Stretching Your Potential

Most people know that stretching before and/or after exercise is a good idea, but the importance of including flexibility exercises and stretching to your regular wellness routine cannot be overstated. The muscles in the human body are designed to work together to support and move the skeleton. The important thing to realize is that muscles do two things: contract and relax. It is only through a brilliant design of opposing muscle groups that you are able to curl and extend your arm, bend forward and straighten up, or even walk at all. Your muscles are designed to work in balance with each other, but key is triggering the right muscle at the right time, and in the right amount.
Through the course of everyday living this design can become imbalanced. Poor posture, repetitive muscle use, guarding from pain or injury, and poor working ergonomics can cause some muscles to shorten or others to lengthen, creating physical stress that can cause symptoms ranging from pain to poor posture and limited range of motion in affected joints. Often the correct stretch applied to a tight or shortened muscle can result in instant pain relief and improved body dynamics.
At Chiropractic Today we are always looking for ways to stretch our potential, and I am proud to announce the addition of a stretching and flexibility specialist to our team. Ben Cohen is a world-class strength and conditioning coach who has worked with athletes at every level of competition, up to and including the Olympics. He holds a Master’s degree from Louisiana State University and completed a fellowship with Dr. Joe LaCaze, DC, PES, NMT, CCEP, world-renown structural specialist and Inventor of The Rotex.
“Ben Cohen has a profound understanding of how opposite muscles in the body push and pull against each other to create pain, stiffness and compensation patterns. This knowledge, along with his superior skills in physical and athletic assessment make him an invaluable asset to any training, correction or treatment program. He has the unique knack of finding strategies for outstanding performance in any walk of life— from high end athletes to weekend warriors to pain sufferers,” said Dr. LaCaze.
No matter what your walk-of-life is, whether you are a high performing athlete, golfer or a busy working mother, Ben can identify the postural and structural imbalances that are keeping you from living a life as energy filled and pain free as you deserve. Flexibility therapy is particularly effective at treating the cause of many repetitive use injuries.
“Stretching and flexibility therapy can help with some of the most common injuries in active individuals,” Cohen said. “IT band syndrome (pain down the outside of your knee), patellar tendinitis, plantar’s faciitis, hamstring strains- they can all get in the way of performance goals and everyday life.”
Manual stretching by a stretching specialist can help eliminate inefficiencies and muscular energy leaks, while creating the best structure possible in order to maximize individual potential, Cohen added.
Guice Potter, owner of Inverness Golf and Repair, is an avid golfer who came to Ben after he developed pain so severe it affected his day-to-day life. The results speak for themselves.
“When I started working with Ben, I had plantar’s fasciitis in my left foot so bad that I could not walk without pain,” Potter said. “Over the course of the first 2 weeks, the range of motion in my ankles gradually got better and my pain went away. Not only did he fix my feet, but he helped restore the physical tools I needed to comfortably make it through a round of 18 holes.”
Whether you’re chasing fast serves or chasing your kids, we seek to find and eliminate the causes of the pain keeping you from living up to your possibilities. Ben offers a skill set that will help you to stretch your potential until it screams for mercy.
Appointments are required for Ben’s services, and you can find more information on our website, www.ChiropracticToday.com, on our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/chiropractictoday, or call the office at 205-991-3511. Don’t wait to find out how good you can feel!

The Fitness Lifestyle

The fitness boom was launched in America in the early 1980s by a small group of celebrities, including Jane Fonda, who recognized the importance of exercise for long-term health and well-being.

Although their methods were flawed, their vision was important. Over the past 30 years the notion of fitness as a valuable end in itself has persisted in the public consciousness. But for the most part, people do not take action on their own behalf in this critical area.

In a typical scenario, a person will finally decide to begin a plan to shed the 30 or more pounds of excess weight he or she has been carrying around for too many years to count. In a whirlwind of activity, the person joins a gym, buys a pair of snazzy cross-trainers, stylish new workout shorts, and tank tops, and even purchases 10 grueling sessions with a personal trainer. After this initial burst of enthusiasm, the typical fitness-seeking person will lose interest in 30 days. Health clubs across the globe rake in their profits from new member initiation fees, knowing full well that most new gym members discontinue their efforts within four to six weeks.

