We don’t have to listen to the news for long before we will hear about the ongoing economic burden that our healthcare system put’s on our society.  Here in Ontario, healthcare spending rises about 7% per year, and consumes about 50% of our budget.  Some economists predict that healthcare spending alone, if not revamped significantly, will bankrupt our province by as early as 2030.  Clearly, throwing more money at a system that is failing isn’t the answer.  We need to take a new look at how we take care of ourselves, and how we utilize the system, or we are headed for disaster.

Perhaps where this paradigm shift must start is understanding what our healthcare system is, what it is used for, and what its outcomes are.  If you think about your last few engagements with our medical system, were you seeking health care or sick care?  Chances are, you went to your doctor, or a clinic, or the hospital because you were sick, and you would have been offered care that attempted to remove whatever symptom you developed that caused you be sick.  This isn’t health care – it’s sick care!  We need to recognize our system for what it is – a system that treats sick people – not a system that treats healthy people.  So that’s our starting point.  Our publically funded, medical system is top notch when it comes to acute care and crisis intervention; we engage it when we are sick and look for relief of symptoms.

What we need here in Ontario, and across Canada, is a system that is a true health care system, one that helps provide the means and tools required to get healthy, and to stay healthy, and not one that just works at the level of symptoms and medications.  The removal of a symptom or altering a lab result with a chemical does not restore health.

Over the next few weeks, we will explore this more fully, so stay tuned!  We trust you enjoy our Blog!

Happy New Year from everyone at Martin Chiropractic and we wish all of you a blessed and healthy year in 2012.  Like it has for the last fifteen years, the Christmas Season at Martin Chiropractic was highlighted by our annual Toys For Tots toy drive and we want to thank all of you who made this years event another huge success.  Our patient family, sponsors, colleagues and the community all pulled together to help make Christmas morning a special day in many local families where that would not have been possible without the hundreds of toys that you donated through our office and distributed by Ivan, Claire, Dave and the rest of the wonderful volunteers at the Salvation Army.

This year the toys created a mountain in the lobby virtually engulfing the Christmas tree which you can see poking out of the top in this picture.

In all there were about 500 high quality toys collected.

Thanks to all our loyal sponsors who donate significant prizes year after year to help make the day the success that it is.  Click on this link to see who they are and better still take advantage of their services throughout the year.  We recommend them most highly.

We would also like to thank Nancy, Deby and Linda, our fabulous team at the office for all the hours they spent preparing for Toys For Tots as well as making and preparing so much of the food that we all enjoyed throughout the day.  I’m sure they are already planning next year’s Toys For Tots which will be on December 3, 2012, so mark your calendars and plan to take part again!

A number of years ago, we decided to do a small Christmas toy drive to help support our local community.  It was such a success and so much fun, we decided to repeat it the next year – and here we are 15 years later preparing to have another Toys for Tots Community Appreciation Day.  It is a highlight of our year, and we are so blessed to have a family of patients who donate generously year after year that we have become one of the largest suppliers of toys to our local Salvation Army from a single source.

Here’s how it works.  Our patients bring in a new, unwrapped toy during the toy drive, and in exchange for their donation, they receive a ticket for a draw to win one of a number of prizes, most of which are donated from local businesses.  These prizes range from $5 gift cards to merchandise valued at hundreds of dollars – and lots in between!

The actual day of the event is Monday, December 5^th, 2011 and on that day we will have lots of food and hot apple cider – but we will be accepting toys all week long.  A special edition Christmas Recipe Book that features a number of the goodies we serve is available for a small donation to the toy drive.

This is also a great week to arrange for a friend or family member to have their spine checked for subluxation, we provide these examination totally at our expense during the week.  These spaces fill up fast, so please call today to arrange a time.

Please see our Toys For Tots web page for more information, and a list of our sponsors.

In the spirit of Christmas, if you are looking for a nice evening out to celebrate the season, consider attending Jingle In The City, a drama/musical set in the 1940’s.  This wonderful presentation will be held at Calvary Baptist Church, Oshawa on December 9, 10 & 11 and more information can be found here.

Trapped on an iceberg! Probably not something you have spent a lot of time thinking about, much less having had experienced.  However, just for a few minutes, let’s imagine that you have found yourself in this regrettable circumstance because the responses your body will go through as you live stranded on the ice flow is remarkably similar to what happens to your body as you continue to engage in a fast paced, high stress lifestyle with little or no time to invest in your health.  Let’s take a look.

In this very high stress situation, your body will go through a series of very smart responses that are designed to allow you to survive. If your body did nothing to react, it would succumb very quickly to the harsh environment of your iceberg. These responses, while at the time may seem unpleasant and make you look and feel ‘sick’, are very smart adaptations of your physiology that are designed by God for a specific purpose.

Initially, your brain will respond to the cold temperature of your extremities by dilating blood vessels supplying your hands and feet, allowing more blood to flow and warming you up. That makes you happy, you now have warm feet.  As time goes on, and you get colder and colder, the blood flow to your feet now keeps your toes alive, but you are getting colder.  Eventually, your brain redirects this vital blood supply to your organs at the expense of your feet – in the big scheme of things, you need your heart and lungs more than your feet.  As time goes on, this gets pretty uncomfortable for you, you are about to loose some of your extremities.  But, don’t forget, this is very smart!

Now lets say a health care provider just happens to come along, checks you over and discovers that you have poor circulation in your feet, so he prescribes you something to increase your peripheral blood circulation – and a couple days later you feel a lot better because you know that you are not going to loose your toes and your feet feel pretty good!

This is a common scenario.  Your body is exposed to a situation or environment that is stressful; it kicks into play a very smart stress response; over time, this stress response makes you sick; you get relief from your sickness from a medication – and all is good.  Or is it?  There is still a very serious problem.  Do you recognize it?  You are still on the iceberg!!

Our goal as chiropractors is to help you recognize that being on the iceberg day in and day out is bad, and we want to get you off the iceberg so your body can begin to heal naturally.  And that’s what Dr. Scott will talk about at our upcoming Stress Management Workshop on November 2^nd. Easy steps to implement now that will get you off the iceberg!  Sign up using the contact form on the web page, or just give us a call.

Welcome to the updated Martin Chiropractic Webpage!

Back in 1996 we were one of the first chiropractic offices in Canada to have our own domain and web site.  However, keeping up with the busyness of life allowed technology quickly to surpass our ability to stay current, and the web site, although useful, was not very current.  One of our colleagues suggested the site looked like it was designed on photocopy paper!

Over the last few months, Dr. Scott has become quite a proficient blogger, and his web design skills encouraged us both to explore, learn and design a new site.  Using a bit of help from WordPress, we have come up with the site you are now visiting.  We hope you like it!

During the upcoming weeks, this site will expand and become even more resourceful, including regular blog posts by both of us.  We are working to integrate the blog with our Facebook page and Twitter feed, so be sure to follow!

Here’s what the old page looked like:

Thanks for your interest in our site!

B.J. Palmer was the son of Chiropractic Founder D.D. Palmer.  B.J. was a gregarious and flamboyant promoter of Chiropractic as well as a brilliant scientist and philosopher, who’s contribution to the scientific validation of chiropractic and the developing of its philosophic underpinnings was second to none.

B.J.’s sprawling summer home is located in Sarasota Florida on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.  These images of the house were taken while at a Chiropractic seminar last month.

B.J. Palmer Bust

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B.J. Palmer Portrait

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