LeBlanc Chiropractic – The Healthy Spine Blog

What is Inflammation?

Almost everyone has heard of inflammation and there is a strong likelihood that each of us has had experience with inflammation of some sort.  Whether it comes in the form of a sprains ankle, allergies or infections inflammation plays a role in the body’s response to all of these problems.  While it can be annoying, inflammation is an important part of the body’s healing process.

It is important to realize that inflammation is not the same as infection.  It is completely possible to have inflammation while infection is absent.  Infection is merely the presence of a foreign pathogen in the body that is damaging the tissues of the body.  Inflammation is the body’s response to tissue injury within the body.

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Continuing with the theme of the immune system, it’s time to take a look at the smallest invader:  the Virus!  There are lots of misconceptions about how our immune system and medicine work to fight off these pesky little guys.  First, let’s take a look at the virus itself.

Virii are extremely small.  In fact, the average bacterium, which is much smaller than one of our cells, is around a 100 times larger than a virus.  Due to this they are very hard for the immune system to detect.  Virii are not considered as being truly alive or complete organisms.  One reason for this is because in order to reproduce they have to be inside cells of another organism.

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This post is building off the past two posts.  Hopefully everyone can understand the importance of having a strong and capable immune system.  Without this we have little chance to keep out the various foreign organisms that bombard us on a regular basis.  In addition, the immune system is needed to constantly guard against internal mutations that threaten to undermine our body’s ability to function properly.

In my last post, we established various links between the Nervous system and the Immune System.  The Nervous System has three primary methods of communicating with the Immune System and controlling its response.  These are direct innervations of lymphoid tissue (bone marrow, thymus, spleen etc.), neurotransmission via neurotransmitters (Noradrenaline, Substance P, Norepinephrine) which cause a response in various lymphocytes, and general indirect control via the endocrine’s hormone secretion.

The primary goal of Chiropractors and Chiropractic in general is to adjust the patient’s skeletal structure in order to improve nerve communication.  By altering the spine we can affect a person’s Nervous System in a positive way.  This can lead to improvements in all areas of living including improving our body’s ability to respond to foreign pathogens and infections.

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It is easy to imagine the Immune system as an isolated, autonomous part of the body.  These cells and organs act as the body’s police force to help maintain order and peace.  But as the police is just a portion of the government brought about to enforce edicts and rules issues by a central group of lawmakers, the immune system also acts with direction from the nervous system.
The nervous system directs and coordinate every system in the body and the Immune system is no exception to this rule.  There may be many individual components to the Immune system however it is becoming clear that many of these actions are being controlled through various means of contact with the Nerve System.

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There recently was a story on the Dr. Oz show that discussed the potential hazards of cell phone use.  Some ongoing research has begun to link the radiation that is given off by cell phones to various kinds of cancer in the body.  Now I don’t want everyone to panic and get rid of his or her cell phone – I certainly intend to keep my own cell phone.  But I do think that there was a valid point in trying to minimize the risk of cancer in our bodies.

I would like to first discuss cancer.  Cancer as most of you know can be found in many varieties within the body.  At its core cancer tumors are made up of cells that have mutated, a.k.a. had its DNA sequencing altered.  These mutated cells have an inability to regulate their own reproductivity and so they multiply.  In the case of malignant cancers, this reproduction is rapid and expansive.  It quickly takes up the body’s resources and eventually causes failure of other organs.

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With all the talk about the Swine flu epidemic, not to mention the fact that we’re in the midst of flu season, I figured it was time to talk about the immune system and how it works.  I’m sure that we all have at least some idea of how our body’s immune system works to protect our body.  People will usually mention antibodies and white blood cells.  They may even mention the lymphatic system with its vessels and nodes present.  However, in general, the actual process by which our body gets rid of these foreign invaders is more of a black box.  You put virii and bacteria in one side and you get clean blood out the other.

The immune system is an extremely complicated system.  It is capable of reacting to almost any foreign microbe or tissue with amazing precision and speed.  It can produce thousands and thousands of different antibodies that are tailored exactly to each foreign object.  And it can tell when our own cells have become mutated or distorted and need to be removed.

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Doctors have many tools at their disposal ready to take care of almost any disease you may catch.  However, there are some bacteria that seem to be able to shrug off the effects of almost all of these drugs.   Through the widespread use of antibiotics over the past centure, we have provided these bacteria with the evolutionary pressure needed to become immune to most of our synthetic drugs.

You may be familiar with MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococceus aureus) and other variants of that line of bacteria.  MRSA and it’s younger brother’s, GISA and VISA, are a couple of a growing number of resistant germs.

These days, instead of pushing forward with more or different antibiotics, some scientists are attempting to find a means to control these super-bugs by using a more natural remedy.

Enter coconut oil.

Scientists have demonstrated that certain aromatic oils have promising anti-microbial activity.  Originum oil (aka oregano oil) and lauric acid are a couple of these disease fighting oils.  The heavy concentrations of lauric acid in coconut oil turn to monolaurin in the body.  Monolaurin then helps to inhibit the growth of many pathogenic organisms such as MRSA.

Including coconut oil in our diet, could turn out to be very beneficial to our body in keeping control of both normal and super germs.

Information for this article was found at: http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/coconut-antimicrobial.html

Everyone deals with stress in one form or another every day.  Knowing what causes stress and how stress affects the body can be instrumental in figuring out how to cope.

What Is Stress?

The word stress itself has many different meanings.  However, the definition that we, as medical providers, are referring to is the following:

Stress is a state of mental or emotional strain or suspense, or a force that produces strain on a physical body.

Stress can come in a variety of different forms.  In general, we feel stress when our personal experiences are different than our expectations.  This dissonance causes stress as we try to deal with a new situation.  Our body has a few built in physical responses to stress such as increasing heart rate, blood pressure and blood glucose levels.  This allows our powers of perception to increase and improves our focus on the issue at hand.

These are responses that have come about after hundreds of years of adaptation.  Our initial response to stress is to figure out how to minimize the discrepancy between what we expect and what we are experiencing.

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The third and last article in the headache series focuses on Cluster-Type Headaches, aka Cluster headaches.

Cluster headaches are the least common of the three types of primary headaches.  These headaches are characterized by severe head pain that occur in a cyclical patterns or clusters.  These bouts of pain can for extended periods of time, i.e. weeks to months, and are followed by periods of complete remission.  These periods of remission can last for months to years.  The goal of treatment is to reduce the length of these attacks and their frequency.

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While migraines are not as common as tension headaches they are relatively well known.  Around thirty million Americans suffer from migraines making it the most common disabling headache which often requires medical intervention.  As such, this makes migraines high on the priority list when talking about headaches and raising awareness.

How to Tell If You Have Migraines

There are a few tell tale signs that can help with the diagnosis of migraines.  Migraines are severe headaches that are often accompanied by the following:

•    Presence of an aura, or spots and flashing lights
•    Blind spots
•    Extreme sensitivity and aversion to light and sound
•    Nausea and vomiting due to the pain
•    Intense throbbing pain on one or both sides of the head that can last a couple hours up to over a day

While having several of these symptoms may indicate migraines, it is important to see your medical provider so that your condition can be appropriately diagnosed.

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