“The most common symptom of curable colon cancer is NOTHING”.

This is on the billboard sign on M 59 at Van Dyke Expressway in honor of Colon Cancer Awareness.    

This sign can actually be taken a step further.  The most common symptom of ____________is NOTHING.  You can fill in the blank with many diseases (heart attack, cancer, etc).  My question to you is when do you take action and focus on your health or lack of health?     Do you wait for symptoms to show up (reactive)?  Are you proactive?

Some of us may have a belief that was taught to us by those around us or the American society.  If you have SYMPTOMS, you are NOT HEALTHY.  If you have NO SYMPTOMS, you are HEALTHY. 

The lack of symptoms, does not indicate health.  And vice versa, the presence of symptoms does not indicate the lack of health.  It cannot get any more confusing, can it?  Let me explain this.

Let’s start with the presence of symptoms; symptoms like fever, vomiting, diarrhea.  These symptoms can be a healthy response.  For example, you may have just eaten something that is toxic which has created food poisoning in your body.  Your body wants to get rid of the food as fast as possible from all directions so that the toxins do minimal damage.  Another example of these symptoms being a healthy response, is in the case of a bacteria or virus entering your body.  The body may create these symptoms in order to kill the bacteria or virus.  In these two examples, what would happen if you stopped these symptoms?  The food, bacteria or virus could create a bigger problem; more sickness; more destruction.  These symptoms are good even though they may not feel well.

What about symptoms such as aches, pain, numbness and tingling.  Are these healthy symptoms?  Probably not.  These symptoms usually are your body’s warning signals going off.  “Houston we have a problem”!  Each person has a choice on how they deal with these types of symptoms.  First, you can choose to cover up these warning symptoms with medications.  Second, you can choose to listen to your body and seek help to find and correct the cause.  I will tell you that you can NOT correct the cause of these symptoms with a medication because the cause of the problem is not a lack of a medication.  If you choose to cover up the symptoms with medications it would be like the following example.   When the engine light goes off in your car, you take duct tape and put it over the light so that you cannot see the light anymore.  Is the problem with your car gone?  What will happen eventually with your car if you took this approach and never searched for the cause of the engine light going on?  My guess is that the car would eventually not work any longer.  You then would be forced to do what you could have chosen to do when the engine light originally went on  You could have taken it to the mechanic and had them search for the cause of the engine light going on.  Had the repair and your car would continue to run smoothly.  My point of all of this is that when there are symptoms present, don’t ignore them.  Don’t cover them up with medication.  Find the cause, because your body is attempting to alert you that there is a serious problem going on inside.

This leads us to when your body has no symptoms.  This situation can be the most challenging, especially if you have the mentality “if it is not broke then don’t fix it”.  If you judge your health like a big portion of our American society (as mentioned above), then you would believe that if you have no symptoms then you are healthy.  Let’s revisit the billboard sign by the medical doctor that stated, “The most common symptom of curable colon cancer is NOTHING.  So if you are waiting for a symptom to show up to take action, then you are a time bomb waiting to happen. 

 I urge you to take a proactive approach when it comes to your health.  Take care of your health and your body.  You are only given one body for your entire lifetime.  Invest in it, both time and money.  Invest in nutritious food, clean water, exercise, chiropractic care, proper amount of sleep are a few examples. 

How you invest in your health today, will determine the quality of life you will have in your future.  What do you want your retirement years to look like?  Are you wanting to create quantity (maximum number of years), quality (able to do the things you enjoy doing), or BOTH?   

Dr. Pam Tomaszycki, D.C.

Are you “PATCHING” your health like the roads?

As I was driving across M-59 this morning, I became very aware of the condition of the roads as I hit a pothole and dodged to avoid others.  The section of road that I was driving on was covered in asphalt patches.  Holes that were filled with asphalt due to damage from the cars and weather. Chunks of the patches were coming out again leaving the holes. 

I am sure that we see how the roads are taking care of and how the problems are corrected.  At first they attempt to patch the holes as a temporary fix.  Eventually they may spend more time and money to remove a big portion of the concrete by cutting out a couple square feet and then fill it in with new concrete.  Down the line, the inevitable happens, and the entire road has to be torn out and the new put in.  This can be very expensive and time consuming.

 

My mind began wander, connecting the road conditions to how people take care of their health.  When their health begins to crumble or fall apart, they “patch” it or cover it up with medications and/or pain pills.  When the next big “pot hole” is created or major health challenge comes along, they again cover up with more patching.  Perhaps now the patch does not work and now they have to actually remove a portion of the body that is not working properly with surgery.  BUT what happens to your health when it continues to crumble?

