Headaches 101

Headaches are very common, just ask the person next to you if they've had a headache in the last 30 days. The thing is, headaches while common, are not normal. They are a warning sign that something is wrong in the body.

The most common type of headaches (roughly 75% of all headaches) are tension headaches. These are caused by tense bands of muscles in the neck and scalp. The base of the skull can be very problematic. There are a series of three very small muscles that make a triangle between the skull, the side of your top neck bone (vertebra) and the rearmost part of the second vertebra. This little suboccipital triangle is less than an inch on any side, and the open central part is even smaller.

One of the nerves that caries touch and sensation information from the side of your scalp goes right through the small central part of the suboccipital triangle of muscles. When stress, injuries, or improper joint function make those muscles tense up, they squeeze down on that nerve and interfere with it's function. Your brain interprets this as a problem and lets you know the only way it can - with pain.

Since the path of the nerve goes from the base of the skull, up and over the ear and near the eye, the pathway the headache seems to take will follow this same course.

Aspirin and other over-the-counter meds will kill the pain, but will do nothing for the original problem. Massage helps for a short time in getting the muscles to relax. But - if the joints are restricted, those muscles will flare up again, sometimes within hours triggering another headache. Chiropractic care helps with the joint function, but unless the muscles are worked on at the same time, they will pull the joints right back out of function.

The best results in tension headache treatment come from utilizing both chiropractic and muscle work together.

Case Study #1: Upset intestines after antibiotics

"Dr Jensen,

I had an abscessed tooth that came on suddenly. It went from a tingle to full blown abscess in three days. Of course, this happened Friday evening, Saturday, and Sunday.

I called my dentist Saturday, but he was out of town, so I went to Primary Health. The doctor there put me on an antibiotic. The pain was evil and my face was very swollen.

On Monday, my dentist did the first phase of a root canal on my tooth and told me to stay on the antibiotic.

I went home and by Tuesday I was feeling a lot better, the swelling that had almost covered half of my face had all but disappeared, and I was convinced that I could go back to work on Wednesday.

Last night, one of the common side effects of taking Amoxicyllin, lower gastro-intestinal track distress, started to kick-in.

I called my dentist at 7:30 this morning, when his office opened. He said to just stop taking the Amoxicyllin and call him if the swelling started to return to my face. I said that I would and headed out for work.

I got to work and found that the severity of the side-effects would prevent me from being able to [work] today.

So, now I really need help in getting my digestive track back to normal health. I had been eating yoghurt and taking the supplements, as you suggested. However, now do I need to do something extra to undo the side-effects of the antibiotic?

Sincerely,

[Patient]"

Patient,

Sorry about your tooth, those root canals are no fun but are a piece of cake compared to the agony preceding them.

You're already well on your way to feeling better. In the past few months you've removed allergens and sensitive foods and toxins, and you've replaced your gut flora. (Supplementing with extra yogurt and gut flora is particularly important for women taking antibiotics to prevent vaginal yeast infections.) Proactively doing these things will go a long ways to speeding your recovery.

As the flora that you're taking begin to reassert themselves your intestines should normalize. If things don't calm down in the next 2 days we may need to look at replacing enzymes for a week or 2, or possibly adding a little hydrochloride to the mix. Doing an in house test will tell us quickly if those will help or not, should the need arise.

Flu 101

The swine flu H1N1 is big big news, and big big money. There's a tremendous amount of fear being generated by the media, and that fear causes panic decisions. Let's get rational and talk about the flu virus and the immune system a little.

To make this understandable, I'll be using an analogy of the body as a country, with parts of the immune system as soldiers, and the flu virus as a terrorist/foriegn army.

The first thing that needs to happen before the immune system can do anything is that foreign organisms (in this case the flu virus) need to be recognized as being foreign. It's like showing your soldiers pictures of the bad guys. Once your body can recognize the bad guys, it can mount a defense and take care of them, shoot them dead.

All viruses, including H1N1, are really quite different from normal living things like bacteria or you and me. They're almost alien and not even alive by most definitions. When they 1st get into our bodies, it's very difficult to mount an immune response because the body does not recognize them as being foreign until they start multiplying and doing a lot of damage. At that point, your body can take a picture of the bad guy and pass it around.

Now here's the cool part. Once your body recognizes the bad guys, it can shut them down when they're first trying to sneak in, rather than having to wait until damage is done. This is called immunization. Your body can take care of the problem and you are now immune to the illness.

The flu virus changes a little every year. This is called a mutation (not the X-man kind). Say this time it has on a new hat and a big fluffy mustache. Your body can recognize last year's virus, but isn't sure about this year's virus. So the immune response is lower than it would be if the original virus came knocking. As a result, you might get a mild case of the flu. (your soldiers just harass the bad guy instead of killing him immediately). This is called partial immunity.

The really bad thing about the influenza virus is that about every 75-80 years or so, it undergoes a radical mutation and looks nothing like it used to. In other words the bad guy got plastic surgery and a sex change. It now resembles nothing your body has seen before. It can waltz right in and get a major domestic terrorist regime going before your soldier know anything is wrong. The last major flu mutation happened in 1918. We've actually been overdue for this outbreak for about 10-15 years.

Getting a shot of either dead or attenuated virus is called a vaccine. Vaccines attempt to teach the immune system about the bad guys before the bad guys show up. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. There are literally thousands of variables in the immune system and you can't assume that a vaccination will confer immunity. Most years, the flu vaccine is made of two strains of the previous 20 years in the hopes that one of those will resemble this year's flu virus and whatever disguise it has on. This make little sense for most people.

If you are older than 20, then you were already exposed to the strains picked and should already have some immunity. If living through that particular flu season didn't get your body to recognize the virus, how is getting more of it going to help?

Another problem with flu shots is that the influenza virus is an upper respiratory disease and as such gets into the body through the nose and nasal passages. It does not get into the body through the skin. Having a different route of infection may alter the immune response. Having other infections or illnesses at the time of vaccination can also cause serious side effects.

Now this doesn't apply to all vaccines. Some diseases are no longer in common circulation (like small pox and polio) and the only way you can even hope to build an immune database is to get a vaccine.

The flu virus is in common circulation, and the odds are you've already been exposed to it. If your immune system is so bad that you can't build immunity from regular exposure, how is getting an extra dose from the vaccination going to help?

Ultimately the best plan of action is to build a strong immune system so that it can deal with whatever nature throws at it. Staying active, eating a good diet high in vegetables and fruits, and supplementing with certain nutritional products like elderberry, echinacea , vitamin C and vitamin A are all ways to do this. Having a good attitude and being happy is critical to a properly functioning immune system.


As with all health care decisions, you need to weigh the costs and benefits.

Matriculation

Welcome to my blog. It's about health and wellness, how to stay healthy, and how you can take personal responsibility for you own health care.

All the politicians Washington are in a tizzy trying to argue on how they will dictate your health care based on insurance. Well, here's something to think hard about. Insurance companies are first and foremost business entities. They exist to make money. Are they interested in how healthy you are? Not a bit.

Politicians don't care if you're healthy or sick. Insurance companies don't care either.

Who does? Probably your family doctor. Who should?

You.

You are the one in charge. You are the one to make all the decisions. In the end, all the responsibility rests on your shoulders. You choose what to eat. You choose to exercise or not. You choose your outlook on life.

What's the best way to take care of yourself? By learning all you can. Only by learning can you make truly informed decisions on your health. To help you, I'll be addressing topics that you want to know more about. Just leave a comment asking about it.

Welcome.