health

Wellness Care Should Be Mainstream

January 2, 2019 by Claire Fitzpatrick

Wellness Care is More Honest

I cannot stomach doing something dishonest or manipulative. It is soul-crushing to me. The health care industry is, by and large, conducted dishonestly.

It has replaced care, concern, and the mission to help people get better for mechanistic technicalities like insurance, cost, and containment.

Doctors have become commodities by which the mainstream health care industry can make its money. The more money a doctor can earn the wider industrial complex, the more of an inclusive place that doctor holds within the industry.

Therefore, medical doctors, with their ability to minimize the time they spend with people and therefore maximize the quantity of people they see a day, as well as their role as delegates for diagnostics, prescription drugs, and surgery, is the preferred physician type in the industry. Medical care the cog around which the entire industry revolves, and it ironically has the least power to help you or itself.

For the mainstream health industry, people are avenues for enrichment and, simultaneously, threats of cost liability that must be contained, rather than the front-and-center focus of health care delivery around which all else should revolve.

Therefore, medical hospitals advertise themselves in terms of your sickness, instead of your wellness. They tout medicine as the primary source of health, instead of one tool among many (and a hazardous tool at that!) to control your pain and sickness.

They advise us, either directly or by inference, to seek care only when we feel pain or disfunction, and to seek medicine as our first line of care instead of the last resort.

These are bald-faced lies

Because, you and I both know we should see a primary care physician regularly. Our physicians should be members of our immediate circle-of-influence and direct members of our personal community instead of the last people we want to see in the world.

Meanwhile, societies with single payer systems struggle with keeping health care costs and salaries to a minimum. Societies that rely on insurance models for health care are victims of a war between this mechanized health care delivery and the insurance industry, with the pharmaceutical industry winning out over all.

Doctors and patients are also the resulting victims in this model, and sadly, pitted against one another in the unrealistic expectation that the doctors’s job is to magically get a patient well for the least amount of money in the shortest amount of time, and the patient’s job is to not give the overworked and undermined doctor any trouble.

When you absolutely, positively have to

Knowing this, by and large, people only see a health care provider when they absolutely, positively, cannot function anymore in their self-determined place in society, and only if they feel like they can pay for care. If the latter qualification fails, they end up going under extreme diress and emergency to the hospital.

Wellness care is ignored by a health care industry that seeks maximum profitability, and by the population as a luxury they can neither afford in time nor money.

The irony is, both the health care industry and the population at large are wrong.

Wellness care is the logical answer

Wellness care can maximize profitability of the health care industry by minimizing losses and can save the public at large billions a year in devastating health care costs by maximizing health and quality of life like medicine never could on its own.

As far as chiropractic is concerned, it currently falls in a populist grey area, because many of us chiropractors have agreed to define ourselves within merely a musculoskeletal model that deals with pain and function; and therefore in direct competition with physical therapy.

In reality, chiropractic is in competition with no one. Chiropractic is different. It is a form of health care delivery that maximizes the body’s ability to heal, adapt, and grow.

But this isn’t an article about chiropractic care. That’s a discussion for another time.

Primary health

I happen to have attended a chiropractic school that trained us to act as primary care physicians as well as chiropractors.

That means, in addition to my chiropractic specialty, I have been trained to know when, in addition to chiropractic care, you need emergency care by a medical doctor, nutritional, herbal, and lifestyle guidance from a naturopathic physician or Chinese herbalist.

I also know when you need psychological help by a psychologist; coaching by a health coach; acupuncture from an acupuncturist; and physical therapy from a physical therapist.

There’s more to this list. I refer to hypnotists, yogis, personal trainers, spiritualists…anyone I know who I think can help you in addition to chiropractic care.

Most primary health care physicians aren’t as versatile as chiropractors who are also primary health care physicians. That is a luxury that I have as a wellness care physican.

Wellness care is versatile and inclusive

Naturopathic physicans have this versatility as well. I am not sure about other types of physicians. Medical physicians and primary nurses could, but most don’t.

In short, wellness care physicians know how to build a wellness team that can help you best, with doctors who are NOT commodities for the mainstream health care industry, and we know how to help you out before you become a tool for the health care industry to use and discard.

That’s why I created Joy Health and Body. We doctors all need to take a team approach — not a combative, competitive approach — to surround you with the care you need and deserve.

That’s it.

Optimal Fueling For Young Athletes (Karate et al)

July 27, 2018 by Claire Fitzpatrick

The following is a copy of my notes from a presentation I gave at my favorite karate dojo in the world, Ryokubi Karate Dojo in Stamford, CT, in 2012. The information is still relevant, and for adults as well as kids. Enjoy!

Karate, along with requiring strength, speed, skill and agility, requires endurance

You need to train right and eat right. Building a body equipped for strength, speed, skill and endurance will require plenty of protein, good fats, fruits and vegetables. You and your child need to lay off the junk food 90% of the time.

Optimal Fueling Notes — Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/peta-de-aztlan/3519424024

Example: Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee’s height and weight: 5’7 ½” (1.71 m) tall and 140 lbs (63.6 kg).

Don’t have to be large to be strong and fast. Bruce Lee had a strong interest in healthy eating, especially when it came to high protein drinks and nutritional supplements. He is reported to have drunk 1-2 protein drinks every day, along with homemade smoothies made from fruit and vegetable juices and plenty of fresh green vegetables.

Bruce Lee’s waist was between 26 and 28 inches (66-71 cm) throughout most of his adult life. The average male’s waist size today is about 38 inches (97 cm).

By the way, the most telltale (and worrisome) indicator of diabetes and heart disease is a preponderance of abdominal (gut) fat.

Problems with inadequate energy

World Champion team in 2014 – Demonstration of a perfect Kime. Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kime#/media/File:Karate_WM_2014_(2)_173.JPG

Problem maintaining existing lean mass
Lowering of metabolic rate
Lower energy / nutrient intake
Reduction in athletic performance
Increased risk of injury

Energy inadequacy clearly has problems associated with it.

Inadequate energy intake reduces the benefit athletes derive from training.

Energy inadequacy also makes it difficult for athletes to maintain existing lean mass, probably because muscle is being consumed by the body to provide some of the needed energy that was not consumed through food. A lower metabolic rate is commonly seen in people who consume inadequate energy, and is probably linked to a lower lean (metabolic) mass.

The less you eat, the lower the nutrient intake and, for young developing athletes this could dramatically increase developmental problems. A poorly developed skeleton from inadequate calcium intake is at far greater risk of developing, for instance, stress fractures now and osteoporosis later. There is ample evidence that shows that inadequate energy consumption is associated with reduced athletic performance.

Finally, athletes who consume too little are at increased risk of getting injured. Some studies suggest that these injuries are most likely to occur at the end of practice or competition, when energy inadequacy causes both mental and physical fatigue.

First and Foremost: WATER!!!

Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/clean-clear-cold-drink-416528/

Water is a food. We do not get enough of it, especially during workouts

Fluid loss during exercise can equate to weight loss just after the workout. You do not want to lose water weight directly post-workout! If you weigh 2 pounds less just after exercise, you have lost 2 pounds (907 grams) of water.
Sweat rate is heavily influenced by:
- exercise intensity
- ambient temperature (rm. temp)
- humidity

Proper Mineral Balance and Hydration

A direct threat to heart health is electrolyte imbalance, which can occur when your child is dehydrated and not eating enough of the right nutrients. Muscle, including the heart, is over 75% water.

The heart, in particular, has its own electric circuitry that is regulated by proper hydration and electrolyte balance. Children become dehydrated much more quickly than adults, and the dehydration and electrolyte deficiency that can occur during athletic training and sport events can be dangerous, even life-threatening.

Water levels and minerals like sodium, chloride, calcium, potassium, magnesium, and phosphate in proper quantities and ratios are all necessary for the heart to function properly.

Normally, we should drink ½ our body weight in ounces of water a day. For example, a kid who is 86 pounds should drink 43 ounces (1.22 kg) of filtered water a day – not juice, not coffee, not sports drinks.

In both children and adults, higher exercise intensities slow the rate at which fluids and fuels are digested. However, this occurs to an even greater extent in children who are exercising at high intensities, and the maximum amount of fluid that a child can absorb per hour while training will be about 20-24 ounces.

Sweat losses during 2 hours of exercise can equal 2 liters (68 ounces) of fluid or more. For this duration, your child should drink 8 oz (1 cup) of filtered water every 15 minutes! The child needs to replenish during training in order to keep hydration at proper levels.

A good rule of thumb for your child athlete is the following chart:

Water Intake

2 hours before exercise 2-3+ cups
15 minutes before exercise 1-2+ cups
Every 15 minutes during exercise 1 cup
After exercise 2-3 cups for every pound lost

Source: American College of Sports Medicine Position Paper, 2006

Keeping Up with Hydration Status

Monitor urine color (should be a light straw color).

Focus on fluids all day, not just during workouts and practice.

Adequate Fueling:

Adequate macronutrient / micronutrient intake daily – fresh, locally grown organic raw foods as well as cooked foods
Portion sizes! Look at your fist. No more 3 huge square meals: 5-6 servings of food/day the size of your fist. Eat every 2-3 hours.
Do I have a balanced plate for my training cycle needs? Good fats, useful carbohydrates, and useful proteins!
Is the way I am eating going to support my body so that I can accomplish my goals well?

After exercise, it is important to eat the proper combination of nutrients during the first 30 minutes. The meal following exercise should be very easy to digest and provide amino acids to help building and repair of muscular tissue and optimize uptake of the nutrients and minerals to the muscles, including the heart (remember: the heart is a muscle!).

A good example of a post-workout meal would be a good whey, egg, or pea/hemp drink with a teaspoon of sea salt or dulse thrown in.

Following are examples of electrolyte-rich foods (all should be organic and in the case of dairy, raw):

Sodium: dill pickle, tomato juice/sauce/soup; sea salt (1 tsp = 2300 mg sodium), dulse
Chloride: sea salt, dulse, tomatoes, romaine lettuce, olives
Potassium: red potato with skin, plain yogurt, banana
Magnesium: cacao beans/dark chocolate, halibut, pumpkin seeds, spinach
Calcium: raw dairy (yogurt, milk, ricotta), collard greens, spinach, kale, sardines
Phosphate( available in suitable quantities along with the other electrolyte foods) egg yolks, milk, nuts, wheat germ, peas, beans, legumes, mushrooms, cacao beans/dark chocolate

Carbohydrates

Primary energy source for high-intensity activity
Nutrient-dense carbohydrates provide:
- Vitamins & minerals
- Antioxidants & phytochemicals
  - Contribute to healthy immune system
- Fiber
  - Helps control appetite
  - Helps stabilize insulin levels
  - Helps resist chronic diseases

Healthy Carbohydrates

Make sure they are organic, locally-grown, bright colored, and in season

Daily Carbohydrate intake for Young Athletes (under 16)

(Key: 2.2 kilograms in 1 pound)

4 grams/kilogram for girls

7 grams/ kilogram for boys

Ex: 90 pound young female athlete would need to eat around 165 grams of carbohydrate daily, or about 660 calories of carbohydrate (165 x 4). A 90 pound boy athlete would need 289 grams of carbohydrate, or about 1155 calories.

Calorie Chart

4 calories per gram of carbohydrate

4 calories per gram of protein

9 calories per gram of fat

Make sure your child eats calorically-balanced, healthy meals consisting of lean proteins, healthy carbohydrates like leafy green vegetables, and healthy fats like omega 3 fish oil supplements, flaxseed oil, and nuts every two hours for four-to-six hours followingexercise. BTW:Children do not require extra carbohydrate intake prior to exercise lasting under 75 minutes. They require water!

Fat

Fat is very important for the development of appropriate muscle-neuron development in the young athlete, as well as in very hardcore adult trainers. Children and high-intensity trainers use 10-40% more fat stores than adults who exercise only moderately. Parents should be very considerate to provide meals that contain healthy omega-3 fats for proper muscle/neural development.

Dietary fats
- Supplies energy to the body
- Needed for structure of cells, hormone production, etc
- Regulates metabolic processes
- Transports fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E & K through the body
- Contributes to healthy immune system

*Fats should be avoided by moderately-active adults prior to exercise; they will drag them down.

Good Fats

Polyunsaturated:

Omega-3 Omega-6

Oily Fish Corn

Flaxseed Safflower

Canola oil Soybeans

Leafy greens Sunflower

Cottonseed

Monounsaturated:

Olive, Peanut oils, many nuts, avocado

Saturated:– animals, some plants:

*Make certain the animals lived a happy life free of antibiotics, genetic modification, and pesticide intake.

Game Birds, Wild Fish, Deer, Boar, Grass-fed beef, Free-range chicken, Free-range eggs, Raw milk/cheese/butter

Trans Fat/Bad Saturated Fat (DO NOT EAT):

Processed food, Factory Farmed Animals, Genetically-Modified Animals/Plants/Dairy —

If you see/hear about it on a commercial, DO NOT EAT IT!

Sad, Scared, Angry, Unnatural Animals/Plants + Human Belly

= Unnaturally Sad, Scared, Angry, Unhealthy Human

Protein

Provides building blocks for muscle
- Growth
- Maintenance
- Repair
Contributes to healthy immune system
May help with appetite control

Nature is smart! Many foods you need contain carbs, fats, and proteins all in one!

