Chiropractic Cares Program

Recently I (Amber) was inspired by a couple of moving stories in our office of families in need of care who could not afford to pay for it. It got me thinking about what I could do to help. One case was particularly close to my heart – it was my own family member - so I decided to pay for some of his care. I do not tell you this to brag but to demonstrate how desperately he needed Chiropractic care and how positive I was that it would help him recover. I knew it was the most important treatment his body needed at the time. I soon realized that I was not able to pay for his care for very long as my budget was stretched already. Then inspiration hit me! If I was in this situation with my family member, and Patient A (the other story that inspired me) was in the same situation with her friend, Patient B, then there must be more people willing to open their pocket books to help out friends and family in need of care. Thus, the Chiropractic Cares Program was born.

I know I am not the only person who believes that no one should have to walk around with a subluxated spine just because they can’t afford to be adjusted. I also know that I am not the only one who believes in the power of the body to heal itself when interferences to the nervous system are removed by a Chiropractor. I hear amazing Chiropractic success stories every day; if you are still reading this then you might have one of your own. My vision is to have a steady stream of support coming in from our patients so that we can extend the gift of health and vitality to those who need it but can’t afford it. Every day we do our best at Family First Chiropractic to help as many people as we can, but just like me, who can’t afford to cover the entire cost of care for my family member, neither can a lot of you and neither can we expect the office to cover the entire cost and still stay in business to serve us. But if we all join together, we can make a difference and no one has to carry the cost of another’s care on their own. They say it takes a village to raise a child, this is my concept at well. If we, as a community of chiropractic patients, pool our resources, we can give the opportunity to those who are less fortunate than us to join our family. 

So how will this work? While I will gladly accept cash donations, I realize that not everyone can afford to donate cash all the time. I also realize that since I can’t give tax deductible receipts at this time, and there are so many other worthy causes that can, you need to donate where your heart guides you. So, it starts with this - thank you cards. If you have referred friends or family to Family First Chiropractic before, than you know that we send out thank you cards. The thank you card, as stated inside, is good for one complimentary adjustment for yourself or for one complimentary new patient appointment for you to pass along to someone else. A lot of people don’t need a free adjustment because either they have insurance or can afford to pay for their care. It is as easy as donating your thank you cards to the Chiropractic Cares Program so that we can pass it along to someone who really needs it.

The second way we can raise money to jump start this program is our annual Christmas party. Doctors Jason and Danella have agreed that all of the donations for the adjustments at our Christmas party this year will go to the Chiropractic Cares Program. So make sure you book an appointment for our Christmas party to get your Pre-Christmas adjustment.

The third way is - I want to hear from you. If you are as passionate about Chiropractic as I am and want to see more people benefit from Chiropractic care then let me know if you have any creative ideas, time or expertise to offer. This is a brand new idea with nothing like it in Canada and I’m new to starting a charity, so I will take any help I can get. Please come and talk to me if you have something to contribute.

Be on the lookout for future opportunities to donate. I hope to have some creative products and events to offer to raise money. The next time you come into the office you will see a big thermometer on the wall that I will use to track our donations. There will also be a box for you to put your thank you cards and other donations in. Once we have enough money to actually start providing care, there will be an application procedure put in place to help determine who qualifies for support. I envision using this money not only to bring in new patients who otherwise can’t start care but also to help our existing patients when they experience financial setbacks. So I leave you with this, if tomorrow you woke up and you lost your job and your benefits and you walked out your front door and slipped on the ice…

Can you do it?

As some of you know... we are on facebook.  A friend sent me a link to this wonderful website that challenges you to sit and do nothing for two minutes.  I thought... I can do that... no problem.  I opened the link, sat for what a felt like a minute... got fidgety and moved my mouse... "FAIL" in big red letters came across the screen with the reality checker that only 15 seconds had gone by.  So I took a big breath.  Told myself... "OK Danella... stop thinking about work, stop thinking about family, stop everything... take two minutes for yourself".  So I hit the restart button and sat for the full two minutes.  I listened to the sound of the waves.  I breathed full and complete breaths.  After my two minute time had lapsed I felt calm and relaxed.  My internal stress was gone (which before those two minutes I had no concept that I was even carrying around), and I went on to finish my work in a much more alert and present way.

