Battle Ground Back and Neck Pain

Headaches and Migraines

Migraine headaches afflict many people.  They can affect people from the very young to the very old.

They can affect YOU, a co-worker or even a spouse or a close friend.

Migraine symptoms include ‘severe pain’ on one side or your head that can last for days and can include nausea and sensitivity to light.

While many medical treatments address the symptoms, we address the cause of your headache pain.

We view migraines as something that is caused by pressure on sensitive nerve endings in you head, resulting from a chemical imbalance in the brain.

Since your brain controls the entire body’s function by communication through your nervous system, any interference to this communication affects your body.  If any spinal bones, which protect the nerves, get misaligned, there is a NEGATIVE effect on your body’s systems.

Muscles attached to your spinal bones overreact and become ‘spastic and irritated’ because your nerves are pulled on a compressed, then stretched and then they can become traumatized.

Headache pain can easily result from these imbalances.

By making sure your vertebrae are moving correctly, and not locked into place by your muscles, the muscles that support your head are then relieved of stress and spasms.

Your pain will then become diminished as the structure of your spinal bones of the neck is improved.

Don’t wait.  Your health is a serious matter.  If you take medication to cover it up, you’ll always have headaches. 

Don’t put your body through this trauma.  Call the office today.  The longer you wait, the harder it is to give you relief. 

Why all the Fuss?

          Don’t overlook your pain, no matter how small.  Back and neck pain are subjective which means you have to tell me what you pain feels like.  PAIN is important because it tells you…something is wrong.  Covering it up does not help the problem.   When you come to the office we will do definitive tests that can measure and diagnose your pain.  Therefore, it falls on you to communicate your pain symptoms to us.

          By accurately noting your pain symptoms, and giving us a clear picture of them, you are taking an important step toward getting diagnosis.  Here are some things to note: Pain intensity and Type of pain.

Pain Intensity

How bad does it hurt?  Pain intensity is a measure of how strong your pain is and these are important to us as only you can tell how much pain you are in.

As a pain sufferer, this is probably the most important part of the ordeal for you.  Intensity levels fluctuate, so it is impossible to get a useful, accurate measurement of them from our testing.  Instead, we use visual assessment tools and sometimes questionnaires to help you communicate our level of pain so we can do everything to help you as fast as we can.

Types of Pain

The types of painful feelings you have in your back or neck are an indication of what is going on in your spine.  This is a very important part of your care.  For example, if you experience burning, stabbing, or electrical sensations down one leg or arm, it probably indicates a very ‘irritated’ nerve.  I know you probably know what a tooth ache feels like, or even someone pinching you, but ALL pain is related to your nervous system.

If your muscles feel stiff or tight you may have pain due to an injury, or posture problems, or both.  Don’t Wait!  Get checked if you have any pain because pain is the last sign there is a problem, not the first.

Doctors are reporting a “steep rise” in the number of young children with kidney stones, according anecdotal data cited by The New York Times.“In China recently, many children who drank milk tainted with melamine–a toxic chemical illegaly added to watered-down milk to inflate the protein count– developed kidney stones,” the paper says.  “The increase in the United States is attributed to a host of factors, including a food additive that is both legal and ubiquitous:salt.”

Experts say children are consuming too much salt and too little water.They also blame ‘obesity’ for the increase in the number of pediatric kidney stone cases that doctors are seeing across the USA.

“The incidence of kidney stones in adults has also been rising, especially in women, and experts say they see more adults in their 20’s and 30’s with stones; in the past, it was more common in adults in their 40’s and 50’s,” the paper says.

Are your children drinking enough good pH water?  If not you need to think about what you’re feeding them and letting them drink.

Their health depends on your choices.

ARTHRITIS is, sadly, a very common and very painful condition.  It can make working and even basic living extremely difficult.  In order for treatment to prove effective in combating the symptoms and to allow the sufferer to live as normal a life as possible, you have to know more.  The two most common types of arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis, are very ’different in character’ and require completely different methods of diagnosis, as well as very different methods of treatment.

