Nutritional Supplements and Detoxing to Reduce Inflammation
Filed in: General Health, Medicinal Herbs, Nutrition
Nutrition
What is a Compound Pharmacist
The need for pain management is responsible for the manufacture of a considerable percentage of all drugs manufactured in the world. With an aging population, and the increase in long-term health problems throughout the globe, it appears that the need for more pain therapy will continue to expand over time. At the same time, it is becoming more apparent that a one-size-fits-all line of attack to medication simply does not work for all patients. Clinically trained pharmacists who specialize in the pain management field are re-emerging as the necessity for their knowledge increases.
While~Even as} it is true that, for most maladies, mass-produced medications are effective, persistent pain sufferers may find little comfort from them. Unpleasant and potentially dangerous side-effects can impair relief and even make the patient’s circumstance worse. And human bodies tend to adapt to the constant stream of medication entering it, Read more
Filed in: General Health, Medicinal Herbs, Nutrition
What are Purine rich foods
Purine rich foods contribute to a painful type of arthritis called gout. The human body needs a small amount of purine, but it can cause problems if you consume it in excess amounts. Purine gets converted into uric acid. Uric acid that does not get removed from the blood stream normally gets expelled in urine. If the body does not process it properly, it converts to uric acid into urate crystals. Urate crystals build up in joints and cause the type of arthritis known as gout. A good way to avoid developing this painful condition is to reduce the amount of purine rich foods that you eat.
One popular solution for the symptoms of gout is to eat fifteen to twenty cherries a day. Fresh cherries are best, but canned cherries work too. Cherries have an enzyme that neutralizes uric acid and are high in anthocyanins, which have high antioxidant properties as well as anti-inflammatory action. For the best results, drink plenty of water while eating the cherries. The water will keep your urine diluted, which will help your body excrete uric acid and prevent crystals from forming.
Taking large amounts of vitamin C serves as an effective medicine for gout. A study was conducted where two groups of people were given different vitamin C intakes. The people given more than 1,500 mg of vitamin C a day were 40% less prone to getting gout than those who consumed less than 200 mg a day. Doctors are commonly prescribing vitamin C to their patients today to combat the gout.
A major change in diet is an important, if not primary, natural medicine for gout. Gout is seriously aggravated by purine foods, and may even be the sole reason for the gout. Some purine foods include organ meat, meat gravy, stock, mussels, herring, anchovies, shellfish, sardines, asparagus, and mushrooms. White flour, spinach, cauliflower, dried beans, poultry, and sugar may also need to be avoided, being somewhat high in purine. Alcohol, especially beer, is very high in purines and must also be avoided, unless you can compensate with drinking much water along with the beverages to keep acid from building up in your system. Replace these foods with fruits, berries, vegetables, whole grains, and especially wheat grass.
What is Gout? Gout is the result of too much uric acid that builds up in the body over a period of time. The uric acid forms very sharp crystals that cluster around the joints causing the pain, inflammation and tenderness associated with gout. Since gout is caused by the formation of uric acid crystals that the body does not get rid of you need to know about some factors that might cause gout.
Chinese physicians have used mulberries to treat gout for centuries. The bioflavonoids in mulberries help remove uric acid from the blood stream and reduce the production of Urate crystals. One excellent supplement to help lower the impact of purine rich foods is Goutezol. The ingredients in Goutezol boost a persons immune system as well. Not only does this mulberry derived supplement defend against gout by blocking the absorption of purine, it lowers your risk of catching other illnesses as well.
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Filed in: General Health, Nutrition
Healthly Living – Chronic Pain Myths
Chronic Pain Myths:
My body must be in danger if it’s hurting -
Pain doesn’t always represent ongoing physical harm. The nervous system might be firing off erroneous message, or your body’s is having trouble producing its natural painkilling substances. The fear of damage and illness also may distort your nervous system causing you to hurt even more. Understanding the pain is not actually harming your body may not cure your pain but can provide significant relief.
Bed rest is good when you’re in pain –
There was a time not long ago when doctors prescribed bed rest as recuperation from, or treatment for, many acute and chronic ailments. While the medical community no longer supports this practice, many laypersons still self-prescribe bed rest for considerable time, only to find their symptoms mysteriously getting worse instead of better. Your body needs movement and the demand it places on its various systems to survive. Inactivity causes bones to lose calcium, a reduction of nutrients to the muscles, joints become stiff or stiffer. This in turn causes the cartilage to deteriorate and arthritic changes to commence and progress.