So now I challenge you... can you do it?  Can you take some time for yourself and just sit and listen to the waves.      Your nervous system will thank you for it!

http://www.donothingfor2minutes.com/

Time to get those sedentary bones off the proverbial misaligned couch

I’m sure everyone at one time or other has experienced that “achey, stiff” feeling we get after sitting or lying down for a prolonged period of time.  Like when you drove 12 hours straight on a family road trip or the time you watched a doubleheader of football games on a Sunday afternoon.  How quick or sharp are your reflexes or muscles after that prolonged period?  Could you immediately spring to life and run a 100 meter dash.....probably not.  How long does it take you to clear the cobwebs and get the “engines” going again?  Now imagine not moving for a week, a month or even years.

Believe or not that is, as a chiropractor, what I am faced with everyday- individual spinal segments that have been couch potatoes for far too long.  Hundreds of these lazy little couch potatoes come into my office each day and my job is to get them off those couches and moving again. 

“Hey you, little Miss C5 Vertebrae, lets go...get off your butt!  And you too Mr. L4, why don’t you do something with your life!!”, I yell with my adjustments.

You might be asking, “Why can’t I do the yelling by exercising more often?”.  Great question.  The answer is that we exercise with our voluntary system of muscles and joints but that system is built upon and dependent on a reflexively-controlled involuntary system.  Your posture and alignment is controlled by a very intricate and complex involuntary system.  That is why you can’t “exercise” your C5 back into normal alignment and motion.  If you could, I’d be out of a job.

This postural control system is dependent upon ALL the information and data provided by the normal (normal is healthy) motion of each and every segment in the spine and joints in the body- all hooked and wired up with motion sensors and detectors feeding information to that big computer in the sky.....your brain.  If there is no motion, there is no data or information.  This increases the chances of your body making “positional errors” and causing injury.  Ever hurt your back just tying your shoes or some other seemingly benign activity?  Now you know what I am talking about.  The longer you’ve had these areas of sedentary bones, the longer the brain has been without key information needed to coordinate normal healthy movement.  Chiropractors specialize in the assessment and correction of these areas and are a critical part of helping you live a healthier, more vital life.  Irregardless of symptoms or conditions, everyone could use healthier movement and alignment....so don’t delay, get checked today!

Remember, Life is Motion and Motion is Life.
Dr. Jason Whittaker

why I say "No" to Pop

This past weekend I was at a family funeral for my dear aunt Verda.  She was a wonderful aunt who welcomed you with open arms and squeezed really really tight!  She would have loved that her funeral gave us the opportunity to have a mini family reunion.  It was a wonderful gathering filled with lots of laughter, tears and ofcourse... food and drinks!  What I wasn't prepared for was when my 7 year old little sweet heart came around the corner with her cousin carrying a can of coke!  Arrrggghhh!  Up to this point my daughter has never had a can of pop and I had hoped to continue that for as long as I could get away with it.  So across the deck I watched as she and her cousin went up to her cousin's mom (my cousin) to ask if they can have a can of coke... "Ofcourse you can!" was the answer.   I'll give my daughter some credit here, because she knows that coke is not good for you.  She walked across the deck and asked "Mom... can I PLEASE try some coke?"....  What's a super health conscious mom to do?   I let her have the darn can of coke, with my inner voice screaming at me the entire time.  Sometimes you just have to let your guard down and let them try it.  I wish I could tell you that she took one sip and she hated it, but that would have been too easy.  She drank about 1/2 the can and then went to play.

In the meantime my Mom and another cousin was sitting next to me and they could see that I was having difficulty with the decision.  My cousin could not believe that she had never had a can of coke (and potentially many readers may have a hard time as well), and couldn't understand why I would restrict pop from her diet.   It's no wonder that he would have a hard time with the concept since in Canada the average canadian consumes 119.8 litres of pop per year (which is less than the 216 litres per year that our neighbors south of the boarder drink) and marketers spend approximately 500 million dollars a year to market the stuff too us.

So we all have heard that pop isn't that great for us, but do we really understand why?   Some US statistics about pop consumption raise serious concerns in Canada as well:

• A child’s risk for obesity increases an average of 60% with each additional serving of pop.
• Calories from sweetened beverages tend to be ‘extra’ calories that lead to higher total energy intakes for children.
• 41% of children (2 – 11 years of age) and 62% of teens ( 12 – 17) in California drink a pop or another sugar sweetened beverage each day.
• California adults who drink a pop or more per day are 27% more likely to be overweight or obese.