Avoid/limit intake of these proteins:

Okinawa Health

A very good model for eating can be found in Okinawa, the birthplace of Shotokan Karate

Okinawans Have:

Very little sickness
Longest, disability-free life expectancy on planet
Mean age of 81.2
Highest percentage of centenarians (40 per 100,000)
Use nutrient dense diet, cultural traditions, elder care, and Reiki (Healing Art) for wellness

Compared to Americans

Okinawa death rate from heart disease is only 18% that of Americans
80% less breast and prostate cancer
50% less ovarian and colon cancer
60% less hip fracture
50% less dementia
Heart attacks are only 20% as common as in the U.S. and the survival rate is twice as great

Diet and Nutrition

Diet is considered the “key” to their longevity
Plant-based diet
78% of entire food intake is comprised of vegetables
Wide variety of foods
Vegetables, rice, seaweed, sweet potatoes, fish, legumes, and turmeric
Protein comes from: fish, nuts, tofu, chicken or pork
Omega 3 fatty acids
Americans daily consume 3 times the avg. amount of meat eaten by Okinawans

Food Preparation

Meals prepared with care
Main method of cooking: stir frying using expeller-pressed Canola oil (Omega-6)
BTW: if an oil smokes when heated, the oil has become carcinogenic. Heat oils carefully!
Many garnishes such as turmeric are used that offer numerous health benefits
Meals are enjoyed, not rushed through

Hints for Meal Timing

Spreading same food intake out over 5-6 meals and snacks rather than 3 large meals or preventing the “Backlog Effect”
- More even blood glucose levels
- Lower blood fat levels
- Stimulation of metabolic rate
- Reduces “hunger spots” when on a lower energy diet

Once Again:

After exercise, it is important to eat the proper combination of nutrients during the first 30 minutes.
The meal following exercise should be very easy to digest and provide amino acids to help building and repair of muscular tissue and optimize uptake of the nutrients and minerals to the muscles, including the heart (remember: the heart is a muscle!).
Good examples would be a good whey, egg, or pea/hemp sports drink with a teaspoon of sea salt or dulse thrown in.

Fueling your child properly for training can provide your child with a performance edge and help your child develop into a strong, smart, balanced, confident adult!

Yes, Virginia; there ARE Biologisch Hot Dogs

July 11, 2018 by Claire Fitzpatrick

Yes, Virginia; there ARE Biologisch Hot Dogs…even here in the Netherlands!

I was on my way home from my morning shift at the office, and I was very peckish for lunch (the auto correction on my Word doc just corrected it to “puckish,” which I am…but I digress).

So when I got off at my stop and saw a new snack stand nearby, one that says it has biologisch snacks (organic fast food), I was thrilled.

There were a man and a woman who were working that stand. They did not look like teenagers; meaning, I think they knew each other and that this was their venture. The manner in which others were hanging around chatting with them also lent itself to the impression that this was their business.

I am all about supporting local businesses who want to add to my mission to make the world as natural and clean as possible. I made my way over.

First of all, there was a sandwich board by the bikepad to advertise the stand. The arrow, supposedly there to point toward the stand, was pointing the other way. That should have been my first clue.

But being who I am, I turned the sandwich board around, so it actually pointed to the snack stand, and trotted over.

It is a Dutch stand, not far from a hospital. I am trying to learn Dutch, so I can read the signs pretty much.

The friets (fries) are biologisch. The suiker (sugar) is biologisch.

Not much else.

Still, I remained hopeful. There were hot dogs rolling away on a hot dog cooker/roller thing, and I like hot dogs.

So I asked the woman behind the counter, “Zijn de hot dogs biologisch ook (are the hot dogs also organic)?”

She answered me back, in English, “No. They don’t make biologisch hot dogs.”

She chuckled, as if at the thought, and repeated louder, “They don’t make them.”

While its true that I have, up to now, not had a hot dog in the Netherlands – I don’t normally eat fast food – I have, indeed, had many organic hot dogs back in The States.

Maybe they don’t make organic hot dogs here. I don’t know. All I know is that I didn’t want fries, so I went off home.

As soon as I got home, before I fixed my lunch, I looked up on the Internet, “biologisch hot dogs.”

Hear ya go.

With links, just because they exist, and I WANT TO SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESSES THAT GIVE A DAMN.

Yes, Virginia; there ARE biologisch hot dogs…even in the Netherlands!

I hate it when people in positions of authority (and if you own a snack truck that says “biologisch is lekker” on it, it implies that you are an authority in organic fast food) just SAY THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE.

Not only is it not true, it’s not true that she even looked.

And it’s only midday.

My day, up to this point, has been full of hearing reports of these so-called, “authoritative” opinions.

Before I left for home, I ran into one of my ex-patients. He told me that the hand brace he’s been wearing for 6 weeks for De Quervain tenosynovitis (no imaging – standard of care says it’s not “necessary”) is not working, so “they” are going to try surgery.

I asked, “Have you worked with a physical therapist? Have they tried ultrasound? Laser therapy? Mobilization? Anything like that?”

No, he answered. But he trusts them. They only do hands.

“They only do hands.”

This is why he’s my ex-patient. As much as we like each other and as much as I care, he trusts people who deal with the body like it is a machine with separate, mechanical parts. I treat the body like it’s a whole being that works synergistically. Our world views are different.

Still, I care, so I referred him to a very good sports medicine center in Amstelveen. Here they are, because I CARE.

Ibis Medisch Centrum http://www.mcibis.nl/

And then before that…

Before that, I have a patient who has been dealing with debilitating back pain for a few weeks.

He’s been visiting me and a physiotherapist, and we both agree there’s probably a herniated disc or two in his low back.

If I was in The States, I would order imaging to rule out herniation and spondylolysis. But I can’t do that here. I have to rely on his huisarts (primary care physician) specialist to make that call.

I wrote a nice note to the doc, hoping it would help.

It did not help.

The huisarts specialist said he didn’t need it because “its really something that is not that.”

???????? First of all, what does “that” mean in that context?

Second of all, HOW THE HELL DOES (S)HE KNOW THAT WITHOUT TAKING A F*@&ING PICTURE?

It drives me CRAZY when people, who we are supposed to trust with our health – and that means, with our lives – say and do things to influence their patients without even trying to find out what’s going on, and whether or not they are saying and doing the right things!

We have a responsibility to say, “I don’t know.”

More: as humans, we all have these responsibilities:

To say, “I don’t know,” when we don’t know.

At this point, we are obliged to either:

Find out
Send them to someone who knows
Send them to someone who might know, or
Admit we don’t know and we don’t know anyone who might know, but we will try to find someone who might know

As health care providers, we are doubly responsible to do so.

And above all else:

Stop acting like an authority in EVERYTHING just because you are an authority in SOMETHING.

The snack stand owner may know how to run a snack stand, but she doesn’t know how to please her supposed-target customer.

When you put, “biologisch en lekker (organic and tasty)” on your sign, you’re calling to me. Biologisch food is very, VERY important to me.

When I ask you about your product, and your branding is all about biologisch, you better bet that I know something about it too, or I wouldn’t be interested at all.

Stop branding with my values.

If I am not your target, stop calling to me.