An uncomfortable chair is bad for you –
A comfortable chair is potentially more harmful and destructive to your back than an uncomfortable one for a few important reasons. First and foremost, comfort promotes prolonged sitting. Sitting for 45 minutes or longer puts a damaging amount of pressure onto your lower back, hips, and knees. Also, the lack of movement while seated holds your muscles to short, tight positions to accommodate the posture of sitting. Once you get up and move around, the muscles impose an excessive load on the joints. While prolonged sitting in any type of chair is detrimental to your muscles and joints, ergonomic chairs make a bad situation better. Still, for the best results, get out of your seat and move around every 45 minutes, and don’t be afraid to fidget!
You just have to live with it –
Your physician may claim to have run through all the available options and there is simply nothing more to be done. In reality, there are a vast number of treatments that can drastically reduce your pain or limit its impact on your life. Take pain pills for example. If you’ve tried one type of drug that worked well but gave you undesirable side effects, there are other drugs in that same class of medication that could have a very different effect on you chemically. Perhaps drugs aren’t the best type of treatment for you. Some form of nerve distraction therapy, such as acupuncture, yoga or massage, may ease your pain much more effectively. The main thing to keep in mind is that there are more options to fight chronic pain than even your physician may know. If your doctor makes you feel like a pest for asking about pain control, you should look for another one.
Mind / Body Treatments:
These practices are based on the interconnectedness of mind and body, and the power of one to affect the other. They’ve shown to help control chronic pain by reducing stress, tension and depression, factors that intensify pain. Mind and body therapies also help promote an overall sense of well-being.
Biofeedback –
Biofeedback translates information about your body into visual or audio cues. You are connected, usually by electrodes taped to your skin but sometimes by handheld thermometers, to computers and monitors that allow you to “see” muscle tension as a pattern on a screen or “hear” your temperature as a series of beeps. Over time, you learn how to control these body functions by paying attention t the feedback and experimenting with ways to manipulate it. After you’ve figured out how to relax your muscles or raise your body temperature or change some other aspects of your physiology in the practitioner’s office, you can duplicate the effect on your own. Electromyography (EMG), is the most popular biofeedback which teaches you to control muscle spasms (learn about EMG). Biofeeback has been proven to reduce headaches, chronic muscle tension, anxiety, TMJ, and insomnia.
Hypnosis –
By slipping into a trancelike, highly suggestible state, patients can learn to control body functions that are usually involuntary. They can reduce their blood pressure, heart rate, and level of stress hormones, and possibly even change how the brain activates during a pain sensation.
When you’re under hypnosis, your mind is in a state of deep concentration and is receptive to suggestion. A therapist can use this mental state to offer you alternative, relaxing responses to pain. For example, she may suggest that upon feeling pain, you lower your blood pressure instead of raise it; or she may use imagery instead, suggesting that you imagine that your pain is controlled by a dial that you can turn down at will. Your therapist should be certified by either the National Board for Certified Clinical Hypnotherapists or the American Council of Hypnotist Examiners.
Meditation –
We’re all pretty good at thinking. The problem is that most of us are unable to stop. You know the feeling, your mind plays one particular worry or though over and over, in an obsessively running loop. Or maybe it chatters away at you about a thousand different things.
Meditation is a way of quieting that chatter. By bringing your focus to your breath, a mantra, or the like, you give your mind something simple to hold on to as you gradually let go of the world. By controlling your attention, you’re accomplishing something deeply therapeutic. You begin to feel more relaxed, more at peace with yourself. This feeling usually lasts far beyond the meditation itself, so that when stress comes flying your way, you have the psychic resources to deflect it. For people with nerve-related pain in particular, meditation is often more effective than any other therapy at turning down that nerve noise and letting you get on with your life.
Yoga –
What makes yoga so powerful for back and other kinds of pain? When you practice yoga, you use physical exercises, breathing and relaxation techniques, and meditation to help you integrate these different aspects of your being. Such integration has a strengthening effect on your whole self, and fortifies your resistance to pain. Yoga helps you become more accepting of your body and of your pain, less judgmental and reactive. With time, you’ll also become an expert on your body; you’ll know what makes it feel worse and how to coax it into balance.
Finally, the poses themselves can ease your pain. They make you stronger and more flexible, improve the circulation to your joints and muscles, and stimulate your brain to produce painkilling chemicals.
Breathing techniques –
Pain can literally take your breath away. Over time, many chronic pain sufferers develop a pattern of shallow inhalations that are the breath equivalent of junk food. When you aren’t breathing deeply, you may experience muscle tension or have trouble sleeping. By bringing greater awareness to your breathing, you can induce a state of relaxation at will.
Deep breathing and breath exercises are useful for almost everyone. For many people with nerve pain, breathing and other mind-body techniques are an especially important source of relief.