But those are just statitstics and if you are like me, your brain just skips over stats and does better with images.  A friend sent me this image that I believe says it better than I could ever explain...


Via: Term Life Insurance

So the next time you are at a family reunion and your little cousin or neice asks if she can have a can of coke... offer her some water.  She may whine and complain a little, but then she will likely say "OK".

Register Now for our next Intro Workshop for the Innate Lifestyle Program

Tuesday March 1st at 7pm
589 St. Anne’s Road (south of Bishop Grandin)
Free

Learn about Manitoba’s most affordable personalized holistic lifestyle coaching program
that teaches you how to,

Eat Well. Move Well. Think Well. For Life.

You can expect the following benefits:

-Achieve your Ideal Body Weight and Fitness
-Maximize your health and healing capacity
-Maximize your ability to prevent illness
-Maximize your energy and vitality
-Maximize your happiness, contentment and confidence
-Maximize your self-control and self-esteem

All for around $55/month

Register now March 1st at 254-1313

Yours in health,

Dr. Jay

PS- Help me reach my goal of changing 20 lives per group this year...SPACE IS LIMITED.

The Values Exercise

I've had a couple of requests for this particular exercise so I'm going to post here, but first some context and background for those who are unfamiliar.
We often see patients come into the office who are struggling with desiring something that is perhaps in conflict of beliefs or perceptions they have been either consciously or subconsciously taught. An example of this may be the desire for material wealth being in conflict with a spiritual belief that "money is the root of all evil". Or the desire to lose weight in conflict with the love of Timmy's in the morning (which is a deep seated belief by the way). This creates internal conflict and stress which often compounds or is the cause of many of the symptoms we see in our office.
To resolve this internal stress requires one thing- congruency. Congruency is defined as "agreement, harmony between two things". Incongruency therefore creates disagreement, disharmony and imbalance within oneself. This is usually indicative by alot of negative self talk and "beating yourself up" because you can't do what you say you want. Lots of guilt, YUCK!!
To establish congruency, you need to know what your values are; you need to ferret out your true self by looking at your life in a particular way. Your values (and beliefs) will become evident as you answer 12 simple questions:
1. How do you fill your space? Take a look at your office, car, home, and wherever you hang out. What have you filled these places with? What objects mean the most to you? Really look at the places where you spend the most time as if you've never been there before, identifying themes and common elements, which are evidence of your values.
2. How do you spend your time? Take a look at how you allocate your waking hours. What claims most of your day? Remember, do this exercise with complete unbiasness, it is what it is...do not get wrapped up in the social norms or what things "ought" to be. Be true to yourself. I say this here because people will say family is the highest value but their time schedules say something different. Also, time is only one indicator, we will use this one with all the other questions.
3. How do you spend your energy? You will have the most energy to do those actions you truly value most, because doing what you love energizes you. This is important because when the time comes to do what has to get done (ie-housework) you can more easily link how doing them will help you fulfill what your highest values are.
4. How do you spend your money? Big one here. Look at how you use money in your life? Are you a saver? Risk taker? Do you spend on clothes, education or travel? Follow the money, it leaves a trail to your values.
5. Where are you most organized? Similar to number 3, your highest values will be the most ordered in your life. Order equals high value, and chaos equals low value.
6. Where are you most disciplined? Similar to number 5. Where are you consistently on task? Where are you "flighty" or "undisciplined". Procrastination always happen with low value things.
7. What do you think about? What are you constantly mulling over, considering, and trying to understand even more? What distracts you when you are doing something else?
8. What do you visualize? Where do your daydreams take you?
9. What do you talk to yourself about? Is it always negative? What conversations are you having with yourself? Are you judging yourself or someone else? Are running down a pros and cons list?
10. What do you speak about with others? Most people have a way to bring the conversation around to their favorite topics sooner or later. Have you ever noticed how these people who share the same interests waste no time in discovering this delightful coincidence?
11. What do you react to? Observe what you pay attention to. Notice what makes you smile or frown and what makes you lean in to hear more or shut down, folding your arms in front of your body.
12. What are your goals? HUGE ONE HERE. This is where we can see conflict between what you say you want and what your life demonstrates. Written goals are of most importance.