Rheumatiod arthritis is an inflammatory condition that affects as many as one in every hundred people.  It is caused by a malfunction in the body’s defense systems, possibly form pinched nerves.  The disease is not hereditary, no increased risk has been found if you have a sufferer in you immediate family.  In rheumatoid arthritis extra blood flow causes joints to become swollen and painful and in extreme cases can even permanently damage the joint.  It is essential to seek help to reduce inflammation, as the damage to joints is permanent and irreversible.

Osteoarthritis is a completely different condition, which affects the bones.  Unlike rheumatoid arthritis, there appears to be no genetic factor involved with osteoarthritis, although there are several factors that increase the risk of the condition developing.  Osteoarthritis is rare in young people, suggesting that in certain cases it is wear on the bones that causes the disease to develop.

Misalignment over time can cause this conditon.  Overweight people are also far more susceptible to the condition, especially with the knee joints, which suggests that excess strain put on a moving joint area will be a major factor in bringing on the condition.  ‘Stiff joints’ are the main symptom of osteoarthritis.

Although these two forms of arthritis account for the vast majority of sufferers, there are in fact over two hundred distinct types.  These types affect all sections of the population, young and old alike.

Some forms of the condition, such as ankylosing spondylitis, affect more men then women - which is in direct contrast to the two major types, where far more women are affected.  Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, another very uncommon form of arthritis, is found in nine times the number of women than it is in men.

One of the most common forms of arthritis, which is usually thought of as a completely different condition, is gout.  This extremely painful problem is caused by ‘uric acid’ and is at least controllable with the correct treatment, which we believe is ionized pH correct water and regular chiropractic care.

Sometimes arthritis can be a purley reactive condition brought on by another kind of condition.  In this case, the symptoms will usually disappear of their own accord, always provided that no permanent damage has occurred.

As arthritis comes in so many diverse forms, it is essential to get a correct diagnosis before attempting to treat the condition.  The first port of call is usually blood testing and X-rays. 

“21 Days Toward Vibrant Health.”

OK… so for the next 21 days, I’m going to give you the blueprint for vibrant health.

My goal is to change the way that you look at your health and hopefully your life.

Why 21 days? Because it takes 21 days to form a habit… and hopefully after you’ve gotten into the habit of vibrant health, you’ll graduate to the lifestyle and never ending journey towards it as well.

I’m going to call this “The 21 Day Journey Towards Vibrant Health”

Let’s first talk about the most important consideration… WHY.

WHY do you want to be healthier?

Whether you feel DRIVEN to a mission in life, or called to one, you won’t experience ultimate happiness and fulfillment if your body can’t get you across the finish line.

Let me ask you this question. Would you trade your health for money? If you had one million dollars but couldn’t get out of bed to enjoy it…would it be worth anything?

Think about that for a minute.

When I say the word “healthy”, what comes to mind? Is health merely the absence of sickness or disease? Unfortunately, for many it is. They say… “If I we’re 20 pounds lighter, I’d be healthy.” Or “If I didn’t have to suffer from chronic pain, I’d be healthy.” Or “If I didn’t have to feel like my stomach was on fire all of the time, I’d be healthy.”

But for some, the word “healthy” means something else…something more.

How about this notion… that if you’re actually healthy…really healthy, you simply FEEL better. And isn’t that really what we’re all after? We want to feel good. We want to feel good about how we look, we want to feel good knowing that we have the kind of energy it takes to enjoy time with our families and excel in our careers?

If you don’t have a good enough reason to GET healthy, you won’t stay the course.

Here’s a challenge. Obviously, since you’re reading this, you’re at least somewhat serious about achieving a better quality of health and of life.

Now… take this extra step and crystallize the WHY… Because if you have a compelling enough reason to not only GET healthy, but to STAY healthy, you’ll make healthy, vibrant living a HABIT and a lifestyle… and your journey towards it will never end.

What are You Rich in?

“I don’t know who or what to believe! I heard that fat is bad for me, but then somebody tells me how good flax oil is for you…and yet it’s fat.  Then I heard carbohydrates were bad for me and I should eat more protein…like the Atkins diet.  And then the Atkins guy dies of a heart attack, and I find out that the high protein diet makes you toxic.  One doctor tells you this and another one tells you that.  It seems that when it comes to health nobody can seem to agree.”

And the statistics support this truth.  We are rich in “money, stuff and things,” bit we’re very poor in our health. OUCH.

