60 Day Turnaround

CNN News reports that several nurses in Indiana refused the flu shot, and then were fired for not taking it.  Sue Schrock and others chose not to receive the shot for medical as well as religious reasons, and the hospital chose to fire her over that decision.  This isn’t new, hospital employees have had their jobs threatened over denying vaccinations for years.

What is new, is that this story is becoming common place.  Many of you remember the two major flu scares that turned into nothing in the last eight years.  First the Bird Flu (Avian Flu) was hyped up to pandemic proportions, even though the flu itself did little damage that year.  One of the reasons this, as well as the shortly following swine flu, were exploited to such levels, the falsified data that is often used when reporting on flu deaths.

The CNN Live video that can be found here: http://youtu.be/7jnaQWTusyQ   is a great way to get in touch with false reporting.  The chief medical correspondent uses an often overstated stat, that 36,000 people die each year from the flu.  Fortunately, she is dead wrong.  The CDC reports that in our country, about 2,000 people at most die in a single year from the flu.  But as we look closer, we will find the 36,000 number to actually be directly attributable to pneumonia.  Pneumonia can come from the flu, but the reality is that it can come from almost any type and kind of infection, both viral and bacterial.

Influenza vaccine supporting policy makers, drug manufacturers and medical doctors (anyone who stands to profit from the vaccine in most cases); has been “borrowing” this 36,000 number for years.    It makes for a pretty convincing NEED for a drug that will save you from flu risk… but will it save you?

Let me pull out an excerpt from the NY Time from this past November for you.  If you have always turned your ear when we start spouting negativity about the flu shot, its time you focused in:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/reassessing-flu-shots-as-the-season-draws-near/

For vaccine manufacturers, it’s a bonanza:Influenza shots — given every year, unlike many other vaccines — are a multibillion-dollar global business.

But how good are they?

Last month,, in a step tantamount to heresy in the public health world, scientists at the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota released a report saying that influenza vaccinations provide only modest protection for healthy young and middle-age adults, and little if any protection for those 65 and older, who are most likely to succumb to the illness or its complications. Moreover, the report’s authors concluded, federal vaccination recommendations, which have expanded in recent years, are based on inadequate evidence and poorly executed studies.

These are the scientists who are paid to produce more information that supports using flu shots, not the opposite.  But they couldn’t deny the research that was lying in front of them.  Conscious overcame the pocket book, and the report comes out as it should be.

Sue shouldn’t have lost her job.  She made a choice to avoid the toxins of the shot, and in so doing, upset the policy based more on image and profitability than anything else.  Most vaccines have not been blockbuster drugs, but the flu shot always is.  Look back through our archives, and read about the year that Rumsfield made millions, as he influenced the decision for the government to pour billions into buying the Avian flu vaccine (didn’t really exist as it was later found to be inadequate against that strain).  The vaccine was manufactured by a company that he had significant ownership in.  The patent was held by a different company, but his involvement was on the production side.

Money seems to sit behind so many of these decisions. Be well, don’t be fooled. – Dr. E

Well, I don’t like the word “sick”, so Expressing Health is what I chose.  But what is expressing health vs. being sick?  The expression of health happens in many ways, the most obvious and common in households with smaller children, is fever.

Nobody likes a fever when they have it themselves, many parents don’t like it when their children express fevers, but I appreciate it, if I see signs of illness coming into one of my kids I immediately check them, and usually adjust their atlas, in hopes of seeing the expression of health step up to a fever level.  

Interferon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferon) interferes with the replication of viruses, and in so doing causes you to stop a cold faster.  It has been demonstrated that a fever improves the production of interferon and interleukin, helping to kill off a viral invasion faster.  But the research shows a BIG increase in production happens at 41 degrees Celsius  or 105.8 degrees F!   Good news… it also picks up a lot around 102, so you don’t need to start hoping for 105 degree fevers, but I recommend you don’t fear them as much as culture does.  (http://meeting.ascopubs.org/cgi/content/abstract/28/15_suppl/8569)

But on this whole expression of health thing, I hate to sound like everyone else, every other year… but this year has been bad!  I don’t remember any year in the 12 that I have been practicing, where this many people have been sick all at once, and especially around Christmas.  This is really bad… or good, depending on how you look at the symptoms.  But it has been a significant season for ill.

At times, it makes me feel like an unsuccessful chiropractor, as I look at your immune function as one of the most important measures of your health (it is really hard to know if someone is healthy, as a matter of fact, it is impossible… I don’t care who tells you that you are healthy, I don’t believe there is any way of knowing… it is simply faith in what you are doing, everything else is a testing procedure that falls short of knowing… it is just an educated guess).  So the good news, is that testimonials that are positive, will always pull me out of the thought that we aren’t doing well enough. And I have two that came just in time.