Improving Your Sleep:
To improve your sleep, it’s important to recognize factors that may be contributing to your restless nights.
Conditions that may interfere with sleep besides pain:
1. Stress
2. Anxiety
3. Depression
4. Alcohol
5. Stimulant medications
6. Regular use of over-the-counter sleeping pills
7. Lack of physical activity
8. Change in your environment
9. Poor sleep habits
You can do several things to get a good night’s sleep -
1. Establish regular sleep hours. Go to bed and wake up at the same time each day. Following a regular pattern often improves sleep.
2. Sugar can help you sleep. While sugar is not health food, it can help you sleep. It causes the brain to produce serotonin, the neurotransmitter that plays a central role in sleep, moods, and pain control. Fruit sugars work as well as table sugar. So have some orange juice and a cookie an hour before bed.
3. Avoid high-protein foods in the evening. They can block serotonin production. Try to avoid fish, poultry, meats, eggs, and large servings of beans or tofu in the evening if a good night’s sleep is your goal.
4. Limit your time in bed. Too much sleep can promote shallow, unrestful sleep. Aim for 8 hours of sleep a night. Some people can get by on just 4 or 5 hours. Others need up to 10 hours a night. Don’t stay in bed longer than 10 hours.
5. Don’t “try” to sleep. The harder you try, the more awake you’ll become. Read or watch television until you become drowsy and fall asleep naturally.
6. Use sleeping medications wisely. If you decide to use a sleeping medication, make sure your choice is one of the new imidazophridines or, preferably, a tricyclic antidepressant. Use the medication only as an initial boost to help you start your sleeping program and then gradually wean yourself from the medication after you’ve met your sleeping goals.
7. Limit bedroom activities. Save your bedroom for sleep and sex. Don’t watch TV or take your work materials to bed.
8. Avoid or limit caffeine, alcohol and nicotine. Caffeine and nicotine can keep you from falling asleep. Alcohol causes unrestful sleep and frequent awakenings.
9. Minimize interruptions. Close your bedroom door or create a subtle background noise, such as a fan, to drown out other noises. Keep your bedroom temperature comfortable, and drink less before bed so you won’t have to get up at night to go to the bathroom.
10. Keep active. Regular physical activity helps you sleep more soundly. Try to get at least 30 minutes of physical activity daily, preferably 5 to 6 hours before bedtime. Also keep occupied throughout the day. Boredom promotes restless sleep.
11. Check your medications. Ask your doctor if they might be contributing to your difficulty sleeping. Also check over-the-counter products to see if they contain caffeine or other stimulants.
Arthritis: Eating Guidelines for an Anti-inflammatory Diet
1. Consume mostly fruits and vegetables—minimum of 5 servings a day.
2. Eat fish three to five times a week, or use fish oil supplements.
3. Use olive oil instead of vegetable oil or butter.
4. Minimize the amount of meat, dairy and butter—or even become a vegetarian.
5. Take Vitamin E, 400 IU and Flaxseed oil, one tablespoon.
6. Lower your daily caloric intake.
7. Identify and avoid inflammation trigger foods.
Inflammatory-safe foods
1. Brown rice
2. Cooked or dried fruits: cherries, cranberries, pears, prunes (but not citrus fruits, bananas, peaches, or tomatoes)
3. Cooked green, yellow, and orange vegetables: artichokes, asparagus, broccoli,chard, collards, lettuce, spinach, string beans, summer or winter squash, sweet potatoes, tapioca, and taro
4. Water: plain water or carbonated forms, such as Perrier, are fine.
5. Other beverages, even herbal teas, can be triggers.
6. Condiments: modest amounts of salt, maple syrup, and vanilla extract are usually well-tolerated.
Some people use fish oils for their anti-inflammatory omega-3s. However, plant-derived oils have none of the fish odor that can be apparent in the perspiration of people using fish oil. They also tend to be more chemically stable, so they do not oxidize as quickly. They are also lower in saturated fats.
Several spices also show anti-inflammatory effects by blocking enzymes that would otherwise make inflammation-producing prostaglandins. These spices are ginger, clove oil, garlic, turmeric, and cumin.
Best inflammation-fighting foods
Eating at least one food from each category every week will provide the greatest amount of phytochemical, anti-inflammatory compounds.