But fitness matters. And from an even broader perspective, lifestyle matters. In 2007, heart disease, cancer, cerebrovascular disease (including stroke and hypertension), and pulmonary disease accounted for more than 60% of the 2.4 million deaths in the United States.1 It is now well-recognized that each of these diseases and conditions is specifically a lifestyle disease. With respect to cancer, less than 10% of cases are due to an inherited condition. The rest are a result of lifestyle choices such as smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, being overweight and obese, and lack of exercise.2

In addition to regular chiropractic care, one key action step regarding your long-term health is to engage in regular vigorous exercise. If you haven’t exercised in many years, daily walks are a good way to begin your life-long exercise program. Start with a modest 10-minute walk and build up over six to eight weeks to a daily 30-minute walk. Once you’re walking 30 minutes a day, gradually increase your daily pace. When you’ve achieved a quick 30-minute daily pace and can maintain your schedule comfortably, you may begin to alternate strength-training workouts with your walks.

Fitness is not only a critical lifestyle enhancer, it is also a state of mind. People who are fit want to stay fit. A person who becomes fit usually discovers that he has begun to choose healthy food rather than junk. Frosted doughnuts, candy bars, and twisted ropes of raspberry-flavored sugar lose their allure and appeal. Organic trail mix, organic apples, and protein smoothies become preferred snacks. Persons who take on a fitness lifestyle find themselves losing weight, naturally and easily. No stress-inducing diets. No drastic weight loss. The pounds just fall away because the person is exercising regularly and eating a healthy diet.3

Regular spinal adjustments are a major multiplier of a fitness oriented lifestyle. Keeping your nervous system operating at peak efficiency allows your workouts to be more effective and reduces the chance of repetitive injuries. Dr. Steven Johnson, my chiropractic colleague at the office, specializes in fitness-oriented chiropractic care. He has years of experience working with athletes of all levels- from middle schoolers to professionals. If pain is keeping you from beginning the fitness regimen you know you need, I highly suggest coming by for a free consultation and allow Dr. Johnson to evaluate your spinal health and address any stability issues in your extremities. Together, the both of you can develop a fitness plan that will work for you.

What are you waiting for? There is never a better time than right now!

(This article was adapted from the monthly newsletter available through our website, www.ChiropracticToday.com. If you are interested in receiving regular information on living a healthy, holistically oriented lifestyle, check out the website and sign up today!)

Sources:

1Xu J, et al: Deaths. Final data for 2007. Natl Vital Stat Rep 58(19), May 20, 2010
2Kirkegaard H, et al: Association of adherence to lifestyle recommendations and risk of colorectal cancer: a prospective Danish cohort study. Brit Med J October 26, 2010 (Epub ahead of print)
3Brietzke SA: A personalized approach to metabolic aspects of obesity. Mt Sinai J Med 77(5):499-510, 2010