Last night as I climbed into bed at 1:30, my wife woke up and said “can you adjust me?”  I checked her then adjusted her atlas… today she tells me “I never got a chance to, but I was going to facebook post ‘Thank God for my husband and chiropractic, I went to bed feeling like death, woke up at 1:30 feeling worse than death, got adjusted in one place, then woke up again 2 hours later to go to the bathroom, and I felt like the world had been lifted from me”.  I told her to get up and go post it.  Well, she is in bed, so maybe tomorrow.  🙂

Next, last night I had a patient (1 of the 20 or so of you to report sickness this season) who shared with me how she had been expressing health over Christmas.  But then she went on, “so I began to look back over my year, and you know, February will be one year since I started getting adjusted, and January of last year was the last time I got sick at all… this year has been great!”  Good news… so even though we cannot tell if she is healthy, we can surmise that her immune system is working better, and that can never be bad.

So I have’t gotten sick, even though I have had coughs from patients literally spray my face with mucous, and I have been so close to the “sickness breath” that I have tasted it.  So why have I not gotten sick?  Don’t try to tell me it is luck, this has nothing to do with luck, it is by design.  And here is the design.

Probiotics, today I drank two AMASAI’s because I felt like my exposure was high, so increasing the assistance of the first line of defense (you realize probiotics are outside beings that support your function, and they kill many viruses and bacteria through their waste).  I have been drinking the NuVino fermented products for their unique composition of probiotics, and I have been eating probiotic rich Live Foods also from Beyond Organic.  I think all of these have contributed to my health.

Next, I watch my atlas closely.  I palpate it myself several times a day, checking for tenderness and balance.  If I feel anything awry, I am getting adjusted.  Sleep… well, that has been totally off, so this might be the week/weekend that I finally fall to ill.  Exercise – I have read enough research on high inensity at low bursts having immuno-boosting effect, that I work hard to maintain my workouts without absence this time of year.  

This design includes a diet rich in healthy fats and vegetables (I get much of my fat from AMASAI, pasture butter, coconut oil and almond butter).  I also got a ton of Vitamin D from the fat in AMASAI… I think that is important.  I don’t take in much vitamin C on purpose, so that if I have a feeling of illness, I can take a large dose, and have a therapeutic effect.  All by design.

So, if you have noticed the family seems a little more “off” this year… yeah, I agree.  Lets do something about it.  Follow my lead, and lets get a new lifestyle.  One rich with a health focus, and completely shunning the cultural issues that abound.  

I am blunt, and urgent.  Change, do it now.  Be well and blessed – Dr. E

A New Year, a Knew You! This is a chance for you to invite your friends and family to get their spines checked. Exam, Scan and X-rays for ONLY $25!

Call the office now at 770-517-2240 to make an appointment today. 

Usually I would be writing the New Years Resolution Sprout today, but instead, I find myself inspired to write about my Christmas.  If there is one thing that I will stick to my guns on, it is the importance of my time away, from you!  Thus the equivalent, is your time away, from someone else, or something else, or whatever it is.  God told us to take the seventh day as a day of rest, complete rest, and I doubt any of us do it.

I know I don’t.  At times I have been really committed… why not, I don’t eat pork because God said don’t, so it doesn’t make sense for me to work when there is a sabbath to be observed.  So it was really important to me this year to give my family as much of me as possible over this past week, and I hope you did the same.  

So a bunch of you are aware that my wife had the same birthday as I did earlier in the year, yeah, one of those magical numbers, I believe 35 is the one we are using.  Anyways, if you also recall, she is a Christmas birthday, so it is important for me to really work on making it special, as most people are a little too preoccupied to get involved with her birthday celebration.  Well, this year was cool, I was able to get about 50 people to call or text her on her birthday (yes, on Christmas), to wish her a happy birthday.  I had changed her ringtone to Leif Garrett’s Birthday cover of the Beatles song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ousu_3UAa1g) and it was awesome to see her shock when she realized that it was her cell phone ringing everytime this Birthday song came on.

Yeah, Christmas was a good day.  And the thing that stuck out, was that these people who were so involved with their families and their day, were able to take the time to call.  I love that about people, the willingness to step out and make someone else feel loved.  How awesome is that?

Well, I was able to surprise my wife with a party as well, which I was also very pleased about.  Not that I could surprise her, but that two days before Christmas I was able to get people to commit!  Once again, what an awesome output of love and effort.  She had a great time.  The entire week was a success.

 

Every year, we take a night after Christmas to stay at a hotel downtown, and last year and this year, we have stayed two, and brought our kids down for the second night (don’t ever expect to see me in the office in the days between Christmas and New Years, that will not happen).  This has become one of the most memorable parts of our season.  The girls love it, staying downtown, even if we were to do nothing, their memory is in the hotel, the city, the decorations, and brisk air.  