It’s sad but true… it seems people know more about how their cars operate then how their bodies do.  And equally as unfortunate is this… we treat our cars better.  Would you ever put anything in your car’s gas tank other than gas?  Heck NO! Then why do so many of us put something other than food in our bodies?  And no…Twinkies aren’t food.

This part is for certain…it’s silly to expect different results… positive results and progress where your health is concerned if your approach is the same as it’s over the last month or year.

Well… that’s really what this journey is all about. DISCOVERING health…not trying to INVENT it.  It’s about breaking things down to where they make sense.  And I believe if we can break out the truth, bit by bit, we’ll all be empowered to live much healthier and happier lives.

Just the fact that you’re reading this tells me that you desire more for yourself… and that’s great!  My promise to you is this…you’ll learn a lot more about your health over the next few weeks-and hopefully enjoy the process- and all it will cost you is a little bit of your time.

Living a vibrant and healthy life is a PROCESS…not an event.  You don’t just wake up one day and everything’s great.  There’s no magic pill…no Hollywood diet, no amazing miracle.  Vibrant health is a JOURNEY, not a destination.

And by the way…I’m just a guy…like anybody else talking about the subject of health.  I happen to have a lot of knowledge on the subject because I’ve tried to dig up truth to apply to MY body and MY life.  But there are a TON of great resources out there…and people to lean on.

So, Keep learning on your journey, and keep searching for truths that will empower you to succeed in the arena of your health.  So…here’s how to take control of your health…get informed, stay informed, and this is the most important thing…apply what you know… even if it’s just a little bit…EVERY day.  Make UNDERSTANDING your body a priority, and make health and vibrant living a journey.

John is the kind of guy you love to hate.   He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say.  When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, ‘If I were any better, I would be twins!’

He was a natural motivator.

If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, ‘I don’t get it!’ ‘You can’t be a positive person all of the time.  How do you do it?’

He replied, ‘Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today.  You can choose to be in a good mood or…you can choose to be in a bad mood, I choose to be in a good mood.’

Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or…I can choose to learn from it.  I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or…I can point out the positive side of life.  I choose the positive side of life.

‘Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,’ I protested. ‘Yes, it is,’ he said.  ’Life is all about choices.  When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice.  You choose how you react to situations.  You choose how people affect your mood.

You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood.  The bottom line:  It’s your choice how you live your life.’ I reflected on what he said.  Soon hereafter, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business.  We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back. I saw him about six months after the accident.

When I asked him how he was, he replied, ‘If I were any better, I’d be twins…Wanna see my scars?’ I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place.

‘The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter,’ he replied.  ’Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices:  I could choose to live or…I could choose to die.  I chose to live.’ ‘Weren’t you scared?  Did you lose consciousness?’  I asked. He continued, ‘…the paramedics were great.

They kept telling me I was going to be fine.  But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared.  In their eyes, I read ‘he’s a dead man’.  I knew I needed to take action.’  ’What did you do?’ I asked. ‘Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,’ said John.  ’She asked if I was allergic to anything ‘Yes, I replied.’  The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply.  I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Gravity”

Over their laughter, I told them, ‘I am choosing to live.  Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.’

I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.’  After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. You have two choices now: 1. Take care of yourself the best way you know how. 2. Just go on doing what you’ve always done and expect something different to happen.

In the early 1950’s, Winifred Gardella was a poster child for the March of Dimes.  Her picture was published in the newspapers  to raise huge sums of money for the March of Dimes in San Francisco.  Nationally, her image raised millions of dollars to help fight the dreaded crippler, POLIO.  Her sad, innocent face and her tiny body supported on crutches and leg braces, made many Americans reach into their pockets to donate.

But the March of Dimes couldn’t help Winifred.  After two and a half years, under their doctor’s expert care, her parents were told: “There is no hope.”

Despite this dire prediction, her grandparents were determined to find a cure.

They were not about to accept the opinion of so-called “medical experts.”  They decided to choose their own health care  approach and took Winifred to Dr. Lewis Robertson, a chiropractor.

In less than six months of having her nerve interference corrected, Winifred Gardella threw away her crutches and braces and went for a walk with her chiropractor. 

She’s been walking ever since!

