Chiropractic and Earaches

Young children have a shorter and more horizontal ear canal than adults. This sets them up for a higher possibility for earaches, as fluid can build up behind the ear drum and cause misery for a child.

Chiropractic care of children can help. The simple action of realigning small neck bones has a myriad of effects. Chiropractic adjustments help neck, face, and ear muscles function better, they help lymph to flow and drain, and they allow your child’s body to effectively fight off infection. 

My recommendation for treating an earache in your child is a hierarchy of care. Start with the least invasive treatment first, which is the chiropractic adjustment of the upper neck. Some great home remedies include warm oil (not hot!) in the ear, increasing vitamin C and water intake to flush toxins and fluid and boost immune function, and limit sugar intake until the earache is better. (Sugar dampens the immune system and feeds bacteria.) If these things do not help after a few days, then consult the medical professional. It may be that your child has a bacterial infection that can be best treated with antibiotics. 

My dismay with the typical medical treatment of childhood earaches is that, more often than not, the child is given antibiotics right off the bat. Antibiotics are only effective if A) there is an infection causing fluid to build in the ear and B) that infection is actually a bacteria, not a virus. Antibiotics do absolutely nothing in the case of a viral infection, unless you count causing lethargy and lowering the natural fighting ability of your child’s immune system. If the antibiotics do not seem to do the trick in clearing up the earache, piercing the eardrum and inserting drainage tubes is the next step. I have seen lots of children do well after having this procedure, and I have never seen a child that I think actually should have had the procedure. The ear already has an internal drainage system. Helping this to work better makes more sense to me than putting a hole where there shouldn’t be one, opening up a sensitive area to outside infection.

The good news is that the American Medical Association has, in recent years, taken a “watch and see” approach, and more often anxious parents and kids are being sent home to let time work its magic. Most ear infections do, eventually, work themselves out. If your child has an earache, or if your child has experienced chronic earaches, get them to your chiropractor. A few cervical spinal adjustments may do wonders.

Pregnancy and Chiropractic Care

Pregnant women should be getting chiropractic care. There are so many compelling reasons for me to give such a strong statement. Here are a few: 1) Pregnant women’s bodies are changing on a daily, even hourly, basis. Unstable joints plus unstable hormones equal one very unhappy mama-to-be. Chiropractic can help. 2) This country’s standards for medically treating pregnant women are getting out of control. Pregnancy is not a disease! It is beautiful, amazing, miraculous formation of new life. Healthcare folk need to stop managing pregnant women and start celebrating them. Chiropractic does this. 3) Babies and children need chiropractic care even more than adults do. There is, literally, no time too early to start this care, including while a tiny new person is in the womb.

Hormones are flooding through a pregnant woman’s body, encouraging her uterus to grow, her joints to soften and widen, and her metabolism to ramp up to a desperate, instant, hungry craving. Pregnant women make more blood to carry nourishment to her little one. They are often tired, because their bodies’ resources are directed at growing a human being, and because sometimes they just can’t get comfortable to sleep. Chiropractic adjustments tone down sympathetic responses and stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. Simply put, adjustments relax the tired, anxious woman. Also, keeping the joints of the pelvis properly functioning, moving, and supporting the new (heavy!) belly gives baby the best chance to grow without restriction. Ultimately, a properly aligned pelvis helps facilitate a happy, successful birth.

Currently, medical standards are obsessed with “treating” every stage of pregnancy as though it is a disease. (It makes me wonder how any of our parents and grandparents survived without obstetricians…they were clearly living in the dark ages, right?) Pregnant women should not be poked, prodded, made to wait for hours for medical checkups. Their babies should not be thought of and treated as a living tumor. They should be loved. The new life they are growing should be loved, and the bond between mother and baby should already be starting. In my own experience, it is hard to form a bond with an unborn child when medical folks treat the pregnancy like a disease bomb about to explode. It is no wonder that young mothers are afraid of natural births—they are effectively conditioned to believe that natural birth equals certain death or lifelong disability for mama and baby.  This could not be further from the truth. Look it up! Information is everywhere! Do an internet search on Ina May Gaskin. Learn about your choices.

Children flourish under chiropractic care. I and my siblings grew up with it. I adjust my own baby boy. I take care of other children in my office. I am witness to the health that adjustments bring: less colic, better focus and digestion, more alert babies, relief from scoliosis. I could go on with this list. Start your kids on a path to better health. Start researching and making better health choices for them while they are still young, and let me give you a hint: health does not come from a pill or a needle.

Childhood Scoliosis

Scoliosis is a condition that most people have heard of. Most people are aware that it involves a “curved spine.” Usually, these two facts are the extent of common knowledge about this condition. As a chiropractor, I am in a unique position to shine a little light on this subject. 

The most common kind of scoliosis is termed “idiopathic” by medical doctors. The word “idiopathic” means, quite simply, that the cause is unknown. Scoliosis is characterized by lateral curvature of the spine. Natural, healthy spinal curves occur from front to back. In scoliosis, “textbook abnormal” spinal shapes develop. This can happen at birth, during the development of a child, as the result of an accident, or even because of physiological reasons(like repetitive activity on just one side of the body.) Birth trauma can adversely effect a baby’s nervous system, causing postural muscles to draw up the pelvis, twisting the spine. In these cases, chiropractic adjustments can often have a dramatic effect. Because a child’s spine is still forming, they are in ultimate healing mode. Many times an uncomplicated idiopathic scoliosis straightens considerably while a child is treated chiropractically.