With it being such a special birthday, and with a work engagement on the horizon for me in New York, I made some extra preparations for my wife.  So you will miss me from the 17th – the 21st of this month, I will be back on the 21st in the evening (Martin Luther King Jr Day), and then I am back out on that Friday from the 25th through the 29th.  In New York City for a work event, and also in Puerto Rico for a birthday vacation.   My kids are coming to NYC with us, first time for them, should be a fun family trip.  Once I clear out of this busy month, we will step into a busy office routine.

We will start the Total Food Makeover on the first Monday night in February, 2/4.  We will also host an in office Beyond Organic Skin Care Party on Wednesday February 6th at 11:45am.  This will be an opportunity to hear me speak about why clean is so important, and a chance to test it out.  So don’t wear your makeup to this one.  There will be an opportunity to test the product, and we will probably have to limit the number to 25 people for the sake of time.  

And on that, I do want to talk about the New Year for just a moment.  I have been really working on planning how to grow both the Juice Plus and Beyond Organic businesses that I am involved with over the last three months.  I have HUGE plans for 2013 (just so you know, the reason why these are such a focus, is because when my shoulder was hurt, my practice suffered incredibly… I didn’t like the feeling that so many of my patients weren’t committed to what I teach, but rather to my adjustment… another reason why I am comfortable traveling, I need to somehow help you understand that it doesn’t matter hoe you feel after an adjustment, every time someone makes reference to my adjustments feeling different, it makes me want to quit.  Our philosophy puts no value on what you feel post adjustment, and everything on what happens to your nervous system… you cannot feel that… so my point, though most think that I must like being told that “your adjustments are different and I really only like those”, I actually hate hearing that… it just informs me that my education on the value of the underlying changes has likely fallen on deaf ears.)

So here are all my inspirations for writing this, piled into one.

I fight for the time I get to spend with my family, because in the end, I know that I will be judged for that.  Maybe as part of God’s judgement, but definitely as part of my children’s judgement when they consider who their dad is/was to them.  In addition, I so believe that love is a constant effort in marriage.  It is so easy for me to love you, and for you me… because we never have to raise kids together or clean a house together.  Add that, and BOOM, things go wrong.  I hope you are considering these same things in your life.

And I want you to trust me as the leader of your health.  I do what I do to lead you, not to adjust you.  Sure I can do that, but so can a reasonably trained monkey if we just teach him what and when.  But he could never understand how to uphold the truths f a philosophy that will actually lead you to greater health.  I have seen so many more people sick this year than any in my career, and as I listen to the concerns, and questions, what I really hear, is that there is an inability to truly understand the philosophical basis of our healthcare message at the core of most battles.  

That philosophical message is simply, God did not make you to need anything for your health.  Period.  I know everyone wants more, but the power in that phrase is ridiculous.  Just pull back and repeat it, and again.  Then actually stop scoffing and consider trusting it.  If there is one major thing I want to start out with for 2013, it is to have you look at me as the person here to help lead you to better decisions, and greater faith.  Even if I were to only sit by and watch you get adjusted, I believe my value is in what I can teach, not what I can do.

For that reason, if there is one thing that should truly be important to you when it comes to y office, it is to come to our extra workshops.  Come spend time in our presence and communicate with us.  I don’t have all the answers, but one thing that will always be true, is that I differ to a philosophy that has served my family and myself to great health.  My prayer is that you would have the same.  It has been a great week of reflection of me, and I just wanted to share.  Be well and blessed!  Dr. E

PS – it is not that I am saying that your spine isn’t the most important component of your health, it is.  Its that we are good at it because of our focus and effort, not because of what you feel coming off of the table.  Put a target out there in the distance, and aim for it… and forget about the journey along the way, just the direction.

Come join us for two hours of fun on New Years Eve!  Adjustments will be flying fast for what is normally a very busy window of time.  Well have a fun playlist of secular music to celebrate the New Year, and if you want, join us at CrossFit Towne Lake for a partner workout at 9:30am before hand (yes, the doctors will be sweaty and smelly during the shift, be prepared)!

You know every year there comes a day that I write about love.  Tonight, after midnight, as I prepare for this upcoming week, I am thinking about love.  Love.  What a powerful emotion.

I was telling my daughter Ansley, how I would die for her.  This was last week, but we were in discussion about how powerful love is, and I was explaining that if she were in danger, that I would put myself in danger to rescue her from it.  I know at five, she cannot totally grasp this, but she had an idea.  I saw it in her eyes as the moistened from our discussion.  