The Painful Truth

The most common ailment in American society today is not cancer, diabetes or hypertension, but simple pain. It is so commonly accepted that this epidemic is mainly ignored and accepted by the majority of Americans.
According to a report conducted by the Gallup Organization in 2000, four out of five Americans believe that pain is simply part of getting older. Sixty-four percent of those polled said they would seek medical attention only if pain was unbearable, and sixty percent believe that pain is something you just have to live with.
A report by the National Center for Health Statistics released in 2006 reported that almost one of every four adults in the country suffered from low back pain in the past three months. Fifteen percent reported a severe headache or migraine in the past three months, and surprisingly, adults aged 18 to 44 were more likely to suffer headaches than older adults.
Rather than try and treat the symptom of pain with medications and narcotic painkillers, chiropractic seeks to resolve the cause of the pain itself- the misalignments and imbalances that affect the nervous system. Your nervous system is the conduit through which every message and signal in your body is transmitted.
The following account is from a current patient at my office. She serves as an excellent example of what can be accomplished through proper chiropractic care.
“In 2002, I was a very healthy, happy, and energetic 38-year-old. My daughter had decided to move in with her dad in order to attend a different school, and I was left coming home from work to an empty house. I decided to go back to school at night and complete my business degree. That’s when it all started to go downhill.
First, I was very distraught over my daughter’s move, and the strain of that was eating away at my immune system. Then, because I was around college kids all the time, I contracted mono. Then I was in a car accident, hit from behind (by my husband!). I didn’t have any immediate injuries, so the police wrote up the accident report, laughing about the husband hitting his wife, and we both continued on to work.
One day my back started hurting so bad at work I had to go home. It was a sudden, sharp pain, and I thought I might have a kidney stone. I went to the doctor, took lots of steroids, and the back was suddenly fine. I was still tired all the time from the bout of mono, to the point that I would just start crying in the middle of the day from the fatigue. Then, I started having a pain in my left side that felt like it may be kidney related. My doctor put me on an anti-inflammatory, which did nothing except hurt my ulcer, and the pain kept getting worse. I tried an acupuncturist, herbal remedies, and did go visit a chiropractor. He only treated the symptoms, not the problem. I had injections of Novocain and a steroid into the intercostal tissue of my ribcage – up to 20 injections per visit. I felt like I’d been hit by a truck for about 4 days, then would have about five days of no pain, then back to square one. I did this for several weeks, because he told me eventually the pain wouldn’t come back, but four days of excruciating pain was not worth five days of no pain, only to begin the cycle again. He never did an adjustment – he said there was too much inflammation, and he felt an adjustment wouldn’t be safe.
After going to almost every orthopedist and neurosurgeon in town, I was finally diagnosed with having degenerative disk disease and three or four herniated disks. Because of the location of these herniations, one of them was causing the pain radiating around my ribcage. The next thing I tried was epidural blocks – steroids injected into the spinal column. The first one I had was like a miracle. I was completely out of pain. That lasted about two weeks. But the next couple I had didn’t work, and with each one I gained about 10 pounds.
Along with the pain from the herniated disks, I had horrible pain in my side that I learned was not connected to the disk problem. I was finally diagnosed with endometriosis. The endometriosis had been feeding on my stress, and my low immune system. My pain increased my stress, which increased the growth of the endometriosis. After a hysterectomy, I was able to return to a full time job again, and live a somewhat normal life- although by normal I mean that I could function normally if I took Darvocet and Ambien every four hours for my pain. I had also started having epidural pain blocks again, about once every three months. Again, I had about a 10 pound weight gain with every block.
This year, 2010, I remembered a client of mine telling me they had been to see Dr. Palmer, and that she had gotten her out of pain and off pain medication. So I called Chiropractic Today, and they worked me in that day so I wouldn’t have to miss another day of work. Dr. Palmer said she thought she could help me get out of pain and off pain meds, but it would be a long road. Within three weeks, the pain in my side was gone. I’ve been seeing Dr. Palmer regularly for several months, and my pain continues to get better. I’ve cut back my medications, and I haven’t had an epidural block in five months, with no plans for another. I’ve lost 25 pounds from not having the blocks, and from being able to move normally and exercise.
I truly believe that one day I will be able to stop taking pain meds regularly. I knew I was living on borrowed time talking all those drugs, but it was a choice I had to make to actually LIVE now. Now I don’t have to decide to live today or live tomorrow – I can do both.”
A. B.
Your body has and always has had the ability to heal and restore. It just needs proper brain body connection all the time supported by positive lifestyle choices. This journey is such an excellent example. Many in our community forget this, and my driving force and purpose is to awaken this truth.

Are You Living in Pain?