It’s insulting to me that you’re branding with my values, and they are not your values at all.

It is INSULTING.

If you brand yourself as a health care provider, and you do not provide health care, it is insulting to me that you are branding with my values when health is not your value at all; and, in the process, mishandling our patient, who wants help.

If you brand yourself a health care provider, provide health care.

This evening, I am going back to the office to see my late afternoon-evening patients, and to host a monthly event called, the Functional Forum Amsterdam Meetup.

It is an event for medical and other health care providers who are interested in incorporating functional medicine into their practices.

I, personally, am not interested in incorporating functional medicine in my practice.

That’s not why I am holding these monthly events.

I AM interested in partnering with health care providers who share my values, so I can refer my patients to them when I need to.

What is my brand?

I am a chiropractor who loves to deliver chiropractic. Chiropractic is my product.

My BRAND, though, is living well in harmony with nature, connected to your body and to Source.

It is VITALISM.

Vitalism takes into account the whole of human experience — body, mind, and spirit.

I want our spiritual beings who are having human experiences to have the most effective, vitalistic human experience possible.

Chiropractic can help that happen.

When it comes to health care delivery

I am not the whole. I am part of the whole – a vital part, to be sure; but not the whole part.

I need you for that.

Does this all resonate with you?

Be real. Be human.

Skin Care Review: Squalan Natural Skincare

May 22, 2018 by Claire Fitzpatrick

Upshot: I like this brand.
Favorite: The Eye product
Least Favorite: N/A
Overall: Feels great, sinks in, not oily, ingredients are nourishing, non-toxic, don’t expect miracles.
Reveal: Ioanna and I are partners with Alive Cosmetics. If you purchase from them and you tell them where you found them, we get a small percentage of commission.

Just a Customer

As much as I like natural products, I actually use very few skin care products.

When I was a teenager and a young adult, in order to control breakouts, while my friends used all manner of acne wipes and creams, I used to just wipe my face with warm water. Worked fine for me.

As I got older, I just used whatever natural body lotion I had lying around to put on my face. I never had a special “facial” line. I didn’t think I needed that.

Taking risks

About 15 years ago, I decided to go rogue and went red with my hair. I won’t tell you what brand I used. Sufficed to say it was commercial and bad for me.

It was a departure from my usual “go natural” approach, but my husband loved it and I thought it was fun. But it was really harsh for my hair; and, at exactly the same time, I began to experience contact dermatitis on my temples.

I lived with it, which was probably stupid (it was stupid). During the ensuing years, my naturally brown hair began graying, so I stayed with the red less for rogue purposes and more of an, “I’m not ready for gray,” attitude.

In an effort to find a balance, I switched from nasty chemical red dye to henna about 4 years ago. I thought if I used a natural product, my contact dermatitis would go away.

But no, it did not go away; it actually spread. I now have it on my forehead.

It’s really embarassing for me; but lately I’ve been practicing stepping into uncomfortable territory. I have pictures that I’ve been taking as I test the Squalan, so I’m going to show you a progression of pics below as I go through the review.

So anyway…

When I came to Amsterdam and started the practice last summer at Nieuwe Achtergracht 61, I rented the space from Daiva Luksyte, owner of Alive Cosmetics.

We shared our mutual love of natural products. Hers was particularly focussed on skin care, and she decided to start her own business selling her favorite skin care products. It was in this capacity that she let me know that if I sold any of her product in my capacity as chiropractor, I could earn a commission.

That’s nice, I thought. However, I didn’t want to sell the product to my patients without knowing anything about it, so I put the offer on the back burner, so to speak.

I met a cosmetic expert

Time rolled on, and the winter holidays came around. Daiva had a holiday party for her renters: me, massage therapists, and a skin care specialist named Ioanna Tsaousidou, an absolutely charming beautician from Greece.

Ioanna and I got to talking, and we decided to test some of the products that Alive Cosmetics sells so we could recommend them with authority. She published the results of her review on her blog, The Colourful Bouquet.

The next post here will be a guest post from her on the subject, as a Part II of our review of Squalan. Hers is more from a beauty expert’s point of view. Mine is more of a natural health geek point of view.

Squalan[TM] Skin Care

Squalan’s primary ingredient is squalane, an hydrogenated (therefore, oxidatively stable) form of squalene, Squalene is an isoprenoid compound similar to beta-carotene in structure[1].

It is found a variety of both animal and plant products; in Squalan’s case, according to their website, they derive theirs from sugar cane approved by Ecocert.

Squalane is an intermediate metabolite in the synthesis of cholesterol. Topically, it can act as a natural protection from UV rays. Clinically, it may help lower overall cholesterol and is thought to be a potential treatment in anti cancer therapies[2].

According to the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Cosmetic Database — a MUST for your natural health care resources — the ingredient is minimally toxic (see this link)[3].

Squalane is an emollient, which means it can act like an anti-inflammatory on certain types of skin conditions such as papulosquamous disorders, which, for me, would differentiate my skin irritation with contact dermatitis.

In the latter case, a protein rejuvenator like keratin or collagen would probably be more appropriate [4].

But for me…

But for me, I wasn’t sure what was causing my rash. Evidence of henna causing contact dermatitis, until recently, was considered a very rare event if it was not mixed with other chemicals or when minimal pesticides are used [5,6]. Because that seems to have changed a bit, I will research more pure forms and more information.

But for now, not only did I want to see if Squalan helped my skin feel better and look younger, but did it help my rash?

February 2018

Before photo.

Ugh. I hate looking at it. Sidesweep is a good thing.

I started by using the Eye serum and the Moisturizer facial oil.

The Eye serum is awesome. It was light, it only took a tiny bit to nourish my eyes, and it didn’t sting if I messed up. Look at the bottle. It’s 3 months later and I still have this much.

The Moisturizer was a bit heavy, though certainly not as heavy as my body lotions/oils I’ve used in the past. I mostly used it at night and after a shower, because in the morning I looked like I’d been running around the neighborhood once or twice.

April 2018

I used the two of these for two months, before I met up with Ioanna again in April to go over our findings. At this point, my skin looked like this:

Not much better. My eyes look a little brighter, though.

So, I added these two products to my repitoire a month ago: Pure and the Cleanser

I’m not used to a cleanser, so it felt okay. It took a while to remove my eye makeup with it, but my skin did feel tighter. I continued to use the Eye serum, but I switched the product on my face to the Pure facial oil.

I definitely liked it better on my face. I started using the Moisturizer on my shoulders and arms, upper chest, and it was much better there. Not so well on my legs — too light.

May 2018

So, here’s how my skin looked yesterday:

Maybe I’m looking too long at it, but my forehead looks a bit better, I think. My face and eyes look about the same, but I like the way they feel.

I am sticking with the Eye serum. I love it. The Pure facial oil is also nice, and deserves more of a trial, I think.

The Cleanser? It’s not bad, but I’m not a cleanser kind of person. However, I’m going to also give it more of a trial before I settle on mensa-mensa status with it.