I sometimes wonder what Joseph thought, as he stared down into Jesus’ eyes on that first night.  Was it the same thought?  I would die for you?  I doubt he knew that it would be the other way around.  So as a a new dad, he was blinded by the moment, and had no way of seeing the reality of what would come.

Love.

I appreciate that I have a mix of patients who are Christians, and those who are not.  And for those who are not, I hope you know I mean no disrespect of you when I write these things.  But if you were to look at Christ’s life, and consider Him just a man, not Messiah.  You would walk away with the same position, “nobody in history has loved like this Guy”.  He truly embodied love in every way, and if there is one valuable thing to do at Christmas time, it is to honor that with more love.

My wife has a birthday on Christmas Day.  Kind of cool.  My eldest daughter was due on Christmas Eve, but ended up being two weeks late.  It would have been cool to have had her on Christmas Day too, but that wasn’t the plan.  So back to my wife.  Every year, I attempt to make her birthday special.  To do something that will stand out as a great day for her.  Whether it be to give her something nicer, surprise her with something, or to show her a greater example of my love for her.

As I reflect, the loving always leaves a longer impression.  Even over nice jewelry… weird.

So my end point in writing this, is to point you in the direction of loving like crazy.  Going beyond what seems like possibility, and picking a day, to really love someone to death.  I don’t care what day, for me it will be my wife for many days.  But I will do what I can to kill myself for her, die to self, so that she can be first in all things.

I bet you have someone in your life who would respond immensely to that kind of love.  I don’t think it is much to ask of yourself, especially when you see it as a reflection of what happened between Christmas day and Easter.

Be well, be blessed and Merry Christmas!  – Dr. E

We will have Dr. Donnie here normal business hours on Thursday and Friday. Monday 12/31 the office will be open and Dr. Eric will be adjusting from 11-1 only.  Hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. May God Bless you all!

First off, I learned how to find a deeper connection to my feminine side.  So I am planning on applying some stuff tonight (I call it stuff, so that I can stay in touch with my masculine side, using the word “toner” as it applies to my own skin seems a little too soft).  But really, in the last few days preparing for this talk, I have found a desire to take better care of my face.  

I already do a decent job with my body, using clean soaps and shampoos, as well as minimizing toxins.  I gave up antiperspirant over a decade ago, exchanging it for deodorant.  I still use some fragrance in my deodorant, but I have reviewed this and consider it minimally toxic.  I apply organic lotion, and have been fairly sunscreen free (for understanding of this, google – “sunscreen concerns” and read both sides, you’ll quickly understand) for the last five years.

But my face… I have never taken extra care of my face, and I get why it is important. So what was the party, it was a testing party of the Beyond Organic Anti-aging system.  My wife and I hosted it at the house, and are now considering how we would alter this and host at the office in the future.  It was good, and my learning was significant.  First off, the idea of anti-aging for most, is an idea of beauty and fighting off the appearance of aging.

But what I took away from this, is that anti-aging is less about the appearance of aging, and more about the health of aging.  If I am going to “Not” age, then I want my health to be the equivalent of a younger and better me.  And when we consider that the skin is the largest organ in the body, and it absorbs EVERYTHING you put on it, I quickly not only consider the value of anti aging for appearance, but how well can I maintain this FIRST LINE of defense from foreign invaders.  And that means a little extra care.  

As I dug, I actually wondered if some of my sinus complaint patients could do better if they had  a buffer between their skin absorption, and toxins.  The other thing I learned, is that the people whom I interact with through my office and outside, seem to be putting forth a significant effort to find a good answer.  I was pleased to find that many of the attendees were trying to make a healthy choice already.  But they still seemed to fall short in general when reviewing the ingredients in their commonly used products.

One thing I can say without a doubt, my wife’s skin has looked amazing in the last two months that she has been using this product, firmer ad better structured.  It has the appearance of better health, and more resistance to attack.  Another thing I learned, the IgE (Immunoglobulin E) which resides in the skin, is easily wiped out by alcohol, and by the irritation from common chemical ingredients on your bathroom counter.  So bad, it can cause the natural defense of the skin, to be completely muted, allowing infection to occur more easily from staph, as well as leading an open door for mutation to occur, as the immune system is less responsive to killing newly altered cells.

The skin… definitely important, definitely neglected, and highly under regulated when we consider the products that are made for it.  I’ll never forget my organic skin mentor saying a few years back, “The skin is the most important place to go organic first”, and the reason was not because she was in the organic skincare industry, but because the skin absorbs everything, right into your system.  Big time concerns lie here.

So my last bit of knowledge… women sure understand the difference between a cleanser, a toner and a serum.  Which led me to understand that this is an area that is exploding, healthy skin care is huge.  And for good reason… so if you want to join the team, and get the knowledge, let m know.  

Be well and be Blessed! – Dr. E