Our goal is to get you back to living your life!

Monthly Archives: November 2017

·

And the Vitamin is….

     It’s that time of year again.  The common cold is making itself more common.  If you haven’t been hit by it yet, it seems inevitable that it will rear its ugly head soon enough.  For a long time, Vitamin C has been the sweetheart of the nutrition world for fighting off the cold.  More recently, Zinc has been shown to help reduce the length of the cold as well.

While these two work very well, we are missing out on a powerhouse vitamin that not only has the ability to help guard against the common cold but has many other fantastic benefits.  It also helps with mood; especially the seasonal depression that is really setting in now.  This vitamin helps with energy levels and generally makes us feel better.  Almost every single cell in the human body has a receptor for… Vitamin D.  We are not sure what all of them do yet but the benefits of keeping your levels high are well documented.  Guess what Oregonians? Because of where we live, there is no chance that we will get enough vitamin D due to sun exposure and diet…so, we have to supplement.

The FDA suggests that we consume 400 IUs of Vitamin D every day.  I suggest that we are closer to 1000-2000IUs per day.  If and when I do get that nasty cold, I take Zinc along with 4000-6000IUs of Vitamin D until it is gone and I have seen my 2-3 week long colds reduced to just days.

Getting your Vitamin D levels up has myriad health benefits, some of which we may not even know yet.  It is a cheap and easy way to increase your health, especially during the cold and flu season.

·

What’s up with the Crystals and Vials?

I get asked by patients what our motto means…I addressed it in one of my early videos, but I realized that I have never discussed it in a blog, so here we go.

Chiropractic, as a profession, has been going through transition for the past 30ish years where the philosophy (magic) of chiropractic has been challenged by the doctors who want the profession to progress down a scientific road. Recently, it is trending into a 50/50 split of those Chiropractors that still hold to the more mystical forms of treatment and those that stick closer to the research of what chiropractic actually is and what it can do.crystals

You can probably tell from my admittedly biased previous paragraph that I fall into the scientific side of chiropractic. Some of the older school doctors practice in some interesting ways that can include placing crystals on your body, shaking vials of “medicine” next to your body to decide how much you need to buy, and even pressing your arm down to decide where your spine is “out of place” so they can fix it and cure your heart disease. It can get a little crazy out there.

My opinion of chiropractic is that we are experts in musculoskeletal conditions. We take joints that aren’t performing at their best and restore the movement and function to those joints. This helps the muscles, ligaments, and other soft tissues function at their best. We can help those that are injured in many ways. For example, a car accident, work injuries and sports injuries, and the run of the mill, “I slept wrong and my neck hurts”. What chiropractic medicine does is pretty amazing and it helps so many people without the need to work miracles with magic potions.

That is why at Straight Up Chiropractic we say, “No crystals, no vials, just Straight Up Chiropractic”.