Moisturizer, for me, too heavy for my face, but as a light moisurizer for chest, back and arms, not bad! If you don’t need much moisturizer for your legs after shaving, it’s okay. But I need more.

Tomorrow, I’m going to a local dermatologist to get a second opinion, and I may have to stop using Henna on my hair.

Oh, gosh. I know I like natural, but I don’t think I’m ready to go gray yet. Let’s see…you’ll know when I know! Will she go white?

Stay tuned!

I’ll post Ioanna’s review next time. In the meantime, you can read it for yourself on her blog, here.

If you want to help support Ioanna and me in our business efforts, and you’re moved to purchase any of these products, do us a favor and go here to Alive Cosmetics. Daiva is a true blue merchant anyway; its a nice mission she’s on. Be a hero and let them know where you heard about their products.

Talk to you soon!

Footnotes:

[1] Kelly GS. Squalene and its potential clinical uses. Altern Med Rev. 1999 Feb;4(1):29–36. [PubMed]

[2] ibid.

[3] this is not to construe that the EWG Skin Deep database endorses the product in any way, shape or form. I am simply reporting on the feature ingredient.

[4] Sethi A, Kaur T, Malhortra SK, Gambhir ML. Moisturizers: The slippery road. Indian J Dermatol. 2016 May-Jun; 61(3): 279–287. [PubMed]

[5] SCCS (Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety), Opinion on Lawsonia inermis (henna), 19 September 2013. [SCCS]

[6] National Center for Biotechnology Information. PubChem Compound Database; (accessed May 22, 2018). [NCBI]

The Brain is Your ECU

May 10, 2018 by Claire Fitzpatrick

The ability to adapt

I got a wonderful email from a patient of mine this morning. He is relatively new to care, Dutch, and a business professional.

He came in because he periodically gets debilitating back pain, to the point that he cannot move for two weeks. He finally sought care out of a recommendation from SOMEONE I DON’T KNOW.

That is a compliment right there. Someone heard of me from another source, and recommended a totally different person to me. This is very moving and an extreme honor for me.

He’s been under care for about three weeks. He hasn’t had any recurrence of the spasms, but he has continued to feel stiff and pain in the low back while attending Vinyasa yoga.

Yesterday, I helped him release a subluxation pattern, the access points of which were left L3, left T3, right C3. The points were very clear to me, which is a good sign that we’re on the right track.

A Sound Adjustment

Happily, he emailed me last night to thank me, that he really noticed a change today in his practice and feels particularly healthy.

I am super pleased about this, and I thanked him for this update. I am also aware that, while this is a great report, our bodies follow a healing pattern that rarely follows a straight line, nor a predictable timeline. So I am aware that he’s not out of the woods yet.

The main thing is he seems committed to his health and is willing to weather the highs and lows. When someone is committed to stay the course, despite how they feel from day to day, this is usually how I can tell that someone will be able to take charge of their health. This is when I can tell they will be able to progress to states of awareness and flexibility that have been previously been unknown to them.

Health is a process.

It isn’t a “one day I was healthy, the next day I was sick,” kind of thing — although sometimes it feels that way.

I am looking forward to helping my patient on this facinating, interesting patht that is the optimal healthy expression of body, mind and spirit, as long as he allows me the honor to do so.

Who is helping you?

Last night, I held my third Functional Forum in Amsterdam, and there was a doc who made an observation: people take better care of their cars than they do their body.

He posed the question: what if you only brought your car in to get serviced when it couldn’t function anymore? Where would you be if you didn’t listen to the little changes, the little noises, the lag in pickup, and keep it tuned up?

We count on the fact that our bodies are self-healing mechanisms, and they are.

But when the body fails to self-heal, when the nagging lack of repair just doesn’t go away, what is keeping you from seeking help?

Who is traveling the bumpy road of life with you, to help you spot the possible potholes and sharp turns?

Who is helping you optimize your engine control unit, ECU’s communication with the workings of your car (i.e., your brain and body).

We All Need Somebody

As the song goes, “We all need somebody to lean on.” Who is helping you find the answers that are right for you?

True health is expressed when the body and mind are flexible and adaptable to the stresses in the environment.

Chiropractic and Neuroplasticity

Chiropractic is all about helping your nervous system be as flexible, adaptable, and “plastic” as it can be, so it can not only communicate with your body properly, but improve its own function and capacity.

Each chiropractic adjustment builds on the last. Each adjustment builds momentum in your body and mind.

The reason it is so hard to predict how fast or how well someone will “heal,” is because when two people show up with the same symptoms, they don’t show up with the same past, nor the same life trajectory.

It is difficult how quickly they will build that healthy momentum.

I Can Help You Build That Momentum

But I can help you with that trajectory. I am honored to help. It is what makes me happy, to see you blossom into the best you that you can be.

I hope you reach out to talk to me about chiropractic. If you’re in the Amsterdam area, to speak to me or to schedule an appoinment, you can go to my office website here.

Have a healthy, loving day, filled with joy.

Guest Post: A Level in Reiki by Misha

May 3, 2018 by Claire Fitzpatrick

In March, I tought my first Reiki 1 class. I tought my first Reiki class at any time, anywhere.

Sometimes the Universe gives you clues. The Universe began giving me clues in the form of questions by my patients, friends, and colleagues about the nature of Reiki.

There is a lot of misinformation floating about the Internet and the world about its nature, and its process. In truth, I didn’t understand the nature of Reiki until I was introduced to it.

Knowledge vs attunement

I was attuned in 2005 and 2006 by two separate Reiki masters. The first was a younger, Western teacher who gave me little to no introduction. The second was a Grand Master of the original lineage, who was fiercely strict about the seriousness of the training and who came from an Eastern point of view (Indian).

Both tought me a lot. Neither tought me what I needed to experience on my own. And that’s the thing. Because we are each a different energy signature, Reiki is going to be different in each of us.

Reiki 1 is your Reiki

Reiki 1 is “my” Reiki, as much as my silent oberver is me. So Reiki 1 is the attunement to your Reiki, that which your silent observer understands and with which it can commune.

I am a Western-trained chiropractor. My education is rigorous and physical, and requires a keen and astute knowledge of the human body and its processes.

Reiki does not require this, per se. But for a Westerner, understanding the energetic nature of life is. And this is often difficult for Western minds to wrap their heads around.

The good thing about Reiki is that you don’t need 4-5 years of anatomy, physiology, neurology, chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, biomechanis, kinesiology, and chiropractic training and internship to use it to help improve your life.

Reiki 1 It is something that people can, and likely should, use every day for themselves. One needn’t go further than Reiki 1 to improve their lives, and by extension of the self, the lives around them.

Not cheaply achieved

It took me many years to understand and use the power of Reiki 1-3 to its best benefits. During this period, I did not feel ready to share my trials and errors.

Until the questions started coming last winter, I just quietly used it and learned from it.

