.  Diagnoses of Epstein-Barr and severe Chronic Fatigue  Syndrome were thrown out as possibilities.

I had a meeting with the head of the Naval Hospital in Charleston in the summer of 1987. I was brought into his office and he told me that I should get my affairs in order because he felt I only had a few months to live. The news was actually a relief--I wanted to die and end the misery.  I had a friend drive me to a mall later that week to buy gifts for my family for the following Christmas, knowing I was probably not going to be alive.  While in a B.Dalton Bookstore, a man asked me if I was ok ( I could only walk maybe 15-20 steps before I had to stop and rest) I said I was fine, because I had gotten tired of telling everyone the story. This guy persisted a bit and he told me he was a doctor and that maybe he could help me. I told him I had seen some of the best doctors in the world and then he told me he was a Chiropractor.   I think I laughed for the first time in over a year. It told him ai had "INTERNAL" health problems, not neck and back pain, which was the limit of my views on Chiropractic. He kept persisting for me to come to his clinic and about this time, my friend came up and was listening and offered to drive me to the clinic the next day. I agreed with absolutely no intention of going to this quacks office. On the drive home, my friend said something like "well you should give it a shot--what do you have to lose?  And so I agreed to go.

I went to the office the next day and did the whole new patient process--the doc brought me into the exam room and began doing his exam--I was about as skeptical as you could be when all of a sudden, he says 'hey keith, did you have a bedwetting problem as a kid"…….wow...how in the world did he know that?  I did...classic bedwetting case for most of my childhood….4-5 nights a week. Never spent the night with a friend--EVER--kind of grew out of it by the time I was 15-16 but my parents spent all kinds of money on therapies and treatments…...How could this quack have known about that….He tells me he can tell from examining my lumbar spine and he started talking about the bladder and nerves…..ok, he had my attention--if he  pulled that one out of his butt..well  it was a good one. He ended up adjusting me the first day and sent me home with instructions to return.

I woke up the next morning with a stiff and sore neck, actually my entire back was sore--not severe pain, but just very sore. I knew this guy was a quack, I thought to myself--he hurts me yesterday and today he is going to fix me up---sorry, aint buying it---no more Chiropractic visits for me. I shaved, showered and got dressed and as I was walking down the hall to the kitchen---I was hit with a ton of bricks---I  had just slept through the entire night-for the first time in about 15 months...I had just showered, etc. and was not wiped out with fatigue…..I was even a bit hungry.  So went into the kitchen and made some scrambled eggs (which I love) and had been unable to eat for over a year. I sat down on the couch and waited for breakfast to come back up--it never did.

I continued getting adjusted and flushed the meds within the first week---it was not short term miraculous, but each day I get a bit stronger and could do more things--it was  huge victory to be able to walk out to the mailbox and get the mail. Within two weeks I was driving again, within two months  I was back in the gym training and ended up far surpassing my previous lifts.  But I could not figure out what Chiropractic had done for me---I would ask the doc and got sort of a vague answer. I ended up going to Chiropractic orientations at other offices in the area in hopes of figuring this all out, but I was disappointed in that all of the NPO's I attended were "spinal hygiene classes" --how to lift right, bend your knees, drink water, etc.

I could not find much at the library and on periodical microfiches either--most of what I read tagged Chiropractic as being somewhat effective for neck and back pain--and that was it. Finally the doc gave me some old, musty smelling books--kind of a weird green color to them and told me that maybe I would find my answers in them--He had never actually read them. The first volume was "Bigness of the fellow within” by a BJ Palmer" I remember reading it and thinking this guy was whacko. The more I read it, the more sense it made and I began going to the medical library here in Charleston and reading volumes of anatomy and physiology books, Guytons, Harrison and I saw this incredible congruence between books on how the body actually worked and Palmers writings---eventually it sort of clicked in my brain and I retired from competitive lifting in order to focus on communicating the Chiropractic message.  I don’t always like sharing the message, but I don’t feel that I have the right NOT TO...if a person rejects the message--that is fine with me--at that point they are no longer my responsibility and I can move on.

I have had the chance to speak all over North America to thousands of people each year and been blessed by their letters of testimony once they receive Chiropractic care.  I thank you for taking the time to read this and may it encourage you to get your spine checked and adjusted today to help save your life tomorrow.

Keith Wassung

Charleston, SC

            (843) 743-8351      

http://keithwassung.com/

The Riddle

It makes the poor man king and when it steals away, the rich man becomes a pauper indeed. It is health, the most precious gift of life.
CHIROPRACTIC
is most effective in regaining health because it is a system built on natural law
-the law which says that health comes from within.
Start getting well today.

“Symptomatic Whack-a-Mole”
http://ping.fm/zTPvD

Mystery

Whence life comes or where it goes is perhaps the greatest mystery of all times. All we know is the way in which it is expressed.
Chiropractic is the modern health science, founded on an accurate knowledge of how life is expressed and why dis-ease exists. This health science points to it's record of getting sick people well as its best recommendation.
Start getting well today.

Why do we focus on one area of your spine?

Why do we focus on one area of your spine?
Let's use an analogy to explain this. If you were to chop a tree down would you just whack at it from the top to the bottom; or would you focus on just one area and keep chopping? Both processes will take time repetition and effort but one will be more effective and have a better result.
By clearing the upper cervical area of your spine where the brainstem is housed you are allowing the maximum expression of life through matter and for you to live your life to it's fullest potential.
Live Better...Live Longer!
Dr. Paul Blumsack