Des Moines, Iowa-

Three of the six practitioners of the National Upper Cervical Chiropractic Association (NUCCA) in the state of Iowa will be present at the Natural Living Expo March 27 and 28, including Ames, Iowa chiropractor Dr. Zachary Ward.

Come join the rest of central Iowa in learning about the ways your lifestyle can reflect better stewardship of our natural resources, your health, and our community.

If you’ve ever wondered if you’re a candidate for NUCCA’s gentle, and non-invasive procedure that improves spinal balance, then now’s your chance to engage with your local NUCCA doctors one-on-one in a fun, and friendly environment.

See you at the Expo!

Related reading: Baby Boomers are Going Green with Chiropractic and Five Ways to Cut Colic and Keep Breastfeeding.

Helpful information for: avid runners, cyclists, marathoners, weekend joggers, and triathletes. Especially helpful for endurance athletes who’ve experienced repeated injury, and chronic pain related to athletics.

Monday March 8th, 2010: 7 to 8 PM. Ames Public Library, Community Room (Upstairs). Everyone is welcome.

Includes:

• The history of examining posture as it relates to human performance and illness, highlighting the groundbreaking work of Joel E. Goldthwait, MD
• The phenomenon of the “short functional leg” as recognized by orthopedists, podiatrists, and manual medicine, and a survey of treatments currently available.
• The unique connection between the cervical spine and posture and what it means for human performance.

Thanks to D Sharon Pruitt for the image used below.

Poster for the event

Editor’s note: Dr. Johnathan Oliver is a friend and a colleague practicing in the Grandview Heights area of Columbus, Ohio. This is taken from his practice website, where he tells about his whole family’s experience with upper cervical chiropractic care.

My daughter story, though, is the real miracle in my opinion. She has had severe eczema and allergic dermatitis. At times her whole body has been covered in a rash. This all started at about 4 months old.

(Even before her first rash, my wife and I noticed that she was always restless; never once sleeping through the night in those four months, and requiring us to walk with her for an hour each night before she would sleep.)

Baby with eczema

We tried every cream we could find–as many as 50 different creams, oils, and lotions just to give her relief. Many would make her rashes worse, and even burn. We noticed that the creams with mineral oil, lanolin and other additives made her react the worst. The disturbing thing is the fact that most were labeled “for eczema”. The rash was so bad that she would scratch until she bleed on her hands, the creases of her arms, and the back of her legs. Our pediatrician recommended we see a dermatologist.

The dermatologist was a very kind man and said that is was one of the worse cases he had ever seen. He recommended steroid cream due to the risk of infection. He gave us one of the strongest steroids he could, one made for adults. He thought it would be the only thing that might help. We tried it, and it did help…for a little while.But her skin would always flare back up right after use.

We were then sent to a specialist in allergic conditions. My daughter’s skin was so bad that they could not do any testing. So they recommend 12 days of Prednisone to clear up the skin…enough to do the test. Once again it worked a little while, but as soon as we slowed the Prednisone down, it flared back up.

We tried everything but nothing helped. We started giving her a bath ever single night in slightly cool water because luke-warm water would hurt her. She would cry many times when first getting in, due to her rash. Immediately after the bath we would put on Vaseline to help seal in some moisture. At times, I would wrap her wounds with cotton cloth coated with Vaseline so she could get a few hours rest. We tried every elimination diet possible, except the water only diet.

It came down to the last straw when my daughter had a deadly allergic reaction to peanuts. She ate a natural protein bar, which had nuts in, and began swelling up. Her airway was threatened. We took her to the E.R. and they gave her a shot of epinephrine. We still an epi-junior with with us to this day. Not long after she started having wheezing, a sign associated with asthma. And this was it… I knew something different had to happen.

The same day she started wheezing we drove 16 hours to Florida, only stopping for gas and food. We took her to see a pediatric upper cervical doctor, who practices the gentle, precise technique of Orthospinology. [Ed.'s note: this technique is similar to NUCCA.]

And after her first adjustment we went to the hotel and she slept through the night. This was the first time that I could remember her sleeping so long without scratching. Amazingly, she has not needed any more steroids since that day. Or Vaseline, or any other other creams, or lotions. She has only had fits of wheezing three times. We still do not eat wheat, but avoiding wheat only helped after her atlas (first bone in the neck) was adjusted.

Upper cervical care has given us our daughter back . And she is happy and healthy.

One of the reasons I chose to build my chiropractic practice in Ames, Iowa around the upper cervical spine (the area between the head/neck) was because of the profound results I had personally seen in some friends and family under upper cervical chiropractic care. Stories of MS relief were part of that decision.

Now as an upper cervical doctor, MS often comes up in conversations that I have with friends, acquaintances, and even strangers. People want to know: can chiropractic care help MS? And what about upper cervical chiropractic care in particular?

For some people these are controversial questions, as they fly in the face of some of our assumptions about what causes MS and the role of chiropractic care. Yet, there is a plausible theory at work here- that could explain why.

Find out what I think in this video blog entry. Available in three parts.

As you can see medicine has already recognized that changes in blood flow in key areas of the body (think brain and spinal cord) are related to a number of diseases. MS might just be one of those diseases. And if upper cervical chiropractors can really influence blood flow at this level, then we can see why upper cervical chiropractic is appropriate for MS patients.

Additional thoughts: If you have watched all three videos, you have learned that the NUCCA correction decreases the amount of venous outflow in the brain. One may then conclude that there is more blood perfusion total in the skull cavity, which may mean more nutrition for key areas of the nervous system. How this may relate to a breakdown of the myelin is anyone’s guess. One point is clear: we need money for more research.

Yes, believe it or not, you have a philosophy on health . Even if you think you don’t.