We are given only one body.  A body that has exactly the right number of parts that it needs to function perfectly when maintained and taken care of.  We cannot totally remove the portion of our body that has totally malfunctioned like that 1 mile stretch of the road.  The damage is done and a lot of it is permanent.  Now what do you do?  What decisions do you have to make?  Tough ones! 

The road to healing is not an easy one.  It is a road that takes time and a financial investment.  Perhaps your health is worth it to you; perhaps it is not.    If it is, there are healthy lifestyle changes you can make that can begin to make a difference like eating healthy, drinking water, exercising, and adding chiropractic as a part of your routine to allow for some healing to take place.

So the choice is up to each of us.  Do you take care of your health like the roads?  Or do you focus on doing all that you can to take care of the ONE body that you have; and the health of that one body during your entire lifetime? 

Pamela L. Tomaszycki, D.C.

Have you seen the billboard?

"Keep healthy, get your flu vaccine"

Every time I pass this billboard on I-94, my initial thought is that I will keep healthy.  However I will keep healthy by NOT getting the flu vaccine!  My plan for keeping healthy will be a little different than injecting my body with a vaccine full of chemicals to be injected into my body to protect me from only ONE strain of the flu (H1N1 flu virus, bird virus, swine virus, etc).  Not to mention the chemicals which potentially could have side effects.  Being that there are more than ONE strain of the flu, I would rather focus on a different approach.

I would rather focus on keeping a healthy immune system which is strong and can rid itself of any germ, bacteria or virus that comes my way.  So when it comes to the flu, cold or any other sickness, I focus on investing in things that will build my immune system up to fight EVERY strain of the flu, bacteria, virus or germ I come in contact with. 

 I will build my immune system by
1) getting the proper amount of rest
2) providing my body with the proper nutrition to make strong, healthy cells
3) drink the appropriate amount of water.  This is calculated by taking my body weight and dividing it in half.  This equals the ounces of water I need to drink daily.
4) taking good quality supplements, when necessary
5) and of course, making sure my nerve system is free of nerve interference.  Since every single cell, organ and system (including the immune system) is controlled by the nerve system

Growing up, I would probably have believed this billboard.  I believed that health came from a pill or from the outside.  When I was sick, my parents would take me to the Medical Doctor.  The MD would give me a prescription for amoxicillin.  I would take it and my body would get better.  It was not until I was able to drive that I realized that my body could actually heal itself.  I would drive myself to our family medical doctor per my parents’ request.  I would get the script for amoxicillin but I would not drive to the pharmacy.  Instead I would drive home and sleep.  And, by surprise (seriously!), my body would heal….even without the amoxicillin. 

Today I have an understanding of where health comes from.   I trust that taking care of my body will result in true health.    

Dr. Pam Tomaszycki, D.C.

Degenerative changes are seen in patients WITH and WITHOUT Back Pain.

This is exactly why I tell patients that “pain is the WORST indicator of health.”  A normal spine is able to protect the nerve system. A degenerative spine is NOT able to protect the nerve system.

I am reading an x-ray report from the Henry Ford Health System today and on a part of the report it states the following;

            Degenerative changes are seen within the thoracolmbar spine.

            The following findings are so common in normal, pain-free volunteers that while we report their presence, they must be interpreted with caution and in the context of the clinical situation. Among people over the age of 60 who do not have back pain, a plain film x-ray will find that about;

9 in 10 have disc degeneration

8 in 10 have disc height loss

4 in 10 have facet degeneration

3 in 10 have spondylolisthesis

Let’s first define a few things. Although a condition may be labeled as “COMMON” or may actually be seen commonly does not make it “NORMAL”. If we use these parameters and apply them in other areas of health care, we would have to surmise that cavities are “Normal” for children. Foolish.

Osteoarthritis, or more commonly known as DJD (degenerative joint disease). Although it may be common, its risks are not normal or expected. Why is it, that it is more common to have 1 knee or 1 hip replacement surgery? Do we find that we hop on one leg for a majority of our lives, therefore wearing this single joint down? No, the reason we more commonly see DJD later on in life is because many of us go through injuries or stress to our frame and structure many times in our early lives and then leave it. We let the problem fester. The body then builds up toxins around the joints due to a loss of movement and proper circulation. What happens then is the joint begins to move irregularly, creating irregular wear patterns to the joint. In most cases, the body won’t allow this process to be unchecked. So what the body does next is the Visual component, what we see, Lippincott and spring of the bone. This is the single most common indicator to diagnose “Arthritis”. By this time the process has been in play for years.