Then that little voice in my head, the one with the good ideas that are also uncomfortable ideas, started poking me. “It’s time.”

My two students

When recruiting students, I often recruit through discouragement. I find that, if you make something less romantic, and reveal that it will actually take some work and will shift you as a person, one weeds out those who are not really interested in the product of study.

So after a discouraging introductory process, two people remained who wanted to know more.

So I tought my experience and my perspective of Reiki 1, and I had the blessing of attuning them. It was a very moving experience for us all.

Misha, one of my students, wrote about the experience in a candid manner that I would not have been able to express in 2005. I thought it was important to share, for prospective Reiki students and Reiki teachers alike. So I asked if It would be all right to post here, and Misha graciously accepted.

The following is a blog post that you can find on Misha’s blog:

A level in Reiki

Misha

2018-04-07 11:23

A few weeks ago I received my Reiki level one attunement. From conversations I had later, I learned that most people are vaguely aware of it as “some kind of laying on of hands” at best. I’ll first give a short explanation, and then tell you about the experience.

What?

So, what is Reiki, without going into as much detail as the two days of class I had? First, what’s energy work? If you’re into meditation at all, you’ve probably encountered some guided meditations that asked you to move your breath into parts of your body where your airways don’t go. What you’re moving around isn’t literal air but a type of energy. There are many types of energy other than “breath”, which all feel different from each other. Reiki is one of those, and comes from an outside source. There is a methodology to use it to assist healing in the broadest sense of the word. A set of principles to live by is part of the methodology (order and wording vary):

Just for today, I will live the attitude of gratitude.
Just for today, I will not worry.
Just for today, I will not anger.
Just for today, I will do my work honestly.
Just for today, I will show love and respect for every living thing.

I like the “just for today” part a lot, it’s very… mindful actually. It also means a bad day isn’t a complete disaster, one can always try again tomorrow.

Why?

I was curious about Reiki because I learned some energy work as a child (and figured things out on my own from there), but don’t remember who or where from. I wanted to know if that perhaps was Reiki, and now I know the answer to that is “no”. I also want to learn energy work and meditation methods that are known to be safe, because I will be able to help others with those. Of what I figured out on my own, I know for sure that some practices are unsafe, but not what is actually definitely safe for everyone’s mental health.

What was it like?

I decided to go into it with a clear and open mind, in other words I did not try to learn everything in advance on the web. This did mean I didn’t know about the three weeks of daily one hour and a half practice on oneself after attunement. If you want to learn Reiki too, you have now been warned of that 🙂 .

Lots of coincidences!

The first day was my birthday. A friend wrote to me in her birthday card that she hoped there would be many attractive women for me to practice on. I later told her I would be practicing on someone extremely sexy for the next three weeks.The second day was new moon, to be more precise the day on which the (invisible) moon sets after the sun again. I try to celebrate that day every month, something about new beginnings, I’ll write about that another time.When I found out my now-teacher is a Reiki master and asked if she was planning to teach soon, I didn’t know she had not done so before. She did have lessons planned because someone else had asked her! If I understood correctly she rejected a few potential students for not being serious enough, leaving just me and the other.Learning anything together with one other student is a special, intimate experience, especially when it’s someone you instantly like and quickly develop a feeling of understanding for. I hope we become friends.

Can’t avoid that spirit work

I try not to talk about spirit work. I really do, because I don’t want to encourage anyone to try it. Yes, I learned very much from it, but it has also been incredibly upsetting at times. Unfortunately, it’s so interwoven with energy work that I had to come out of that closet, because I couldn’t predict if anything weird might happen (it didn’t).This got me the question “why do you do that?” twice, which is difficult to answer in the moment. Imagine you find a puppy with a broken leg and take it to the vet. Nobody claims the puppy, so you pay the bill and adopt it. You now have a dog. If someone asks you “why did you get a dog?”, well, why did you? One can make up explanations after the fact with words like “compassion”, “kindness”, “sense of justice”, “sense of responsibility”, but I think it’s healthier to leave those words for other people to describe me than to make them part of a self image I use to reason from to decide what to do in any situation. When I find a task, no matter how odd, that clearly needs doing in front of me, I do it.

Day one

We were taught a lot connecting Reiki to western science and mysticism (not sure if I’m using the right word there). It felt like being back at university. If one is not an energy worker yet, all this would help to accept Reiki as something that could be real. For me, it was still very interesting.

Day two

This was a day of showing the method (hand positions), personal conversations, meditation, and the attunement! Also, dinner 🙂 . Reiki feels wonderful and warm, and intense when first getting to know it.

The next days

Life can become wild after Reiki attunement, I certainly had a few rough days in which things changed for the better in friendships. It’s hard to say if there’s a cause and effect, because things weren’t calm in the week before either.I can say with certainty that I feel better. Meditation is a bit easier, and my preferred posture is now one that fits feeling comfortable in my environment. Straight back, low shoulders, small steps, exactly what I remember being corrected into and being unable to keep up. Posture, body language, can be caused by how one feels. It’s useless to try to correct the symptom without addressing the cause.

And now?

Reiki level 2, for sure, sometime. First, I think I found a reasonably short track for going from informally knowing about mindfulness to being a mindfulness trainer. It’s on a different end of a spectrum, but again it’s a known safe practice to learn so I can help others.

Sometimes Healing Hurts, Pt. 2

May 1, 2018 by Claire Fitzpatrick

“May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
May the rain fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.”

— An Irish Blessing, author unknown

My aunt was a nun. She was Sister Theresa Fitzpatrick, from Garden City, Long Island (New York).

As a child, and into adulthood, I knew her as Aunt Rita.

Aunt Rita once gave my family a wall plaque with that prayer on it.

I used to stare at it and consider it, thinking that it was a beautiful wish, created by a beautiful someone among my cherished ancestry who had a flair for poetry.

The Irish love their poetry

As a child and a young teenager, I fell in love with the English language, and started to write every chance I got.

It made me feel connected to the Earth and her creatures, to God and to mankind.

As a budding young writer, I became a keen observer; and as I observed, I became aware of that which is not pleasant in human nature.

And as I later researched what I observed, I realized horrible truths that the Bible did not immediately reveal to me, but became self-evident upon observation:

That mankind was both God and The Devil, that we chose to act the way of The Devil, and that, because of our tendency for greed, visciousness, apathy, fear, and cruelty, we were making Hell out of paradise here on Earth.

I began to see my writing as a mission. I was going to be a great novelist, a great poet, a great playwright…my words were going to move the masses of sleepy destroyers into woke (before that was a thing) saviors of humanity and our planetary home.

It was all about communication

But as I passed into high school, as a nerdy, cerebral, emotional teen, I experienced cruelty, shunning, viciousness and apathy from my peers and adults outside my home.

My optimism for my and our collective future waned.