1. Cruciferous vegetables Bok choy
2. Broccoli
3. Brussels sprouts
4. Cabbage
5. Cauliflower
6. Kale
7. Watercress
1. Green Vegetables Chard
2. Collards
3. Lettuce
4. Mustard greens
5. Spinach
1. Legumes Black beans
2. Chickpeas/garbanzo beans
3. Kidney beans
4. Navy beans
5. Peas
6. Pinto beans
7. Soybeans
1. Berries Blackberries
2. Blueberries
3. Raspberries
4. Strawberries
1. Beta-carotene-rich foods Apricots
2. Cantaloupe
3. Carrots
4. Mango
5. Pumpkin
6. Sweet Potato
Major inflammation trigger foods
1. Dairy products
2. Corn
3. Meats
4. Wheat, oats, rye
5. Eggs
6. Citrus fruits
7. Potatoes
8. Tomatoes
9. Nuts
10. Coffee
Osteoarthritis
Vitamin E relieves pain and improves mobility in patients with osteoarthritis. A typical dosage regimen is 400 IU each day, or 100 IU for people with high blood pressure.
Filed in: General Health, Medicinal Herbs, Nutrition
Chiroprator Matt Spaulding & Sooner Pain Relief
Norman local chiropractor achieves personal victory
By Joy Hampton
The Norman Transcript
NORMAN — Dr. Matthew Spaulding, a Norman chiropractor, participated in his first body building competition ever Oct. 29 and won first in his division, light weight novice.
“It was a lot of fun,” said Matt Spaulding following the event. But the long hard road to get there was anything but fun. It was filled with challenges. “It is about health,” Spaulding said of his reason for competing. “When I was in chiropractic school, we had a lot of ex-athletes and body builders.”
Those athletes made an impression he never forgot and he decided he wanted to set a good example of fitness and health for his patients. “It’s a picture of health. If your nutritionist is 50 pounds overweight, you may not think he knows what he’s talking about,” Spaulding said. “There are plenty of doctors around that aren’t in shape.”
Doctors care for people’s health, but may not be physically active and in-shape despite that concerns about nutrition and weight-loss are of high interest nationally these days. Spaulding believed committing himself to the self-discipline of body building would help him integrate concerns about health and dieting into his practice.
“There’s so much fat loss and diet and exercise. I get a lot of questioning about that,” Spaulding said. “I’ve always kind of wanted to do that (body building), but didn’t know if I had the right genetics.”
Spaulding started training with friend Wayne Buck in order to get fit. “He told me it (body building) was about the diet and discipline.” Buck also told him it would be hard. But Spaulding doesn’t mind a challenge and he had the perfect motivation. Spaulding lost his middle brother Tim and dedicating this goal to Tim was the ideal to challenge himself while honoring Tim’s memory in his own way.
“I’ve had to spend two hours a day on the step mill which is basically stairs as a treadmill … that’s a long time. You want to give up every few steps,” Spaulding said. “My brother Tim’s deal was, he never gave up on anything. He may have failed a million times, but he never gave up on it.”
Tim tried multiple times to get into dental school, but once he finally made it, he got a scholarship. Tim’s motto in life is enshrined on his gravestone: “Dream big, live large, never, never never give up.”
When things got tough, Spaulding thought of his brother and kept up the challenging diet and hard work because he didn’t want to let his brother down. He said preparing for the body building competition was one of the most challenging things in his life.
“It’s the second hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Spaulding said, with losing his brother the hardest. Spaulding believes it was a challenge Tim would have approved — Tim ran track and high-jumped in college and was really fit. It’s common these days for Spaulding to hear, “You look so much more like Tim now,” from family and friends.
“That’s been really special to me,” he said. Spaulding started working toward the body building competition last February. “I’ve learned a lot more than I thought I would from it,” he said. “I’ve lost right about 40-45 pounds this year. It’s good for me to do something like this and accomplish it.”
The training method first builds an athlete up to build muscle mass. Once the athlete has put on that heaviness, the weight is stripped down so that body fat is minimal and muscle mass is optimal. “Sooner Relief was key to my workout. Applying Sooner Relief before workout and immediately following relieve muscle soreness and I believe helped my muscles recovery sooner.”
“It’s definitely a process,” he said. Spaulding was mentored by Dr. J. G. Smith of Norman since he was about 5-years-old. He and his oldest brother, Dave, and his father were in a 3-wheeler accident that dislocated his father’s shoulder and injured Spaulding’s back. Dr. Smith worked with their injuries and Spaulding was impressed.
In 6th grade, Spaulding played football and jammed his neck. Once again, Dr. Smith helped. “All of his patients love him,” Spaulding said. Spaulding attended Community Christian School. His degree came from Oklahoma University.
Spaulding had the goal to establish a practice in Norman before the age of 25. “That was my dream,” Spaulding said. “By the grace of God, it worked out, and I made my goal.” Now this determined chiropractor has achieved another goal. It’s a goal he hopes would make his brother Tim proud.
Filed in: General Health, Muscle Pain, Nutrition