Sometimes a child’s individual vertebra does not develop fully, resulting in a “hemi-vertebra,” or half-formed bone. This results in an anatomical scoliosis, or one that is part of the actual structure of the skeleton. Chiropractic or medical care, outside of invasive surgery, cannot straighten this kind of scoliosis. What adjustments can do is help the nervous system and other bones of the spine develop and function optimally, giving the child his or her best chance at optimum health.

As in most conditions, chiropractic care should be at the top of the treatment plan. It is the least invasive form of care, using gentle adjustments to coax the spine back into functioning properly. There are more invasive treatments that medical doctors utilize, including braces and surgery. I believe strongly that these methods of treating scoliosis should be reserved as a last resort, especially since there is a strong track record of childhood scoliosis improving with conservative chiropractic care.

The effects of how we treat our children today last for the rest of their lives. As time goes on, an unadjusted scoliosis could lead to back pain, problems with breathing, heart rate, and digestion, and even issues with reproductive health in adulthood. How can I make such sweeping claims? Because the nervous system effects EVERYTHING, and your spine protects the nervous system. Many chiropractors, including myself, do not have the goal of straightening the spine. The goal of the adjustment is to improve nervous system FUNCTION, which directly leads to better health. Because kids are so adaptable, and able to heal so well, they respond to chiropractic care much more dramatically than adults do. Get your kids adjusted!

Letter to the Doctor

Dear Dr. Palmer,

I bent over yesterday to pick up my cat. When I tried to straighten, I felt terrible pain in my low back. I can’t find a comfortable position, I can hardly sleep, and nothing helps the pain! I have had back pain in the past, but it always cleared up on its own. Why is it so severe now? What is wrong with me? 

Do not blame the cat. This is a concept that shows up in my office on a regular basis. Two things are very important in this story. Number one: the past back pain was a cry for help from your spine. The symptoms may have gone away at the time, but they are back. Number two: pain is always the last thing to show up. Let me explain.

Most of the nerve fibers that communicate from spinal nerve roots to the brain are sending messages like “something just touched me…this is hot/cold…my position is here.” Only a few of the nerve signals say “Ouch!” Of those nerves that transmit pain, only a few actually make it all the way to the brain so that you register the message. Thousands of cells die every day in your body, as part of a natural process. If you had to pay attention to every pain signal, you would never get anything done. 

When a stimulus (like subluxation) has been present in the spine for years, a process called “sensitization” occurs. The vertebra has been in a state of dysfunction for quite a while, but you have consciously and subconsciously ignored the signals. If the nerve signal from your subluxated vertebrae could be translated to English, it would be saying, “Hey! Not moving right down here!” Now the whisper has become a shout, and your body is letting you know with pain that all is not well. So, put simply, your problem is a long-standing subluxation. It hurts now because your system is sensitized. Spinal adjustments will help the problem, and therefore help to alleviate your pain. A better plan, once you have healed from this situation, is to keep your spine adjusted. Stay ahead of the problem and you will not be playing “catch-up.”

There are No Side Effects

The next time your favorite television show is interrupted by a drug commercial claiming to make your life better and brighter with their chemical products, do me a favor. Ignore all those ecstatic, smiling faces at the end and actually listen to the “side effects” listed by the calming, authoritative voice. I looked up a few of the more common drugs on drugs.com, and here is what I found.

Statin drugs, which inhibit the production of liver enzymes, are commonly prescribed to reduce cholesterol. This class of drugs has the highest sales in the country. Common side effects of statin drugs, such as Lipitor, or Crestor, include memory loss; muscle pain; diarrhea; joint pain; mild sore throat; nausea; runny or stuffy nose; stomach upset. Severe side effects include:  Severe allergic reactions (rash; hives; itching; difficulty breathing or swallowing; tightness in the chest; swelling of the mouth, face, lips, throat, or tongue); change in the amount of urine produced; dark urine; muscle pain, tenderness, or weakness (with or without fever or fatigue); painful, difficult, or frequent urination; pale stools; persistent loss of appetite; persistent pain, soreness, redness, or swelling of a tendon or joint; red, swollen, blistered, or peeling skin; severe or persistent nausea, vomiting, or stomach pain; unusual tiredness; yellowing of the eyes or skin.

Now I will break down some of these drug effects. Yellowing of the eyes and skin, along with urine changes, fecal changes like diarrhea and pale stool, all indicate a breakdown of your liver. Great! The drug is working! Statin drugs are designed to stop liver function. I hope you have realized, at this point, that liver function is essential to your life. I didn’t say “to your quality of life.” I said, “to your life.” Other side effects of statin drugs, like muscle soreness, tiredness, and memory loss indicate that your nervous system is breaking down. This country is in the midst of an increasedtrend in Alzheimer’s Disease, multiple sclerosis, early-onset dementia, and other, more nebulous nervous system problems. You can bet that some of this increase relates to statin drugs.

Let us look at a gentler, kinder drug, shall we? Let’s take a look at a drug for the treatment of simple airborne allergies. Nasonex has these “common” side effects:  Burning or irritation inside the nose; coughing; headache; muscle and joint pain; nosebleed or pink color to the mucus; painful menstruation; sinus pain or pressure; sore throat; upper respiratory tract infection; vomiting.I have not listed the side effects classified as “severe.”

There are no side effects. Pharmaceutical companies coined the term to denote “undesirable” effects a drug may have on your body. Just because the effect of a drug is not desired does not mean it is not important. There are no side effects. There are only effects. How are your drugs effecting you?