Here is a really good video on how to properly position yourself when working on a laptop. It’s no secret that for many people, posture and pain are two things that usually accompany computer work. This is a good reminder we can all follow, myself included. Enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Another video to blow you away. Dr. Ian Bulow nails down what Chiropractic is all about in the following video. Enjoy!

I found this video of Dr. Noah Kaplan discussing Upper Cervical Chiropractic care and found it extremely well done! Take a look for yourself, and see if it doesn’t also give you a better understanding of what Chiropractic is all about.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“Better than 90% of the brain’s output is directed towards maintaining your body in its gravitational field.  Therefore, the less energy one spends on one’s posture, the more energy is available for healing, digestion and thinking.”  -Roger Sperry, 1981 Nobel Prize winner for brain research

The first cervical vertebra, Atlas or C1, is the most freely movable vertebra in the spine, and the one most likely to cause irritation or tension to the spinal cord. It pivots around the second cervical vertebra, Axis or C2, connected only by ligaments and tendons, but no disc as in the rest of the spine. This is what allows the majority of spinal rotation to occur, but at the price of instability. In most cases, you will not feel the vertebral subluxation in your upper cervical spine.

When a vertebral subluxation occurs in the upper cervical spine, you won’t feel it in most cases, but it will have a number of negative effects on the body. Because it is causing irritation and/or tension near the brain stem, vital organ function can be negatively impacted. Conditions such as high blood pressure, asthma, allergies, and digestive problems can arise. Because of a high number of sensory nerves in the upper cervical spine called mechanoreceptors, a vertebral subluxation can manifest itself in various conditions such as neck pain or stiffness, or tension headaches. You could even experience other conditions like migraines or vertigo as a result of having an upper cervical vertebral subluxation.

A vertebral subluxation can also cause an overall body imbalance that, because of the misalignment component of the upper cervical spine, will result in overall spinal compensation. This will be characterized by spinal curvature, contracted or tight muscles on one side of the spine, postural imbalances such as a tilted head, high shoulder, and high hip, and an imbalance in leg lengths. Over time this will lead to advanced forms of degeneration like bone spurs and fusion of the vertebrae, as well as back and shoulder pain, and even herniated discs.

So restoring proper position to the Atlas and Axis vertebrae have more of an effect on your overall well being than you have ever imagined. If you haven’t had your nervous system and upper cervical spine checked, it’s time you did.

For the past year or so, I have been friends on Facebook with an individual by the name of Kennedy Ng’ang’a, who currently lives in Mombasa, Kenya. Kennedy used to be an avid swimmer until a diving accident in 1992 left him a quadriplegic. Kennedy was told by doctors that he would never do anything productive again. It is common for quadriplegics to die in the first year following injuries like this, yet Kennedy is still going strong… and in Kenya nonetheless!

Kennedy’s father died in 1997, leaving the responsibility of providing for the family to fall on his older brother, who in turn died in 2007. After that, his mom was left to provide for him, living in a small shack with dirt for a floor and no electricity and no running water. But that all ended when Kennedy’s mother passed away in June of this year. Now he is alone without a caregiver and living in extreme poverty half a world away.

Yet through this all, Kennedy has tapped into an amazing gift. He has painted dozens of paintings, all of which are amazing considering the physical limitations he suffers from. Things like a laptop and a wheelchair have been donated to him, but he needs much more help than just these items, thus the reason why an online store was set up for him to sell these paintings.

What I am asking everyone reading this to do is go to Kennedy’s online store here and take a look at his paintings. Find one you like and PLEASE BUY IT.

Yes, the economy is in a downward spiral and many people have lost jobs, but I know many of the people reading this blog can probably afford one of these paintings. Yes, things may be tougher in this country than they have been in the past. I understand that and lived it up until recently. But even still, we as Americans enjoy a standard of living that someone like Kennedy would consider extreme wealth. So please share some of that wealth and help out my buddy Kennedy.

He truly deserves it.

This post is primarily for the female readers of this blog, though if you are a man and wear one of those “man-bags” or “murses,” I suppose this is for you, too.

If you are anything like my wife January, and you put bricks in your purse to make it as heavy as you can (which I think she does sometimes), please don’t wear it on your shoulder if at all possible. I know habits are hard to break and you need your hands free, but when you put that added weight on one shoulder instead of equally distributed across the upper back (or not at all), it pulls down on that side of your upper body. This causes you to lean more to one side, putting added and unnecessary weight and strain on that side of your body, which only adds to the body imbalance you may be experiencing if you haven’t been under Upper Cervical Chiropractic care.

If you have been under Upper Cervical Chiropractic care, then this sort of strain on one side of your body on a repeated basis will undoubtedly contribute to you losing the restored alignment of your spine, causing you to need another adjustment sooner than later. And as you know, when your spine is out of alignment, due to a vertebral subluxation that is causing stress and tension on the spinal cord, this will ultimately affect your entire body i.e. organs, glands, blood vessels, nerves, muscles, and joints.

So you see, putting bricks in your purse to make it as heavy as possible, and then wearing it on one shoulder, might actually be putting a damper on your health.