How you answer the above questions may help determine your happiness and longevity, especially if you are faced with a chronic illness.  And 45% of Americans will be diagnosed with a chronic disease at some point in their lives.

You’re invited to Dr. Zachary Ward’s Health Care Class on Tuesday February 2nd, 2009, at 6:00 PM, located in his office in Ames, Iowa. The class will run for 35 minutes, and will include a question and answer period at the end.

We’ll help you answer the above questions, as we get to the bottom of the competing health care philosophies, and what they mean for your health and happiness.

We’ll also talk about the 4 keys of health that will help you stay well, and beat pain, injury, and illness.

No RSVP is necessary. The public is welcome, with a special discount available for those who’ve read this article.

For this St. Valentine’s Day, a holiday for hearts, we’re offering an opportunity for all practice members to come in and get their alignment checked at a discounted rate.

Established practice members pay $30 for an office visit, in a check made out to a national charity, directed for Haitian relief efforts, or for the local Access Assault Care Center, which provides shelter and outreach services to over 1,000 women and children in Boone, Green, and Story Counties.

While collecting food and other goods are usually acceptable, we’ve been in contact with Access, and what they’re desperately in need of right now is funding.

The charity office visit is one day only, Saturday Febuary 13th. Please call ahead to schedule an appointment on that day.

New patient visits are also discounted! With a $65 minimum donation to the above named charities, the first visit for your friend or family member is free. Again, simply write a check out to that charity and bring it with you.

They must schedule a new visit for NUCCA care by Saturday February 13th. Charity rate available from February 2nd until February 13.

Please sign up for monthly newsletter for other important events and information…accessible from the homepage.

In your words, what brought you in for care?

I seem to have injured my neck in August and it was uncomfortable. My regular chiropractor was not improving it, so I decided to come here.

What has changed since you first started upper cervical care here?

My neck seems stronger. Usually there is no pain. I’m not sure if my elbow and knee pain are improved permanently, but they seem to be better too.

What has been the most surprising thing about your experience under NUCCA chiropractic care?

The adjustments don’t seem strong enough to change things…But they do!

-Jean in Ames, Iowa

Editor’s note: This guest post from Dr. Ian Bulow, Upper Cervical Doctor in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania. You can read more about Dr. Bulow and his practice here.

I started taking care of a little boy in the office last week. We will call him “Johnny” for the time being.

Johnny is 7 years old. To see him in the car next to you, you would think nothing of him. But to KNOW what he has been through is a different story.

Johnny came in to our office because a true friend of his mother told her to bring him in.

Johnny gets seizures.

I wonder what that must feel like for him not to have control of his body from time to time (20+ times a day when he first came in to my office.) I wonder what it must be like for a parent not to have control of their child. Not to be able to HELP them when they want to the most.

Maybe I don’t wonder about such things…why would I want to?

So now let me wonder about better things.

Johnny is doing much better now.

His mother took the advice of her true friend and brought Johnny in for an UPPER CERVICAL evaluation. Sure enough, Johnny has a lot of stress in the area of his brain stem. (He should. He was dropped on his head only a couple months before the seizures started, in addition to having a c-section birth).

One SPECIFIC UPPER CERVICAL ADJUSTMENT and Johnny is doing better than he has in MONTHS, and to date he is continuing to stabilize.

Now, who is to blame? An easy question to ask, but the wrong question for such a time. So, lets try again: Who is to thank?

Me? I don’t think so. I simply move the bone, God’s design does the healing. So let’s thank Him first.

Johnny’s mom? Without a question! In fact Johnny’s mom was told NOT to bring her in to my office by Johnny’s  primary care provider. But she did what she KNEW IN HER HEART was the right thing to do: SOMETHING DIFFERENT! (If you want a change in your life then guess what? Something has to CHANGE)

How about the friend of Johnny’s mom? Where would Johnny be today had his mother’s friend not shared what she KNEW about Upper Cervical Care? I dare not wonder such things.

Moral of today’s story:

I want to thank each and every one of you who has made a DIFFERENCE in the lives around you by letting them know about Upper Cervical health care. God does not NEED Upper Cervical doctors to get sick people well, but we sure like being used by Him from time to time. Please give me that gift this year. Please allow me to check those in your life that you feel need a second opinion, need some hope, need their health to be RESTORED.

I pray that you had a safe and wonderful New Year celebration. I pray that you are so incredibly blessed this year that you have no choice but to thank the Lord in everything you do.

God Bless,

Ian

Thanks to Dr. Ian for letting me share this story with you.

After a pilot study published in the Journal of Human Hypertension (featured on WebMD) showed an association between upper cervical corrections and reduced blood pressure, Palmer College is continuing the investigation with the help of the National Institutes of Health.

CHiP will be directed by project co-leaders Dr. Christine Goertz from Palmer and Gervasio Lamas, M.D., a cardiovascular scientist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami who is known for his expertise in the conduct of large, complex, multi-site clinical trials. In addition, Joseph Bergstrom, D.O., director of medical education, Trinity Terrace Park family practice residency program, will be performing the blood pressure screenings and physical examinations for eligibility. Quad-City cardiologist Michael Giudici, M.D., FACP, FACC, FHRS, serves on the study’s Data and Safety Monitoring Committee.

Read the whole article at ChiroAccess. Or for another take on the study, please refer to  Chiro.org.

“The concept that manipulation of the upper cervical spine could reduce blood pressure is both novel and appealing at the same time,” said Dr. Lamas. “It is novel because of its originality of thought, and because it is backed up by preliminary data. It is appealing because any treatment for high blood pressure that does not expose patients to drugs and their side effects should be investigated.”