Truthfully, the only reason I did not commit suicide in those days was the Catholic belief that that there was something worse beyond this planet for those who took their own life. So later, when I no longer counted myself among those who call themselves Catholic, my faith system served its purpose for me at the time.

Instead, I searched for ways to “get in front of death.” I drank, I smoked, I took drugs. I took unnecessary risks with my mind and my body.

I hung out with angry, violent societal misfits who were frustrated like me, but more on a micro level. Their home lives and careers were their hell, so I felt like at least on that level, I had it better than them.

That would change.

My anger became both micro and macro. It turns out, when you hang out with people who give up on their loved ones, chances are, you lose faith in loved ones, too.

As I grew older, as an angsty teenager and a frustrated adult, I kept Aunt Rita’s plaque above my door out of a strange sense of loyalty to the child in me who once who saw beauty in those words.

But I would scoff at them as I passed under it to face another day of disappointment in life. I thought them fairy tale wishes, from a people who feasted on fairy tales, who were beaten into submission, almost to extinction, by centuries of usurpers who had nothing but contempt for my people, usurpers who had other ideas for the innocent.

The wounded Irish, the wounded me

Still, my inner child still wanted the beauty. She still believed, somehow, that life could be beautiful.

She was still alive, and she wanted to live.

And as I moved into my twenties, I tried to reclaim the passion for life and my dreams of poetry that I once had.

But,

The road seemed long and seemed to move farther away.
The wind seemed to push against my chest.
The sun seemed to burn my face if I dared to turn it upward.
The rain seemed either rare, or flooded my dry fields.
When I met those who loved me, I turned away.
God was a lie. I was on my own.

Fear breeds lonliness

For a long time, I shunned a life of service. I abandoned hope, so I created my own hell.

I became that which I feared most: angry, resentful, poor in spirit and home, and afraid.

All the time, afraid.

Why am I telling you all of this?

Because the mind follows the body, and the body follows the mind.

I ended up with pain from my reckless lifestyle, and that’s how I found chiropractic.

And that’s how chiropractic found me.

Moving from a pain model to a healing model

I was a pain patient for years before I realized that chiropractic was helping connect me to my inner child again, helping her cry out for life, helping her claw for hope.

This has not been an easy, nor a fast, healing process.

My home and career life fell apart three separate times before I decided to take a right-hand turn and become a chiropractic student.

I became a chiropractic student, and then a chiropractic doctor, long before I realized that my career choice was helping me heal myself, and that with every adjustment I received AND delivered, I was reconnecting my spirit with my body.

Only happy while serving is not enough

For a long time, the only time I was happy was when I was learning how to help others through chiropractic care.

Later, the only time I was happy was when I was serving through chiropractic.

But I still struggled for years with anxiety and the health consequenses to my body and life, and therefore, to my family and community.

Reclaiming my health one adjustment at a time

It has only been in the last few years I have begun to reclaim my inner and outer health, and the beauty I once saw in the world. It has only been in these last few years that I have been able to see through the clouds of my hopelessness to my own power and purpose.

Now, on this May Day 2018, I emerged from the Metro to a cold, windy, rainy Amsterdam day.

It was a short, inviting trek along the road to my office.
The wind was at my back, merrily quickening my pace.
The sun shines in my smile at my day ahead
The rain is falling softly on these fields ahead of me
My inner child and my wiser self are walking side by side
God is in my healing hands, and I am in Hers.

I was, and am, still healing.

I still see the mysery. I see it more, actually.

But thanks to years of reconnecting my nervous system with my physiology, I have reconnected to something I lost a long time ago.

I have faith. I have hope. I have joy. I have love.

Because of this, I have reclaimed a great deal of my physical and mental health.

You are not alone. Neither am I.

In my office, I see in others the hell that I created for myself on a micro level.

They walk into my office with shoulder pain, with low back pain, with neck pain. Of course.

They also walk in with flawed neural patterning that began years and years ago, when something happend in their lives that they couldn’t integrate.

Maybe it was abuse. Maybe it was sorrow, disappointment, or the terrible realization that life is not what they thougth is should be.

If we are lucky…

If they are lucky, their imbalance expresses itself in pain, and they find the right help.

The pain is a cry for help. It is a sign that your neural system is not firing properly, that there is improper feed to your body due to a buildup of stress.

Chiropractic helps you repattern your body and mind so that our bodies AND our minds are more flexible, more adaptable, more able to heal properly.

But sometimes healing hurts.

Many times, we think that if our pain goes away, we are healed, and that the goal of their chiropractic care is to go back to our desperate lives, pain free at least.

But they sometimes find something else. They sometimes hurt more after an adjustment.

Awareness brings consequences. As we heal, as our brains reconnect with our bodies, we can sometimes become aware that there is a bigger problem than the pain.

Awareness also brings us choices.

We now have a chance to face life full on, with awareness of the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful.

Many cannot stomach this awareness right away, and blame everyone and everything for the way they respond to their inner and outer environment.

We must be patient with ourselves and others during this healing process. While we must ultimately take responsibility for our choices, while we are subluxated (i.e., in a state of less light, less awareness, inflexibilty, inadaptability, holding nerve system interference), we often cannot make the right choices right away.

While we are subluxated, our ability to access our full capacity is still limited.

We must be gentle with ourselves while healing

We musn’t be hard on ourselves during the healing process, just as we musn’t be unduly harsh to others during this time.

It’s the people who are “painless,” who are disconnected from their bodies, yet who have a sense of dis-ease and dissatisfaction with their lives who are often the most dangerous to themselves and those around them.

Pain as a blessing

People who have pain symptoms at least have the blessings of awareness. There is a chance at reorganizing their patterning. But this patterning happened over a lifetime. We must have faith in the process and give ourselves the love we need to heal.

It also gives us the chance to grow in ways that we would never have been aware of without the pain.

We need inner connection desperately. That’s what chiropractic offers us.

The state of the profession

Chiropractic has earned the dubious reputation as a pain-reducing modality.

That’s because, sometimes healing reduces pain, and it looks like chiropractic is doing that.

It is actually you that is doing that.

Chiropractic is just helping your nervous system reorganize so that you can do that.

Early on, on a professional level, we lost our way.

Without going into too much history, almost form the beginning, we had egoistic infighting.

We lost faith in one another

Because we lost faith in one another, we allowed our environment — in this case, other health professionals and insurance companies — to define us.

Because of this, many of us, myself included, were and are confused as to the true benefits of what we deliver.

That’s why our messaging is often so confusing.

We are still subluxated as a profession.

Yet, with each adjustment to our profession, with each voice within us communicating the truth, we gain strength in the system that is chiropractic.

When we understand the power of the chirorpactic adjustment, when we start to have faith that we are helping facilitate healing on a profound level, we are better able to communicate with others the real promise of chiropractic.

When we do this, others respond with the innate wisdom that they need this.

The state of the world

On the supermacro level, our planet is crying out in pain. Animals are crying out in pain. Plants, rivers, mountains, are crying out in pain.