Most important to understand is that you can change your beliefs/values to match your goals or you can change your goals to match your beliefs/values.....congruency is the key. When you achieve that, you're on your way to more stress-free life, cause you know what you want and you belief you can get it as demonstrated by your behaviours and actions.
As one final comment, I truly believe that while we all have different beliefs, values (what I call secondary values) and goals, there is one primary value stamped on all our hearts from the day we are born (genetic). That is, we all have unconditional love of others and of ourselves. Anything that moves us away from that primary value is learned.

Something to think about,
Dr. Jay

Lessons from the stairs

So some of you may have noticed I wasn't in the office this morning.  I had a wonderfully embarrassing fall down some hardwood stairs yesterday.  Thank goodness I married a chiropractor :).  So during my recovery time I've had to take some of the advice that I give all of you.  I've been resting (yep, hard for me to do), having multiple epsom salt baths, getting checked and adjusted regularly by Dr. Jason, and watching what goes in my mouth.  After a fall like this I think most of our tendencies is to try and dust it off and fight through the pain; go on with our daily lives and just "hope it goes away".   Well, what I see everyday in practice is that "it" doesn't just go away.  Some times that pain will slowly shuffle to the background, but the damage to the spine and the nervous system doesn't.    So I thought I would share with you Dr. Danella's 5 steps to recovering from an embarrassing fall down the stairs (which can be applied to many embarrassing injuries I'm sure):

1.  If you aren't married to a chiropractor, make an appointment with one as soon as possible.  It is the nervous system which regulates how your body heals, so any misalignment to the spine will affect your recovery time.  Having a chiropractic adjustment will not only help with your immediate discomfort, but will likely influence how your body heals in the long run.

2.   Fill up your tub with warm water.   Add 2 cups of epsom salts (magnesium sulfate).   Add your sore body and soak for atleast 20 minutes (bring a good book).  By using Epsom Salts, your skin will readily absorb magnesium and sulfate.  As the sulfate is absorbed into the skin, toxins are drawn from the cells.  Muscles relax. The magnesium reduces the inflammation in the muscles and relieves pain. The magnesium also helps the body bind serotonin, which is a chemical that promotes a sense of well-being and relaxation. The relaxation you feel, in turn, helps alleviate stress, which drains magnesium from the body and can cause tight muscles.

3.  Clean up your diet.  You know what your grandma used to say... "you are what you eat" (or was that just my grandma)... she was right (as usual).  During a time of healing it's crucial that you not overwhelm your body with sugars, additives, food colorings, etc... that it doesn't need.  Eat as cleanly as possible, and if you have a juicer, juice as many green healthy veggies as you can.  Here are two of my favorite juice recipes for you to try.  Simply put all the ingredients in a juicer and enjoy!

"AAA" Juice (thanks to The juiceman Jay Kordich for this one)
3 carrots
1 stalk of celery
1 apple
1/2 beet with the greens
1/2 handful of wheat grass (I use Kale when I don't have wheat grass on hand)
1/2 handful of parsley

Dr. D's special juice:
3 carrots
3 asparagus
1 slice of sweet potato
1/2 cucumber
 

4.  Arnica Cream.   Ahhhh the wonders of bruises.  It's like a rainbow on my derriere right now.   It's fascinating really.  Have you ever thought about why we bruise?  Bruises appear when the soft tissue has been damaged causing the tiny capillaries and veins located under our skin to break.  These broken veins and capillaries release red blood cells and it is these red blood cells that collect under our skin which causes the bruise to heal.    Over time the tissues go through a metabolic process to heal the tissues and an assortment of colors appear.  At first it may be a dark blue or black, and as it heals it may look yellow or green until it eventually goes away.  Thank goodness for the immune system! 

If you would like to enhance what your immune system is already doing for you, consider using arnica cream.  Arnica dilates your blood vessels so that the healing power of your blood can come through easier.

 

5.  Rest.  This is a hard one in this fast world.  Giving your body the chance to heal is important.  Respect it and you will be on your way to recovery.  Ignore it, and you will soon hear it calling.  :)

 

On that note, I'm going to take a nap...  Here's to hoping for a quick recovery!  I, for one, am counting the minutes until my next adjustment. :)