How often does your back hurt? Do you find yourself grimacing as you try to stretch in your office chair? Do you feel like doing nothing but laying down after an afternoon working in the yard?
Back pain is the second leading cause of doctor visits in the United States, following upper respiratory infections. In fact, around 31 million Americans are suffering from back pain at any given time, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine. That’s a little over 10 percent of the population. All the time. And the amount of money spent on back pain is staggering- over 50 million dollars every year.
The good news is that most cases of back pain are not caused by debilitating, degenerative conditions and can be improved and often corrected. The vast majority of cases are related to injuries caused by over exertion, improper posture, or poor lifting techniques. Often, our lifestyles and jobs are to blame, as sitting all day in front of a computer tends to invite slouching and lower back pain. In fact, sitting for prolonged periods is one of the worst things you can do for your back. Being overweight, especially to the point of obesity, puts a lot of strain on your skeletal system and your back especially.
So, now you’re thinking, Great, I’m not alone and you’re telling me my pain can likely be resolved. How?
Chiropractic care is an excellent way of resolving and preventing not just back pain, but headaches, neck pain and extremity pain. Chiropractic is the third largest doctored profession in the U.S., and is the most popular alternative medicine in the country. I’ve treated patients with screws in their back who had resolved themselves to living in pain experience a massive turnaround in only a few weeks. I’ve seen a painter with carpal tunnel pain in his wrist, afraid he would not be able to work anymore. Now he is pain free. Victims of car accidents, falls, home accidents and a long list of other unfortunate incidents have all walked through the doors of my office and found relief with no prescriptions or surgery.
The standard American approach typically involves reaching for a bottle of painkillers. While I understand their use, popping pills does nothing to resolve the underlying issue causing your pain. Ibuprofen and acetaminophen can both be hard on your stomach and liver, and most people are unaware of the maximum allowable dosages and the potential for liver damage- especially if alcohol is consumed while taking the medication. Under a physician’s care the max dose of ibuprofen is 3.2 grams per day. The max dose for acetaminophen is 4 grams per day. With over the counter pills that run up to 500 and 800 mg per pill, it is easier to overdose on those medicines than you might think.
Surgery usually comes in after pain medication is ineffective, and the risks of being put under sedation and having irreversible changes made to the muscle and bones in your back are obvious.
Still, very few people consider the natural, drug and surgery free methods of managing back pain. Lifestyle changes lead the way, obviously. Sleeping on your back, quitting smoking, increasing you water intake, stretching before heavy activity, losing weight and addressing posture issues at work and home will all help. Wearing a sensible pair of shoes, with adequate support and cushioning will also help. Generally that means no heels higher than two inches and no shoes with flat insoles.
Diet is also a huge component of relieving pain. There are several foods that most people eat on a regular basis that actually cause inflammation in the body. Pasteurized dairy products, many grains, refined sugar and some sweeteners, and gluten can all cause an increased level of inflammation in the body, aggravating arthritis and injuries.
Isn’t it worth it to try something that isn’t going involve additional health risks and chemicals to resolve your pain? Wouldn’t it be nice to know you are addressing the problem and not covering the symptoms? As the New Year approaches it is important to realize that living in pain accomplishes nothing more than keeping you from being your best. If you are planning on making lifestyle changes for the New Year, start a wellness and chiropractic lifestyle plan through doctors willing to walk the path with you. Consultations are free, and you have nothing to lose but your pain.