Our planet is responding like a body in a dis-ease state. She’s running a temperature. She is raising her immune system defenses (methane, ancient microbes, new, complex viruses) in order to destroy a pathogen that threatens all her life systems.

In this case, the pathogen is a cancer, a set of cells that is in runaway expansion, that is aggresively and recklessly using up all of the resources that she has evolved over the millenia that sustain life for the whole.

Guess what — or who — that pathogen is?

The state of humanity

Humanity is crying out in pain. We are cruel with one another and with ourselves. We are in denial of our sickness, and lash out angrily when confronted.

However, thankfully, we are finally waking to the realization of what we are doing, and how we can can repair the damage to ourselves and our posterity.

There is no more time to not know what chiropractic can do for us. We have to get in front of this crisis now.

Chiropractic is crucial to this process

Chiropractic care is essential to this process of healing.

We have to heal ourselves now so that we have the inner capacity to heal our planetary home.

We have to face who we are, what we are, and our power now. We have to wield our power wisely now.

Wisdom — healing — sometimes hurts. The pain is sometimes a necessary aspect of our evolution.

Chiropractic is an essential tool for speeding up this healing process, and helping us evolve into the creatures that we need to be in order to fix this hell that we have collectively created.

What ever happened to Aunt Rita?

You know, I never really knew my Aunt Rita well. She lived hundreds of kilometers away from me. I only ever saw her on summer holidays or at weddings.

But my Aunt Rita lived a life of service, one in which she cared for hundreds of children nad families in the school systems and churches of Garden City. She touched many lives whom I only know from witnessing the staggeringly long line of mourners that wrapped around the block of the school gymnasium in which her wake was held.

Aunt Rita died of skin cancer in 1998.

She she didn’t know she had it until pain got in the way of her service. By the time she felt pain, it was already too late for conventional medicine to help her.

In the absence of pain we must be vigilant

Maybe if chiropractic care played an additional role in her life, she would still be here today to serve.

It’s a question that is academic at this point; however, knowning what I know now, I have a pretty good idea that she would.

Now you know like I know

But I didn’t yet know that each chiropractic adjustment builds on the last to help the brain reorganize its patterning in order to give the mind and body the energy and resources to heal and evolve.

But now I do. And you do, too.

Spread the word, the love, and get checked and adjusted. Today.

Sometimes Healing Hurts, Pt. 1

January 30, 2018 by Claire Fitzpatrick

“There is no process that does not require time.” — 6th Chiropractic Principle, Ralph W. Stevenson, D.C.

Did I ever tell you how I came to chiropractic? I actually think I have, but I’ll tell you again.

I was a dumb teenage kid and I got into a lot of car accidents. I walked away from them, but my car did not.

Unlike a car, I have the ability to heal. That’s why I took for granted that I was okay.

But I wasn’t okay. I had jolted my spine into misalignment. I just didn’t know it because I didn’t have pain.

High school gave way to college, and college in North Carolina meant that I had to run two miles in twelve minutes in order to graduate.

“Um…what?”

Two miles in twelve minutes. Running.

That was PE 101. We called it PE run-oh-run.

(I actually just went to my alma mater’s web page to see if this is still the case. Oh my gosh; you kids have it so lucky. You get to do everything from shag dancing to integral yoga to fencing now! https://uncw.edu/shahs/facetofacelabs.html)

In 1984, at 18, I was a pack-a-day smoker who imbibed beer, wine, and double Big Macs and Whoppers on a regular basis. My regular breakfast was Captain Crunch on a pillow of soft-serve ice cream. My idea of a healthy lunch was chicken salad on toasted white bread. My idea of fun was head-banging at the local live rock bar, watching General Hospital and Mighty Mouse, and playing drinking games with the other meatheads like me.

I most certainly didn’t run.

I barely walked. Needless to say, I had a damn hard time moving my rear-end.

Something began happening to me, though. My left leg went numb.

It was the darndest thing. There was no sensation in a section of my left lower leg. I could pinch and punch it, but nothing.

I went to see the doctor about it, who recommended an orthopedist, who recommended a physical therapist.

Wrong target. Wrong therapy.

Three times a week for three months, I received electric stim and ultrasound on my leg. For three months, there was no change.

Then, it was winter break. I went home to New York and all was well.

One day during the trip, I took a bus to the City with my mother. We were going to visit my sister, who managed a Pizzaria Uno on 2nd Avenue at the time.

My back was achy. I remember it getting worse and worse all the way to the City. By the time we got to the restaurant, my pain was so great that I had to go to the bathroom. I was hyperventilating. Then my legs gave out.

I was face down on the black and white tiles of a Pizzaria Uno bathroom in New York City, 1985. That’s when chiropractic came into my life.

When You First Realize How Much You Need A Healthy Spine

My mother gave me some ibuprophin; eventually, I could stand — wobbly — again. My mother brought me to her chiropractor, who took xrays of my spine.

I had something called an L5 spondylolisthesis. Spon-dee-low-lith-s-thees-iss. It most likely began with a pars interarticularis defect that occurred on L5 left lamina earlier in life. A-pars-inter-arti-cu…

Basically, I had a break in one of my low back vertebrae — might have happened when I was a kid — that contributed to an instability in my low back. Eventually, one of my vertebrae moved a bit forward over my other one.

Here’s what a spondylolithesis looks like.

I had that picture on the right.

Because my vertebrae was so far out of alignment, the nerves that come out at that level and go down my legs were impinged. Hence the numbness in my leg that the orthopedist and the physical therapist missed.

The problem wasn’t in my leg. The problem was in my spine.

The break in the vertebrae was an old break. The misalignment occurred over time. My chiropractor let me know that this fix was going to take time.

What kind of time?

Months. Maybe even over a year.

My youth would help me beat it, but I had to clean up my lifestyle if I wanted it to be quicker (unfortunately, I didn’t clean up my lifestyle. It took longer).

Because I was a student in North Carolina, he found a chiropractor for me near the college and referred my case there.

But before I did, because it was scheduled, I went for a follow up to the orthopedist and told him what the chiropractors found. He said, “Chiropractors are quacks. Don’t listen to them. They don’t know what they’re doing. I’m going to set you up for six months of traction.”

Hmmm.

Chiropractic adjustments with people who found the cause of my problem or six-months of traction with someone who didn’t even think to look at my spine, who had made no difference at all before I lay face down on a bathroom floor in New York City?

I said TTFN to my orthopedist and began a nine-month journey of 3 times a week care with my chiropractor.

It wasn’t easy. Some days were more painful than others. Some weeks there was no change. Some weeks were all right.

Eventually, I noticed that sensation had returned to my leg. Then my spine got stronger and felt better. I had finally graduated to maintenance care.

Years went by.

Life happened, life happened some more — in fact, 15 years of life happened, and finally I decided that I wanted to be a chiropractor.

That’s a WHOLE other story. More years, more life.

I’ll tell you about it next time.