It is important to understand that as a doctor of chiropractic I do not treat conditions or diseases. My expertise is in checking your child’s spine for misalignments that impair their nervous system function- therefore affecting their overall body function.

The bones of their spine, the vertebrae, house and protect their spinal cord. Their spinal cord is an extension of their brain and carries information from their brain to their body parts and back to their brain again. Subluxations (misalignments) interfere with their nerves’ ability to transmit this vital information.

Their nerve system controls and coordinates the function of all the systems in their body including their: circulatory, respiratory, digestive, hormonal, eliminative, and immune systems. Any aspect of their health may be impaired by this nerve interference. The chiropractic adjustment restores their nerve system function allowing their body the ability to express a greater state of health and well-being. It’s that simple. Don’t let your children suffer, especially the little ones that can’t tell you how they feel. Call our office today. 360-687-6307 It’s a non-invasive procedure and there are NO shots involved. Just good adjustments.

What you think about most is what you get.

There is a law of attraction in nature.  Or maybe it’s psychological.  I don’t know and frankly I don’t care.   It’s more useful to know about how a principle works then why it works, and this one is laid out for you below.

Here it is in a nutshell.  What is in your mind is reflected “out there”, in what you experience as your reality.

Afraid of losing it?  Afraid of competition?  Afraid of the economy?  Then all the goblins that you fear will be drawn to you.  Protracted fear or worry means that you’re spending too much unprofitable time in the future.

The only useful purpose of fear is to remind you to PLAN.  So do it.  Plan to protect yourself form obvious harm, and then focus on what you can do in the PRESENT.  Because the present is where your future is being created.  Plunge ahead.  Don’t become timid.  If you play it TOO safe you’ll freeze in place and trade your life away for nothing.

Depressed?  Then everything you think, see or hear will reinforce your lack of energy, engagement and action.  Depression means that you’re spending too much passive time thinking about the past, and allowing it to imprison you in the present and steal your future.  When you focus on the present you can change things.  You can’t change the past, only your assessment of it.

Angry?  Then you’ll get a lot of angry people to tussle with.  Your life will fill up with honking horns and people pushing you around and you’ll spend all your time pushing back.  Get over your anger by dealing with the person who causes it – even if it’s the person who is looking back at you from the mirror.  Believe me; anger doesn’t get any better with age.  It sours a person.

It’s a good idea to choose your habitual thought patterns carefully.

Love, optimism and gratitude are good choices.  These states of mind will inspire you to explore, to create, to grow and to give.  People and opportunities will become attracted to you.  And the goblins and angry people will get smaller and quieter and less important, and finally they’ll just fade out and go away.

Events are just events until our thoughts and reactions turn them into experience.  What the experience means, how useful it might be, those are the choices that e make –they’re the stories we tell ourselves about our lives.  The point of choice comes when you have to deal with a challenging situation.  Will you call it a “bad break” –some S.O.B was out to get you?   OR can you call it just “something that happened,” giving yourself a chance to label it in the most nourishing way possible?

You might as well be positive.  Bottom line- it works better and it takes less effort.  It makes you easier to be around and more creative ad good-natured.  And your immune system will be strengthened.  We’re taught that it’s not reasonable to expect to win all the time.  Nonsense! That kind of thinking numbs ambition and smothers greatness.  Even worse, it leads to excuses.  Excuses don’t accomplish anything so do NOT be reasonable.  Actually, achieving the impossible is reasonable and quite normal–you’ve done it thousands of times.  EVERYTHING you do now was impossible for you before you did it the first time, from feeding yourself to balancing your checkbook to becoming a real doctor who will help people.  TRY THIS FOR A WEEK.  Focus on what you want instead of what you don’t want.  Practice the skills of optimism, gratitude, generosity, and forgiveness and your life will expand.  Yes, that’s right. PRACTICE.

Good attitudes are skills that you develop through repetition, just like swimming or buttering toast.  And skills become second nature through practice.  You will become stronger and more relaxed when you decide that you might as well thrive.  A commitment to expectancy is another skill, and it’s decisive and magnetic.  It creates focus and attracts good fortune.  People, patients and opportunities will be drawn to you.  Life starts to get easier.  And your practice becomes more fun.  Go ahead and test it.  What have you got to lose?  The only way you can fail at anything is to “quit trying!”