Food for Thought

If you are very hungry and you eat some food, will your hunger go away? The answer is yes, if you eat enough. If you eat food regularly, will it keep you from becoming hungry again? The answer is yes, if you eat enough of it consistently. But is preventing hunger the purpose of food?
Even though eating food is a very effective strategy for decreasing or even eliminating hunger temporarily, hunger will always return over time. This is the nature of life. As your body uses up the nutrients contained in the food, it requires more to continue operating at peak efficiency. And so, hunger returns again. Even though eating food consistently can be a good way to keep from getting too hungry, it is ridiculous to believe the purpose of food is to eliminate or prevent hunger.
Certainly we are all aware that food serves many more important functions than simply relieving hunger. It is our fuel for keeping us alive, providing much needed nutrients to allow our bodies to heal, function, adapt to the environment, and continue growing throughout our lives. But hunger is merely the physical sensation that tells us our bodies need to be refueled. Just like the sensation of hunger, pain is often the first sign people notice indicating they may have a problem that can be addressed through chiropractic care. And yet, just like believing that food exists merely to relieve hunger, many people apply the same limited line of thinking to pain and chiropractic care.
These people do not fully understand that the purpose of chiropractic care is to maintain the flow of communication freely over the nerve systems between their brain and all of their trillions of cells, so that the natural energy of life within the body can actually perform all of the functions listed above – animating, coordinating, adapting, healing and growing our bodies from conception until death. They do not understand that without totally unobstructed neurological connection, nothing would function as well as intended.
Maybe it’s because chiropractic care in the right amount is so good at decreasing or even eliminating pain and dis-EASE. Or perhaps it is because with consistent enough care many people can even prevent the recurrence of their health problems. Although chiropractic care is a very effective strategy for helping regain a natural state of health, your level of health and vitality will always vary over time due to the physical, chemical and mental stresses of every day life. If these stresses exceed your “internal resistance,” they break you down and you progressively lose your health and well-being. Health (normal function and the ability to adapt to stress) is a result of the free flow and adequate expression of your natural vitality.
When your brain and body are fully connected through a well-aligned spine and fully functioning nervous system, they communicate effectively and your body properly comprehends and responds to any changes (stress) in your daily environment. The result is an ability to adapt to these changes with effortless ease. In addition, you are able to heal and continually grow in every way – physically, mentally and emotionally – and are thinking at a high enough level to make good choices in every area of your life.
The truth is everyone is growing and dying at the same time, but one of these two processes always dominates the other everyday. In other words, everyday we are either becoming weaker and moving toward disease and death, or we are growing stronger and moving toward health, wellness and wholeness. The chiropractic approach to life and the adjustment process allows us the opportunity to progressively grow stronger rather than weaker, everyday.
So you see, believing the purpose of chiropractic care is to eliminate or prevent pain and illness is as short-sighted as believing the purpose of food is to eliminate or prevent hunger! The real purpose of lifelong, family chiropractic care is to continually maximize the flow and expression of your natural, God-given health and to help you consistently and progressively possess the highest levels of health, happiness and the fullest expression of life! Simply put, Chiropractic is about life and what makes people live.
Visit us online at www.ChiropracticToday.com for upcoming events, to request your next appointment, or send us a question.

Moving in the Right Direction

Everyday, change is happening in our bodies. Everyday, whether we know it or not, our bodies are either growing into our potential or slowly deteriorating. The decision to go to bed early or stay up late, drink a soda or a glass of water, whether to smile through troubles or dwell on the negative- all of the small decisions we make each day add up to affect our quality of life.
The problem is, most people don’t think about the many little decisions that come up though an average day. And most of the time these decisions don’t seem to matter, anyway. After all, if a person isn’t sick and isn’t in pain, they tend to believe there is no problem with their health. If it isn’t broken, then there is no need to fix it, right?
Wrong. The truth is that we are all getting stronger-or slowly growing weaker- each day. If you picture a sliding scale, with perfect health on one end and disease and death on the other, most of us tend to hover somewhere in the middle. And most of us never think that there are major improvements to be made. After all, no pain and no sickness mean no problem.
But what most people never attain is a state of health that enables them to not just live in health, but to live to their fullest potential! Being absent of pain does not mean a person is living in total health. If someone who lives their life hovering in the middle of that health continuum keeps ignoring all the little decisions that are made everyday, they are likely to keep sliding slowly towards the red zone, until they develop the pain and illness that is “expected” as we age.
In chiropractic care, we approach health as a whole body concept, seeking to counsel patients in ways to improve their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. Chiropractic care is the lynchpin of our treatment- a natural, drug free way of relieving pain and correcting the root cause of that pain, misalignments in the spine. My staff and I strive to keep all of our patients moving towards the green zone on that sliding scale of health, towards the fullest expression of their health potential.
The biggest difference between traditional medicine and wellness-oriented chiropractic care is that wellness care focuses on removing impediments to natural health, while traditional medicine focuses on adding things to control symptoms. Think about it: a person diagnosed with high blood pressure will be prescribed medicine to keep their blood pressure at safe levels. Often this is a vital and potentially lifesaving intervention. But even with medication, the cause of the high blood pressure is left unresolved and now the body has to process chemicals that were not present before. Is there interference in the nervous system that is causing the pressure to rise? Maybe an unhealthy response to stress? Is a simple lifestyle change needed?
Every human body strives for homeostasis. This even, balanced, healthy state is the natural and normal state of health for every person that has ever lived. It is only when things get out of balance that health declines. Just like a plant that gets too much water and not enough sun, these imbalances will eventually destroy the health we take for granted. Too many people are content to continue with the status quo, easing symptoms with medications and never looking for the answers to the core problems. This is why so many of us simply accept sickness and pain as a natural result of living.
It does not have to be that way, and one of the easiest decisions a person can make to help them move toward the green, to the fullest expression of their God-given potential, is to maintain the most important system in the body- the nervous system. The nervous system affects everything in our bodies, from how quickly we heal, to the intensity and presence of pain. If there are problems with your spine, which houses and protects the main conduit of your nervous system, those problems can manifest themselves throughout your body through symptoms that range from headaches to constipation.
There are a myriad of success stories that have walked out of my office. Some of them could barely walk when they came into my office. I have seen chiropractic care accomplish health benefits ranging from eliminating the need for pain medication to helping control ADD to resolving chronic digestive problems. The message here is simple. Where do you land on the sliding scale of health, where do you want to be, and how do you want to get there?
Right now most of you reading this are probably feeling pretty good and are lucky to be without much in the way of real health problems. I invite you to broaden your horizons and look towards the future. Everyday you make decisions that are going to affect your health, whether you acknowledge them or not. Take control of your health and build the habits that are going to lead you to a long, healthy life.
Why not take action now? You get your teeth checked, your eyes checked… why not get your nervous system checked? Consultations don’t cost a thing, and my office door is open for you.