Last week a new safety and efficacy study in regards to Upper Cervical Chiropractic was published. This study was conducted by Dr. Kirk Eriksen, with help from Dr. Bo Rochester and Dr. Eric Hurwitz to conduct the statistical analysis.

Overall, 83 Upper Cervical Chiropractors submitted information on 1,090 patients, which totaled 4,920 office visits (4.5 per patient) requiring 2,653 upper cervical adjustments (2.4 per patient) over 17 days. After this initial course of care, patient satisfaction was a 9.1 out of 10. It was fairly common for patients to report a worsening of or new symptoms in the first 24 hours of care, but this is not surprising considering the realigning the spine goes through and healing the body begins to do when the upper cervical spine is restored to its proper juxtaposition. What’s really remarkable, but not surprising, is that all 83 Chiropractors have delivered over 5 million adjustments with no reported incidence of serious adverse events.

I uploaded a copy of the study for you to see here. Enjoy!

116 years ago today, on September 18th, 1895, Harvey Lillard told such a funny joke that D.D. Palmer playfully slapped him in the back with a heavy book and it miraculously restored his hearing.

Just kidding. No one really believes that, do they? I didn’t think so… well, maybe they do at National University of Health Sciences.

Anyhow, as I did last week on B.J. Palmer’s birthday, today I am giving link love to some D.D. Palmer-related posts, as well as some chiropractic history-related posts. Enjoy!

1.) Old Dad Chiro: D.D. Palmer’s Discovery of Chiropractic

2.) D.D. Palmer on Trial: His Address To The Grand Jury

3.) Going to Jail For the Principle: Dr. Herbert Ross Reaver

4.) Remembering An Upper Cervical Chiropractic Legend: Dr. Mary Ann Pruitt

5.) Words of Wisdom From The Great Dr. Ralph Gregory

6.) Quotes From Old School Chiropractic Big Shots

On this day, September 10th, in 1882, Bartlett Joshua (B.J.) Palmer entered the world. At that time, the discovery of Chiropractic by Daniel David (D.D.) Palmer was still 13 years away. Little did anyone suspect that a great profession would soon be founded by the father, nor did anyone suspect that the son would champion that profession and its philosophy for more than half of the 20th century.

Much has been talked about in regards to B.J. Palmer, DC, PhC on this site. Below are 30 links to anything and everything B.J. Palmer… from Green Book quotes, to epigrams, to videos, to e-books written about him. Take a look and have fun learning some things about the Developer of Chiropractic!

1. “One Conflict” by Dr. B.J. Palmer
2. Historical Doctors’ Grudge Match: B.J. Palmer vs Charles Mayo
3. Germs Are Scavengers
4. B.J. Palmer’s Ladder of Success
5. Great Footage of B.J. Palmer
6. Success Quotes to Begin your Calendar Week on the Right Foot
7. B.J. Palmer’s Style of Patient Care
8. Science is Knowing, Art is Doing, Philosophy is Intelligence
9. Curing, Healing, Sun Rising, and Sun Setting
10. B.J. Palmer: Small Things Are Large
11. Old School Videos: B.J. Palmer Schooling the Students
12. B.J. Palmer and the Two Evangelists
13. Chiropractors Will Improve the World’s Output
14. Chiropractic Cannot Be Taught By Mail
15. The Killing of Hundreds in the Hospitals
16. Braving Criticism, Ridicule, and the Risk of Failure
17. What is Mental Food for One is Poison for Another
18. Disease is a Lack of Normal Functions
19. 5,000 Years of Failure at Finding a Cure for All Diseases
20. B.J. Palmer Epigrams To Start Out Your Day
21. Small Constants vs Big Variables by Dr. B.J. Palmer of Davenport, IA
22. B.J. Palmer: Stimulating the Inhibition and Inhibiting the Stimulation
23. B.J. Palmer: Constant On Feeling, Variable On Pain
24. Great PDF Patient Education Booklet
25. Superior Brain Congestion-Inferior Body Starvation
26. Christmas Miracle From Volume XXIV
27. Who Destroys Chiropractic And Why?
28. Patient Care According to BJ Palmer
29. Learning 1895 Chiropractic in 2009 Chiropractic Schools
30. Seeking A Specific For The Cause Of All Disease

(Editor’s note: This was originally written by Dr. Adam Tanase for his Check the Neck blog.)

I picked up an issue of Woman’s Day magazine this afternoon. This is one of the many freebie magazines that get sent to my chiropractic practice. Their slogan is “Live Well Every Day,” so they must think I’m going to share it with my patients. But here’s why I toss these magazines instead of encouraging my patients to read them: They’re littered with drug ads.

Now most people wouldn’t ever stop to count advertisements, which is precisely why I wanted to share the exact number with you because it’s quite disturbing.

The October 2011 issue has exactly 118 pages. From cover to cover, 31 of these pages contain information about pharmaceuticals. This includes prescription and over-the-counter medication, weight loss pills, supplements, and anti-aging creams. That means 26% of the pages (1 in 4) pertain to drugs – more than any other advertised product!

If the editors genuinely want women to “live well every day,” why are they encouraging readers to take so many drugs?