This is why it is imperative to identify the biomechanical imperfection early. Your chiropractor is uniquely qualified better than any other doctor to correct this problem. Yes, early enough detection means that DJD may be reversed or prevented.

So I will leave you with this thought. Why are we leaving our kids home to potentially live with this problem later on in life?

Dr. Douglas McLeod

Does the CANDY FAIRY come to your home?

Parents, what do you do with all the candy your children get during Halloween?  Do you let them eat all they want?  Do you put a limit to one candy per day?  Do you get tired of having all that candy around your home?  Do you not like your children to have all of that candy because it is not good for them or for you?

Solution.  Have the Candy Fairy visit your home!  Every year since our children began trick-or-treating, the Candy Fairy has stopped by our home.  The Candy Fairy will visit your home in the middle of the night on Halloween or even the next night.  Whenever it is convenient to your family.  The Candy Fairy magically visits your home and takes the bags of candy that is laid by the front door.  She will leave a gift or money in exchange for the candy.  Similar to what the tooth fairy does.  The tooth fairy will take a tooth and leave money. 

Benefit.  There is not an excess of candy around your home, making each person in the home unhealthy.  The children also get an opportunity to have fun on Halloween and they end up with something they would enjoy just as much as the candy.

This is how it works in our home.  My children will collect candy at school and church functions.  They will also collect it during trick-or-treating.  They then get to eat a couple of pieces along the way as well as pick 10 of their favorite pieces of candy and put it in a Ziploc bag.  The pretzels, chips and other items like this is set to the side and given out throughout the week in their lunches or given as snacks.  Prizes or money collected by each child is also kept for themselves.  My children then put the rest of the candy into bags which will be set at the front door for the Candy Fairy.

When the Candy Fairy comes, she collects the candy and leaves the prize or money.  She then will take all the candy that she has collected from all of the homes to other boys and girls throughout the world that were not able to celebrate Halloween.     

Dr. Pam Tomaszycki, D.C.

"Growing Pains"

Have you said or have you heard someone use these words?  What does this mean?  Does it really hurt to grow?  Should it?

Coming from a mother raising 3 children whose ages are currently 5, 8 and 10, I know that growing should not hurt.  However children injure themselves almost daily.  From learning to walk, to playing sports, playing on the playground, rough housing, wrestling with dads or each other, and many more ways.

These minor bumps and bangs jam and jar the spine or other joints in the body.  If the injuries are not corrected they heal possibly misaligned and stuck.  Then those areas begin to grow but due to the injuries left uncorrected, the child experiences a discomfort or pains.  Some people have accepted the term "growing pains" as a reality.  They haven't been taught how to care for their spine or joints let alone know how to take care of their children's spine or joints.

My children have complaints of knee pain, foot pain, neck ache, headache, etc.  They get their spine checked.  If misalignments are located, the misalignments are corrected.  The body heals.  And instantly they are better.

I know parents want the best for the children.  I know that if they understood the importance of regular spinal checks, they would invest in their child's health.  I believe that parents don't want their children to have "growing pains" or to hurt.

Schedule an appointment to have your spine and your children's spine checked today.  Make sure you schedule with the specialist in this area, a doctor of chiropractic!

Dr. Pam Tomaszycki, D.C.

Vertebral Subluxation

“When chiropractors use this phrase, vertebral subluxation, they refer to mechanical compression and irritation to spinal joints and nerves”.   The strong bones of the spine have been designed to protect the delicate nerve system.  The brain, spinal cord, and nerves are part of the nerve system.  Your brain is your master controller.  Your brain sends messages to all parts of the body through the spinal cord and out through the nerves. 

The nerve system is like the electrical wires in a home.  You have a Electrical Box that is like the Brain.  The wires run out from the electrical box to the areas of your home, like your T.V., lights, refrigerator, etc.    What happens if the wire running to your T.V. is pinched, kinked or even severed, will your T.V. work?  Well, of course, not!

The same thing happens in your body, when there is interference between the electrical box (brain) and the parts of the house (body), then that part of the house (body) will not be able to work or will work (function) at a less than optimal level.

Therefore vertebral subluxation can affect the body in many ways.  For one person, it could show up as back pain. For another person it could be ear infections or gastrointestinal complaints or (fill in the blank).

Dr. Pam Tomaszycki, D.C.