About Me.

Dr. Irma Palmer

 

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Who am I? 

I graduated in 1992 from Life Chiropractic College in Marietta, Georgia, and completed my residency in Miami, Florida. I am married to the love of my life, Mike, and have a beautiful daughter, Brianna. I have been established in practice since 1993, and am a bilingual educator on the topics of health & wellness to both the American & Hispanic community. I have extensive public speaking experience and have created a powerful lecture series entitled Every Body For Life.

 Why I became a Chiropractor?

 As with any active young woman, playing competitive softball and approaching the time to sign an athletic scholarship, I secretly suffered with lower back pain and severe menstrual cycles. At that time I was told this pain was just part of being a woman. No one seemed to understand that the pain I was experiencing and the irregularity of my cycle was affecting more than just my physical well being. It was having an impact on my social, mental and emotional life as well. It was not until I suffered a severe softball collision that my parents took me to see my first Chiropractor. The relief of my lower back pain was an expected outcome, however, the resolution of my severe menstrual cramps was above my expectations. The true bonus was the overall improvement of my physical performance on the softball field. Needless to say, it was this experience that shaped the course for the life I have today both personally and professionally.

 What is my approach?

 It is hard to accept that while Alabama is #1 in football we are ranked 48th in our Nation on health. This drops us four slots from last year. Our state and community needs help more than ever before. Our society is over drugged and under informed about exciting opportunities to enhance our lives and promote our health. It is my goal to share my strategy, passion and expertise of how to live a healthy, energetic, and purposeful life filled with hope, endless possibilities and abundant health, from a natural point of view. My Chiropractic approach to Total Natural Health focuses on two key elements, a healthy and fully functioning Nervous System and spinal column. These in conjunction with other elements such as eating a natural diet, daily physical activity and healthy thinking contribute to maximizing your body’s health potential. Total Natural Health is about removing limitations and developing specific gradual, sustainable life enhancing habits that are easy to implement and lead to a healthier and vibrant you! I feel that by targeting the influencers “MFTP’s”, (Mothers, Fathers, Teachers, and Preachers) we can change the attitudes, awareness, behavior and overall direction of health in the State of Alabama.

 Where am I heading?

 It has always been my dream to open a Chiropractic Community Wellness Center where families can come and experience Total Natural Health first hand. A place that can be seen as a safe haven for adults, families and children to come and participate in activities that will allow them to incorporate healthy habits into their daily lives and build their own wellness future. A place where one can identify where they are with their health and lifestyle choices. By utilizing Chiropractic principles and wellness lifestyle education, we can guide individuals to maximize their God given potential of being the best spouse, professional and individual possible. It is important to realize unless we look at our health from a different point of view, we will continue to repeat the past in our future. It is TIME to move forward and I look forward to helping this community make that move.